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Step 1: Admit that IT complexity is making life unmanageable

Published 21 February 2008, 04:02 PM

- by Robin Hensley

We in the IT industry are to blame for building complexity into solutions. There I have said it. Hi, my name is Robin Hensley and I am a recovering complexity junkie. I feel better now as I'm told that taking the first step to recovery is acknowledgement.

I have spent years focusing on individual solution parts (PC's, workstations, servers, storage, networking, software) and looking at each part separately. No longer, the future for both SMB and Enterprise customers is an infrastructure focus with integrated hardware components linked by intelligent, easy to use software. Like anyone who is on a path to recovery I feel the need to tell everyone else about my epiphany. The problem is not everyone else wants to listen. I've discovered I’m not the only complexity junkie. IT vendors and customers alike have engineered complexity into all levels of the infrastructure. And then I found Blades. Blades are not the only way to simplify IT but it is easier for people to grasp the benefits when the whole architecture is designed to eliminate complexity from the start. For smaller IT environments it is easier to think of the entire infrastructure using a "data center in a box" approach.

The HP BladeSystem c3000 enclosure provides an integrated environment for servers, storage and infrastructure. Need 1TB of shared storage? Simply plug in the SB600c All-in-One Storage Blade. No new cabling, no new power infrastructure and it’s as easy to set up and manage as your TiVO. If your email, accounting, customer tracking and even streaming video from your video surveillance system is growing over 1TB, you can expand the storage to 36TB using an external All-in-One Storage System or Modular Storage Array (MSA) with your choice of standard Ethernet cables or faster Fibre Channel connections. Need a more flexible Server and large scale SAN environment? Use HP Virtual Connect to cut down on administration headaches.

On the twelve step IT complexity junkie recovery program, I'm on the path and taking steps to mend my ways. The HP BladeSystem solutions for SMB and Enterprise customers is one step closer to full recovery and I want the world to know because it can lead you on the path to recovery too.

Posted By warrensander | 2 Comments | Trackbacks | Permalink


Comments

Robin, I agree with your points about complexity - however in my experience blades still present sysadmins with a wealth of issues. you can't hide the complexity completely. When things go wrong, or when components don't function as expected, then you still need to understand what's inside the box / chassis. for example, each blade still comes with different embedded NICs for the blade vs the mezzanine cards. Downstream this creates tremendous issues when trying to find the correct HP bundled driver to cover both embedded components. Some driver releases don't work with VLAN tagging; others won't work with the mezzanine card. don't take this the wrong way - VC is a great idea & I can really see the benefits. However for a full test/integration this starts to become very expensive to set up & test. We're relying on HP to do this for us, & at times the necessary information is very hard to find. cheers, Dave
# Monday, March 31, 2008 06:36 PM by davecottle
You are right that data center maintenance is complex and requires rigid adherence to maintenance processes. At HP, we are working to make maintenance easier. For HP BladeSystem you can use HP Version Control shipped as a part of The Blade Insight Control Software package. It provides baseline driver sets from HP and allows customers to set up their own baselines to ensure the correct drivers are loaded for a given configuration and also monitors drivers to check for new revisions or deviations to the established baseline. Insight Control Software combined with the Onboard administrator are consolidated management tools that help take the cost and complexity out of managing HP BladeSystem. This is only a partial response to the challenges that you have outlined. We continue to work to make the systems easier, faster and cheaper to maintain. Thank you, Robin
# Monday, April 14, 2008 12:08 AM by Brad Parks

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