Data Center 2.0/3.0

I was attending the DCOF (Data Center Of the Future) web conference over 2 days (15th/16th December). The event had most of the main data center players listed here giving presentations (with the notable exception of HP) on the future data center.

One of the presentations was given by Cisco who throughout their presentation made reference to Data Center 3.0 (if we don't have numbers how do we know where we are? web 2.0, enterprise 2.0). After awhile I had to ask the question

What is the difference between DC 2.0 and DC 3.0 as Cisco talks about it?

The response:-

"In a nutshell, DC 2.0 refers to the client/server model and distributed resources. DC 3.0 refers to initiatives being taken today around consolidation and virtualization of resources. The goal of DC 3.0 is to be able to manage these resources and leverage them as a service to deploy applications alot more efficiently."

So there you have it, the data center of the future is consolidated and virtualization. No more silo's of server, storage and network that are isolated from each other and managed as such. These resources will be a tightly integrated, flexible and in Cisco's eyes virtualized, managed by integrated tools from a single pane of glass, service oriented (as opposed to asset oriented).

After the discussion I began to think that there was another difference between Data Center 2.0 and 3.0, My additional thinking is this

- Data Center 1.0 (the original) was the mainframe era
- Data Center 2.0 was the Unix/proprietary Architecture era
- Data Center 3.0 is the X86/X64 Open Architecture era

I've put it that way because when I originally started in I.T. and walked around a Data Center it was nearing the end of Mainframe dominance and the explosion in Unix. Over the years there were fewer and fewer mainframes, and more and more Unix (proprietary) platforms. Now when I walk in the Data Center the Unix platforms are fewer and fewer, whilst X84/64 rack and blade servers are everywhere - times have changed.

I shall be throwing some blogs out around the contents of the DCOF event from Intel, Netapp etc.. as well as overviews of Cisco UCS, Vblock (arcadia), HP Bladesystem Matrix and some of the small(er) players mentioned here.