This week’s Tech Field Day roundtable discussion is an audio chat on the subject of stack wars – the creation of all-in-one “stacks” of IT equipment by the major vendors. These stacks have been quite a hot topic of discussion both inside Gestalt IT and in the community as a whole.

The discussion was wide-ranging, and we’ve split it into two episodes. This second episode includes discussion of the following:

• HP’s unique position as a soup-to-nuts infrastructure supplier
• The enterprise readiness of 3COM, D-Link, Virtual Connect, Xsigo
• Cisco’s secret plan with UCS marketing
• The concept of integrating the VMware hypervisor as firmware in the stack
• The exact definition of stack – what does it really mean?
• Is there a difference between a “marketing stack” or reference architecture and a “real stack”?
• What is the compelling economic driver that makes people move to vertical integration?
• What is VMware’s long-term strategy for stack wars?
• Was vBlock designed for the cloud?

Joining the call are the following Gestalt IT authors and Field Day delegates:

• Jason Boche (@JasonBoche, Boche.net)
• Rich Brambley (@RBrambley, VM /ETC)
• Carlo Costanzo (@CCostan, VMware Info)
• Chris Evans (@ChrisMEvans, The Storage Architect)
• Greg Ferro (@EtherealMind, EtherealMind)
• Edward Haletky (@Texiwill, The Virtualization Practice)
• Joerg Hallbauer (, Joerg’s Storage Blog)
• Robin Harris (@StorageMojo, Storage Mojo)
• Rod Haywood (@Rodos, Musings of Rodos)
• John Hickson (@StudioSystems, Studio Sysadmins)
• Scott Lowe (@Scott_Lowe, ScottLowe.org)
• John Obeto (@JohnObeto, Absolutely Windows)
• Devang Panchigar (@StorageNerve, StorageNerve)
• Bas Raayman (@BasRaayman, Bas Raayman)
• Ed Saipetch (@EdSai, Breathing Data)

Download the stack wars roundtable podcast now, or subscribe in iTunes to tune in to the discussion!

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Podcast 7: Stack Wars Roundtable 2
Read more posts categorized as Cloud Computing, Exclusive, Featured, Server Virtualization, Tech Field Day Roundtable Podcast, Top Story

Just as public cloud computing is beginning to catch on, the enterprise data center world has been shaken up by the biggest IT product vendors. Rather than sit back and watch their wares commoditized, companies like Cisco, EMC, HP, and now HDS are stepping up to the plate with integrated “stacks” that include server, storage, networking, and management software. The next-layer players, VMware and Microsoft in particular, are joining hands, too, eager to support these stacks.

But what does this all mean to enterprise IT? Who benefits from these vertically-integrated stacks? Who stands to lose out? To paraphrase the wise Jedi master, Yoda, “cloudy, the future is.” So, the stack wars have begun!

What’s a Stack?

The largest IT infrastructure vendors are aligning their own products and joining together in alliances to create vertically-integrated “datacenter in a box” stacks that include server, storage, networking, and higher-level software for virtualization and management. Cisco and EMC are certainly at the forefront of this development with their Acadia VCE vBlock, as demonstrated and deconstructed at our Tech Field Day earlier this month. The reinvigorated HP has its own offering in this space, and is unique in its ability to use all in-house hardware, and IBM and Oracle/Sun are serious challengers. Today, Hitachi announced their own Unified Compute Platform as well.

The battle of the stacks extends upward into software as well. Although VMware and Microsoft (and don’t forget Citrix) are quick to point out that they can run on anyone’s hardware stack, they are being pulled into the war through alliances, ownership, and old feuds. VMware forms the “V” in the Cisco/EMC “VCE” stack, though they also linked up with Cisco and NetApp in February. HP and Microsoft signed an even bigger agreement in January, suggesting that Hyper-V is their preferred virtualization solution. Hitachi’s UCP digs deep into the Microsoft solution set and mixes in home-grown software to do everyone else one better. But perhaps it will be Oracle/Sun who will deliver a real software-focused stack, given Oracle’s historical focus.

All of these stacks have a few things in common:

1. Standard hardware configurations are specified for ease of purchasing and support
2. The hardware stack includes blade servers, integrated I/O technology, Ethernet networking for connectivity, and SAN or NAS storage
3. Unifying software is included to manage the hardware components in one interface
4. A joint services organization is available to help in selection, architecture, and deployment
5. Higher-level software, from the virtualization hypervisor through application platforms, will be included as well

Who’s Driving?

Although all of these stacks include software components, it is interesting to note that it is the hardware guys who are in the driver’s seat. Microsoft and VMware are surely wary of tying up too closely with any one server or storage vendor, lest they lose the ability to compete in other environments. One expects these two to announce partnerships across a few hardware stacks, though it is unlikely that they will both fully integrate with every offering.

When it comes to stack hardware, only HP has a complete solution, having recently acquired 3COM, LeftHand, and Ibrix. IBM, Dell, and Oracle are thin on networking technology, though their storage story is stronger than many give them credit for. EMC clearly lacks the server and networking components and so tied up with a complementary Cisco who is strong in both areas. Then there is Hitachi, with a solid reputation in storage and strong but relatively unknown blade server offering but no clarity on the networking side. Perhaps HDS is already on the phone with Xsigo, VirtenSys, or Arista?

Certainly, all of these hardware vendors would like to offer a complete solution. This leads one to assume that many of the smaller hardware companies will soon be acquired, since they cannot hope to offer their own stack. The networking and virtual I/O companies are especially juicy targets, but don’t count storage out either. One could certainly imagine Cisco picking up a storage company or two and leaving EMC at the altar! Compellent is undervalued right now, and 3PAR must look pretty good, too.

The Cloud Angle

What doe these stacks have to do with that other megatrend in IT, cloud computing? There are two angles here:

1. Integrated stacks are the perfect foundation for private and public cloud deployment, providing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) as a turnkey purchase. I called this the “home theater in a box” concept at Tech Field Day: A single line item gets you all the components you need to roll out a large-to-huge virtualization-ready infrastructure.
2. Integrated stacks are a lame attempt for the hardware guys to stay relevant in a public cloud world. Public cloud providers are taking a top-down approach to infrastructure with most relying on generic commodity servers, storage, and networking rather than buying from the big-iron providers in the stack wars. This consolidation mirrors the dying breaths of the British auto industry, which attempted to retain their hold on the market through scale rather than competitive products.

It’s not immediately clear whether one, both, or neither of these arguments truly provides the impetus for these hardware stacks, but the vendors are all pushing them as cloud-ready. Certainly, the advent of cloud computing is a major factor.

Only the Beginning

This is only the beginning of the stack wars. I have asked the Gestalt IT authors and Tech Field Day delegates to weigh in on this subject, and expect to see a number of insightful pieces written on the topic in the coming weeks. I will continue covering the topic as well. Please consider subscribing to the Gestalt IT RSS feed or following @GestaltIT on Twitter to stay up to date on the latest developments. Thoughtful comments and responses are always welcome as well.

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2010. | The Stack Wars Have Begun!
Read more posts categorized as Cloud Computing, Exclusive, Featured, Networking, Server Virtualization, Storage, Top Story

There are a couple of words that are high on my list as being the buzzwords for 2010. The previous year brought us things like “green computing”, but the new hip seems to be “federation”, “unification”. And let’s not forget the one that seems to last longer then just one year, it’s the problem solving term “cloud”.

Last Friday (April 9th), I and the rest of the Gestalt IT tech field day delegates were invited by Cisco to get a briefing on Cisco’s Unified Computing System or in short “UCS”. Basically this is Cisco’s view that builds on the notion that we are currently viewing a server as being tied to the application, instead of seeing the server as a resource that allows us to run that application.

Anyone in marketing will know that the next question being asked is “What is your suggestion to change all that?”, and Cisco’s marketing department didn’t disappoint us and tried to answer that question for us. The key, in their opinion, is using a system consisting of building blocks that allow me to to give customers a solution stack.

As the trend can be spotted to go towards commodity hardware, Cisco is following suit by using industry standard servers that are equipped with Intel Xeon processors. Other key elements are a virtualization of services, a focus on automated provisioning and unification of the fabric by means of FCoE.

What this basically means is that you order building blocks from Cisco in the form of blade servers, blade chassis, fabric interconnects and virtual adapters. But instead of connecting this stuff up and expanding my connectivity like I do in a standard scenario, I instead wire my hardware depending on the bandwidth requirements and that’s pretty much it. Once I am done with that, I can assign virtual interfaces as I need them on a per blade basis, which in term removes the hassle of plugging in physical adapters and cabling all that stuff up. In a sense it reminded me of the take that Xsigo offered with their I/O director, but with the difference that Cisco uses FCoE instead of Infiniband, and with Cisco you add the I/O virtualization to a more complete management stack.

The management stack

This is in my opinion the key difference. I can bolt together my own pieces of hardware and use the Xsigo I/O director in combination with VMware and have a similar set-up, but I will be missing out on one important element. A central management utility.

This UCS unified management offers me some advantages that I have not seen from other vendors. I can now tie the properties to the resources that I want, meaning that I can set up properties tied to a blade, but can also tie them to the VM or application running on that blade in form of service profiles. Things like MAC, WWN or QoS profiles are defined inside of these service profiles in an XML format and then applied to my resources as I see fit.

Sounds good, but…..?

There is always a but, that’s something that is almost impossible to avoid. Even though Cisco offers a solution that seems to offer some technical advantages, there are some potential drawbacks.

• Vendor lock in: This is something that is quite easy to see. The benefit of getting everything from one vendor also means that my experience is only as good as the vendors support is in case of trouble. Same thing applies when ordering new hardware and there are unexpected problems somewhere in the ordering/delivery chain
• The price tag: Cisco is not know to be cheap. Some would even say that Cisco is very expensive, and it will all boil down to one thing. Is the investment that I need to make for a UCS solution going to give me the return on invest? And is it going to do that anytime soon? Sure it can reduce my management overhead and complexity, sure it can lower my operational expense, but I want to see something in return for the money I gave Cisco and preferably today, not tomorrow.
• Interoperability with my existing environment: This sort of stuff works great when you are lucky enough to create something new. A new landscape, a new data center or something along those lines. Truth is that usually we will end up adding something new to our existing environment. It’s great that I can manage all of my UCS stack with one management interface. But what about the other stuff? What if I already have other Cisco switches that are not connected to this new UCS landscape? Can I manage those using the built in UCS features? Or is this another thing that my admins have to learn?
• The fact that UCS is unified does not mean that my company is: In smaller companies, you have a couple of sysadmins that do everything. They install hardware, configure the operating system, upload firewall policies to their routers and zone some new storage. So far so good, I’ll give them my new UCS gear and they usually know what goes where and will get going. Now I end up in the enterprise segment where I talk to one department to change my kernel parameters, a different to configure my switch port to auto-negotiate and the third one will check on the WWN of my fibre-channel HBA to see if this is matching to the one configured on the storage side. Now I need to get all of them together to work on creating the service profiles, although not all will be able to work outside of their knowledge silo. The other alternative would be to create a completely new team that just does UCS, but do I want that?

Besides the things that are fairly obvious and not necessarily Cisco’s fault, I think that Cisco was actually one of the first companies to go this way and one of the first to show an actual example of a federated and consolidated solution. Because that is what this is all about, it’s not about offering a piece of hardware, it’s about offering a solution. Initiatives like VCE and VCN only show us that Cisco is moving forward and is actually pushing towards offering complete solution stacks.

My opinion? I like it. I think Cisco have delivered something that is a usable showcase, and although unfortunately I have not been able to actually test it so far, I do really like the potential it offers and the way it was designed. If I ever get the chance to do some testing on a complete UCS stack, I’ll be sure to let you know more, but until then I at least hope that this post has made things a bit clearer and removed some of the questions you might have. And if that’s not the case, leave a comment and I will be sure to ask some more questions on your behalf.

Disclaimer: The sponsors are each paying their share for this non-profit event. We, the delegates, are not paid to attend. Most of us will take some days off from our regular job to attend. What is paid for us is the flight, something to eat and the stay at a hotel. However as stated in the above post, we are not forced to write about anything that happens during the event, or to only write positive things.

© Bas for Gestalt IT, 2010. | Gestalt IT Tech Field Day – On Cisco and UCS
Read more posts categorized as Featured, Server Virtualization

© Chris for Gestalt IT, 2009. | Gestalt IT Tech Field Day – Day 1: MDS Micro, Xsigo, VMware
Read more posts categorized as Server Virtualization, Storage

The GestaltIT Tech Field Day event just wrapped up and it was a very interesting event. Stephen Foskett and Claire Chaplais did a phenomenal job at keeping the wheels on the bus. I realized that the attendees were just as critical as making the event a success above and beyond the vendors. I learned so much from others who either knew more or had different perspectives. The genesis of this list comes from the question I asked myself and other attendees constantly which was, “What can we do to get deeper than a standard technical presentation or trade show booth demo.”

1. Ask yourself what you want out of it – Remember, some of your attendees have never heard of you but many know some of your pitch already. Figure out what you want to get out of the event ahead of time and ask yourself if attendees will walk away talking about your presentations the way you wanted them to.

2. Cover the basics and then get into the weeds – We love the weeds. Some of us do anyway. It shows us you know what you’re talking about. It separates you from your competition. Tell us your strengths and weaknesses. We are more effective when we are armed with more information.

3. Bring your best people - You want to bring your best and brightest because there will be people (like me) who will grind into the details. 3Par and Ocarina brought their rockstars and it was apparent to each and every attendee. They knew their stuff and didn’t push questions aside.

4. Think and re-think your demo or hands-on labs - Some of the ones we experienced were great but others weren’t effective. Demos and labs that cover the basics *aren’t* always the best. People who are following the event will say, “I could’ve done that. Show me something new and different.” Remember, some of us love the CLI and others could care less. Make sure your activity will keep people engaged. Data Robotics did this very well but a big reason is because their technology is *different*. They understood how to deliver an experience much like Steve Jobs and Apple does. Their CEO even did a whiteboard of their technology and he got into the weeds.

5. There is never enough time - Almost all the vendors were a bit over schedule. Don’t try to cram too much in if it won’t fit or get a bigger timeslot. Many vendors had this happen but kudos to them for rolling right through.

Remember that you will get both good and bad feedback but being in tune with your audience is what matters. The rules above are not a guaranteed recipe for successful but they’ll give you a good start. They are universal and apply whenever you are pitching anything, not just during a Tech Field Day event. Stephen will be posting the videos of the sessions, watch them and learn from what worked and what didn’t.

© edsai for Gestalt IT, 2009. | The Five Rules of Tech Field Day Club
Read more posts categorized as Server Virtualization, Storage

Our first-ever Tech Field Day event has now come and gone, and it was more successful than we could have imagined! Fifteen of the best independent IT infrastructure thought leaders came together in California for two days of in-depth discussion and evaluation of some of the hottest technology products around.

Delegates and Coverage

The coverage of this event was simply astonishing! Twitter was filled with Tech Field Day-related discussion, and dozens of articles and blog posts have already appeared. Many more are already in the works, so watch the blogs of our esteemed delegates over the coming months for a deluge of information!

Our first Tech Field Day attracted 15 well-known bloggers from across the spectrum of independent IT commentary. L-R: Greg Knieriemen, John Obeto, Carlo Costanzo, Rod Haywood, Rick Vanover, Stephen Foskett, Nigel Poulton, Bas Raayman, Ed Saipetch, Simon Seagrave, Chris Evans, Devang Panchigar, Greg Ferro, John Hickson, Robin Harris, Rich Brambley

The delegates have already written much about the content of the sessions. Here is a sampling of their commentary:

• Robin Harris:
  • Consolidated I/O for virtual data centers
  • A data robot is eating the low end
• Carlo Costanzo:
  • Tech Field Day : MDS Micro & Xsigo
  • Tech Field Day : Additional Notes
• Rod Haywood:
  • Gestalt IT Field Days 2009 Day 1
  • Gestalt IT Field Days 2009 Day 2
  • Gestalt IT Field Days 2009
  • Ocarina Networks
  • Drobo configuration
• Chris Evans:
  • Gestalt IT Tech Field Day – Day 1: MDS Micro, Xsigo, VMware
  • GestaltIT Tech Field Day – Day 2: Ocarina, Nirvanix and Data Robotics
  • Enterprise Computing: Thin Provisioning and The Cookie Monster!
  • Review: DroboPro – Part I
• Ed Saipetch:
  • The Five Rules of Tech Field Day Club
• John Obeto:
  • Gestalt IT Tech Field Day 1: Liveblogging 1
  • Gestalt IT Tech Field Day – Day 2 Liveblogging
  • Gestalt IT Tech Field Day – The Summary
  • Data Robotics and the Drobo
• Devang Panchigar:
  • GestaltIT TechFieldday 2009: Post 7 (Day 0)
  • GestaltIT Techfieldday 2009: Post 8 (Day 1)
  • GestaltIT TechFieldDay 2009: Post 10 (Day 2)
  • GestaltIT Techfieldday 2009: Post 11 (The Fun Day)
  • DROBO S and DROBO Elite – Introduced 11/23/2009
• Rick Vanover:
  • Quick Thoughts on Virtualized I/O
  • Storage in the cloud: Availability and SLAs
  • Field Day recap of activities – day one
  • Day 2 recap of Tech Field Day
  • Gestalt IT Field Day – Looking back on the event
  • Storage-based compression and de-duplication overview
  • Awesome mobile technology for demonstrations
  • Tech Field Day Presentation Ideas
  • 3PAR Storage Architecture, Protection Notes
  • Need Virtualization Test Storage? Consider a Drobo
  • Storage-based compression and de-duplication overview
• Bas Raayman:
  • GestaltIT Tech Field: Day 0 – It started with a haiku
  • GestaltIT TFD – Day 2: Wind instruments and data deduplication
  • GestaltIT TFD – Day 2: Top secret at Data Robotics?
• Nigel Poulton:
  • Xsigo – Try it out, I dare you!
  • EMC V-Max pub discussion
• Simon Seagrave:
  • Gestalt IT Field Day – Ocarina Networks: Data Compression and De-duplication
  • VMware “Booth Rack” with Tim Myers (Gestalt IT Field Day)
• Greg Ferro:
  • Drobo — Guessing How BeyondRAID Creates Space and Volumes
• Rich Brambley:
  • GestaltIT Tech Field Day: Day 1 Journal
  • GestaltIT Tech Field Day: Day 2
  • Tech Field Day: Thoughts About Presenting To Engineers
  • MDS and Xsigo Power VMware GETO Mobile Demo and VMworld Booth Rack
  • Considering Ocarina Networks Optimized Data For Virtual Environments

Presenting Sponsors

The event never could have happened without our presenting sponsors. Their commitment to making the Tech Field Day a success showed through their preparation and presentation, and we are truly grateful.

Our first day began at the beautiful VMware campus for breakfast before we headed across the street to their briefing center at Xerox PARC. There, Xsigo and MDS Micro wowed the crowd with their combined virtual I/O and high-density server technology. After lunch, we headed to 3PAR‘s offices to dive into thin provisioning, wide striping, and thin reclaim in combination with Symantec Storage.

Day two started at Ocarina HQ with a solid discussion of data optimization technology. We also met Nirvanix and learned about cloud storage for the enterprise. Next up, W. Curtis Preston introduced his new end user-focused venture, Truth in IT. Our final presenting sponsor was Data Robotics, who delivered a one-two punch with solid technical information and an advance (but embargoed) look at some awesome new products.

There is not nearly enough space here to do justice to these presentations. But the coverage provided by our delegates speaks volumes!

Special Thanks

I would also like to call special attention to some unsung heroes of the event:

• TechValidate, sponsor of our awesome Thursday evening mixer at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, and CEO Brad O’Neill, whose wise advice is always welcome.
• Marc Farley and Sunshine Mugrabi, who supported me in every way I asked, including locating everything on long, unexplained shopping lists. They even put together a touching and funny thank-you video for me personally! See also Sunshine’s posts, Traveling at the Speed of Social Media and Party Time! A Tech Gossip Column.
• VMware provided an excellent day-1 setting as well as breakfast and lunch. I would especially like to thank John Troyer, who helped me to launch the event on the VMware Communities Roundtable (podcast 67) and helped in so many ways. See also John’s post, Gestalt IT, the Craigslist of new tech journalism. The event was also featured in episode 73 of the VMware Communities Roundtable.
• Liz Zaborowska of Bhava Communications was a joy to work with, even creating and distributing personalized shirts for the delegates.
• It was great to have the assistance of Greg Knieriemen, and StorageMonkeys will soon post an InfoSmack Podcast recorded at the Field Day!
• Finally, I am so pleased to have been able to have Claire Chaplais serve as our event manager. She truly has extraordinary skills, and her patience, care, and thoughtfulness were obvious to everyone involved.

Thanks to everyone, the Gestalt IT Tech Field Day was an amazing success. In fact, we were so pleased with it that we are already planning Tech Field Day 2! Watch this space or contact Stephen Foskett for more information!

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2009. | What a Tech Field Day!
Read more posts categorized as Events, Exclusive, Featured, Top Story

Did you Xsigo when you should have Xsagged? And would you know it if you did? If you were at VMworld 2009, you almost certainly encountered Xsigo’s products, whether you knew it or not! The Tech Field Day attendees will get up close and personal with Xsigo and their partner, MDS Micro, first thing Thursday morning at the fabulous VMware Briefing Center, which happens to be right next to the storied Xerox PARC.

You will certainly hear a great deal about this company soon, but until then the question is put to you: Do you know Xsigo? Answer the following quiz and you’ll be entered to win a prize package, including the new 16 GB Apple iPod Nano with video! Check out the introductory page for contest details and rules, and watch this space for six other quizzes in the “Do You Know…” series. Each quiz gives you another chance to win!

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2009. | Do You Know Xsigo?
Read more posts categorized as Events

Yesterday I published a short post titled “I/O Virtualization and the Double-Edged Sword”. In that post, I discussed how Xsigo was criticizing FCoE for “not going far enough” in the realm of I/O virtualization. Unfortunately, I didn’t do a very good job of really getting my point across, because the discussion rapidly turned into a discussion of the merits of various interconnect technologies and why one might win over the other. While that is a great discussion to have—and I’m thrilled my site can help further that discussion—it wasn’t really the key point behind my article. I/O virtualization was only the catalyst to prompt the original post.

Let me see if I can more clearly articulate what I’m trying to say here. If you are a Twitter user and into virtualization or storage, then you probably are following either Chad Sakac of EMC (@sakacc on Twitter), Vaughn Stewart of NetApp (@vaughn_stewart on Twitter), or both. That being the case, you are probably very familiar with the extensive “discussions” that take place between the two of them. Both of them are very passionate about storage and virtualization, but they have differing viewpoints. Now, before I’m accused by NetApp of being an EMC bigot (which would be ridiculous given the coverage I’ve given NetApp) or accused by EMC of being a NetApp bigot (that, at least, might be understandable as I’m just now starting to learn EMC storage), let me say that I’m not endorsing either product. NetApp’s products and EMC’s products are different; each of them has strengths and weaknesses in different areas.

Now, ask yourself, “Why do these products have different strengths and weaknesses?” Do you know the answer? These products have different strengths and weaknesses because of the technology decisions each company chose to make in the products’ development. NetApp chose one path, EMC chose another. For NetApp, that has created certain efficiences, certain strengths—and corresponding weaknesses. Likewise, EMC’s technology decisions have resulted in their products having certain strengths and weaknesses. Neither of these products is perfect. For NetApp to claim that “their way is the right way” is ridiculous; their way is only one of many different ways to accomplish something. The same is true for EMC. And, by extension, the same is true for every other technology vendor on the planet.

You want more examples? Consider the architectural differences between VMware ESX/ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V. The technology choices made by each company created inherent strengths and weaknesses in each product. VMware claims their choices are the best choices; Microsoft believes their architecture is the best. Clearly, neither product is perfect. Both products have their flaws.

The real key takeaway here is that no technology vendor has the right to throw rocks at another technology vendor. All technology vendors live in glass houses. For VMware to claim that Microsoft’s architecture is all wrong is, well, wrong. For EMC to say that NetApp’s technology choices are stupid would be wrong. For Xsigo to claim that FCoE is the wrong path for I/O virtualization is wrong (although, personally, I don’t consider FCoE an I/O virtualization technology, but that’s a different discussion for a different day). Why? Because every company has to make technology choices, and those technology choices will—by the very nature of technology—automatically create inherent differences, strengths, and weaknesses in the resulting product. And when you accept that truth (and it is a truth, I promise you), then you see why vendors should not engage in negative marketing. When a vendor engages in negative marketing about the competition, that vendor is simply inviting others to pick apart the flaws in their own products.

Of course, I’m not naive enough to believe that vendors will stop negative competitive marketing overnight. Still, I stand firm in the belief that those vendors that focus on the strengths of their products instead of the flaws of others’ products will move ahead. I’m certainly more likely to do business with them.

I’d be interested to hear what others have to say. Voice your position in the comments.

Disclosure: As you probably know, I work for a reseller who represents many different vendors and manufacturers. My words here are not endorsed by my employer, nor do I represent my employer in this area.

© Scott for Gestalt IT, 2009. | Cutting Yourself on the Double-Edged Sword
Read more posts categorized as Networking, Server Virtualization

I recently came across this blog entry over at Xsigo’s new corporate blog, I/O Unplugged. A key phrase in this blog entry really caught my eye:

The reality is that FCoE solves neither the complexity nor the management problems. It is a minor change to the status quo when a major leap forward comparable to server virtualization is needed for I/O.

At first glance, I’d say they are right. FCoE was designed from the ground up to be completely compatible with Fibre Channel—and that’s one of its key strengths. Yes, Xsigo’s InfiniBand-based solution is a very different architecture, and the set of capabilities provided by the Xsigo I/O Director are very different than the capabilities enabled by an FCoE solution such as the Cisco Nexus 5000 (or the newly-announced Nexus 4000). I wouldn’t necessarily disagree that Xsigo’s solution might offer some benefits over FCoE. I would strongly contend, however, that FCoE does offer some benefits over InfiniBand-based I/O virtualization solutions.

See, every technology decision is a double-edged sword. Xsigo “breaks the mold” by using a new architecture based on InfiniBand, but this decision comes at the cost of compatibility. Cisco chooses to go with a “less innovative” solution, but gains the benefit of broad compatibility with a large installed base. There is no one solution that offers all advantages and no disadvantages. That being said, which is more important to you and your company: innovation or compatibility? These are the sorts of questions you need to ask when evaluating solutions.

What do you think? Feel free to post your thoughts below. Vendors, please be sure to disclose your affiliation. And, in the spirit of full disclosure, keep in mind that my employer is a Cisco partner, but I have worked with both Xsigo and Cisco solutions. The thoughts I post here do not reflect the thoughts or views of my employer.

This article was originally posted on blog.scottlowe.org. Visit the site for more information on virtualization, servers, storage, and other enterprise technologies.

I/O Virtualization and the Double-Edged Sword

Similar Posts:

• No Such Thing as an End-to-End FCoE Solution
• Thinking Out Loud: Why Deploy FCoE?
• Why No Multi-Hop FCoE?
• Correction: There Might be an End-to-End FCoE Solution
• More on Cisco UCS

© Scott for Gestalt IT, 2009. | I/O Virtualization and the Double-Edged Sword
Read more posts categorized as Networking, Server Virtualization

Gestalt IT was founded to provide a community for independent-minded IT infrastructure thought leaders to come together and discuss technology and current industry events. Until today, the sole embodiment of this community is the gestaltit.com web site, where both syndicated and original blog posts are brought together and presented to readers.

Today, we are pleased to demonstrate an expanded vision by announcing the first-ever Gestalt IT event, Tech Field Day! We will be bringing many of our own authors as well as other like-minded folks to Silicon Valley on November 12 and 13, 2009 for a live, in-person event. We have invited some of the most interesting and innovative companies to sponsor the event, presenting their technology and products.

This is not a trade show, a junket, or an analyst day. Rather, the participating sponsors will be engaging the attendees, inviting feedback, and fostering open communication. We were inspired by HP’s series of Tech Days and wanted to broaden the concept, bringing in more products and a broader range of technologies. We also liked the idea of creating and managing a similar event as an independent third party.

Who will be there? So far, we have six presenting sponsors confirmed with another two still in the works. We are also glad to have the support of other innovative companies helping to make the whole thing a reality! We will be announcing the names of all sponsors and attendees in the coming weeks as we prepare for this exciting event.

Presenting Sponsors

The following sponsors (in alphabetical order) will be presenting their products at this innovative event:

Supporting Sponsors

Although the following sponsors will not be presenting, they have offered to provide support for other portions of the event:

Press contact: Stephen Foskett, Gestalt IT, +1(508)451-9532

© Stephen Foskett for Gestalt IT, 2009. | Announcing Gestalt IT Tech Field Day
Read more posts categorized as Cloud Computing, Events, Exclusive, Networking, Server Virtualization, Storage, Top Story