Their Version of "Integrated"

So, innovation comes in many forms. You hear me use this space to talk about all sorts of cool new products and technologies, but, sometimes, innovation manifests itself in other ways. One of the points we have always maintained about the Cisco UCS is that it was a clean-sheet design, driven by fresh thinking on what the convergence of network and compute infrastructure should look like. One result of this is that, with UCS, we have a completely new approach to management and operations--almost shocking in its simplicity. While I could wax rhapsodic about this for the next few hundred words, I thought its a story better told by others.

The first story came to me via Michael Heil, aka HeathITGuy. Michael has written numerous times about his positive experiences with the Cisco UCS. Recently, he related the story of adding a chassis to his existing system. Now, bear in mind, I had heard stories that doing this with some of the other “integrated systems” out there actually involves a professional services engagement. In Michael’s case, he gave the job to Jason, someone who joined his team all of a month ago. Michael helped Jason rack the new chassis, but beyond that, Jason was able to do the rest of the turn-up by himself--took all of 27 minutes.

Lest you think that’s a fluke, check out this video by Tjerk Bijlsma and his buddies in Amsterdam:
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Tags: Data Center Business Advantage, simple, UCS, unified computing system

A couple of recent media stories suggested that Cisco is “giving away” Unified Computing System trial units in order to accelerate our growth in the data center market.

We wanted to take a moment to let you know these allegations are completely incorrect.

Of the almost 4,000 customers that Cisco has amassed in just eighteen months since we started shipping UCS, every single one is a paying customer.

It is true that many companies have taken advantage of Cisco’s demo loan program, which allows customers to trial UCS for free, but all loaned evaluation units must be returned or bought.

We have never given away UCS equipment– it is loaned, and then must be returned. Also, no loaned units are counted in Cisco’s revenue reporting, only units that have been purchased.

While we’re focused on the facts, I would like to confirm that sales of Cisco’s UCS (introduced just 18 months ago) were up 700 percent last quarter (Q2 FY11) and are on pace to hit $650 million this year!

Tags: Data Center Business Advantage, UCS, unified computing system

So I go traveling for a few weeks and suddenly, it seems, everyone’s talking about moving “beyond silos”.  This is a subject near and dear to my heart, but I’m also a pragmatist. Many prescient sages have been warning for years of impending organizational shifts in IT—“Be prepared, or be doomed! Conquer your fear!” is the executive summary of many an article.  This is easier said than done, of course. What’s often left out is the “how” of leading an organization through such a transition, perhaps because until recently there were few case studies from which the prognosticators could glean best practices.

So here are a few considerations, and some examples of how to address them.

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Tags: Cisco, CITEIS, IT, silo busting, UCS, unified computing system, VMware

I’ve been watching with some interest how reporting on UCS Express has played out in the wake of our latest Borderless Networks initiative.  The original Integrated Services Router launch was the first I participated in when I joined Cisco back in 2004, so it’s fun to have things come full circle.

Because I think history is a great way to get a perspective on the present, here’s a quick look at how we introduced the ISR in 2004:

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Tags: branch office, data center, integrated services router, ISR, UCS, UCS Express, unified computing, unified computing system

A picture really is worth a thousand words. I found this out many times over doing booth duty at IDF and then Oracle Open World recently. We had the UCS Manager Platform Emulator running at IDF, but not at OOW, and being able to actually show people the flexibility, breadth and depth of control you get with the UCS approach to management made a notable difference in the tenor and seriousness of the conversations.

You can download the Platform Emulator from the Cisco Developer Network (CDN) and play with it to get a feel for how UCS Manager is organized. But I wanted to give a nod to the valuable public service provided by Kevin Houston over at BladesMadeSimple: he’s created a YouTube video using the Platform Emulator that walks you through the information and tools available to the administrator(s) in UCS Manager, including the creation of service profiles, templates and pools.  It’s definitely long, but thanks to the soundtrack I found myself wanting to samba as I watched (not that I have the slightest idea how to samba; fortunately nobody was around).  Simply put, it may well be the coolest 15-minute tech video you’ll see all week.

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Tags: blade server, service profile, system management, UCS, unified computing, unified computing system