Cisco Barges Into the Server Market 206
mikesd81 was one of several readers to write in about Cisco's announcement of what has been called Project California — a system comprising servers made from 64-bit Intel Nehalem EP Xeon processors, storage, and networking in a single rack, glued together with software from VMWare and BMC. Coverage of this announcement is everywhere. Business Week said: "The new device, dubbed Project California, takes servers into new territory by cramming computer power into the very box that contains storage capacity and the networking tools that are Cisco's specialty. Cisco's approach could help companies use fewer machines — saving money not only on hardware, but also on power and IT staffing — in building data centers. ... Cisco is well-girded to take this step. It has more than $30 billion in cash, more than any other tech company. The company is moving into no fewer than 28 different markets, including digital music in the home and public surveillance systems." The Register provides more analysis: "Microsoft is, of course, a partner on the California system, since you can't ignore Windows in the data center, and presumably, Hyper-V will be supported alongside ESX Server on the hypervisors. (No one at the Cisco launch answered that and many other questions seeking details). ... The one thing that Cisco is clear on is who is signing off on these deals: the CIO. Cisco and its partners are going right to the top to push the California systems, right over the heads of server, storage, and network managers who want to protect their own fiefdoms."
Microsoft, of course ? (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft is, of course, a partner on the California system, since you can't ignore Windows in the data center
Microsoft is supposed to have about 30% of the server market [netcraft.com], so I am not sure I get that of course.
Re:yeah, but will it be 32bit only? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I haven't seen details... (Score:3, Informative)
But from what I've seen, their server technology appears relatively weak. I.e. their blades appear less dense than 1U servers.
Not true. It's 6U for 8 blades. I just took a look at the chassis that I have access to. Now, HP c7000 is better density than this at 16 blades in 10U. But I just want to be clear, Cisco's chassis is not less dense than 1U servers.
Re:Why use bleeding edge intel chips? (Score:5, Informative)
I work for Sun, and have been beta testing Nehalems for almost a year now.
Sun is also the PRIMARY Nehalem vendor for Intel. We got the special treatment (I don't know how), but we get to be the first real Tier-1 vendor shipping Nehalems, and let me tell you that Intel has helped us a lot in hardware integration and software tuning.
The end result is that Nehalem EP (which are dual-socket systems) is significantly faster than any of the Core2 series, and spanks even the AMD Shanghais. They've gone to the on-chip memory controller ala Opterons, and it's helped considerably. In addition, they've redone the interconnect bus to make is much more HyperTransport-ish (though HT 3.x is still superior) - it's called QuickPath Interconnect. The overall result is much better performance under load, even for single-threaded apps.
For an application such as Virtualization, Nehalems are well worth the $$$. You get considerably better loaded performance than previous Intel CPUs, and with VMs, high system utilization is the GOAL. Up until now, AMDs were considerably better than Intel chips under high load, but the Nehalems just stole the dual-socket crown back.
I'm still waiting to get my hands on the EX series (quad-socket), so I don't know how they'll compare to AMD's 8000-series. Be interesting to see.
-Erik
Re:All smoke and no fire.... (Score:3, Informative)
OK, my bias up front, I work for Cisco, though not directly in the California project.
Cisco doesn't have integrated solutions. All the others provide storage, network, and compute integration with large, well-trained Professional Services orgs. Cisco has CCIEs in piles, but what do they know about anything but network gear?
Cisco has people like me and I'm far from alone.
I'm very picky about where I accept employment from and I CHOSE to work at Cisco even though I despise Northern California. For whatever it's worth.
Re:I haven't seen details... (Score:1, Informative)
Cisco upgrades are an utter nightmare. You need to figure out what version you want, then what feature set you want, and then if the feature+version combination supports the sup/linecard variants you run. If it doesn't support the hw you've got, go back to start. Nightmare on Elm Street.
Other vendors are much simpler to deal with from an upgrade perspective, and some even have superior hardware, vastly superior in at least one case.
And while you're at it, how about a single management platform??? In a pure Cisco network, you've got at least 3 different management platforms to worry about. Many times, you need multiple platforms to manage different aspects of the same physical hardware (like the ASAs).
Re:Acronym expansion confusion (Score:3, Informative)
Re:All smoke and no fire.... (Score:1, Informative)
Cisco has people like me and I'm far from alone.
I'm very picky about where I accept employment from and I CHOSE to work at Cisco even though I despise Northern California. For whatever it's worth.
I'm with you. Worked for Cisco because well, they do take the opportunities to foray outside of the core in routing/switching. The talent there is incredibly diverse and includes people who do know way more the just network gear
Fact is, in today's network world, if all you know is networks, you hit a ceiling pretty quickly. None of the folks I worked with were just focused on routing and switching. Almost everyone I knew in Customer Advocacy (Cisco Services) had at least 4 years of experience in something not solely "network" related. Look at the Unity product (its a voicemail system). Incredibly complex on the back end. Folks really have to understand their server operations just to get by.
One of the final projects I worked on before leaving was a virtualization project for CA lab ops. In less than a year, the org went from spending a ton of dosh on individual servers to run tests to less than 10% of the original figure. No one really knew what they were getting into when they did it, but the knowledge base in the company is so huge that you could always find someone to help with a problem
That said, I really don't think this foray into servers is any bigger of a challenge than what Cisco has taken on before.
Re:Huh!?!? (Score:4, Informative)
Cisco is expensive, but their stuff is incredibly well supported, both by them and third parties. Our entire network infrastructure is Cisco, and I'm a fan of the "one throat to choke" approach. Engineers are more worried about solving my problems than blaming someone else.
Even their lowest level of SMARTNet offers next day hardware replacement...
You're correct in that Cisco is expensive up front, but in the big picture (at least for our organization) it's really not a bad deal.