Bangalore: NetApp and Cisco have revealed ExpressPod, a prepackaged and tested architecture for SMB's primarily based on its predecessor, FlexPod. The ExpressPod offerings integrate Cisco server and networking products with storage arrays from NetApp, as it is aimed at businesses that have 500 or fewer users.

The product also offers enhanced partnership between small and medium enterprises, along with new storage and RAC capabilities.

ExpressPod incorporates Cisco UCS (Unified Computing System) C-Series servers, with NetApp FAS2220 or FAS2240 (Fabric-Attached Storage) arrays, and Cisco Nexus 3048 switches which helps to improvise infrastructural management in SMBs by providing an open ecosystem of supervisors.

"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,” Brendon Howe, vice president of product and solutions marketing at NetApp, said in a statement. “These solutions simplify data center infrastructure deployments and accelerate the move from fragmented application silos to shared, virtualized and cloud environments."

NetApp also stated that the product assists and validates VMware vSphere on NetApp Data ONTAP 8. This help SMBs to affix more storage arrays from large storage pools which spans across different devices operating in a single Cluster-Mode.

Storage pools can be used for dynamical allocation of resources, clustered from hundreds of virtual machines. These isolated storage pools help SMBs in load balancing, system maintenance and automatic device upgradation, without interrupting the running applications.

NetApp’s FAS 2220 supports about 12 internal drives and up to 144 external SAS expansion slots and has a maximum capacity of 180TB. Similarly the upgraded FAS2240 supports a maximum of 24 internal hard drives and up to 144 external expansion slots for a maximum capacity of 432TB.

The first company to offer storage, server and networking solutions was EMC. The vBlock architecture of EMC was a combination of products brought together through VCE partnership with Cisco and VMware, an EMC subsidiary. Presently, NetApp is following the traits of EMC as they have signed the deal with Cisco for its UCS platform.

In addition to NetApp’s ExpressPod, other options from big vendors include Hewlett-Packard's VirtualSystem and Dell's vStart bundles.