What to do When an Integrated Computing Platform Breaks

ESG continues to research the interest in, advantages, and disadvantages of Integrated Computing Platforms (ICPs). As a quick review, ICP is the collapsing of server, storage, and networking infrastructure into a simple-to-consume, preconfigured, turn-key platform.

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Microsoft Azure: Amazon Price Match with Service Consistency

The only constant in the cloud computing market is change, as Microsoft proved by advancing Azure IaaS from public preview to primetime public general availability, and Microsoft is price matching Amazon.

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Microsoft Who? Top 4 Highlights of Microsoft Management Summit 2013

It's challenging to absorb everything Microsoft at the cadence they would like IT pros to keep pace with, but here are four areas to pay close attention to:

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Moonshot Launch Poised to Rocket HP Beyond Company's Distress

If you haven't heard about HP Moonshot, besides being an exciting name that steps outside the comfort zone of standard HP product naming convention, Moonshot is a new class of servers engineered to address the IT challenges created by social, cloud, mobile, and big data. Moonshot is processor-agnostic architecture engineered to flexibly accept the best processor (or FPGA, or GPU, etc or combo thereof) for a desired workload. The workload drives the configuration. Think about some of the biggest data centers on the planet and look at how they have approached the server tier.

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Multiple Hypervisor Strategies

In 2013, ESG fully expects that server virtualization will remain a top priority of many IT organizations and of vendor go to market strategies. But, what was once a one horse hypervisor race has truly become a climb up a management stack that takes advantage of virtualization at multiple tiers.

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Software Defined Doomed

The IT industry is littered with acronyms and buzz words that change at such a rapid pace that few can actually keep up with what they truly mean. Just as one settles in to our conversations, another one pops up to keep us on our toes. IT professionals can be bombarded by these terms, leaving them with a great buzz-word bingo fodder, but not with any meaningful value.

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VMworld 2012: VMware Faces Critical Turning Point

Great VMworld 2012! Please catch the highlights in a video blog highlighting some complexities that lie on the table and explore some of the market dynamics in an ESG research brief on private cloud usgae trends.

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VMworld 2012: Has VMware Peaked?

IT is funny. They want all the features, functionality, and richness of software, but no one seems to want to pay for it. On the flip side the licensing models, schemas, and tracking methods require a full-time job in some cases just to make sense of the complexity and make sure the licensing police are not going to come knocking on your door.

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SimpliVity Sets Sail

IT Organizations are realizing benefits in terms of efficiency, cost, time, and resources by moving from the traditional DIY (do it yourself) approach to virtualizing their environments to one that leverages integrated and turnkey solutions. SimpliVity's OmniCube solution makes it easy for organizations to make the shift from a complex to a simple infrastructure, enabling them to simultaneously improve the management of their virtualized environment while dramatically simplifying their infrastructure.

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Windows 8 Looks to Ignite Developer Opportunity

If you haven't had a chance to look at or even try out Windows 8 Metro applications, you should. I have been running Windows 8 for a few months and while most of the application on the Windows Store are good demo apps and lack some functionality, the platform is extremely promising.

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Citrix, Microsoft, Dell, & VMware Reinvent Desktop Delivery

There are a few stars aligning that are about to make application and desktop delivery an interesting task for IT.

1. Device proliferation - It's impossible to stop this and IT has to figure out how to change or risk productivity issues.

2. OS refresh - Win 8 is knocking on the door, set to be released the end of October, and will spawn some awesome new hardware platforms.

3. Applications - Apps are popping up like summertime weeds in your garden and these apps are web-based, developed for a mobile OS, and have awesome stickiness with consumers.

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VMware Success Relies on Diversification

You can't debate the success VMware has had in the data center over the last 5 years, but they are now faced with how to scale the success they have had.  Just as any other large growing technology company, they need to think of alternative revenue streams to maintain a positive economic growth trajectory. VMware customers have a few choices right now:

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Citrix Synergy 2012

Trying to explain to my friends and family what it is I do is always an interesting conversation, but every time I mention I work with companies like Citrix, they immediately reply "oh, the GoToMeeting company." While that is true, it is an astute observation and an impression Citrix is out to change.

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VMware View: Not VDI

VMware coined the term VDI years ago when its virtual desktop product was so creatively named VMware VDI. Since then, VMware changed the product name to View and has been working hard to take advantage of its strong vSphere footprint inside the data center. Today, VMware announced its latest release of View which is important, but not as interesting as a few other announcements the company slid in.

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The IT Infrastructure Consumption Unit is Changing

IT will resist as long as they can, but when it comes to purchasing infrastructure for virtual computing environments and cloud computing initiatives, the do-it-yourself (DIY) model is becoming a thing of the past. Instead, the new IT consumption model is moving toward reference architectures or pre-configured solutions. Integrated computing consists of tightly integrated packages of servers, networking, and storage "glued together" by virtualization and intelligent management software designed, tested, and qualified to operate as a single unit.

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Vendor Synergies Drive Next Gen of NetApp FlexPod

Some may see the latest FlexPod from Netapp as another arrow in their quiver and the next generation of a solution that supports Microsoft System Center 2012. It is, but I see something way more interesting. It is difficult in any partnership to get two teams to work collaboratively, share a common vision and strategy, and successfully execute together. NetApp's latest announcement includes the collaboration and cooperation of FOUR vendors - FOUR! This is not an easy feat.

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Microsoft Hyper-V 3.0 Shared Nothing Live Migration

Now that Microsoft Windows Server 2012 has been officially named, it is time to start homing in on what's new and what matters. One of the features sure to get plenty of early attention is Shared Nothing Live Migration. A common observation and rising challenge IT pros share with me is the sheer cost and volume of storage that server virtualization is creating. Couple that with the fact that the majority of their implementations are focused on cost reduction and resource containment and it makes for some serious head scratching.

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Hyper-V: Hyper Adoption

I'm attending Microsoft Management Summit 2012 this week and had an interesting observation in one of my sessions. I always ask (and make a little joke out of asking) "Who is using VMware?"  and as you would expect, the majority of the room raise their hand. No surprise. I asked the same question during one of my sessions at MMS and I received the same result.

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A New Menu Item – EMC VSPEX

EMC VSPEX is further evidence that the IT infrastructure consumption model is changing. VSPEX is ultimately a new menu item for select EMC partners. From the outside, VSPEX has a consistent look of a packaged solution, but it is what is available on the inside that gets interesting. A customer will be able to customize a VSPEX based on hypervisor preference (Citrix, Microsoft, or VMware), Cisco servers, Cisco or Brocade networking, and multiple flavors of EMC storage.

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NetApp FlexPod Expands into the Midmarket

The way IT is accustomed to procuring and consuming virtual computing infrastructure is rapidly changing. Its traditional DIY (do it yourself) model is littered with risk and new integrated computing solutions take the guesswork out of infrastructure, remove the complexity, and ultimately arm IT with the ability to improve business process as opposed to spending a giant portion of their time maintaining infrastructure.

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