Monday 11 May 2009
Cisco UCS - Direct feedback to the blogosphere
Some of you guys may have read and seen my views on Cisco UCS and read about how I feel Cisco may or may not gain massive popularity within the datacentre infrastructure space.
Cisco have provided direct from the horses mouth responsive feedback on comments such as mine that industry bloggers have raised and I am mightily impressed they have done this, it certainly takes a lot for an individual to represent the organisation to provide responses to feedback and possible criticism composed on various web blogs. The interview with Wendy Mars Cisco Director of the UCS Intiative is available in video format to view on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDUbttbatBo&feature=channel_page , responses were very good and cisco like, analytic and positive with no fear of that what has been said by the likes of myself is likely to give UCS a damaged impression at such an early stage and it is a very positive review. Cisco have as i've said before not got into the blade server market to dabble, they are here to become number one.
Collectively the blog commentary has probably come across in some respects as quite a hard critism on Cisco and pointed quite aggressively and looked at flaws that the new converged strategy they are using. Run up to the California UCS Launch was marketed from the outset by Cisco themselves in moderate build up and I think a lot of people not privy to internal discussions with Cisco directly were quite amazed at how architecturally basic the technology and strategy is yet on the flipside of this amazed at how it is likely to turn datacentre consolidation up a notch by the sheer simplistic nature of converged backplanes and converged IO between SAN and LAN with FcOE.
In response to my question which was "Do enterprises want to unify networks, storage and servers?", It does seem that large amounts of views on UCS have come from a bottom up engineering nuts and bolts perspective not from the top down C level view or even a middle view which is an Architect who needs to invest in the right technology yet not sacrifice functionality, scalability etc for their organisation/customer.
I think a lot of engineering folk are most likely afraid or more probably concerned at how Converged networking affects the SAN or LAN admin as we know it and the role that they both play in IT today, I think it will be very hard to find any C level bods that have as a harsh view on how it will integrate, post descriptive recommendation from trusty aide they will most likely love the overall benefits with the reduced opex costs of running a datacentre with fewer cabling requirements and costs of fabric switching and Lan switching (longer term not immediately). Engineering folk will probably find it similar to Server Virtualisation and blade backplane technology such as Virtual connect and will need to find time to adapt with the new way of working within a structured IT department.
Lets hope we see more response to blogger opinions and questions on the internet, the organisations and companies that we comment on are nine times out of ten obtaining free marketing for large amounts of revenue gain in return so videos like this to appease us are the least they can/should do.
Cisco have provided direct from the horses mouth responsive feedback on comments such as mine that industry bloggers have raised and I am mightily impressed they have done this, it certainly takes a lot for an individual to represent the organisation to provide responses to feedback and possible criticism composed on various web blogs. The interview with Wendy Mars Cisco Director of the UCS Intiative is available in video format to view on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDUbttbatBo&feature=channel_page , responses were very good and cisco like, analytic and positive with no fear of that what has been said by the likes of myself is likely to give UCS a damaged impression at such an early stage and it is a very positive review. Cisco have as i've said before not got into the blade server market to dabble, they are here to become number one.
Collectively the blog commentary has probably come across in some respects as quite a hard critism on Cisco and pointed quite aggressively and looked at flaws that the new converged strategy they are using. Run up to the California UCS Launch was marketed from the outset by Cisco themselves in moderate build up and I think a lot of people not privy to internal discussions with Cisco directly were quite amazed at how architecturally basic the technology and strategy is yet on the flipside of this amazed at how it is likely to turn datacentre consolidation up a notch by the sheer simplistic nature of converged backplanes and converged IO between SAN and LAN with FcOE.
In response to my question which was "Do enterprises want to unify networks, storage and servers?", It does seem that large amounts of views on UCS have come from a bottom up engineering nuts and bolts perspective not from the top down C level view or even a middle view which is an Architect who needs to invest in the right technology yet not sacrifice functionality, scalability etc for their organisation/customer.
I think a lot of engineering folk are most likely afraid or more probably concerned at how Converged networking affects the SAN or LAN admin as we know it and the role that they both play in IT today, I think it will be very hard to find any C level bods that have as a harsh view on how it will integrate, post descriptive recommendation from trusty aide they will most likely love the overall benefits with the reduced opex costs of running a datacentre with fewer cabling requirements and costs of fabric switching and Lan switching (longer term not immediately). Engineering folk will probably find it similar to Server Virtualisation and blade backplane technology such as Virtual connect and will need to find time to adapt with the new way of working within a structured IT department.
Lets hope we see more response to blogger opinions and questions on the internet, the organisations and companies that we comment on are nine times out of ten obtaining free marketing for large amounts of revenue gain in return so videos like this to appease us are the least they can/should do.
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