Peter Christy

The Unification of California

On Monday, March 16, with much TelePomp and Circumstance, the stealth project formally known as California was presented to the world as Cisco's Unified Computing System. We think that UCS is one of the most interesting and innovative computer systems to appear in the last 20 years. Back in the good old days, when men were men and created proprietary computer systems from the transistor and solder joint up, system innovation was more frequent. IBM invented virtualization by modifying the microcode. DEC invented cluster architectures and the underpinning I/O system. Burroughs created machines that were optimized for specific programming languages. But then open systems, commoditization and market dominance took over, delivering tremendous cost and performance benefits to the consumer but without much innovation at the system level. A computer system uses an Intel processor, a PCI bus for I/O, an Ethernet attachment connected to a Cisco-powered network, a BIOS from a standard vendor, interchangeable disk drives, and runs Windows on top. As much as all these suppliers worked to advance their piece (and they did), progress at the systems level was glacial especially if it required coordination of more than two of the suppliers. Cisco's UCS innovates by largely innovating at the network level, but while doing so making a system considerably more suited for virtualization through a set of coordinated fabric, I/O and basic system management advances. Of course Cisco cheated a little bit by including their own servers in the solution but at least they had the restraint to use standard Intel processors. Has the network become the center for system innovation? UCS is a strong beginning and we're sure Cisco will play this out with vigor given their desire to get more of the IT pie. For those interested in a more in-depth exploration of UCS, IRG has published a report on the topic, or come by with cookies and we'll chat!

VDI Shoes Drop Left and Right

As we anticipated last month, Citrix isn't the only one stirring up the VDI pot. In conjunction with VMWorld Europe, VMware and Intel announced a partnership on hypervisors. This is too faceted a topic to discuss without the benefits of good wine, but there are similarities and differences. VMW is promoting their own hypervisor and point to their long history in workstation products and the current MAC hypervisor as evidence of their chops. Intel of course expresses love and support for the idea, and doesn't talk about their long involvement with the Xen project. In contrast to the Citrix guys, VMW didn't really say anything about the specifics of their hypervisor (Citrix says the goals are very different from a server hypervisor — see I warned you this needs wine!). Then of course there is X-factor — where MS stands with a client hypervisor. We're sure that the MS gnomes are working hard on this somewhere in the recesses of Redmond (who knows PC's better than MS?) but the fact of the matter is that there is no client hypervisor in MS's public plan ("yes, we have no bananas!"). This is not to say that Microsoft doesn't have opinions on the subject. MS may not have a client hypervisor but thigh-order bit is that what really counts is user state virtualization and application virtualization, basic usability and TCO issues (I don't think that VMW or Citrix would disagree), not the prehey have a knowledgeable and articulate client hypervisor spokesman in the person of Scott Woodgate and he gave an analyst briefing on the MS perspective. Scott's sence or absence of a Type 1 hypervisor. MS thinks that Type 2 hypervisors (application mode virtualization) suffice. Although this sort of puts words in Scott's mouth, if every PC came with a Type 1 hypervisor factory installed and the standard software load built as a virtual machine on top, things would be different, but MS believes that factory hypervisors won't happen any time soon (certainly if MS doesn't have and bless one). It sounds a little circular and self-serving (yes we have no bananas but that's cause we didn't get any!) but it's not un-sensible from a customer perspective. See I warned you this requires good wine. Everyone seems to agree that this isn't a big 2009 business issue, but what happens the rest of this year should be a harbinger for bigger moves in 2010.

IE 8 Looms

Microsoft is starting to talk more about Internet Explorer 8. This will be an important next thrust in the browser wars (sort of like WW I with huge armies and trench lines that slowly move back and forth). IE8 features (a) real standards compliance (sites can work unchanged with IE8, Safari and Firefox!), (b) performance optimized for the most important use cases and (c) really interesting performance accelerators, and (d) nauseating but essential work on making this compatible with IE7 (non-standard) designed websites. I've been using the IE8 Beta for some time. RC1 is now available. It's worth experimenting with. It really does do some important common tasks faster (many fewer steps). It will be interesting to see if and how this deflects the browser share statistics

Cisco Security On-Line

Cisco announced their intent to market IronPort email protection as a Cloud-based service as well as the current appliance form. This is an important first step for Cisco in terms of Cloud security offering. Initially Cisco is going to market this only for larger customers making the implementation somewhat simpler since they don't have to do as much multi-tenant work as they will for smaller customers. A key value proposition is the fact that a customer can manage the Cloud and local forms of IronPort (they are viewed as synergistic) simply and harmoniously which is not as easy for some that use Google/Postini in the Cloud and another vendor locally. We speculate there will be further offerings along the lines of "clean pipes" (Cloud based equivalent of firewall and proxy devices) which will be all the more interesting.

Cisco Data Center Competitors

It's interesting times in the data center. Cisco is brewing "California" -- a data center offering that is rumored to include servers, and not surprisingly the competitors are showing signs of friskiness as well ("the best defense is a good offense!"). First HP held a somewhat cryptic introduction of ProCurve partners. Grotesquely oversimplified, HP believes they can build on their large server business and provide switches that are price competitive and integrate well with HP servers. Further, HP believes that because they are a minority vendor (the #2 market share leader but with a miniscule share compared to Cisco) they have to do better at compatibility and partnership (that part must be true) but by meeting those obligations they produce a product with clear TCO advantages over Cisco (the more intriguing claim). Following soon thereafter Juniper held its Analyst Meeting featuring the new team, and as part of that previewed tiny bits of what they call Project Stratus being done in cooperation (of some form) with IBM. Juniper argues they can build switches that are as fast as Cisco (because of their very large system SP business), and at the root of Stratus is a large and flat switch, probably somewhat like what Google is building internally (pure speculation) and maybe like what Andy Bechtolsheim did at Sun (the new Juniper advanced technology leader, David Yen, comes from a long career at Sun). Like HP, Juniper says that it will partner better than Cisco and that will bring TCO value to their customers. They also believe that their cleaner JUNOS software base (one O/S shared by all products; quarterly releases) gives them advantage, specifically the ability to manage the data center fabric as if it were one big switch, again with TCO advantages for the customer. One key argument from both HP and Juniper is that Cisco's complexity and inconclusive progress in network management yields a cost-of-ownership liability competitors can exploit, especially in the "more for less" recessionary time. Cisco's big California shoe is of course yet to drop (although it is starting to block the sun J ).

Cisco Goes Green

With considerable fanfare, Cisco introduced its EnergyWise offering, and during a follow up call, discussed in some depth the broader engineering program that backs it up. To begin with, I don't think this will be a big deal. Initially only the power consumption of a limited set of network and VoIP devices are reported, and that's not very consequential compared, for example, to Google's interest in server power consumption which is fundamental to their operating costs. On the other hand, we believe that visibility is a very key element to any management system, and Cisco is a natural provider to energy management (via the network) as a natural extension of their entry into physical security. Understanding how and where power is used is an essential first step to the intelligent management of energy consumption. Google recently discussed their PowerMeter which seems to be a cloud-based service that provides convenient access to the usage data that modern power meters generate.