Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions, a business segment of Arrow Electronics Inc. [NYSE: ARW], and Virtual Blocks Inc. announced an agreement designating Arrow ECS as the distributor of Virtual Blocks in the United States. Virtual Blocks’ Virtualization-in-a-Box Environment (VIBE) is now available only through Arrow ECS’ HP-authorized resellers.

Established in Toronto in 2004, Virtual Blocks is expanding its market presence in the United States and is making the VIBE solution available exclusively through authorized resellers. The VIBE solution is ideal for small- and mid-size business customers interested in deploying virtualization in their environments. The solution also is suited for enterprise customers with remote office or branch office information technology requirements.

The agreement gives Virtual Blocks access to Arrow ECS’ channel management services, such as demand creation, speed to market and enhanced supply chain efficiency. As Virtual Blocks’ distributor, Arrow ECS will bring the VIBE solution to its broad community of HP resellers, giving them first-entrant advantage when positioning and selling the VIBE solution against traditional unbundled solutions, which tend to be more complex and expensive. Also, Arrow ECS will drive demand through online marketing – directing resellers and their customers to www.getthevibe.com – and through integrated marketing campaigns.

“This agreement gives our reseller partners immediate access to Virtual Blocks’ VIBE solution,” said Andy Bratton, vice president of Arrow ECS’ HP Group. “Our long-standing relationship as an HP distributor enables Arrow ECS to provide resellers with a bundled, preconfigured solution that integrates the VIBE solution with HP BladeSystem servers for faster installation and setup for customers.”

The VIBE solution, preconfigured with HP BladeSystem technology, is an easy point of entry for businesses seeking to virtualize their IT environment. Featuring the pre-installed VIBE Set-Up Wizard software, combined with VMware Infrastructure software and HP BladeSystem technology, the solution consolidates customers’ existing servers by adding new VMware virtual machines to their environment and provides disaster recovery capabilities by replicating virtual machines onto other redundant servers for a fault-tolerant solution. The solution can manage up to 30 VMware virtual machines and can be installed most times in less than 90 minutes.

“Virtual Blocks is pleased to select Arrow ECS as our first distributor in the United States,” said Stuart Levinsky, president of Virtual Blocks. “Arrow ECS shares our commitment to market development for resellers. We look forward to working with Arrow ECS to bring the VIBE solution to its broad base of HP resellers.”