Once VMware Inc. finished unloading the major updates and new products it had saved for its annual customer conference this week, other companies took over with a steady stream of product reveals that persisted well into the latter part of VMworld 2014.

Flash array maker SolidFire Inc. kicked off the second day of the summit with the introduction of a new addition to its Agile Infrastructure (AI) series of converged reference architectures specifically geared towards VMware shops. The blueprint joins the existing  AI for OpenStack configuration and offers a nearly identical value proposition:  a tightly-integrated package of compute, storage and networking capabilities compete with built-in management functionality and extensive third party integration. The only difference is that VI for Virtualization bundles SolidFire’s appliance with servers and networking equipment from Dell Inc. instead of Cisco Systems Inc. and replaces the Red Hat Inc. certification with a VMware-Ready badge.

NetApp Inc., one of the incumbent storage vendors SolidFire is seeking to disrupt, also made its presence felt at VMworld. The company pulled the curtains back on an updated version of its patented virtual Storage Console that speeds up the configuration of arrays running its Data ONTAP operating system within vSphere environments and also unveiled partner-produced analytics plug-ins for the vCenter Operations Management suite. The extension makes it possible for virtualization admins to monitor and plan out workloads running on NetApp gear from the familiar VMware interface. Last but not least, the vendor certified its hardware to run View Composer, the image management component of the hypervisor maker’s Horizon platform.

The desktop virtualization kit was also a priority for Dell Inc., which introduced a converged appliance of its own based on VMware’s EVO: RAIL specification designed for powering large-scale deployments measuring in the thousands of instances.

The hardware maker unveiled the  system in conjunction with a slew of other solutions, including a new Wyse Datacenter reference architecture built for use in environments running VMware Horizon DaaS, a managed implementation of the suite that runs on the virtualization stalwart’s recently renamed public cloud. The infrastructure-as-a-service has apparently also caught the attention of AlertLogic Inc, which followed up Dell with the release of two of its core products for vCloud Air.

The company’s Log Management system monitoring utility and the complementary Threat Manager activity scanner are among the small handful of partner tools to have achieved  VMware-Ready – vCloud Air status, which means that they’ve been cleared by the firm as fully compatible with its offering. The two products are now available through the VMware Solution Exchange.

Image via VMware, Inc.