Okay, despite the title; I don't actually think that VCE is Evil, certainly no more so than any other IT company. As we move to an increasingly virtualised data-centre environment; I believe that VCE does have something to offer to the market, the more vertically integrated a stack, the more chance that it is going to work within design parameters and with a reduced management footprint.
Yet, I do have a problem with VCE and that is it is not consolidated enough; it's like some kind of trial marriage or perhaps some troilistic civil partnership. (And I have similar problems with the even looser Flexpod arrangement with NetApp/Cisco/VMWare.)
As a customer; it seems that I am expected to make a huge commitment and move to an homogeneous infrastructure even if it is some kind of 'virtual homogeneity'. Yes, there are management benefits but the problem with both vBlock and Flexpods is what happens when the relationship founders and fractures? What happens to my investment in consolidated management tools to support these environments; where is the five, ten year roadmap? And where is the commitment to deliver? Who gets custody of the kids?
Are the relationships going to last more than one depreciation/refresh cycle? Perhaps the problem is that the evil is not consolidated enough? Or am I just cynical in expecting the relationship to fail? I would say that the odds are that one of them will fail, you?
Perhaps Cisco/EMC/NetApp should de-risk by all merging!
Hi Martin — interesting post.
The funny part, for me, is that all the various products in a Vblock are the exact same ones you can buy a-la-carte if you choose. What’s different is the integration, consumption and support models.
If, by some happenstance, we vendors were to part company and go our separate ways, the result would be equivalent to simply having individual products from each company, or — put differently — no different than the norm today.
If you think about it, that’s not much downside.
Thanks again!
— Chuck
I think the bigger issue is that you could get far greater bang for your buck by not going with the consolidated offerings and forcing vendors to compete for your business.
These psuedo-merger product offerings are simply a way for these companies to control price points and inflate market share.
Chuck
I don’t think that’s exactly true. If the VCE coalition (or NTAP/Cisco/VMware) split then it would be likely due to differences of opinion or direction. As the benefit of VCE today is the close co-operation of engineering, marketing and support, then surely that would be lost as those partners chose not to work as closely with each other in the future. EMC has been at pains to stress close co-operation in the VCE alliance and the additional benefits this offers over “roll your own”.
Chris
I’m pretty sure that Acadia is doing it’s very best to answer your concerns. Capellas’ crew seems focused on making the big sale by providing the integration and single point of support.
The question in my mind about Acadia is “Does anyone really want to buy multi-million dollar servers from a guy in a really nice suit any longer?” But that Acadia lineup of dark suits, white shirts, and red ties sure looked spiffy on stage at VMworld!