<em>eGroup, Inc. is among the first of partners in Carolinas to become certified as part of EMC's virtualization and cloud initiative, and f</em><em>irst to offer customers complete spectrum of choice when moving to cloud computing.</em>

May 22, 2012 - Mt. Pleasant, SC - eGroup, Inc. today announced its EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure certification.  EMC's VSPEX Proven Infrastructure is a simple, efficient, and flexible reference architecture comprised of EMC’s award-winning storage systems and next-generation backup products, along with best-of-breed virtualization, server, and network technology from EMC alliance partners Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, Intel, Microsoft, and VMware.<!--more-->

The fourteen initial VSPEX configurations represent the most popular use cases for customers moving to cloud computing. These use cases are focused on enabling customers to accelerate deployment of private cloud and end user computing environments. For private cloud deployments customers have the option of running VMware vSphere 5.0 or Microsoft Windows Hyper-V from 50-250 virtual machines and for end-user computing deployments customers can choose between VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop® from 50 to 2000 virtual desktops. Full details are available on emc.com. Additional VSPEX configurations will be made available based on partner demand.

VSPEX Proven Infrastructure is now available to partners in the EMC Velocity™ partner program. For the first time partners can fully leverage the EMC brand and industrial design in delivering VSPEX solutions to their customers. In addition EMC is providing VSPEX labs for partners to test, validate and demonstrate new VSPEX solutions.

"EMC VSPEX will enable eGroup to provide our customers with complete solutions that accelerate the deployment of virtualization and cloud offerings for small-to-medium businesses as well as the mid-enterprise market", commented Mike Stokes, Director of Sales, eGroup.

<strong>EMC VSPEX Customer Benefits</strong>

VSPEX Is Simple – VSPEX Proven Infrastructures deliver predictable performance that significantly reduces the planning, sizing and configuration burdens of adopting private cloud or end-user computing environments. In addition, EMC's validation of the VSPEX configuration greatly reduces deployment time. Finally, tight alignment with Windows Server Hyper-V and VMware vSphere cloud infrastructure provide customers a single point of management using System Center for Microsoft cloud and VMware vCenter™ Operations Management Suite for private cloud deployments.

VSPEX Is Efficient – Built on EMC's award-winning VNX™ and VNXe™ unified storage systems and Avamar® and Data Domain® next-generation backup products, VSPEX provides customers with unmatched levels of efficiency. Leveraging technologies such as data deduplication, compression and Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST), customers can expect to significantly lower operational costs. By integrating these technologies tightly with the hypervisor and end-user computing environments, customers can also benefit from simpler administration and lower management costs.

VSPEX Is Flexible – VSPEX allows customers to combine their choice of industry-leading server, network, and virtualization technologies into a proven infrastructure validated by EMC and built on a highly flexible EMC storage and backup infrastructure. Additionally, the customer's channel partner of choice – who understands the specific customer's requirements – can customize VSPEX to meet their needs.

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