The server war is on. Cisco Systems CTO Padmasree Warrior says two-thirds of enterprises expect to embrace Cisco servers (um, unified computing system…) within the next two to three years, according to a Goldman Sachs report. Sounds impressive. Or is it?
First, let’s keep the Goldman Sachs data point in perspective. It’s a pretty broad, generic statement. If The VAR Guy was a CIO, he’d surely purchase a few Cisco servers in the next year or two — just to give them a test and see how the Cisco architecture compares to the established server market offerings. But buying a few Cisco servers isn’t the same as moving an entire enterprise to Cisco servers.
Overall, it sounds like Goldman Sachs is signaling CIO willingness to welcome Cisco unified computing systems into data centers. But The VAR Guy hasn’t read the Goldman Sachs report. Was it sponsored by Cisco? Are there deeper data points that show CIOs are ready to spend heavily on Cisco’s servers and data center virtualization strategy? The VAR Guy needs to do some homework to answer those questions.
Driving New Sales
Either way, Cisco isn’t resting on its laurels. As part of a data center virtualization strategy, Cisco announced today:
- An expansion of the Value Incentive Program (VIP) to include all of Cisco’s data center technologies.
- A new Data Center Channel Solutions Program, which seeks to help Cisco partners more aggressively deliver certified solutions that also include components from EMC, Microsoft, NetApp, Red Hat and VMware.
- An Authorized Partner Program for Unified Computing C-Series Rack Mount Servers. Translation: It sounds like Cisco increasing the number of partners enabled to resell servers.
- Side note: The Cisco Advanced Data Center Network Infrastructure Specialization (DCNI) is the fastest-growing specialization in Cisco’s history.
Full disclosure: The bullet points above are nearly word-for-word from Cisco. We’ll see if those bullets drive success for Cisco’s data center virtualization, unified computing system and server initiatives.
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Cisco also announced rack servers as part of today’s server push. The VAR Guy mentioned them briefly (the C-Series Rack Mount Servers) in the post above. Our resident blogger may add some more server thoughts later today.
The data center market really is coming down to IBM, HP, Cisco and a handful of other players like netapp. Our customers don’t yet understand UCS but they have been reading about cisco’s server strategy in the business press. They know the servers are coming and they’re asking about the servers and how we plan to support them. I guess my point is I think the Goldman report sounds a bit too conservative. We think all of our customers will try and eventually buy into UCS over the next two or three years. They’ll start small but they will most definitely start. Cisco is normally considered a high priced vendor but if you look at the scalability/price/performance of UCS I think Cisco has build a compelling argument for its architecture.