California here we come, right back where we started from

If you have read the framework report we published earlier this year titled “Introducing Anywhere IT” you could interpret the long term evolution of computing to be returning us to a desktop delivery environment similar to what we had with the mainframe.  This interpretation would be correct except instead of delivering raw text on “green” terminals we’re delivering rich media, web applications and communications services to a variety of end points over any kind of connectivity.

One of the points we made in the report is that, in order to get to Anywhere IT there must be a tighter coupling between the network and compute layers to allow for virtual resources to be managed better.  Without this coupling across layers, moving virtual resources could render the application useless since some of the resources may not be available or configured correctly for resource migration.  So this raises the question, how does this happen?

Today, Cisco finally announced its long awaited ‘California’ system.  The Unified Computing System, what Cisco is calling their new product, is comprised of network infrastructure, blade servers and management software to manage the resources on the system.  Unified Computing System is the first of what we expect to be many products from vendors in the compute or network markets that will address this trend. 

As we indicated in the “Introducing Anywhere IT report”, this transformation will reshape the vendor landscape and create opportunity for everyone.  Unified Computing System moves Cisco into an adjacent market where it never had an opportunity before-compute infrastructure.  Of course, it allows compute vendors to legitimately move into the network market as well and we fully expect to see HP announce its own version of ‘California’ within six months.  Additionally, storage networking specialist Brocade bought best of breed network vendor Foundry to address this fast approaching trend.  IBM appears to be aligning itself with a handful of network vendors including Juniper, Force10 and Foundry and will undoubtedly make its play before years end as well (although Juniper alluded to an IBM partnership at its analyst conference with its “Stratus” initiative).

So California is finally here to take us back to where we were.  In the meantime we’re expecting it to be quite a year as we watch the compute and network landscape transform before our very eyes.

To understand our thoughts on who we’re expecting the winners and losers will be, check out our upcoming focus report on this product announcement.