VCE, formed by Cisco and EMC (News - Alert) with investments from VMware and Intel and a provider of converged cloud infrastructure systems, recently expanded its product portfolio, introducing open management capabilities for the Vblock portfolio, Vblock Specialized Systems and new Vblock Systems designed for branch offices and smaller data centers. Designed to help enterprises and service providers modernize and transform their data center environments, these additions represent the largest addition of new software and hardware to the VCE portfolio yet.

"VCE's track record of innovation includes engineering best of breed technologies into an integrated, prepackaged system with single vendor seamless support and full system lifecycle assurance — all industry firsts," said Praveen Akkiraju, CEO of VCE, in a statement. "Today we take the next important steps in defining the next generation data center with the introduction of new VCE developed systems and software that converge data center operations for customers."

The company allows organizations to reach the cloud faster through the world's first converged infrastructure for private cloud computing. Its previous integrated infrastructure offerings were decidedly high-end, selling for around $2 million, according to analysts, while these newly introduced Vblock Systems are expected to go for under $500,000.

These new systems include the Vblock System 200 and 100, with the former aimed more at midsize data centers and service provider managed customer premises, while the latter is aimed at remote office/branch deployments.

Vblock System 200 is capable of functioning as the sole core IT infrastructure for a midsize data center and IT developer environments, supporting the processing, sharing and storage of applications including Exchange for Messaging, VMware Virtual Desktop Integration, Microsoft SharePoint and Cisco's Unified Communications (News - Alert) software. Vblock System 100, meanwhile, extends those same standard business applications from the enterprise data center to a remote site.

In December, VCE was recognized as the 2012 IT Brand Pulse leader for converged infrastructure sin an industry survey of IT professionals, taking first place in five of six categories, including Market Leader, Innovation Leader, Performance Leader, Reliability Leader, and Service & Support Leader.