I said Gravity not Gravy
If you took a high-level view across the small-but-growing converged infrastructure market, you’d think every offering was alike. One of the similarities would be “they all consist of some kind of network, storage and compute”. Scratch the surface and look deeper!
Vblocks are not just a collection of network, compute and storage because they can also be delivered readily containing applications, services like replication, management tools and of course the core infrastructure that powers the applications. We aim to do most of the work in the factory so quality and consistency are achieved.
VCE released, some time ago, their VDI FastPath solution. What this does is inject VMware View software in the factory, and the customer uses a portal to complete the install on delivery. So converged infrastructure when using FastPath Vblocks is applications AND infrastructure in one package.
VCE has sold so many Vblocks with RecoverPoint, such as those that provide SAP High Availability and Workload Mobility, that this previously “add-on” or “adjunct” capability is now available as part of the core offering when you compose your Vblock with a vArchitect. So converged infrastructure also contains data center services like replication.
I can almost hear people saying “but one size doesn’t fit all” and I would be the first to agree with you. But do you know what? One size seems to fit quite a lot of people with problems to solve, so the converged, single-purpose appliance has a real market. If you mix standards with the ability to programmatically customise a system (FastPath) then you serve quite a decent sized market.
Of course the real benefit here is you are doing something complex in a way that is better and cheaper and faster than any other method. The more you converge, the bigger the benefit.
Here’s a quick visual of the gravity concept…
Vblock Gravity
So if you think of a car metaphor to describe a Vblock, whereas the competitors provide a shell, various numbers and types of wheels (a FlexPod is rumoured to be yellow, have three wheels and make a lot of smoke), a Vblock can come fully kitted out, with leather seats, Bang & Olufsen sound system, and more besides.
Here’s a visual way to show the difference between a Vblock and something that, well, isn’t a Vblock:
A metaphor for a Vblock
A metaphor for non-Vblocks
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