What the Hell is Cisco Doing in the Server Market With UCS?
So you’d have to be living under a rock (or else have a real life) not to see the coverage today on the Unified Computing System (UCS). I’m not going to go over specifications nor any of the technical aspects of what it does or does not do, I just want to ask… What the hell, Cisco? Why do we need another server platform? I have some ideas on what this is all about.
I think one part is in the classic “Application vs. Network” debate in so many data centers. I’m sure you’ve been there. You’re working through troubleshooting service issues with the software engineers pointing the finger at the network guys (you know which finger I mean) while the network guys are volleying the blame back to software. So what can UCS do about that? Well, the idea is if you work with Cisco and the partnered vendors like Microsoft, VMWare, EMC, etc. to develop the solution, the network is getting a little closer to that application or service. The server hardware itself will have hooks which will be a lot more closely integrated with the network. By Cisco having this access to the the server hardware they can give you better metrics on service performance that is bypassing what was historically a black hole in between these services and the network. This gives them greater visibility to the apps before they hit the wire. The applications and services are further “containerized” and more pieces to prove out are taken out of the middle.
It also stops the interoperability blame game with the vendors. So many engineers like myself out there are sick of hardware and software implementations that have those seemingly minor protocol standard interpretation differences that cause major problems. So Cisco has said “You know what? Screw it. We’ll just make the damn server ourselves and get on with it.” With them owning the whole kit and kaboodle hardware wise, they are on the hook for that which is good for the customer who usually doesn’t have time to figure out why this box won’t talk to that box and why.
So I think I see what they are up to and I think there is validity to it. The question is, can they pull it off? As the saying goes, only time will tell. We’ll see if time tells us that Cisco is going to own the freakin’ world.
If you haven’t seen it, check out these pics of the 8 and 4 blade models.
I agree. “What the hell?” is pretty much the only real way to respond.