Cisco's UCS still has improvements to make before making good on its "cloud in a box" marketing slogan, says StorageIO's Schulz. One of the largest gaps to be filled is the storage solution.
To that end, Cisco is likely to look to longtime partner -- and VMware parent company -- EMC Corp. to shore up its storage story. The two companies have already announced an expansion of their strategic alliance. With the launch of UCS, they'll focus on testing products for interoperability and on developing data center solutions and support offerings.
While acknowledging that EMC is the likely storage partner, StorageIO's Schulz believes the field is open. "The question is, whose storage can work well? Who else can and will be part of the Cisco ecosystem?" he asks.
"When those questions are answered, UCS has the potential to change the playing field," Schulz says. "Virtualization has done more than outgrown traditional IT architecture and deployment processes. It's also upset conventional thinking in the data center."
Current environments are often comfortable with the silos of server, storage and network control, and vendors have relied on those silos to nurture and protect relationships. But that thinking is becoming increasingly obsolete. In order to gain market share, UCS will need to gain an even greater share of mind. Cisco is repositioning itself as a virtual infrastructure management vendor, and, as such, will have to convince the industry that it's time for a pre-packaged cloud in a box. If it can't, the cloud could dissolve in a puff of wind.
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