I was invited to post a blog on the WWT virtualization blog, I chose to discuss Cisco Pass-Through switching with UCS. See the blog there at: http://vblog.wwtlab.com/2010/06/22/collapsing-server-management-points-with-ucs/. There are several other great posts there you should take a look at. Related posts: UCS Server Failover Why Cisco UCS is my…
Building a Hybrid Cloud
At a recent Data Center Architect summit I attended cloud computing was a key focus. Of the concepts that were discussed one that was a recurring theme was Hybrid Clouds. Conceptually a Hybird-Cloud is a mix of any two cloud types, typically thought of as a mix of a Private…
Recent Conversation with the Founder of Tolly Group
This morning I had a brief and interesting exchange with the founder of the Tolly Group Kevin Tolly. Because Kevin sent this exchange to my blogging email account my assumption was that he intended it to be added to the blog. Kevin was responding to the tweets posted below above…
UCS Server Failover
I spent the day today with a customer doing a proof of concept and failover testing demo on a Cisco UCS, VMware and NetApp environment. As I sit on the train heading back to Washington from NYC I thought it might be a good time to put together a technical…
Building a Private Cloud
Private clouds are currently one of the most popular concepts in cloud computing. They promise the flexibility of cloud infrastructures without sacrificing the control of owning and maintaining your own data center. For a definition of cloud architectures see my previous blog on Cloud Types (http://www.definethecloud.net/?p=109.) Private clouds are an…
FCoE multi-hop; Do you Care?
There is a lot of discussion in the industry around FCoE’s current capabilities, and specifically around the ability to perform multi-hop transmission of FCoE frames and the standards required to do so. A recent discussion between Brad Hedlund at Cisco and Ken Henault at HP (http://bit.ly/9Kj7zP) prompted me to write…
Welcome to the New Site!
Today Define the Cloud officially transfers here to the new hosted site. It was time for an upgrade from the wordpress.com hosted blog. Through privately hosting I’ll be able to provide additional site content and functionality as things progress. If you find any issues, broken links, or links pointing back…
Technical Deep Dive
Why Cisco UCS is my ‘A-Game’ Server Architecture
A-Game: When I discuss my A-Game it’s my go to hardware vendor for a specific data center component. For example I have an A-Game platform for: Storage SAN LAN (access Layer LAN specifically, you don’t want me near your aggregation, core or WAN) Servers and Blades (traditionally this has been…
Learning from FaceBook’s failures
In the interest of honesty I’ll start this post by saying I’m not a fan of FaceBook and never have been. This is based on two major things: If you and I don’t keep in touch through email or phone there is a reason for that. I have no desire…
The Cloud Storage Argument
The argument over the right type of storage for data center applications is an ongoing battle. This argument gets amplified when discussing cloud architectures both private and public. Part of the reason for this disparity in thinking is that there is no ‘one size fits all solution.’ The other part…