Very cool time-lapse Vblock construction video

This is too cool not to share… Time-lapse video showing the “what goes into VCE Vblocks before they go to a customer’s environment.

I have to say – the conversations I’m having with customers these days reflect the growing recognition that the testing, documentation, and integration work they are doing today with 100% mix and match is… not high value.   We recorded a couple “Chad’s World” episodes last week (these are awesome, but really push the “top secret” boundary – hope the company lets us post!!), and in one the customer literally says it in their own words.   This is represented by the fact that almost $1B of Vblocks were adopted by customers last year.

Reference Architectures – integrated at the customer by the channel are better than completely mix and match when it comes to integration work, but don’t have the change control and integrated warranty/acquisition/support model of a converged infrastructure model like Vblock.  

Think of it as a continuum (and customer choice dictates the model – each has it’s own strengths):

1. on one end you have “complete mix and match acquired separately by the customer” based on open standards, and then integrated = total flexibility, all the best of breed tech, independent support models, all the work.
2. in the middle you have “vendor documented reference architectures, acquired through and integrated by a channel partner” = some of the flexibility (you can mix and match, so long as the ingredients are kind of like the reference architecture), all the best of breed tech, multi-vendor joint escalation models, some of the work (since you can change a lot, and there is no change control, you still need to integrate, test)
3. and at the other extreme you have “converged infrastructure acquired through through a channel or a vendor” = less flexibility (parts are selected in advance at the factory), best of breed tech, integrated support model, none of the work (since it’s pre-built, pre-integrated)

This is a debate/discussion we used to need to have – I’m finding customers are starting to say the same thing – in their own words.

The only lame thing in this video is the Dell Latitude laptop :-)

Comments

[twitter.com/stevie_chambers]

Chad, thanks for bringing a superb topic to the fore. I know you're obsessed about customer satisfaction, as am I, and for that reason I wanted to write a bit of a parallel thread to your post about the risks I've seen personally with Reference Architectures, and where they are best used - education.

http://viewyonder.com/2012/03/26/script-kiddies-and-reference-architectures-11-reasons-to-say-no/

Spot on to call out the channel partners - good ones don't just use a reference arch, they have built experience on top and all kinds of value add. The best partners have gone even further and built on top of VCE to get the best of all worlds...

[Chris Wahl]

Hi Chad,

Having worked on a logical config of a Vblock in the recent past, I must say that it's really cool to see what the equipment looks like on the floor. Thanks for sharing the video. :)