Vce vs Ibm Topline Strategy

8/12/2019 Vce vs Ibm Topline Strategy

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Business innovation begins with IT.

Whether it is a banking executive who wants to offer customers the ability to deposit checks using nothing

but a picture from a smart phone, or a hospital system administrator who wants to transform how the

organization schedules patients, business leaders look to IT to turn ideas into realityand they want it done

in weeks or months.

The powers of virtualization and, increasingly, cloud computing have been central to making innovation at

this accelerated pace possible. IT professionals can now spin up new logical servers in minutes rather thanthe weeks or months it used to take to physically deploy new hardware.

All this means that data centers have achieved a level of unparalleled utility and functionality but at

the same time these technologies have created an age of unprecedented complexity. Even without

virtualization, ITs administrative burden has been growing

rapidly. Every few months there are new generations of hardware

of ever-increasing sophistication that need to be configured and

deployed. Virtualization multiplies this burden exponentially. On

top of configuring each component, each virtual machine must

be provisioned with storage, compute power and networking.

The result: over the last 10 years, while server hardware costshave actually declined, virtualization led to the number of logical

servers quadrupling and administrative costs tripling.1

It has now reached the point that administrative costs are

crowding out innovation. According to a 2011 IDC study, just

keeping the lights on (system planning, deploying, maintaining)

takes up 77% of ITs budget while only 23% goes to supporting

business innovation.

Originally, many IT professionals expected that moving to a

shared x86 infrastructure would be the solution to their administration problem. In theory this shouldsimplify IT management. Yet IT professionals have found that if they merely take the traditional paradigm

of building custom installations consisting of siloed pools of compute, network and storage and apply it

to virtual systems, their administrative load does not decrease. They are still plagued by the need to design,

assemble, configure, optimize, test, patch, support and upgrade each component individually.

However, there is an opportunity to fix this problem.

Converged Infrastructure Systems Comparative Assessment:

VCE Vblock Systems and IBM PureSystems

Introduction

1 IDC White Paper. Converging the Datacenter Infrastructure: Why, How, So What? May 2012

August 2013

T o p l i n e S t r a t e g y G r o u p

The Administrative Burden of Keeping

the Lights On Uses 77% of IT Resources

23%

30%

24%

23%

Innovation

Monitoring &Maintenance

Deployment

Pre-SystemsDeployment

Keeping

the

Lights On

77%

IT

E

x

p

e

n

d

itu

re

s


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Converged Infrastructure Simplifies Infrastructure Management,

Dramatically Reducing the Administrative Cost to Just Keep the Lights On

AreaCustomized Integration In the Field

(Do-It-Yourself or Integrator-Built)

Converged System:

Vendor-Delivered Standardized System

Design

Custom implementations consisting of separate pools

for compute, network and storage, are designed forindividual environments and for deployment by IT

staff and vendor services.

The system is engineered by the vendor as a single

integrated pool for optimal performance, scalability,and availability and configured to meet customers

unique needs.

Deploy

The system is delivered as components to the datacenter where it is physically and logically configured

on site by vendor services and/or IT staff.

The complete system is manufactured and logically

configured at the factory using standardized processes.

Maintain

Patches for each component must be thoroughly

tested by IT staff against the custom installation toensure compatibility.

Patches are preselected, pretested, and prepackagedby the vendor for interoperability and compatibility

with installed configurations, and are ready forimmediate non-disruptive deployment.

UpgradeExpanding capacity requires careful testing of newer

versions of components by the IT department.

Newer versions of components are preselected,pretested and certified for interoperability and

design integrity and are ready for immediatenon-disruptive deployment.

Support

Vendors silo-based support organizations specialize inindividual components and place the burden on IT of

overall problem resolution and mediating finger pointingamong vendors or among a vendors product divisions.

There is a single point of ownership that is expertin all aspects of the system. All deployed system

configurations are fully supported to accelerateproblem resolution.

Evolve

The process starts over from scratch at the designphase, relying on IT or service providers. Migration also

requires customized services.

Vendor engineers next generation system leveraging

latest advances from each component whileproviding a migration path that interlocks roadmapsfrom each component.

The Solution: Infrastructure as a Fully Integrated Vendor-Delivered SystemThe answer lies in purchasing infrastructure as fully integrated, vendor-delivered systems instead of do-it-yourself, customized installations in the field. This is where converged infrastructure (CI) systems comein. These systems greatly reduce the administrative burden on IT managers by completely changinghow systems are managed throughout their lifecycle, so that IT professionals can be free of mundaneadministrative tasks and instead focus on implementing innovation.

Converged infrastructure takes compute, network and storage components and integrates them into a

single, cohesive pool that is engineered, manufactured and supported by the vendor as a unified system.Furthermore, the entire system is maintained, supported and upgraded by the vendor throughout thesystems entire lifecycle.

The following table details the difference between conventional, do-it-yourself installations and vendor-delivered converged infrastructure systems at each stage of the system lifecycle. As the table illustrates, byproviding a standardized, vendor-delivered system, converged infrastructure providers take on many of the

administrative tasks that had historically been performed by IT, freeing up resources for innovation.

Early Success Spurs ImitatorsConverged infrastructure systems first came on the market in late 2009 and met with immediate success.IT departments that had been burdened with increasing administrative costs quickly saw that workingwith a system that could be maintained and upgraded as a whole, not a customized collection ofcomponents, reduced the administrative load, accelerated the deployment of new capabilities, and freed

up resources for innovation.


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2 This study was funded by VCE

3 http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/cisco-achieves-2-worldwide-in-the-x86-blade-server-market/

The success of these early converged infrastructure deploymentscoupled with increasing demand for converged infrastructuresystems by customers attracted additional players. The marketis now fast-moving and filled with vendors with very similar

marketing messages.

But despite the similar marketing messages, not all convergedinfrastructure offerings are created equal. The key question for

IT is: how far does the vendor truly go toward delivering onthe promise of a vendor-delivered and supported system vs.providing systems that are simply assemblages of componentswhere each deployment is a custom installation?

In the remainder of this paper, we will compare two convergedsystems: IBM PureSystems and VCE Vblock Systems (Vblock). Wewill evaluate them on how well they deliver on the promise oftransforming IT infrastructure into a vendor-delivered systemthat lowers the administrative burden, thereby freeing resourcesup for innovation.2

About VCE:VCE is a joint venture formed in November 2009 by EMC, Cisco and VMware, with investment from Intel.

The company brought together IT infrastructure from the three industry leaders and sought to deliver it tocustomers as a single entity through the newly-created VCE. VCE introduced the first Vblock in 2010 and hassince expanded its portfolio significantly.

Product Portfolio

VCE offers 4 general purpose Vblock series (100, 200, 300 and 700) as well as several models within eachseries. Each series and model is designed to meet different price, performance and scalability needs. Thecompany also offers a specialized system for SAP HANA.

ComponentsAll Vblocks are built on a standardized infrastructure that uses best-in-class components as follows:

Compute and Network: Vblocks compute component is based on Ciscos UCS product line, and itsnetwork component is based on Cisco Nexus and MDS switches. Released in 2009, Cisco UCS and Nexuswere designed from the ground up for virtualization and feature innovations such as unified fabric,embedded management, and policy computing that distinguish them from the competition. Cisco haslong been the dominant networking vendor and in less than 4 years, it has grown to the #2 position inthe US blade server market from scratch according to IDC.3

Storage: All Vblocks use storage from EMC, the leading provider of storage with over a 40% share.Each Vblock series uses the EMC product that matches its target price, performance and scalability

parameters, with the top of the line 700 series using enterprise-class VMAX storage, the 200 and 300using the mid-tier VNX product, and the 100 using the more affordable VNXe.

Virtualization: VMware ESX is included in the solution package and supported by VCE. VMware is theleader in virtualization with 82% market share.

Management:As part of its package VCE offers its Vision Intelligent Operations software (VCE Vision).VCE Visions features include virtualization optimization, converged operation and an open API thatenables users to use their own management tools of choice.

BusinessAsU

sual

Converged

Infras

tructure

Innovation

Keepingthe

Lights On

Early Converged Infrastructure SystemsWere Very Successful in Lowering theCosts of Keeping the Lights On andFreeing Up Resources for Innovation


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6 http://expertintegratedsystemsblog.com/index.php/2013/06/ibm-edge-day-2-recap-new-capabilities-for-puresystems-enable-quick-recovery-after-disasters/

Virtualization: IBM offers four virtualization choices including VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, Red Hat KVMand its proprietary PowerVM. Customers need to sign separate contracts with respective virtualizationsoftware vendors.

Management:Flex System Manager (FSM) is a dedicated appliance for system management with afocus on managing hardware components leveraging Tivoli and other software. In terms of integrationwith virtualization, it offers VMware plugins for storage, but not for its compute or network elements.

Market Experience

While IBM has claimed that it has 4,000 customer installations of PureSystems,6both industry analystresearch reports and Topline Strategys own research suggests that this figure is wildly inflated. The datasuggest IBM has very few deployments of truly converged systems.

Topline Strategys own research corroborated industry reports that placed IBMs market share of ConvergedInfrastructure in the single digits. It also revealed that IBMs claim of 4,000 systems is the result of marketingsleight of hand. While there may be 4,000 deployed systems carrying the PureSystems brand, our researchshows that very few of them are actually converged systems. Most of these systems are:

Stand-alone compute deployments: When the PureFlex platform, consisting of only the Flex SystemChassis and blade compute nodes, is deployed on its own and connected to customers existing storageand networking, it is no different than a deployment of any traditional server platform. While IBM

is counting these stand-alone deployments as PureSystems installations, these installations are notconverged infrastructure. These deployments account for the majority of the PureSystems installed base.

Field-integrated custom installations:Even when customers purchase a bundle of compute, networkand storage to deploy a system, frequently they are still not getting a truly converged system. Often for

scalability and other reasons, customers choose to replace the Pure Systems Storwize midrange storagewith external storage from another vendor. This external storage is integrated into the system in thefield and results in a custom installation that breaks the CI paradigm.

Deployments of PureData:While the PureData products carry the Pure name, they are based on afundamentally different technology than the rest of the PureSystems family. For example, the PureDatadata warehousing and analytics appliances are a rebranding of IBMs SmartAnalytics and Netezza

products. These deployments are not comparable to general purpose CI systems and cannot be fairlycounted as CI installations.

VCE vs. IBM: SummaryAt the heart of comparing the VCE Vblock family of converged infrastructure systems to IBMs PureSystemssolution is a basic question: how does the installation and operation of each system compare to thevendor-delivered system paradigm described in the chart on page 2 of this paper?

This comparison is based on Topline Strategys converged infrastructure market study, during which weinterviewed and surveyed 119 North American companies with $1B or more in revenue on their experiencewith converged infrastructure systems. Also as part of the study, we conducted secondary research which

included reviewing marketing materials, case studies, analyst reports and other publically availableinformation. The goal was to compare the offerings not just on their technological merit, but on thetransformative nature of the technology in the field.

The bottom line is that while VCE does, in fact, deliver a cohesive vendor-delivered system that

considerably simplifies infrastructure administration, increases agility, and frees up resources forinnovation, IBM has made only incremental advances. For the most part, PureSystems is largely arepackaging of IBMs existing offerings.


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As a business, VCEs sole focus is on creating vendor-delivered systems from the best-of-breed componentsand software from Cisco, EMC and VMware. Our analysis shows that they have done so successfully. Asdescribed in detail below, VCE delivers the simplified experience across the lifecycle that is very close to thevendor-delivered system vision described on page 2.

In comparison, IBM PureSystems appears to be driven as much by its need to leverage the products italready owns and support its large installed base of customers who have different legacy environments asit is by the desire to design an optimized vendor-delivered system. While IBM does offer a vendor-delivered

system option, our analysis suggests that it was not designed to be widely adopted. By choosing to use its own Storwize 7000 midrange storage as its standard offering, IBM virtually

guaranteed that all enterprise-class systems would end up as customized installations in the field ratherthan standardized, factory integrated systems.

By selling the PureFlex System chassis and compute nodes on their own and leaving the storage andnetworking components to be integrated later, IBM is continuing to do business as usual, sellingcomponents that are integrated in the field into customized, non-standard installations.

In fact, as stated in the last section, we estimate that just a fraction of the 4,000 PureSystems deployments

IBM reports are vendor-delivered systems.

Furthermore, even when PureSystems is deployed as a vendor-delivered system, our analysis found that

IBM had not progressed nearly as far as VCE in simplifying the design, deployment, maintenance, support,and upgrade experience. Again, our analysis suggests that this is largely by design. Within the PureSystemsfamily, IBM offers 2 processors, 3 networking devices, 4 hypervisors and a host of other options. Withsuch a complex array of possible configurations, we do not see how IBM can provide the same level ofoptimization and support for its vendor-delivered system as VCE has done for its system.

VCE vs. IBM: Detailed Analysis by Lifecycle StageIn the chart below, we summarize our assessment of how far each vendor has progressed toward deliveringon the vendor-delivered system paradigm.

Evaluation of the VCE Vblock and IBM PureSystems across the System Lifecycleon the Degree to Which it Performs as a Vendor-Delivered Standardized System

vs. a Customized, Field Integrated Installation (1 to 5 scale)

Area VCE Vblock IBM PureSystem

Design 5 2

Deploy 5 3

Maintain 4 2

Upgrade 4 2

Support 5 3

Evolve 4 Not Available

Total 4.5 2.5

Design:

Evaluation Criteria:The system is engineered by the vendor as a single integrated pool for optimal performance,

scalability, and availability and configured to meet customers unique needs.

VCEs Vblock was conceived of and engineered as a vendor-delivered system for highly virtualized and cloudenvironments. The companys vision of creating an optimized vendor-delivered system is evidenced in 1)its selection of best of breed components and 2) providing a family of systems that match the varying price,

performance and scalability needs of different customers.


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In comparison IBM PureSystems design appears to compromise between the competing demands of:

Building a scalable, optimized system that adheres to the vendor-delivered system paradigm

Leveraging the products it owns and supporting its installed base.

Lower End Mid Range

System Scale

Enterprise

VCE Offers 4 Series of Vblocks Designed to Meet a Wide Range

of Price and Performance Needs

IBM Offers Just a Single Factory Built Midrange System

Vblock 100 Vblock 300

Vblock 200

PureFlex withStorwize Storage

Vblock 700

A closer comparison of the constituent components of both systems further illustrates the differences.

Server:VCE Vblocks use Cisco UCS Servers, which emerged in 2009 with an innovative design to reduce complexitywhile providing the highest density of VMs per core. This resulted in best price performance in the industryand enabled Cisco to surpass IBM as the number two provider of x86 blade servers in the US.7

While newly released in 2012, IBMs Flex System chassis lacks the networking and management unificationof UCS, leading to extra switches and cabling. It is designed to support two types of processors - PowerPCand x86, which inherently trades off optimizing for either one.

Storage:

VCE uses EMCs VNXe, VNX, and VMAX products, all of which are tightly integrated to VMware. This providesusers flexibility to choose the best storage for the needs of the pool, including:

EMC VMAX, which provides unique capabilities such as federated storage to support the largest and

most demanding applications.

VNX, the market leading mid-tier storage system, which has advanced features such as Fully AutomatedStorage Tiering that provide a much more efficient use of expensive SSD resources.

VNXe, a more cost effective option for pools supporting less demanding applications.

IBM uses Storwize V7000, which is a midrange solution. If an installation requires enterprise class storage,

IBM will substitute another storage product in the field, breaking the integrity of a standardized and pre-manufactured product and turning it into a custom integration in the field.

7 http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/cisco-achieves-2-worldwide-in-the-x86-blade-server-market/


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Hypervisors:

VCE is designed and optimized for one hypervisor, industry leader VMware.

PureSystems offers a choice of four different hypervisors.8While it is possible, it is highly unlikely thatIBM can deliver the same degree of system optimization and support for four hypervisors that VCE canprovide for one.

Questions for Evaluating System Design

As a potential buyer of a converged infrastructure system, here are questions regarding the design of the

system we recommend you ask as part of your evaluation:

1. Has the vendor truly engineered systems optimized for virtualized and cloud infrastructures or are theycompromising their designs to support their legacy components, processors and software?

2. Does the vendor offer solutions designed for each tier of performance and availability?

Deploy:

Evaluation Criteria:The complete system is manufactured and logically configured at the factory usingstandardized processes.

Speed of deployment is a key outcome of VCEs focus on design-level standardization and integration. Inmost cases, VCE Vblocks are capable of shouldering operational loads within 45 days from time of customerorder and within 48 hours of delivery.

Both physical and logical builds are completed at the factory, so when a Vblock system reaches itsdestination:

Components are assembled and fully tested

System is logically configured using a repeatable process with extensive automation

VMware and naming conventions are installed and IP addresses and VLANs are defined

The net result is that VCE Vblocks arrive quickly and can be put into service in a short time span with lowadministrative effort for IT staff and minimal vendor services.

In most cases, since IBM PureSystems deployments involve extensive customization in the field, verylittle of the build takes place at the factory. By necessity, when a customer reuses existing componentsor opts for storage other than the midrange Storwize product, the physical integration takes place in thefield, requiring significant IT resources and/or professional services. Even the small number of completevendor-delivered systems IBM deploys still require logical configuration in the field by IT staff or vendor

professional services teams.

Questions for Evaluating Deployment

1. Does the system require physical or logical configuration on site and how much of your internal labor ortheir professional services will be required to deploy it?

2. Does the vendor provide a guaranteed deployment window for the system?3. How much has deployment risk been reduced by the vendor?

Maintain:

Evaluation Criteria:Patches are preselected, pretested, and prepackaged by the vendor for interoperability andcompatibility with installed configurations, and are ready for immediate risk-free deployment.

8 IBM PureSystems marketing materials, 2012


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9 IBM Fix Center: http://www-933.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/options

With a constant stream of updates for each component, patching can be an administrative nightmare. Notevery patch is relevant to every deployed configuration, and each patch introduces its interoperability andcompatibility risk in its own way. VCE simplifies the process and mitigates the risk in three important steps:

1. Since VCE only ships Vblocks in standard configurations, the company supports the entire configurationfor every system it ships. As a result, VCE is able to evaluate each patch to determine which patchesactually need to be installed on which systems.

2. VCE then tests each patch that does need to be installed against the entire Vblock, certifying

compatibility at system level.3. Finally, VCE bundles the patches into a single release.

Through this process, VCE delivers risk-free patch bundles with predictable outcomes on a regular basis,eliminating the need for customers to select and test each patch, released at unpredictable times, againsttheir specific configuration.

One of the consequences of PureSystems design complexity (2 types of processors, 3 networking options, 4hypervisors, etc.) is that IBM cannot provide nearly the level of patch support as VCE. To patch their system,

customers have to go to the IBM Fix Center where they must choose which component to upgrade(chassis, storage, server, etc.), determine which version it is, and then download and install fixes on theirown. Even though IBM does provide compatibility information, for the overwhelming majority of customers

who have customized their installation, compatibility for their specific system has not been tested. As aresult, burden and risk of ensuring compatibility falls on IT.9

Questions for Evaluating Maintenance

1. Does the vendor issue system releases of patches that are pre-selected, fully tested and validatedagainst the entire system or do they issue component-by-component patches that you need to validateon your own custom installation?

Upgrade:

Evaluation Criteria:Newer versions of components are tested and certified for interoperability and design integrity

and are ready for immediate risk-free deployment.Since component vendors release new versions of their products every few months, it is virtuallyguaranteed that when a customer seeks to expand the capacity of their system, they will be installingnewer component versions.

VCE handles the integration of new hardware component versions in a way similar to how it handles patches

each new component release is tested against each shipped system configuration to ensure system-levelcompatibility. In addition, the company also tests the design integrity of the complete system, ensuringthat it has the headroom for and can support the power and cooling needs of the new component. As withpatches, by the time new components reach the customer they are ready to install risk-free.

Similar to patching, PureSystems design complexity and share of field-customized installations means

that it is virtually impossible for IBM to fully certify each new component release against customersindividual deployments, leaving the burden of testing each upgrade to the customer, as well as the risk

carried by each release.

Questions for Evaluating Upgrades

1. Does the vendor preselect, fully test and validate upgraded components against your deployedconfigurations beforehand at its own facilities, or do these components need to be tried out in yoursystems by your own IT resources, or your vendor at your time and cost?


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Vce vs Ibm Topline Strategy