Appropriately called HP Flexible Data Center or Flex DC, as I have seen it referred to, it leverages a modular design of what HP refers to as a “Butterfly,” with a core building in the center and four quadrants of data center space. Scale is achieved by adding quadrants or creating multiple “Butterflies,” essentially creating a campus of data centers. HP claims significant cost savings and a turn time of less than a year. Not too bad when you consider these are real brick and mortar data centers and not containers or pods. Will be interesting to see if this is the approach HP will take with its ES (EDS) data center consolidation effort and how customers respond to this standardized approach. Would be great to hear from any customers that are going down this path.

The federal government is now catching on as well and recently (June 10, 2010) President Obama wrote a memo titled “Disposing of Unneeded Federal Real Estate” which called for a moratorium on new data centers and urged that consolidation plans commence almost immediately. The memo reads,

In addition, in order to address the growth of data centers across the Federal Government, agencies shall immediately adopt a policy against expanding data centers beyond current levels, and shall develop plans to consolidate and significantly reduce data centers within 5 years.  Agencies shall submit their plans to OMB for review by August 30, 2010.

The complete memo can be found here.

The Obama administration has also been a vocal supporter of  “cloud” computing as well. While many of the large, private enterprises that have embarked on consolidation strategies have retained control, others are looking to outsource their data center or leverage software-as-a-service (SaaS) models. Indeed, the EDS consolidation effort is specifically targeted at enabling more efficient and flexible computing options and ESG research indicates that those organizations that are focused on consolidating data centers are almost twice as likely to be exploring outsourced IT or SaaS models. This should be good news for those selling to the federal market and services organizations with substantial IT outsource businesses.

This should also play into any future “cloud” strategy that the HP Enterprise Services (ES) may be planning to deliver. Early on, the former EDS team stated that they didn’t know what the HP cloud strategy would be, but it would be hosted in one of its 180 data centers. I expect that the number of data centers will dramatically decrease, but the level of service will increase, even if they are only half as successful as the first initiative.

HP has a history of infusing software into services to help drive automation and so I expect that this effort of consolidating and automating data centers will be a showcase of HP technology wrapped in and managed by HP software. I look forward to hearing about the progress of this project and eventually the end results.

A couple of areas that tend to be overlooked are 1. employees and 2. partners and suppliers. Does your organization’s BC/DR plan include procedures for employees? Perhaps the recent threat of the Swine Flu or its politically correct H1N1 name have prompted organizations to take a closer look at the workforce and identify those personnel responsible for mission critical functions.  Some have taken steps to ensure that these employees could continue to do their jobs–even if forced to work from remote locations for long periods of time.  But what about an organization’s partners and suppliers–how well are they protected and how fast could they recover? How would you find out? In either case,  finding out this information could result in quite lengthy and manual processes.  Wouldn’t be fun the first time you did it and probably wouldn’t get much easier every time after that.

I recently talked with SunGard about some new software modules from their Continuity Management Solutions that are specifically designed to address these needs. Their Vendor and Workforce Assessment modules will allow organizations to quickly create online surveys that can be deployed to all employees and vendors via e-mail. Results are collected and provide insight into gaps that exist and need to be corrected. Examples of these gaps include an employee that doesn’t have a laptop and can’t work from home during severe weather or a supplier that has inadequate protection plans that could jeopardize your organization’s ability to deliver goods or services. Once set up, it could be done on an annual basis to ensure accuracy and that the proper remediation has taken place. Or it can identify a continued weak link in your supply chain that needs to be replaced.

If your organization doesn’t know how well your partners are protected, you may want to consider checking out this software–which can also be consumed via software as a service.

That’s where the cloud comes in. Okay, it doesn’t really have to be the cloud, it could just be software delivered as a service or even a remote managed service, but that wouldn’t make a catchy blog title. Let’s face it, nobody wants to be an SRM expert–they just want to be able to leverage the information the solutions provide to make the appropriate decisions for the business. That’s why resource management delivered as a service makes sense. Organizations can reap the benefits and get the most out of the software without having dedicated resources. Plus, it can be consumed for a low monthly fee.

The bad news is that most legacy software programs were not designed to be delivered as a service. The  good news is that a lot of new and innovative providers are more than willing to fill the void. In many cases, these solutions are delivered by distributors, VARs, and system integrators–you just need to ask which delivery options are available.

So while the future of resource management may be cloudy, the benefits of this model should be very clear. The right information at the right time to make the right decision–how could it go wrong?

Over the last 6 to 9 months we have witnessed a long run of vendor certifications for FCoE products from Brocade, Cisco, Emulex and QLogic. Good luck keeping score, but the general landscape looks like this:  QLogic has the most FCoE design wins for CNAs and Emulex is leading with Ethernet wins on its UCNA–however, they did just get a recent FCoE design win at HP. Brocade and Cisco have switches certified, not to mention Cisco’s Unified Computing Platform that is based on FCoE.  We believed that 2009 would be the year of FCoE certifications (they are still going strong entering Q2), 2010 would be the year testing and pilots and 2011 would see significant FCoE deployment.

Are there factors that could short circuit that? Sure, especially as capital budgets open up a little more and organizations are looking to reduce operational costs, improve cycle time and mitigate risks as our 2010 IT spending survey indicated. Take top of the rack environments – Why would you continue to deploy multiple Ethernet switches and multiple Fibre Channel switches when you can deploy a converged switch that utilizes fewer cables and only one console? Nothing mythical about it – just common sense really. Even if the initial deployments may require a little higher capital expense, it’s really the operational expense that IT is trying to reduce. So reducing the number of people to bring a server on line, reduce the time required to provision services and have the flexibility to throttle bandwidth as required all seems to make a lot of sense. Cisco is delivering an on ramp to FCoE on a silver platter with the UCS that is based on FCoE. With hundreds of units already in the field, it is proof that the technology works.

You may ask why do we need FCoE?  Why not just go to a single ethernet-based network?  The answer really depends on your environment. FCoE wasn’t developed to be an end-all-be-all protocol – it was designed to help organizations gracefully migrate from FC to Ethernet -EVENTUALLY. There is a lot of FC out there and it is not going away anytime soon.  In fact I just spoke to a Data Center Manager from a global company that stated his organization was supporting all of  its new virtualized server environment with FC SANs. Why? It’s never let him down. FCoE delivers on what I refer to as the “principle of least astonishment.”  The FC teams get an introduction to Ethernet, but still use familiar tools–for example,  Cisco combined its IOS and SANOS to build its NX-OS, Emulex has OneCommand that controls NICs, FC and FCoE ports.

Leveraging FCoE enables organizations to converge top of rack networks and maximize the use of existing FC assets. It enables FC to leverage the ethernet roadmap and reduces the number of cables, cards and switches. Again, why would you buy two networks when all you need is one?

Based on the results of ESG’s 2010 IT Spending Intentions Survey, this announcement is well timed as the QLogic enabled solution should resonate with end-users as they execute against their top IT and data storage priorities of 2010. According to ESG’s survey, the number one IT priority for 2010 is to increase the use of server virtualization technology.  In order to realize the advanced functionality and provide the most benefit to the business, the virtualized server environments need to be supported by a networked storage environment. This mutually beneficial relationship is also clearly illustrated in our research as well. In fact, the number one data storage priority for 2010 is purchasing new SAN storage systems.

This  technology combination was already proven last year with the HP StorageWorks 8/20 FC switch(QLogic entry level) and has now evolved to include the SN6000 to satisfy larger, more demanding environments. These enterprise-class stackable switches can scale to hundreds of ports and support HA environments. The use of HP’s SSCM should make it easier to install, grow, and manage  HP SAN solutions as it will not require an experienced SAN architect.

HP still has some work to do; stackable switching solutions are well known in the ethernet space, but their advantages may not be as well understood in the storage space. HP will need to invest in educating the market about the benefits of its SN6000 solutions. Also if HP is going to target large enterprises, they may want to consider adding the XP array to SSCM supported matrix.

It appears the changing vendor landscape may have provided QLogic with an opportunity to increase its market share in the FC switch space and the company is taking advantage of it. Its focus on aligning  with OEMs and not competing with them may prove to be beneficial–and detrimental to Brocade and Cisco.

Bottom line: this HP solution should be appealing to organizations looking to build-out virtualized server environments supported by scalable 8 Gb FC SAN solutions without the cost and complexity normally associated with FC SANs. Organizations of any size should welcome reduced costs, non-disruptive scaling, and the ability to quickly and easily create or augment an environment without having to burden skilled storage architects. HP is definitely on the right track with its thinking and, based on ESG’s research, should be well positioned to take advantage of growing virtualized server and SAN markets with its QLogic enabled solutions.

For more information, please read the ESG brief on this announcement.

Staples already has a great brand and reputation in the industry and probably already has some type of contract with, or does business with, a large portion of SMBs so this extension to offer additional services seems like a natural progression. I anticipate that most customers will at least to them and consider this offering.  As long as the offering isn’t “high touch”–something that the business considers too important to outsource–many will consider it. Also, given that many organizations responded to last year’s economic situation by reducing staff, those same organizations may now require assistance to upgrade or maintain their IT environment. The Staples services are not internally developed ”geek squads” on steroids, but rather the division is made up of several companies it acquired–each with defined and mature processes, methodologies, and a strong history of execution. Now they have the backing and support of a major organization like Staples to stand behind them.

Given that the US Census information indicates there are almost one million (993,000) companies with 20 to 499 employees and over 6 million companies with fewer than 20 employees, the opportunity is enormous. How much Staples is able to capture depends on how well it leverages its brand and executes.

This move is the latest in a long series of acquisitions of SRM and other infrastructure management companies over the last couple of years (Quest acq. Monosphere, NetApp acq. Onaro,  EMC acq. nlayers, configuresoft etc., IBM acq. Novus, HP acq. Opsware, AppIQ,  etc.) to enable companies to deliver end-to-end management solutions.

Tek-Tools has a solid product and a loyal customer base, so this acquisition will also provide a receptive install base to up sell SolarWinds products. Ultimately though, the degree of success (or failure) of this acquisition will be judged by SolarWinds’ ability to tightly integrate the two companies’ offerings together to deliver a single pane of glass to monitor an end-to-end application to storage environment.

One of the biggest barriers to entry in the storage networking space is vendor certification. Emulex and QLogic have longstanding relationships with major OEM partners, millions invested in testing and interoperability labs, and it still takes  quite a while to get through the “certification” testing. Brocade is realizing how hard and long it takes with their CNAs and they already have the partnerships and labs in place for their FC switch, director and backbone products. What kind of effort is Broadcom facing?

It is not uncommon for an OEM server or storage vendor to only “certify” one CNA for a product, perhaps two. It is simply a function of time, resources and money. The big question is whether OEM vendors will want to repeat the process for 3 or more CNA cards? The past year has seen numerous FCoE “certifications” and QLogic captured the lion’s share, followed by Emulex and Brocade. While significant adoption may not get started until 2011, next year will the time to kick the tires for FCoE and if you don’t have a ”certified” product available to evaluate it could be a difficult road.  In order to be adopted into these mission critical environments, it needs to be a proven solution and supported by a trusted vendor.

In addition, FCoE is touted as a graceful way to migrate from FCoE to Ethernet (eventually). This means that the target install base will already have an existing FC environment – most likely supported by either Emulex or QLogic technology. Broadcom is going to need to justify why its solution is worth having multiple  management consoles for the server adapters.  ESG research indicates that customers’ number one spending priority is to reduce operating costs. If a user is going to bring in another vendor and management tool, it better have a very compelling ROI.