I took a look at the plans Cisco have and my first instinct was to think about the management and support aspects. Often organisations don’t move as quickly as the technology does.
I remember a few years ago when Blades arrived on the scene, I was stationed at an Investment Bank comparing the relative merits of IBM v HP.
Each engineering / support group was silod by technology (as they often are in large IT departments), this highlighted a few differences in opinion when comparing products but the main fun comes when you try to support them.
During the blade era I noted a forced coming together of the ‘server team’ and the ‘network team’. Historically the network team just about trusted the Server guys to set an IP address but now the Blade enclosure contained a Network Switch the game changed.
Similar story as we all got busy with Virtualisation as different platform teams had a coming together with Linux and Windows on the same host.
Now with Unified Computing the Platform, Storage and Network teams all need to blend together operationally. No bad thing in my view.
Interesting observation. UCS will inevitably offer organisational re-org oppurtunities. One suspects that whilst the engineering and architecture will cross team boundaries, Platform, Networks, Virtualistion etc it’s where the solution ends up being run operationally thats compelling.
Will UCS fall in to a platform operations function as many beleive or spawn a whole new department?
Also If organisations dont fully adopt UCS tranditional rack and blade process will need to be maintained – so will the ROI stack up.
An interesting and exciting new technology….one to be close to and watch how it progresses