Slashdot Mirror
Cisco Barges Into the Server Market
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."
I have to ask : why Nehalem EP Xeons? Those are the absolute bleeding edge chips that Intel manufactures, and as such as the most expensive by a significant margin. Newegg doesn't even have the chip listed on their website, yet carries 91 different server CPU models. While space inside the data center does cost money, and so does electricity, is it really so expensive as to be worth paying for a chip that is probably 10 times as expensive per MIP as cheaper alternatives? The motherboards are more expensive as well, especially when you factor in the huge markup for server grade parts.
The only advantage of the Nehalem is that it is SLIGHTLY faster per processing thread, but networking is usually an "embarassingly parallel" problem.
Not sure that Cisco is such a lone cash giant as suggested. Apple has $28 billion in reserves as of Jan 22, 2009. With the recent economic fiasco, both Cisco and Apple might be in different positions.
It has more than $30 billion in cash, more than any other tech company.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Cisco has been quietly working towards this for a while. You can get a server module for the lowly 1800 series router.
For large networks and satellite office, you have a server or 2, a phone system, network gear, maybe some video surveillance gear. They'll walk into the CIO's office and say:
"you have all this gear from different vendors, with different support contracts and different departments finger pointing when problems arise."
"Now here is the cisco way, one box, one department, one vendor to call. Stick it in a closet and forget about it. Let us show you all our management tools which show everything in a single pane of glass"
If they do it right, it'll make for a very slick demo.
This is their attempt to do the same in the datacenter.
Yes, at prices that will make high-end Server 2008 enterprise installs look cheap.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Yep. That's the Cisco I know and loath. If you can't convince the literate, just move up the org chart.
Years ago, at my institution (150+ buildings, about 15K active IP addresses,) we did a cost analysis of our Cisco addition and decided that it was unnecessary. We could do everything we needed with cheaper, commodity devices.
So, for the next couple years, all upgrades/replacements were to simpler structures. To non-proprietary protocols. And to non-Cisco equipment. We have been Cisco-Free for about 4 years.
The hardest part was beating off the attacks from Cisco Sales. These attacks were vicious. They lied (even more than usual for Cisco sales droids.) They tried their best to discredit us. First they approached the head of IT. Then the VP for Business. Then the president.
Finally, they went to the Board of Regents. They said we were incompetent. They said our actions were endangering the future of our institution. Fortunately, the Regents decided to let us try it.
It has worked out great for us. Our capability is up. Our reliability is way up. Our security is up. Our costs are down (about 1/2 the price of equivalent Cisco.)
But, it only happened because upper management was willing to trust us. I get the impression that most management would fold under the pressure we saw.
Miles
At the small ISP I worked at, we pretty much bought into Cisco for several years. We had an AS5200 PRI for our full 56k PRI lines, and a 3000 series model (can't recall which one) as our gateway router. This worked fine until we started rolling out some more advanced networking, such as proprietary 900mhz and 2.4ghz wireless. Suddenly we were faced with either having to upgrade this equipment (some of it not so young), and the costs were not insignificant.
I asked my boss to give me a couple of weeks to see what I could put together with some of our old Pentium II boxes. Now I fully realize that software routing just isn't as good as Cisco's hardware routing, but damn it all, the price was cheap. Even buying new mini-ATX boxes for up on the towers was considerably cheaper than anything Cisco would offer. Whatever performance boost we'd get from Cisco hardware (or Nortel or whatever) simply couldn't justify the vast difference in pricing.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Cisco might have a good shot at this. Project California might look appetizing to a lot of IT departments. Virtualization and consolidation is on the agenda for a lot of datacenters at the moment. All of these functions in one box, in one rack, AND easily manageable would appeal to a lot of CIOs. Deal with one vender instead of three - and a reputable vendor at that. Knowing Cisco, it will most likely be a bit pricey. But hey, no one ever got fired for buying Cisco right? On the other hand, a lot of people have been fired for blowing the budget.
This is very true. I am currently evaluating a forklift upgrade of one of my POPs, and we're looking at the Cisco vs. Juniper proposition.
While I'm a VP level operational head at an ISP, the Cisco rep told me straight out that he doesn't typically engage technical people like me when he comes in. He typically talks to the C level people, and it shows, because he's not keeping up with the Juniper rep. The Juniper team has already put me in front of many technical product development people, and the depth of the conversations have been truly refreshing. I'm feeling more and more comfortable with going Juniper as the days go by.
OK. My bias up front - I work for Sun.
That said, there were several pre-Cisco-announcements from HP, IBM, and Sun about how the California system is a no-go. Admittedly, they're the competitors for Cisco, but after having looked at the existing rack blade/switch systems from those three vendors, I really don't see any difference worth mentioning from current product lines.
Here's some thoughts:
Overall, this looks like a stupid move. I realize that Cisco needs to look for more revenue streams in the face of the commoditizing of most network gear, but this seems like an '80s solution to a 2010 problem.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
We bought one of these at work and spent WAY too much money on it. I can't even begin to tell you how much this system sucks ass and was a HUGE waste of money.
There is exceedingly fat margins in storage, *even* by cisco standards, and that's a high benchmark. The SAN market is a vendors dream, where nickel and diming every little feature and even every little port on every switch is the status quo, except the nickles and dimes are more like 5 and 10 thousand dollars.
As far as technical reasons, they are mostly not there. One exception is that Cisco is pushing to replace FC with Ethernet, presumably with the promise of an escape from the painful FC market practices. Though assuredly they will bring some of the market behaviors over, they will make it somewhat easier to make the sale. They tried to just release a product into that market against the likes of Brocade and QLogic, but I think Cisco has realized their only substantial chance to stay vital is to suck in storage infrastructure into their fabric they have some reputation in, ethernet.
People are already starting more and more to consider other vendors 'good enough' for traditional networking needs. Cisco wants to own the whole mess so that people will be more afraid to move off.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.