Consolidated autonomous devices that simplify data center management have obvious appeal for small and midsize businesses. The good news is these solutions are coming; the bad news is how soon they'll arrive for SMBs.
Wires here, wires there, wires, wires everywhere. That phrase describes many small and midsize business data centers. IT departments find themselves connecting a growing variety of storage systems, servers, and network equipment. Vendors are now moving to consolidate those different products into a single device, a movement that picked up a great deal of momentum recently.
Consolidating autonomous devices has been an ongoing theme in the IT space, and the next logical evolution is a transition in the data center to converged systems, which combine server, storage, and networking functions. A wide -- and ever growing number -- number of suppliers are moving in that direction. Cisco, EMC, IBM, Juniper, and NetApp have talked about building such products, and recently a couple of other entrants emerged.
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Hewlett-Packard announced the HP BladeSystem Matrix, which ships with the Matrix Orchestration Environment, software that provides a unified management interface so companies can design, deploy, and optimize application infrastructure. An entry-level BladeSystem Matrix features an enclosure with eight blade servers, HP's Virtual Connect 8-Gbps Fibre Channel and Flex-10 Ethernet modules, and the StorageWorks EVA 4400 disk array.
Cisco has been gaining a lot of attention for its plans in this area, yet at the moment, HP has a differentiator. Its product is available now, while Cisco's Unified Computing System will not be ready until later this year.
Another potential supplier has even more work to do. Broadcom is trying to build its unified systems via acquisitions. The company made an unsolicited $764 million bid to acquire Emulex. The move is designed to combine Broadcom's Ethernet offerings and Emulex's Fibre Channel storage networking products in a one-stop fashion. The two companies are located in the Orange County, Calif., area and both have engineering-centric corporate cultures, so there is some logic behind the move.
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However, the bid was a bit surprising for a couple of reasons. During these difficult economic times, most vendors are hording their pennies, but Broadcom is acting like a big spender. As of March 31, the company, which has about $2 billion in cash, offered a 40% premium on Emulex's stock, which has been beaten down during the recession. In addition, Broadcom tried to buy Emulex in January. The storage supplier not only rebuffed the move but also swallowed a "poison pill" designed to thwart any other overtures. So how the two will come together is certainly an open question.
Broadcom has a lot of experience in this area, acquiring about 40 companies during its history, and will need to fall back on it to smooth out any rough edges to this potential pairing. In addition, if the deal is completed, the company would find itself behind aggressive competitors in the fast-moving, high-stakes converged data center device space.
To date, the vendor jockeying has had little impact on small and medium businesses, and that may remain the same in the near term. Vendors are initially targeting large companies with sprawling data centers; for instance, pricing for an HP Matrix starter system starts at $150,000 and quickly rises. However, given the intense competition, these new converged devices will eventually make their way into small and medium businesses.
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While the new devices offer some potential benefits, they also present new challenges. The converged systems present a single point of failure. If a device goes down, a company's network, server, and storage system would all be knocked offline, and such problems would be hard to recover from. In addition, there's no guarantee that the new products will deliver their promised benefits. In many cases, new technologies appear better on paper than they do at customer sites.
In addition, the new systems could create personnel challenges. In many cases, companies now have different groups responsible for their servers, storage systems, and network. Those dividing lines will disappear, so companies will need to determine who is in charge of their new revamp operations as well as find a way to meld the employees' varying skill sets.
In sum, converged data center devices are coming. Too many vendors are spending too much time for the devices to flop. While they may not be an immediate option for small and midsize businesses, these companies should at least begin to evaluate them and their potential impact on their IT operations.
See more columns by Paul Korzeniowski.
Paul Korzeniowski is a Sudbury, Mass.-based freelance writer who has been writing about networking issues for two decades. His work has appeared in Business 2.0, Entrepreneur, Investor's Business Daily, Newsweek, and InformationWeek.
