Software-Defined Data Centers: Seeing Through the Hype 39
Nerval's Lobster writes "In case you didn't catch it yesterday, AllThingsD ran a piece endorsing the idea of the software-defined data center. That's a venue where hordes of non-technical mid- and upper-level managers will see it and (because of the credibility of AllThingsD) will believe software-defined data centers are not only possible, but that they exist and that your company is somehow falling behind because you personally have not sketched up a topology on a napkin or brought a package of it to install. If mid-level managers in your datacenter or extended IT department have not been pinged at least once today by business-unit managers offering to tip them off to the benefits of software-defined data centers—or demand that they buy one—then someone should go check the internal phone system because not all the calls are coming through. Why was AllThingD's piece problematic? First, because it's a good enough publication to explain all the relevant technology terms in ways that even a non-technical audience can understand. Second, it's also a credible source, owned by Dow Jones & Co. and spun off by The Wall Street Journal. Third, software-defined data centers are genuinely happening—but it's in the very early stages. The true benefits of the platform won't arrive for quite some time—and there's too much to do in the meantime to talk about potential endpoints. Fortunately, there are a number of resources online to help tell hype from reality."
End of the "UNIX/Linux guru" (Score:5, Insightful)
We're no longer constrained by the need to have deep specialized knowledge in the low-level components to get basic access to this technology.
That's what it is really about. The unit of computational resource is a standardized, empty server. It's not "maintained", it's wiped and reloaded. If something goes wrong with it, its load is sent elsewhere, and eventually the unit will be replaced by someone who unplugs it and plugs in another one. Nobody in the data center really has to have much of an idea of what's going on with the computers. Their concerns are power, cooling, cabling, and physical security.
Most of them will be paid at security-guard levels.
Wut. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's as if there's something genetic in MBA types that makes them abuse English so awfully as this summary exemplifies.
It's a good thing that tomorrow is Bloomsday.
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BMO
love slashdot summaries (Score:5, Insightful)
the other day I saw a summary that was not even a complete sentence, now today I see one that could have had all the words above the third point removed and it would not have made any difference because its just some asshat getting on the whine train about management.
somewhere there is a middle, maybe one decade slashdot can consistently hit it!