A rebuttal: What if a plumber built your house
In HP's latest post filed under Trends in Blade Server infrastructure, HP contends that should one choose to commission plumber to build a custom house, the end result would be a very expensive showcase of the waterworks and little else.
Its safe to assume that HP is likening a company's data center to a custom home and going after Cisco's industry reputation as a network plumber whereupon they argue, Cisco is not who you'd want to be your builder. While Interesting, this analogy isn't a true representation of what a data center represents and actually bolsters Cisco's story. A custom house is purpose built to live in, often with the idiosyncrasies of the owner showcased. Its rigidity with the customization makes it hard and expensive to change and the very nature of custom homes is to ones liking, not necessarily for the use of many. This representation of a data center is from the early years, a lot has changed since then. Gone are the days where a data center houses a very expensive mainframe whose compute access is severely restricted and business is a function of extensive consulting for a custom solution whose viability is tested only when its complete.
Businesses move more quickly now and as such, the supporting infrastructure needs to aptly adapt. Software revisions for products are now weekly (or even nightly depending on the product), not quarterly or yearly. Customers and employees expect to be able to access their data from anywhere, anytime and on any device.
To employ a simple analogy, today's data center is like a water tower for a community of homes (custom homes for the sake of argument). Where water represents compute and storage and each homes represents a business function for a company. The water resource and accompanying infrastructure is supplied by the company to the homes for sustainability. The water tower doesn't just supply a single home, but has a vast network and thus needs to prioritize and be able to meet the changing demands in real time.
Previously, each home would have to dig their own well or water tower to maintain their supply. Which might mean one home whose utilization is less, may have an abundance, while another may be running dry. By collectively pooling the water, each home receives the exact amount needed and the company maximizes its resource investment.
This is akin to Cisco's Data Center Strategy. The network is more than just plumbing, it is the computer. Now who have you already trusted to lay the initial groundwork?
