For small and medium-sized businesses in their growth phase that are beginning to virtualize their network, storage, and compute environments, ExpressPod offers pre-configured and tested suites. Integrated and distributed by joint channel partners, ExpressPod includes Cisco UCS® C-Series servers, NetApp FAS2220 or FAS2240 storage systems, and Cisco Nexus® 3048 switches with infrastructure management, creating an affordable and easy-to-deploy solution. ExpressPod supports an open ecosystem of management solutions and hypervisors.

To meet the needs of larger data centers, FlexPod now offers VMware vSphere® certification and compatibility on NetApp Data ONTAP® 8 in cluster mode. This fosters organizational growth by allowing them to add nodes to their clustered storage systems, creating large pools of unified storage across all types of storage devices, which can be scaled virtually indefinitely. The resources in these pools can be dynamically allocated and securely isolated, enabling multi-tenancy access. NetApp's clustered storage system also allows for simultaneous, uninterrupted data migrations across hundreds of virtual machines. This, in turn, simplifies workload balancing, system maintenance, and device upgrades without disrupting running applications.

Furthermore, for companies virtualizing databases on Oracle RAC with VMware vSphere and vCenter™, Cisco and NetApp offer certified design support, including best-practice implementation documentation. The VMware-certified Oracle RAC on FlexPod solution provides secure multi-tenancy access, data and application mobility, integrated data protection, and automated provisioning. These features provide organizations with pre-certified, virtualized production solutions that enable them to manage more databases in less time and with less space.  

Cisco and NetApp offer a planning, design, and implementation Help Desk that will enable partners to collaborate with NetApp and Cisco to resolve potential challenges in real-world development scenarios.

To assist partners looking to implement ExpressPod, Cisco and NetApp will offer readiness and training packages to help them develop a consulting role with their mid-sized customers. Implementation and training guides, along with marketing support and demand generation resources, will provide partners with all the tools they need to build and scale their infrastructure solutions practices to IT departments worldwide. ExpressPod implementation guides will be available to partners starting in November 2012.

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