Gregory Ness

The Real Time Infrastructure Ultimatum

Feyeleanor:

Thanks for the comment. I think as soon as an I2.0 solution is proven there will be a race to deploy. It will transform hte economics of hte data center and justify a new level of capital investments in computing technology. Those who have it will benefit, those who sell high opex gear will see increased margin pressures.

Thanks for your comment.
G

IT Needs to Innovate or Consumerize

Dan:

Great points. Now if today's CIO can see the power of mobility/flexibility and the network as the critical enabler they could avoid the Maginot effect (over investment in legacy architectures).

Thx
Greg

IT Needs to Innovate or Consumerize

BeachRider:

Great comment and input. Thank you.

Greg

Are Today's Networks Turning into Yesterday's Factories?

James:

Great point. The carriers certainly have their own issues as well. Some of the SPs have watched Google assault their yellow pages revenue streams and now opportunities to monetize services.

Thx
Greg

Infrastructure 2.0 Outlook: Timing Is Everything

I think there are at least two approaches. You invest in the service providers or htose who sell equipment/solutions to them. For service providers its a question of who can deliver "real" cloud services (versus the marketing hype). This in itself is a lively discussion on tech blogs/Twitter etc. For the suppliers of gear/solutions its a matter of who you think will deliver the best solutions (the cloud switches/meash/automat... and be designed in by the service providers.

It is very messy at this point placing bets on who will win. The point of this article was to suggest that a big shift is coming and there are a set of milestones that one could follow to help guide a strategy. I think that Cisco, Arista (privately held) and VMware are hte furthest along to delivering on the promise of I2.0, but they certainly don't have it wrapped up. Citrix has been complementing their legacy middleware expertise and base with some great acquisitions and has IMHO been building a solid ecosystem. Yet I think VMware has led when it comes to enterprise go to market. They were the first to embrace the power of virtualization security, even during the early stage one virtualization deployments; and IMHO they were also faster in building relationships with the network equipment/security leaders.

That being said, the fruit of those relationships has been long time coming. I attribute to the challenges "binding" virtual and physical infrastructure and engaging network teams. When that happens (and by whom) will be IMHO all that matters.

I'm not making investment advice... but rather offering a perspective on tech trends that could be game changers. One cannot rule out Microsoft or Amazon either... because of footprint (MSFT) and business model compatability (AMZN).

All opinion.

Greg


On Oct 15 11:29 AM mws wrote:

> Mr. Ness,
>
> May I ask what you perceive to be the best way to invest in this
> "groundbreaking" technology. Are you a proponent of the "Citrix Ready
> Open Networking Program" and its partners: Ankeena, Apere, Arista,
> Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, Joyent, Oracle, SoftLayer, Trend Micro
> and Vyatta?
>
> Thanks in advance for any insights you can give both myself and other
> readers.

On the Future of Networks and Moving Data Centers

Thanks Ryan and Mark!

G

On the Future of Networks and Moving Data Centers

User:

Thanks for the question. I didn't know the answer so I forwarded it to Mark Thiele wo did. Here is his answer:

"If we look at available disk technology today we'll see that spinning disk is reaching a plateau of capability. Size is great, but performance can't keep up. The impact of this trend in disk is that we will have enormous capacity, but potentially reduced performance with higher overhead. While in the SSD market the technology is still fairly new, and we can expect to see continued rapid improvements in size, performance and cost. I believe we can expect to see the application of Moore's Law to this new branch of technology in the storage family of products. Lastly SSD is generally more efficient from a power perspective, so we can expect to see a strong drive in this direction going forward."

Thanks!
Greg

On the Future of Networks and Moving Data Centers

Michael:

Good point. There are longer term fixed factors as well. Those factors would drive your initial selectoion of sites. Then there are short term fluctuations/changes that would drive movement. The fatsre you can react the better you perform over longer periods.

Thanks
Greg

Virtualization Demands Will Drive the Next Network Revolution

Jades:

You know... you should be paying me for these kinds of plugs tied to the column. :)

Greg

Cambrian Cloud Explosions Coming

Phil:

Or a mesh of data centers around the world...

Thx!
Greg

Virtualization Demands Will Drive the Next Network Revolution

Wisdom:

I think the network equipment vendors who focus on dumb pipes will face shrinking habitats and increased competition from the likes of Huawei and cloud providers. IMHO the second stage of virtualization will create more load requirements. The question would be the use of dumb versus smart beyond the enterprise network and the clouds.

G

Virtualization Demands Will Drive the Next Network Revolution

Dave:

I don't provide investment advice. Each of these companies has their own internal financial dynamics, etc which I don't track as I'm tech-foocused. I'm long VMW, SVVS, AMZN, SNDK and am watching CSCO as their UCS evolves. I'm not betting that they'll dominate but rather that as a set they'll have a disproportionate advantage based on their market positions and technology. I like SNDK because of the rise of flash memory; SVVS because of their cloud savvy and VMW because they seem to understand hte importance of the network and phase 2 virtualization. I think AMZN is also well positioned. Again, I'm looking at tech withj a 1-2 year horizon.

Thanks,
Greg

Virtualization Demands Will Drive the Next Network Revolution

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

Thx
Greg

Will Virtualization Undermine Network Equipment Vendors?

Leit:

That's certainly a fair comment. Although I do think that VMware has done more with the network vendors than hte others in terms of grappling with the network effects of virtualization. Point well taken.

Sincerely,
Greg

Will Virtualization Undermine Network Equipment Vendors?

Phil:

I wasn't saying that the comparison was based on an identical set of impacts, but rather that in both cases the demands on the network were underestimated. If you are in the virtualization-lite camp then you perhaps won't see material demands, except perhaps related to security and vmotion (I/O) within the vLAN. Some firewalls and ids solutions might require hairpins and extra processor cycles depending upon how they're deployed. With VoIP the network challenges were discussed openly in the press... Dow, City of Houston.

Thanks for the comment
Greg


On Aug 31 08:25 PM Phil Dewey wrote:

> Comparing VOIP's impact on the network to Virtualization is not valid.
> VOIP put new, real time stresses on the network. Virtualization removes
> them from the LAN and puts them potentially on the WAN. The idea
> that there will be a valid use case for moving a VM across a wide
> distance is goofy (much less a running VM). Data will move the, VMs
> will stay where they are. Taking advantage of cheaper compute resources
> elsewhere will mean getting a COPY of a VM to materialize at the
> lowest cost facility and the data there to use it.
> One won't move a VM but rather a description of it, a formula of
> how to construct it and the data it needs to do it's job.