Peter Christy

A Microsoft Corrective Briefing

Our favorite analyst encounter is when you get close enough to something important that the vendor feels a need to correct the details.  I had a chance to do that with Microsoft to get some of the specifics of the Windows communications improvements. We're going to do a report for clients on the topic (it's important enough) but here's the gist.  We had called the new TCP/IP stack "Chimney" (to be fair various Microsoft people did too in early discussions). In fact the new stack doesn't have a catchy name whereas Chimney is really an orthogonal architecture that deals with the transparent insertion of hardware assist capabilities for which TCP/IP acceleration (via Intel I/OAT or full offload) is the first big example. Aside from the terms (which, all kidding aside, it's important to get right) what's hard to really understand is that the communications improvements that Microsoft is putting in Windows: (1) is free (just shows up with some new system or O/S upgrade); and (2) in fact ubiquitous given the dominance of Windows as a desktop platform. This is very different from what other vendors sells which is for purchase acceleration of specific links. Understanding the impact of these improvements overtime is complicated by the facts that you have to make guesses on the spread of Vista and Longhorn server, and some benefit is achieved even if only one end-point is improved (e.g. Vista to WS 2003 rather than Vista to Longhorn). In our client report we're going to try and deconstruct it so the high order bits are easy to understand.  Finally, in our recent report on Cisco WAAS we said that MS used "non-standard" elements of TCP/IP which in a precise sense is also wrong.  The WAN improvements in the new (unnamed) stack are all in accordance with some IETF RFC -- they aren't non-standard, they just aren't what everyone else is using. As they used to say about the ISO Standards, all the incompatible versions were standard implementations. In this case, things aren't nearly as bad because the new TCP/IP stack will work with everything else, it's just the benefits won't accrue unless the other system has the same standard but not conventional features implemented. In practice this means another MS system, but that's not to say it's a proprietary feature, if you follow that (in my next life I think I'll work in the Vatican clarifying Catholic doctrine minutia).

Shameless Sucking Up Pays Off Again

If you remember back to the last newsletter (ya, we know, it was some time ago) we said some nice things about Riverbed's recent IPO. When we write the newsletter the tone as much reflects how many red lights we hit on the way to work, and fortunately that day we weren't in our crankiest mood because soon thereafter we had a marvelous dinner with Jerry Kennelly and Eric Wolford. Jerry loves wonderful wine and food so (sorry McAfee) we have to award Riverbed with the best briefing for 2006 award (there are still two months to take it away we remind you all!). It was great to share the enthusiasm and energy that drove this IPO and obviously continues forward. It's reminiscent of the heady dot com days except of course Riverbed really sells a lot of stuff that the customers actually pay for.  Now that Riverbed has gone public, these guys can't rest. They've got a big mission in front of them, starting with making their quarterly numbers.

Visiting the EMC Mothership

I had a chance to attend EMC's Industry Day back in lovely Hopkington, MA.  As the old phrase goes, "I don't think we're in Los Altos anymore!" If you want to stop for coffee it's Dunkin' Donuts, not Starbucks and certainly not Peet's. On the bright side, from my hotel in Milford, I got the best Verizon CDMA data services I've ever had (a reliable 1.4MBits/second!) probably because I was the lone local business traveler using Verizon data. As for EMC, although they have added a wealth of interesting system stuff to their basic storage offerings most of the analysts there were interested primarily in hearing the latest details about RAID striping rather than information security. The presenters too are most at ease talking about boxes and feeds and speeds. Although EMC is driving into very interesting new systems territory it's clear that Mr. Tucci has a lot of work ahead to change the internal culture and think systems. This is going to be fun to watch.