Data Center Strategies

Meet me on the Gartner Blog Network

Hi Everyone:  As part of Burton Group's integration into Gartner, we are moving to the Gartner Blog Network (affectionately known as GBN).

You can follow me here: http://blogs.gartner.com/richard-jones/

What if Novell said YES?

In my previous post on Novell’s answer to Elliott Associates unsolicited offer, I indicated that I’d talk about Novell’s assets that many may not be considering.

For those of you following the (yet another) SCO vs. Novell UNIX copyright trial, the verdict came down in Novell’s favor yesterday (again).  Novell’s ownership of the UNIX copyrights is just one asset of many to discuss.  A comment to my blog came from Otto: “The big problem, IMHO, is that Novell owns the Unix patents. If Elliott Associates sells those to, let's say, some hyper-aggressive monopoly it could cause the Linux community still more pain.”  It’s not just a hyper-aggressive monopoly to be feared, it’s any company looking to make a buck.  This brings up the subject of patent trolls.

Elliott Associates would be interested in recouping its investments in Novell, and would sell assets to the top bidder – regardless of who that was.  Novell not only owns the UNIX copyrights, but has a number of patents that prove very important in the software industry.  It must be noted that with patents, it’s not the number, but the quality of individual patents.  It only takes one extremely good patent to inflict a sales halt on a multi-billion dollar product line if that patent were to fall into the wrong hands.  There are individuals and organizations that make their business in collecting patents from failed companies and then using those patents to extract royalties from deep pocketed vendors. These are patent trolls.

Novell has key patents in many areas, but most importantly in the areas of directory and identity services, operating system kernels, file services and systems, document management, and collaboration.  You can bet that the large software and hardware vendors in the IT market have their legal departments watching closely what is transpiring with Novell.  They would all prefer that Novell remain an independent company that they can partner with.  Savvy vendors have already struck partnerships with Novell and understand the value and protection it brings to their businesses.

For the sake of the IT industry, let’s hope that Novell stays independent, or is acquired by a friendly vendor.

[Posted by: Richard Jones]

Novell Says NO! - No Surprise

Novell officially turned down the purchase offer of $5.75/share from Elliott Associates in a letter and press release this past Saturday.  So what does this mean for the software company?

The rejection comes as no surprise.  Any board would value their company more and would want top dollar.  Note in the letter that: “Novell's Board is committed to enhancing value for Novell stockholders and believes that an exploration of alternatives is in the best interests of the Company and its stockholders.”  And that the paths they are pursuing to enhance stockholder value “include, but are not limited to, a return of capital to stockholders through a stock repurchase or cash dividend, strategic partnerships and alliances, joint ventures, a recapitalization and a sale of the Company.”

In short, Novell is saying: “Come on Elliott – or anyone else out there – you can do better than that!”  However, I think this is exactly what Elliott was hoping would happen.  Start a bidding war.  But most people would think that Novell isn’t worth that much, but that’s where they are making a mistake.  Novell has more assets and than most people realize – and most importantly, in ways that most people don’t realize.  I’ll blog about those in an upcoming blog.

Novell is open to any tactic to increase shareholder value, but they know not to jump at the first opportunity.  Most of these negotiations and possibilities will occur under the covers.  So what do I think should happen to Novell?  I’ve told Novell executives on a number of occasions that they need to find the right technology company (not investment firm) to merge with or be acquired by.  Novell continues to produce great technology, but they have never been able to market themselves out of a paper bag.  Even during the years I was there, each new chief marketing officer (CMO) came with glorious plans to improve Novell’s image.  That was the root of the problem, the Novell brand isn’t bad, it’s just become irrelevant.  The analogy I like to make to help people understand is that they need to think of how the IT world regarded Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the mid 1990s.  It was known as a great technology company with excellent mini-computer systems, but the needs of the market shifted making them all but irrelevant.  The same thing has happened to the Novell brand: regarded with thoughtful awe from a past era.  The company needs to surface its technologies under a different more relevant brand today.  Note: Novell has done this with some products (eg Platespin Orchestrate was originally going to be called Zenworks Orchestrator but they latched onto a more modern relevant brand for that product) – but the crux is they need to lose the Novell name for new technologies and products.  The name needs to go down in the history books and remain revered for its past legacy.

Tell me what you think should happen to Novell?

[Posted by: Richard Jones]

Elliott/Novell: Implications on SUSE

As a follow-up to Drue’s blog: Novell Going Private? I figured I ought to add my two cents worth.  As many of you know, I joined Burton Group three short years ago after working at Novell for 20 years.  I was involved in many of the Novell products, from NetWare to Zenworks to embedded eDirectory to storage to SLES 10.

Elliott Associates is most likely looking at Novell as a company where the parts are worth more than the whole; looking to sell off assets and intellectual property that will bring in more money than the company is currently worth as seen by Wall Street.  So what does this mean for the SUSE business unit?  Turning the clock back to late 2003, early 2004 when Novell acquired SUSE it is easy to see who has the most interest in the SUSE busienss.  IBM helped Novell acquire SUSE as IBM was one of the largest investors in the SUSE company prior to the acquisition.  Now the first thought is that “Oh, IBM would buy SUSE from Elliott then.”  However, IBM only wants to keep open source Linux at arm’s length.  They learned their lessons from their past experiences with UNIX (fragmented across hardware companies) and Microsoft Windows.   IBM would encourage Elliott to spin SUSE back out as an independent company and maintain its involvement in SUSE’s directions.

Could SUSE stand on its own?  Most likely yes.  Novell actually did do a good job of improving its presence outside of Western Europe and slimmed the costs so that it is slightly profitable (but then slightly profitable equals huge success in the Open Source Software business world).  SUSE’s presence in North America prior to the acquisition back in 2003 consisted of two sales people in San Francisco slapping shipping labels on boxes of SLES.

Are there other options for Novell’s SUSE business? Probably not.  Any other companies, such as HP, Dell, Cisco, or Oracle would run the risk of alienating the market leader, Red Hat, that they depend upon to sell their up-the-stack value added products.  Some may think Microsoft, but Microsoft would want what IBM wants, keep it at arm’s length through a partnership plus Microsoft has recently worked a partnership with Red Hat, and they too would want to see fierce competition in the Linux market between two distribution vendors.

Let’s hear what you would like to see happen with SUSE?

[Posted by: Richard Jones]

Client Virtualization: Where Does It Fit?

Come to Catalyst to find out details and discuss with your peers.

I recently blogged about my doctor brother’s poor experiences with a new client virtualization system installed in his hospital.  Further discussions within our team (Chris Wolf, Simon Bramfitt and myself) about client dialogues we have held on this subject have revealed a common thread:  Client virtualization economics favor only certain use cases.  Vendors would love to have you virtualize every client device in your enterprise, but many are just not cost justifiable.  The questions to be asking are:  What business problems are you looking to solve in your client device environment?  What use cases reduce costs when virtualized?  Do you already have a desktop management solution in place that is giving you operational cost reduction already?

In talking with clients, I’ve found that there are generally two situations that cause enterprises to look for solutions to their desktop problems:  First is security for remote and mobile workforce.  The need to keep sensitive corporate data in the data center or within a controlled security perimeter and off of laptops or remote desktops is a large driver for client virtualization (either presentation virtualization or server hosted desktop virtualization can address this problem).  The second is to get a handle on managing desktops, laptops, and other client devices in the enterprise.  The second situation can be tricky, however.  If the customer has already deployed a good application virtualization and desktop management solution (e.g. Symantec Altiris, Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, or Novell Zenworks), moving to a virtual desktop infrastructure may not save much money in the long run. Moving to a desktop virtualization solution has to be a strategic (business) decision not a tactical (IT) one.

At Catalyst Europe (April 19-22, Prague, Czech Republic) we have organized the “Getting Started with Client Virtualization” topic to address these questions.  In addition, we have created a new in depth half-day workshop to go through assessing where each client virtualization technology can best fit into the enterprise client device management puzzle.  For reading this blog, you can get a discounted conference pass at the price of €999.00 by using the promotion code “INSIDER” when you register.

[Posted by: Richard Jones]

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words on HA/DR

If there's one constant in an analyst's life, it's travel. When you travel as much as we do, you begin to become very familiar with airports. I make it a habit to observe the IT equipment in every airport (terminal consoles, wireless access points, etc) because I like to get a sense of what the airport IT department is dealing with and how up to date they are. You can tell a lot about the airport based on their IT infrastructure.

Well, the other day I was walking through a well-known airport (I won't say which one), and I snapped a picture of what is probably one of the worst IT blunders I've ever seen. But the really funny part is the picture is -- in a microcosm -- the way we all think of IT high availability. Here's the pic:

 

So yes, that is a server rack, full of running IT equipment (red circle), in the public exit pathway, with no security guard in sight (green circle)....and an "unplug" sign in the background (yellow circle). Too funny!

Got me to thinking...

Isn't this the way we treat HA/DR in many of the data centers today? We put the IT equipment in a risky situation, accessible to lots of people (usually via a network), with no security measures in place, and signs that tell you exactly how to bring it down.

HA/DR should not be an afterthought. As Richard Jones (our service director) would say "Executive management must take fiduciary responsibility for HA and DR. It must be driven from the top, practiced, and reviewed on a regular basis".

He's right...

Remember, you can chat with Richard, myself, Chris Wolf, or Nik Simpson regarding HA/DR, virtualization, cloud computing, data center cost initiatives at Catalyst Europe in Prague April 19th -22nd. The promotion code for the early bird registration price of €995 is "INSIDER".

[posted by: Drue Reeves]

A Client Virtualization Story

This last week-end my elder brother was in town for a wedding in the family.  He’s an orthopedic surgeon practicing in northern California – way north near Oregon.  During our visit, he told me of some technology changes that have occurred at the hospital where he works.  An HMO was brought in to take over hospital administration at the end of last year.  One of the first things they did was install thin clients in each of the exam rooms of the hospital.  However, they installed thick clients in each of the doctors’ offices.  All the thin and thick clients are hard wired with Cat5 cabling -  no wireless to these units.

My doctor brother told me that he can’t use the thin clients in the exam rooms because “the digital x-ray images look more like a topographical map than an x-ray and as a result are nearly useless.”  What he is forced to do is leave the patient and got to his office and use his thick client in order to view the x-ray image.  Most everyone reading this blog has already said aloud “he needs to increase the resolution of the image so he’s not looking at 256 colors as he needs to be seeing the images in millions of colors.”  That’s what I mentioned to him.  He said that when the contracted technicians were testing the newly installed system, the doctors complained.  The hardware technicians quickly blamed the software technicians and vice-verse.  The end result was that the problem wasn’t solved before the contractors left.  My brother (and other doctors at the hospital) now have a very poor opinion of thin client technologies, and would like to just be rid of it all together.  My brother didn’t pay attention to the make of the thin client terminals nor does he have any idea if Citrix, VMware, or what other make of desktop or presentation virtualization software is being used (sounds like I need to get an excuse to go and visit him.)  I suspect that some simple modifications from default settings in either the remote display protocol software or the thin client devices is all that’s required – but without knowing the makes and models, that’s nearly impossible to judge.

This story illustrates that a successful thin client installation is not only dependent on good software and hardware, but proper training of the installation technicians and better end-user requirements gathering.  The doctors can view and update medical records so long as they are text only, but with the current equipment and configuration, any requirement for high resolution medical images is not being met.  Their poor opinion of thin clients may derail any future expansion or new projects in other hospitals.  The bottom line is that the technology, configuration, and deployment was not designed, tested, nor piloted to meet the requirements of the environment and this now will leave a bad taste in the customers' mouths.

[Posted by: Richard Jones]

Hats-Off to Red Hat for not giving itself a competitive advantage

On November 3rd, Red Hat released its first stand-alone virtual infrastructure management solution called Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager for Servers (RHEV-M).  This product is offered separately from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform (RHEL-AP).  It also includes a stand-alone hypervisor based on the KVM hypervisor code called Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor (RHEV-H).

It’s RHEV-H that I’d like to talk about.  KVM depends on a Linux Kernel to operate – it is technically a type 2 hypervisor in that it adds virtualization capabilities to a host operating system.  In RHEL and RHEL-AP, KVM is a kernel extension utilizing the RHEL kernel for process scheduling and resource management for VMs and native applications running directly on RHEL.  RHEV-H incorporates a slimmed down just-enough-operating-system (JEOS) RHEL kernel that has been tuned specifically for VM scheduling and resource management. 

Red Hat’s subscription policy for RHEL in virtual environments is OK, but not ideal such as Novell’s subscription policy that requires one SLES subscription per physical host allowing unlimited SLES guests regardless of hypervisor used.  In the Burton Group report: “Virtualization Licensing and Support Lethargy: Curing the Disease That Stalls Virtualization Adoption” Chris Wolf illustrates that Red Hat requires customers to buy entitlements for RHEL running as a guest OS on a hypervisor such as VMware’s ESX or Microsoft’s Hyper-V.  RHEL running as the Xen or KVM host hypervisor allows for 4 RHEL guests.  Additional subscriptions must be purchased beyond 4.  RHEL-AP as the Xen or KVM host allows for unlimited RHEL guests.  This is similar to what Microsoft does with Windows Server licensing with Hyper-V.  Prior to the RHEV release, customers had to contact Red Hat sales to purchase entitlements in packs of 10 guests.  Red Hat has now formalized that with two SKU configurations: RHEL as a virtual guest 4-pack, and RHEL as a virtual guest unlimited.

With the release of RHEV-H, Red Hat could have created rules that favored running RHEV-H over competitive hypervisors, such as Hyper-V or VMware.  However, they did not do so.  RHEV-H is treated just like any other qualified third-party hypervisor if you decide to run RHEL guests on it.  Yes, you are bound by the exact same rules whether it be RHEV-H, Microsoft Hyper-V, or VMware hypervisor that you choose to use (note: Red Hat has only qualified these hypervisors for running RHEL guests – XenServer, Novell SLES, and Oracle OVM are not included at this time).  You must purchase RHEL guest entitlement packs.  In addition, if you decide to use RHEL-AP, you are bound by its requirements whether it be RHEV-H or a qualified third-party hypervisor.

Red Hat, thanks for the example of fairness.  Hopefully others like Oracle (see Chris Wolf’s blog from May 2009) will take heed.

[Posted by Richard Jones]

Burton Group Institute - Data Center Workshops

Last month Burton Group launched, Burton Group Institute, a new on-demand training resource for enterprise technologists. The collection includes data center operations workshops that feature real world experiences from Burton Group analysts and consultants for enterprise technologists to utilize technologies challenging IT. Topics span several technologies, but the short list of data center training courses includes:

• Data Center Economics
• Data Center Architecture
• Advanced Server Virtualization

The training library is a collection of Burton Group workshop styled presentations focusing on a range of technologies and implementation strategies that include: identity management, security and risk management, networks and telecom, enterprise social networking, and content and collaboration. As an extra benefit iaap (International Association of Privacy Professionals) credits are available for completion of select Burton Group Institute workshops.

The workshops are delivered in a video format with integrated slides and audio and include presenter/audience interaction for further details on the topic. An example of the workshop can be viewed featuring Chris Wolf and Richard Jones presenting “Advanced Server Virtualization Workshop.”

As a reader of the Data Center Blog, Burton Group would like to offer a 20% discount with the coupon code DCB38.

Red Hat and Microsoft: The Odd Couple?

Red Hat and Microsoft announced last week that they have completed the cross-certification of each other’s server and hypervisor products.  I have been blogging about the need this vendor interoperability for more than a year now and am glad to see that this has finally been completed – another quest that I can now mark completed!

There are some interesting aspects behind this announcement with the biggest being that Red Hat submitted the KVM hypervisor technology included in RHEL 5.4 as the third party hypervisor to be certified in the Microsoft server virtualization validation program (SVVP).  RHEL Xen is not included in any of the certifications.  As a result, this certification doesn’t help existing RHEL Xen deployments at all.  I interpret this move two ways:  First that Red Hat is telling its virtualization customers to move to KVM based virtualization from RHEL Xen, and second that Red Hat is done with Xen – they do not want to invest any more than the bare minimum to meet their RHEL 5 product lifecycle support obligations. 

I had blogged last year indicating that Red Hat needed to come out and tell the world clearly where it is going with virtualization.  Red Hat has not publically talked about Xen since it acquired Qumranet last year.  They have not clearly articulated their plans for Xen, but when asked, they indicate that it will be supported throughout the RHEL 5 product lifecycle and then change the subject to the benefits and greatness of KVM.  RHEL 5 first shipped March 14, 2007 meaning that it will end of life near the same day in 2014. 

But Red Hat’s actions tell the story loud and clear:  Red Hat virtualization customers: 2010 should be your year to move from Xen to KVM if you desire to stick with Red Hat virtualization for the long term.  This story will become even more clear once Red Hat releases the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) platform sometime later this year or early next year.  RHEV consists of a set of virtual infrastructure management tools and cloud enabling components all built around the KVM hypervisor core.  It will also include a stand-alone hypervisor that is effectively a stripped down RHEL 5.4 distribution.  RHEV hypervisor is planned to have RHEL 5.4 kernel parameters tuned, such as thread scheduling and dispatching, for KVM based virtual machines as opposed to natively hosted applications.

The interesting part of this certification for Microsoft is that they now have two Linux distributions certified on Hyper-V: Novell SLES and Red Hat RHEL.  The Red Hat distribution versions certified on Hyper-V include RHEL 5.2 through 5.4.  Preparing for this work, Microsoft submitted paravirtualized Linux guest device drivers for Hyper-V to the mainline Linux kernel, and those were accepted this past summer – another huge step forward in collaboration between Linux and Microsoft.

But Microsoft still has some way to go with Hyper-V and Linux.  Even with the latest Hyper-V R2 release coming soon, Hyper-V does not support virtual SMP for Linux guest operating systems.  This limits Hyper-V’s ability to penetrate into heterogeneous environments.

[Posted by: Richard Jones]