I wanted to address some confusion that I keep hearing regarding the targeted workload for Vblocks or any other modular/ pod concept from HP, IBM or Dell in the enterprise data center. The goal of these platforms is to target existing and new x86 workloads that run on Windows and Linux. The graphic below shows ESG research detailing the OS breakdown in the enterprise (companies with over 1,000 employees).

As companies target virtualization as the migration path for  x86 workloads they need some hardware to run it on. Sure, they can run out and buy all the individual pieces and some will just as I did years ago when I went to a computer fair and purchased individual graphics card, serial port adapter, hard drive, floppy drive and mother board and went home and crossed my fingers that it would work. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Now VMware, EMC, Cisco, HP, IBM and Dell all want to make the purchase, implementation and transition to the platform easier by delivering a complete solution rather than the individual components. They (mostly VMware) also want companies to accelerate the transition of mission critical applications to the virtualized platform.

Related posts:

1. Cisco, EMC and VMware Round Up
2. IT Industry Finally Responds: Cisco and Citrix Demonstrate Value of Converged Infrastructure
3. VMware’s Risk with Cisco and EMC
4. Acadia, Cisco, EMC, VMware: Vblock Top Three Questions
5. Cisco, EMC, and VMware… Acadia?

Tags: Cisco, Dell, EMC, HP, IBM, Vblock, VMware