Don’t get shortchanged by data center bundles

Server virtualization, converged networking, and scalable intelligent storage are rapidly becoming de facto standards for data center infrastructures everywhere. Sizing a new infrastructure is no longer a question of exactly how many of what brand of server you might need to buy, but one of how much raw compute power and storage capacity and performance you require — regardless of how it might be assembled. Although huge differences exist between various vendors’ implementations of these features, this phenomenon is ultimately leading to a commoditization of data center infrastructure tech.

At the leading edge of that commoditization are four of the largest infrastructure tech players; Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and a partnership among Cisco Systems, EMC, and EMC’s VMware subsidiary, called VCE. Through partnerships and acquisitions, these vendors have each worked to produce soup-to-nuts virtual infrastructure bundles that include all the hardware and software comprising a data center — including virtualization hosts, networking hardware, storage, and in some cases, private cloud management software to tie it all together.

For organizations looking for a very fast and easy way to deploy greenfield data center infrastructure without having to deal with the hassle of a detailed design and a stack of compatibility matrices, these all-in-one bundles can be an enormous time-saver. However, this bundling is not always good for customers.

Data center infrastructure bundling: The good It’s easy to see why bundling can be a great thing. Despite the enormous freedom presented by virtualization, designing and implementing data center infrastructure is by no means simple. It’s no easy task to navigate the complexities of one vendor’s blade hardware, another vendor’s converged networking gear, and yet another vendor’s storage hardware while making sure that you have enough power and cooling. If that’s not enough, there’s still the question of whether your IT staff has the skills to manage it.

Many IT shops breathe a sigh of relief when presented with a simple menu of preconfigured infrastructure options that are guaranteed to work with each other, shipped and installed quickly, and supported by a single support organization. This is particularly true for large institutions seeking maximally configured chunks of data center hardware that function as independent bricks of compute and storage capacity.

Data center infrastructure bundling: The bad However, for smaller enterprises, this industrywide gravitation toward data center bundling is far less likely to be a good fit. Unlike large enterprises, smaller organizations generally need a single virtualization/storage infrastructure, highly customized to their requirements. Instead of deploying a neat, even number of blades packed full of memory, budgetary constraints usually force smaller shops to carefully align what they buy to their needs — requiring a level of customization that’s not always easy to attain with preconfigured, one-size-fits-all offerings.

If that’s the case, what’s the big deal? Certainly those smaller organizations can buy their gear à la carte, right? In theory, yes, but that’s becoming increasingly difficult in practice. For channel resellers and VARs alike, the allure of selling preformed bricks of infrastructure is extremely strong. Not only can salespeople assemble a bundled configuration that’s “probably” a good fit for a customer, but doing so lets them avoid the extremely expensive presales technical resources necessary to design an infrastructure that’s truly perfect.

In my experience, it’s become commonplace to see RFPs answered by stock proposals for a range of bundled solutions from different vendors — none of which really take the customer’s individual needs into account.

Worse still, soup-to-nuts bundling presents vendors and their partners with an all-or-nothing sales proposition, dramatically raising the stakes of winning or losing a sale. Although these vendors might have been happy enough to sell a customer storage hardware even if the server hardware was bought from a different source, now it seems almost a given that a vendor’s entire slate of bundled gear is sold as a monolithic solution, whether or not parts of that package are actually a good match for the customer. Even more ominous, this drive toward bundling raises the worrying prospect that vendors may not be interested in working with each other if you decide to pick and choose among the best each has to offer.

One-size-fits-all doesn’t fit all, or even most Ultimately, bundles try to make data center infrastructure easy to design, sell, and implement — though, in reality, it often isn’t. As a consequence, customers’ individual needs are often lost in the rush to slap together a tidy bundled solution, one unlikely to serve the company well in the long run.

Creating an atmosphere that limits customer choice and customization serves no one well, and I sincerely hope the one-size-fits-all trend doesn’t take root.

This article, “Don’t get shortchanged by data center bundles,” originally appeared at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Matt Prigge’s Information Overload blog and follow the latest developments in storage at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.