Expanding and extending their family of infrastructure solutions, Cisco and NetApp have introduced ExpressPod, a pre-packaged and tested solution for growing small and medium-sized organisations; the addition of new storage clustering capabilities to the FlexPod datacentre platform, and the release of a validated VMware solution for Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) on FlexPod.

For growing small and medium-sized organisations that are beginning to virtualise their networking, storage, and computing environments, ExpressPod offers pre-packaged and tested solution bundles. Integrated and delivered by joint channel partners, ExpressPod integrates Cisco UCS C-Series servers, NetApp FAS2220 or FAS2240 storage, and Cisco Nexus 3048 switches with infrastructure management, into an affordable, easy-to-deploy infrastructure solution. ExpressPod supports an open ecosystem of management and hypervisor solutions.

Servicing the needs of large enterprise datacentres, FlexPod now features support and validation for VMware vSphere on NetApp Data ONTAP 8 operating in Cluster-Mode. Now, organisations can drive growth by adding nodes to their storage cluster creating large storage pools that span storage devices and can scale almost infinitely. The storage pool resources can be dynamically allocated and securely isolated to support multi-tenancy. NetApp storage clustering also enables non-disruptive data migration of hundreds of virtual machines at a time to facilitate load balancing, system maintenance and device upgrades without interrupting the running applications.

Additionally, for companies that are virtualising Oracle RAC databases with VMware vSphere and vCenter, Cisco and NetApp offer validated design support, including documented deployment best practices. The Oracle RAC on FlexPod solution, validated with VMware, features secure multi-tenancy, application and data mobility, integrated data protection, and automated provisioning. These features provide organisations with a pre-validated, virtualised production solution to manage more databases in less time and space.

Brian Allison, Director, Business Development, Cisco, said, "Cisco and NetApp are committed to constant innovation to our joint portfolio that helps address the business needs of our mutual customers. Critical to our success is our strong solution offerings that enable our partners to add value and grow their business. We provide architectural testbeds and technical resources that help our channel partners design flexible and efficient shared infrastructures that meet a customer's needs today, yet scale to anticipate and address future growth."

Brendon Howe, Vice President, Product and Solutions Marketing, NetApp said, "With the introduction of ExpressPod and feature enhancements in FlexPod, NetApp and Cisco offer end-to-end infrastructure solutions for midsized businesses to large enterprises. These solutions simplify datacentre infrastructure deployments and accelerate the move from fragmented application silos to shared, virtualised, and cloud environments."