VMWare, Cisco and EMC enable large-scale VDI implementation at KPIT Cummins

BANGALORE, INDIA: VMware, Cisco and EMC announced that KPIT Cummins has deployed the Vblock Platform for a Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) implementation to serve 1,200 users across India. The deployment will enable KPIT Cummins to scale its infrastructure and at the same time enable employee access to their hosted virtual desktop from anywhere and over a broad range of end-user devices.

The Vblock Infrastructure Platform is the industry’s first completely integrated offering that combines best-of-breed virtualization, networking, computing, storage, security, and management technologies into a standard product with end-to-end vendor accountability.

“Desktop refreshes are done every three years in a typical large organisation. Instead of upgrading our PCs this time, we chose to implement VDI to achieve greater manageability, security and efficiency. In EMC, Cisco and VMware, we found partners who were willing to lead the consultation process and address our specific needs. And in the Vblock platform, we found not only a certified solution but a convincing solution that could be deployed right out of the box, saving us time and cost-ridden planning and architecting,” said Shrikant Kulkarni, senior VP, KPIT Cummins.

Through the Vblock platform, the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) Co. formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, aims to simplify and accelerate virtualization and help customers transition to private cloud infrastructures. The platform, designed to enable rapid virtualization deployment, also offers flexible processing, network performance and storage capacities, and supports incremental capabilities such as enhanced security and business continuity.

“We congratulate KPIT Cummins on being amongst the early adopters of VDI in India. We anticipate that many more Indian enterprises will opt for VDI as they deal with growing deluge of smart devices at the enterprise, an increasingly mobile workforce and constrained IT budgets. The Vblock platform is a perfect solution for VDI implementation with unmatched benefits of Virtualisation and Cloud Computing,” added Manoj Chugh, president, EMC India & SAARC.

Rajesh Rege, senior VP – Data Center, Cisco, India & SAARC, said: “We are witnessing accelerated VDI deployments today as enterprises look to improve manageability and at the same time, enhance user experience. The Vblock platform provides a completely integrated private cloud offering for a virtual desktop environment and we congratulate KPIT Cummins on pioneering this infrastructure model. Cisco along with its partner ecosystem endeavors to constantly innovate and help customers make the transition to a cloud based infrastructure to enable industry leading security and scale.”

“Desktop virtualization has become a key component in aiding end-users to connect with business critical data and applications via any device, on demand” said T. Srinivasan, MD, VMware, India & SAARC. “Enterprises today want a model that enables users to be more productive while more effectively managing the growing portfolio of devices, data and applications. We are very excited about this implementation at KPIT Cummins and are very optimistic that this will inspire a lot more enterprises to adopt VDI. VMware is uniquely positioned to help enterprises realize the value of their existing end user investments while architecting a more flexible and powerful model that adopts and caters to the needs of end users and businesses.”

“Vblock platforms can reduce time to implement VDI projects by 75 percent,” said Anthony Elvey, MD of VCE, APJ/C, “They also significantly lower operational costs through a seamless support process whereby software updates and change control are coordinated by VCE across all components of the Vblock platform, relieving customers of this time consuming and expensive burden that consumes much of a typical data center’s resources.”

As an innovative and specialist provider of product engineering and IT consulting solutions and services to global corporations in the manufacturing and energy & utilities space, KPIT Cummins has a large IT infrastructure setup in India – made up of 6,000-plus desktops and laptops spread across multiple locations. KPIT Cummins offers a wide range of solutions & services using technology to the manufacturing corporations and also provides L1, L2 and further enterprise product support on behalf of large IT organisations.

KPIT Cummins deployed Vblock 1, which is designed for large Virtual Machines in a compact footprint, and provides for a mid-sized configuration to deliver a broad range of IT capabilities to organizations of all sizes.