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Cisco Launching Blade Servers in 2009
minutetraders writes "According to some sources, by next year Cisco Systems will be in the blade server business. ChannelWeb has a story, confirmed by several sources, that the San Jose, Calif.-based networking behemoth is readying blade servers, code-named California, for a release early next year. A blade server offering would put Cisco in direct competition with the likes of Dell, HP, and IBM, companies it partners with on their respective blade server offerings, for control of the enterprise data center."
a buddy of mine (who used to work for Cisco) says they'll be pushing linux, but offer windows if that's what the customer wants to pay for.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
If cisco delivered servers the way it delivers network gear:
You will order your blades and get them 3 months later after harassing your rep over and over until they finally send them via VP signatures via a warehouse.
When people want servers, they want them in days... not months.
This can only end poorly.
I am wondering whether there will be any role for Linux. But if there is any, then the politics of which distro CISCO chooses will be a subject of great and diverse opinion here at Slashdot. I can't wait.
I wonder which pre-installed Linux distro they won't give you the source to.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I'm all for flexibility. I doubt I'll find a need for a Cisco server as I deal with the SMB market.
I'd love to test one out.
I would imagine both Windows and Linux would work well with the system. With a market on the switching and routing world, would the server hardware exploit any additional unwritten rules? Is there an NSA back door?
Cisco has been pushing into the Fibre Channel switch market also, and those switches have control processors running Linux on them. They were pushing various software companies to port things like SAN backup applications onto those processors. Ironically they refused to let us consider porting a custom data mover application from our archive software into the switch because we were an end user.
A blade server offering would pit Cisco in direct competition against the likes of Dell, HP and IBM, companies it partners with on their respective blade server offerings, for control of the enterprise data center.
I never really did think I understood what that film was really about.
Now I think I am beginning to get an idea.
Apple?
Show us your iBlades!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
If true this should be yet another slice off Sun's stocks.
Cisco has been pushing into the data center for a long time. It seems to me this is a good move. They could build an enterprise class switch and a router right into the backplane of the blade server chassis and sell you a data center in a box. All you would need to do is plug a couple of fiber cables right into you backbone and be done.
Since ChiefArcher mentioned a gripe about Cisco (delays in shipping hardware), I'll mention mine too. They make great hardware. I don't think anyone can dispute that. However their server software for managing that hardware is just....crap. Cisco Security Manager is slow, non-clusterable except with 3rd party (Veritas) software, and has some really dangerous default behavior which can't be changed. The backend runs on a server and a thick client is an administrator's interface to the backend and/or to network devices. In the case of CSM the devices are IDSs, firewalls, and VPNs. THe thick client is just that, thick. It is developed in Java and is just horrendously slow. A change in the thick client running on XP can require a restart of the services *on the server* thereby basically requiring an administrator to make the change anyway. It is ludicrous.
Their other management app, LAN Management Solution, is just a cobbled together bunch of stuff that seems to barely work. If you breathe wrong it can break. We use the Solaris version at work. It doesn't have a thick client; all management is through a web browser. Managing it on the CLI at the OS level though is dog slow (takes 10 minutes to completely startup). The least little change in the GUI requires a restart. It is also expensive just like CSM (CSM is mid 5 digits for a single server to manage 500 devices). We've found many faults with both apps at work over the last 6 months beyond what I've mentioned above. I recommend staying away from them. I hope that their adventures into blade servers is better. They seem to do better at hardware than software.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Am I the only one who wonders what the impact of the FSF's compliance law suit will be on this?
You do realize of course, that it will probably just be a rebranded Dell.
Cisco's Product Manufacturing Manual:
- Buy hardware from someone else.
- Spray paint it blue / grey
- Call it a Cisco X where X is any 4 digit number
- Release it with Linux but call it a new version of IOS.
- Offer shitty support on it as it's not a router or switch and we therefore have no clue what we're doing
- Require a paid CCO account for simple driver updates
Oh yes, and ensure the product uses technology at least 4 years behind all competition. No need to stay current, people will pay for it because it says Cisco on the box. Suckers!
It is a blade server offering. Just because it will be sold as a full stack with bundles ESX and other prescribed software doesn't mean the technology isn't at its core another server offering, no more than a processor ceases to become a processor because it is sold only in a whole system by anyone. This is important in evaluating the fundamental ability of others to compete.
In terms of "changing the game in ways others can't compete", it sounds like some great pep rally morale speak, but in the end, full stack solutions for various intents can be seen across the vendors, as it seems to be all the rage among them now. I personally think the competency is useful, but pre-done vendor solutions will fall short of a company's needs compared with a customized one done by the company itself (or at least partner with a vendor rather than just buy it). Of course, in the commodity market, that fat profit margin in full stacks is appealing to the companies, hence the interest.
In any event, it will be interesting to see if anything particularly keen comes out of it. However, I don't expect much out of the servers just like I wouldn't expect much out of managed switching from a Dell badged switch. As a company, I would stick to having your own architects listening to the vendors and picking the most appropriate parts from each. There may be a simplicity of support, but in aggregate you should be able to ensure enterprise grade support even if you have something more tailored to your needs.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
With their growth stagnating in networking gear, especially with all the competion from such companies as Juniper and HP, they decided into move to servers. It is going to be difficult for them to maintain their 70% profit margins.
Slashdot - The great and glorious cluster fuck of Internet wisdom.
Not being a network person and working at a college that is pure Cisco on the networking side, what percent of the market do they own? Close enough that one of the big boys might gripe a bit about (ahem) unfairly leveraging their markets?
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
They would rebadge whatever Dell is rebadging, skip the middle man.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Hopefully they will provide better software support than they do with their VPN clients.
Still no Windows 64-bit support for their IPSEC client... very annoying to have to run a virtual machine to connect to a Cisco VPN.
Well speaking from a government standpoint I am sure we will end up with their piles. If it weren't for someone important up the food chain hopping into bed with Cisco, we wouldn't be the reason they maintain that 70% profit margin!
Even though we have been a Cisco house for years our latest high end routing purchase went to Juniper.
Our team is lamenting the lack of focus by Cisco on their traditional core competency - a situation Juniper seems to be taking advantage of right now.
The way this article talks sounds to me Cisco is invading the territory of HP and IBM. On the other hand, HP has been making switches and its ProCurve series actually poses the second largest vendor in the access switch market.
There should not be so-called this-is-my-world thought for those companies, I would like to see them to go into competitions and thus come out better products.
They run their FC business much like their ethernet business ;) If you want high performance, Cisco is definitely not the brand even in ethernet. In ethernet, at least, they live on the strength of their manageability, not much more.
I know Cisco has some ethernet switches than can handle line rate on all their ports, but it's more rare than it should be. For example, I don't think any vendor other than Cisco has an entry level 48 port gigabit switch that doesn't have the fabric to handle it all concurrently (I speak of the 2960 specifically). I know a lot of places don't need that performance, but it is an odd omission given the current state of competitor technology.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
All of them have integrated switches (the Dell M-series, IBM from its inception). Hell, Cisco even makes a switch to put into the IBM product, probably the others too. Will note that none put them into the backplane, but in modular form factors, as it should be. Backplane should be as simple and reliable as can be (as passive as possible, redundant power and data traces, etc etc.)
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
In this play, the x86 servers are a necessary evil to push the fat profit margin product, the 'solution', including fat software margins.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Too many good companies attract sharks known as shareholders and executives that just want to pimp out the name, and not maintain efforts to lead their original advances. As you say, Cisco is letting their networking slide as they chase whatever flavor of the month executives want to slap the name onto. Guess this is good in a way, provides a bizarre, but eerily ubiquitous mechanism of preventing monopolies, self-destruct through greed.
If lucky, they will be like other companies that at least come to their senses once in a while (i.e. like HP did after the exit of Carly). But right now and for a significant amount of time they've let their leadership slip. Even if I like their firmware features, I can't exactly ignore the hardware advances the competition makes...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Cisco is behind the telecom giant Ericsson here, they already have a blade system delivered to Telstra:
http://www.ericsson.com/solutions/news/2008/q4/081121_telstras_network.shtml
Cisco, behind old and boring telecom? :)
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
I work for a Cisco partner in the VoIP space. Cisco has already put their PBX on Linux, as well as their SIP proxy. It is only a matter of time where every Cisco product which sits on top of Windows will remove that dependency. dam
Useless sig.
This is really interesting for my company as we are a HP house for servers but Cisco for network. Looks like i will be able to play one off against the other now. hehe
The number one goal of any firm is to increase shareholder wealth. Cisco has a history of buying a product and squeezing the life out of it and this firm is having difficulties finding new networking related projects that have a required rate of return high enough to satisfy investors. Another point is that John Chambers recently announced they may begin paying dividends soon.
code-named California
Wow, they're clever.
Advice: on VPS providers
All newcomers to enterprise servers and data center management will need to catch up quickly. the single most slant towards HP and IBM are the fact that they have their own " so called open" OS. HP/UX and IBM/AIX. Both also embrace Linux. IBM has also strongly supported Linux on their zVM mainframe platform. What else can drive hardware prices lower for an organization than buying everything from a single vendor? Go Cisco, Dell, etc...Need the competition.
Cisco used to be in the blade business. Some of us got to be guinea pigs with the ICS 7750. Then the abandoned us. How will this be different?
You can fit one of the latest bladeserver chassis from IBM,HP etc into about 12U or so of rack space. Inside that box you can combine a bunch of powerful servers, storage, multiple switched networks and I/O buses across mid planes, back planes, FC switches, etc. And some also make room for a disk array inside the same chassis. You can really call them "data centers in a box". This is not good for Cisco. HP/IBM, etc. will OEM Cisco I/O devices as part of the config options for their blade platforms. But in that scenario it doesn't say Cisco on the front of the box anymore. As blade centers proliferate Cisco becomes marginalized in this market.
I wouldn't be surprised if Cisco's blade platform ends up supporting blade servers from the other vendors. To me that makes more sense from Cisco's point of view. With blade platforms its not about the server - its about the infrastructure devices you plug into it along side all those thin little blades. Does Cisco really want to become a server vendor? I don't think so. Blade servers themselves are commodotizing rapidly. The most expensive parts are the special switches & other I/O devices that you add to it to convert it from a bunch of blade servers sharing a common power supply and cooling to a complete data center in a box. Cisco wants their name on that box. And maybe you'll see little IBM, HP, Dell etc. logos on the blades that are installed in them.
I hear you can run Infoblox on the Cisco NME cards, so now you can have DNS/DHCP running at remote sites with zero added footprint and central manageabiltiy!! Sweet!