theCUBE Live At VMworld 2014

The VMworld roadshow has moved to Europe this week, where VMware Inc. has introduced Hewlett-Packard Company and Hitachi Data Systems Ltd. (HDS) as new hardware partner for its hyper-converged EVO:RAIL appliance.

Launched at last month’s VMWorld event in San Francisco, EVO:RAIL was born out of VMware’s Project Mystic, and combines four servers, direct-attached storage, vSphere, VSAN around a discrete package of commodity hardware from its manufacturing partners.

Described as “VMware’s play at mid-market converged infrastructure” by Wikibon analyst Dave Vellante, the EVO:RAIL software allows new virtual machines to be created within minutes of switching on the machine. Other advantages include simple patching, automatic scaling and easy scale out.

A single machine comes with four nodes and can support up to 100 server images or 250 virtual desktops, and can be scaled out to four appliances, or 16 nodes, with additional appliances automatically discovered when added to an existing EVO:RAIL cluster.

“[EVO:RAIL] is a single integrated solution that is the fastest way to build and deploy the software-defined data center,” said VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger at VMworld Europe in Barcelona. “These systems, up and running, demonstrate this incredible ease of use, [low] capex and opex, and if nothing else the speed and efficiency of this environment.”

VMware’s original partners included Dell Inc., EMC Inc., Inspur Group Co., Ltd., and Super Micro Computer, Inc. Now, HP and Hitachi Data Systems are getting in on the act. In the case of HP, its ConvergedSystem 200-HC comes with all the necessary software pre-installed, so users will be able to get the system up and running in an instant when it comes available in December.

According to HP, the new appliance is a “natural extension” of an already strong existing relationship between the two firms, noting that more enterprises are running VMware’s software on HP’s ProLiant servers than any other hardware platform.

In other news, VMware said it’s going to expand its ultra-converged hardware scheme with the forthcoming release of EVO:RAIL’s big brother – a software-defined data center design called EVO:RACK comprised of the full vCloud suite, Virtual SAN, NSX and rack-level management tools.

During his keynote yesterday, Gelsinger said the company was planning to share the specifications of EVO:RACK with the Open Compute Project, a Facebook-led initiative that aims to create open-source hardware specifications for data centers.

“EVO:RACK needed partners and Open Compute is perfect for what we are trying to achieve,” said Gelsinger.