| Converging your enterprise network(s) onto a single | | | | unsustainable. There may be differences in the way |
| platform may seem like a no-brainer. After all, who | | | | vendors are building their unified platforms, but they |
| wouldn't want to manage and maintain a single | | | | should all provide significant improvements in network |
| network rather than separate data, storage and | | | | simplicity. |
| even voice architectures? | | | | Cisco may be going one better by bringing in its own |
| But beyond the major question of which format to | | | | blade design. The company is rumored to be working |
| build on, there are a number of other aspects to | | | | on an Intel-based device code-named the "California |
| take into consideration, such as what sort of server | | | | Server" with plans to link it closely to the Nexus |
| architecture will best fit into this unified environment. | | | | switch. The company has not commented on the |
| Organizations backing blade servers have made no | | | | story yet, but it would seem to make a lot of sense |
| secret of their intention to promote their technology | | | | for Cisco to use its considerable resources to devise |
| as the ideal solution. Besides their ability to aggregate | | | | a blade to go with its network technology, even if it |
| network ports, the newest blade architectures will be | | | | does cross swords with some of the company's |
| equipped to handle all of the single-wire formats | | | | major partners like HP and IBM. |
| under consideration: 10 GbE, FCoE, iSCSI and | | | | Blades, of course, have the advantage of providing |
| Infiniband. | | | | high-density environments in an industry that is usually |
| The Blade.org group, consisting of BLADE Network | | | | cramped for space to begin with. But they by no |
| Technologies, Brocade, Emulex, IBM, Mellanox and | | | | means have a lock on that feature. Processor points |
| other vendors, just released a white paper entitled | | | | out in a recent editorial that some of the new 1-inch |
| "Blade Platforms and Network Convergence" | | | | chassis are starting to push back by incorporating |
| highlighting all the benefits of convergence around the | | | | multiple quad-core CPUs, RAM sockets and drive |
| blade, including the scrapping of multiple adapters and | | | | bays. |
| switch ports and the ability to institute dynamic | | | | More than likely, though, blades and standard servers |
| allocation of end-to-end resources. | | | | will play leapfrog for a considerable period as the |
| Anything is better than the hodgepodge of hardware | | | | unified network concept spreads out across the |
| and software that currently makes up the data | | | | industry. But no matter which platform is adopted |
| center, according to IDC's Richard Villars. He tells | | | | (and indeed, why not both?) the goal is to provide a |
| ServerWatch that the continued practice of adding | | | | flexible, virtual environment for users - two primary |
| servers wherever they happen to fit in the racks and | | | | ingredients for the cloud. |
| then linking it all to storage somewhere else is | | | | |