EMC’s VSPEX architecture provides channel partners and the SMBs they sell to with enterprise-level integration of the IT stack from the hardware level through the network to orchestration-aware applications with the same level of validation that large enterprises expect, says Prasad Rampalli, senior VP of Solutions Engineering at EMC. And, Gregg Ambulos, SVP of Global Channel Sales at EMC added in a live webcast (full video below) on The Cube from the VSPEX announcement, it helps channel partners build higher value solutions to customer needs with the freedom to choose products from six partner providers – EMC, IBM, HP, Dell, Cisco and Brocade – while creating opportunities to provide higher-level services to those customers.

VSPEX provides two major specific engineering values, Rampalli told Wikibon Chief Analyst David Vellante and SiliconAngle Founder and CEO John Furrier. First, it ensures full interoperability through all levels of the stack with any combination of products from the six hardware and networking vendor-partners, through the hypervisor to the application layer. Channel partners can confirm this through the VSPEX E-lab for specific configurations. This, he says, is the same level of validation that EMC has provided to its large enterprise customers for the past 15 years. “So it is not a new methodology or technology. Rather it is shifting that existing engineering asset and aiming it squarely at our channel partners that is new.”

Second, it ensures that the appropriate integration of all the components through the management layer to the applications is provided to meet customers’ needs. “This obviously requires development, API enhancements from our storage, full understanding of the network capabilities that Cisco and Brocade are implementing in their IP-based fabrics. And it involves tying in applications like SAP that are more orchestration-aware today.”

This supports things like faster cloning through SAP’s landscape orchestration manager (LOM), or offloading network management tied to certain aspects of the workload.

“The ability to manipulate this intelligence at all levels of the stack is a new game that we are getting into in a big way at the integration level with VSPEX,” Rampalli said. “And we have the support and frankly a lot of excitement and interest from our partners.”

While VBLOCK, the EMC/Cisco single-SKU infrastructure-in-a-box system introduced last year, is a good product for part of the market, Ambulos said, it does not give channel partners the flexibility they need to develop the custom solutions to customer needs that they excel at. VSPEX helps EMC get closer to its channel partners and helps those partners provide a higher value solution to their customers. And it gives them services opportunities, for instance to work with customers to develop the best way to deploy an application using the VSPEX lab. And with services making up 40% of the overall market opportunity, it provides a win for everyone.

“Our partners will be able to sell a higher margin solution with VSPEX, and the branding will get them into a lot more opportunities.”