Today let’s talk about what I call as Cloud in a box.
Probably you realized that to build your virtual infrastructure you have to deal with a lot of stuff, servers, storage, network , softwares, etc…. everything needs to be certified to interact with each other.
VMware provides a Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) which you can use to search every component to make sure it’s certified.
But, let’s be honest it’s not an easy/fast take.
Also you have to be an expert on network, storage and hardware to make the right call.
May be if you are a small or medium company you don’t have the right guy on your staff.
Well, but you do want to enter into the virtualization/cloud world, everybody does!!
That’s where the big players getting in… IBM, DELL and VCE have their own solution. In general it’s a rack with everything you need, servers, storage, network, software, installed, connected, tested, certified, ready for use.
It’s the new plug-and-play for Cloud.
Of course IBM will use it’s own brand, VCE will use EMC storage and Cisco switches. Despite the price you can pick up the one of your preference.
The only common thing among them is that VMWARE vSphere is running behind the scenes for the provisioning. How cool is that ?
IBM has CloudBurst
VCE (witch is a join venture between VMWare, Ciscos and EMC) has vBlock
Dell has vStart
NetApp has Flexpod
CloudBurst
vBlock
vStart
FlexPod
But, that has been always my choice. Enjoy