INX Leverages VMworld 2009 Award Winning Partners To Enable Elastic Clouds

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--INX, a leading provider of data center architecture and unified communications solutions, today announced a solution architecture utilizing AFORE's Advanced Service Edge 3300 platform and Cisco's Unified Computing Solution (UCS) platform as key components for the implementation of the INX Extend2Cloud offering.

Extend2Cloud ("E2C") is a solution architecture that enables geographically dispersed data-center infrastructures to be joined as one logical infrastructure - creating a Unified Data Center ("UDC"). UDC distributes the data-center resources across diverse locations so that the resources can be shared between data centers increasing the level of support to mission critical applications and by default creating high-availability, scalability, performance and disaster recovery. According to Ed Gruss, Director of Technology and Infrastructure at INX, "The Unified Data Center concept is the most seamless way of creating Data Center cloud architecture that enables customer data centers to be extended to an internal or external remote data center. INX has partnered with AFORE, which enables a carrier-grade transportation platform that provides a secure, high-availability and cost effective solution to extend customer's data centers."

AFORE's ASE3300 addresses a critical element of cloud computing solutions, namely overcoming limitations of existing wide area networks to support the demands of virtualization extension. ASE3300 is the first networking solution targeting data center virtualization extension over Ethernet and IP wide area networks. Long distance virtualization extension enables the seamless migration of Virtual Machines ("VMs") and virtual storage for improved application performance, reduced costs, and continuous availability. ASE's innovative Virtual Wire and Virtual Fiber technology seamlessly interconnects storage and computing networks over existing wide area networks, offering a more ubiquitous and cost effective alternative to dark fiber.

"We are extremely excited to have been selected by INX to be part of its Extend2Cloud strategy," said Alex Berlin, AFORE's CEO. "It is becoming clear that the missing link in the virtualization value chain is the wide area network. AFORE's ASE technology transforms existing wide area networks to be virtualization ready and INX is at the forefront of enabling elastic cloud solutions."

"Our Extend2Cloud architecture provides the flexibility and resilience companies require for delivering IT as a service," stated Jonathan Groves, INX's Vice President of Professional Services. "By leveraging AFORE and Cisco technology, INX is able to extend custom cloud solutions to the data center and enhance the use of legacy applications in the cloud. Our partnership allows IT decision makers to make a cloud architectural decision today without reengineering all their applications and process in order to gain cloud benefits," stated Groves.INX demonstrated its E2C solution, virtualization extension technology, at VMworld at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Cisco was recognized as the VMworld 2009 Best Virtualization Hardware for the UCS platform with AFORE being the runner up and finalist for the ASE3300.