Contemplating IT

It is interesting to watch the cycle of storage startups and compare that to ten years ago when we first starting hearing about EqualLogic, Compellent, Isilon, 3Par, BlueArc and LeftHand.  There were dozens of others that didn't quite make the grade.  A… more »

How do we top 2010 in the storage universe in the coming year? 3PAR and Isilon were the late-2010 big stories with their multi-billion dollar acquisitions. The battle in the storage arena is afoot and there is a great deal at stake. Storage is argu… more »

After many years of meeting with IT professionals and storage vendors, presenting in seminars and trade shows, and conducting research, it’s pretty clear to me that storage is still very confusing for users. It’s not really the complexity of the technol… more »

Updated August 23! HP jumps into the mix. Bottom line - HP sells a ton of storage in both the midrange and high-end environments. But the EVA is old in the tooth and they OEM their high-end from HDS. It will be interesting to see where each of these… more »

My first reaction when Cisco announced getting into the server business was - well let's just say I was a bit skeptical. First , Cisco UCS upsets the IT ecosystem, which is not necessarily a bad thing but it does have ramifications that need to be considered in terms of go-to-market, the impact to Cisco's channels and alliances, and of course it creates natural enemies that are big and powerful enough that even Cisco needs to be mindful of them - including Dell, HP and IBM. Certainly all three are already competitors on various levels but they also have alliances and must live together in the data center. But now Cisco is going after their bread and butter server business, which is a whole new ball game. more »