Egenera Blog

I had to chuckle a bit when I read a recent claim that Cisco’s UCS was the “first” unified computing system certified on Oracle 10g and 11g RAC.  That’s just plain false.

So stop the presses: To set the record straight, it was actually Egenera (using PAN Manager software) that was first… announcing 9i support back in 2003… even before Oracle had the “Certification/Validation” program in place!  Then we have the Validated 10g RAC solution last year, and the  Validated 11g RAC solution in May of this year. Check out the Egenera/Oracle history and Documentation and white papers.

What, you say? Egenera does Unified Computing?  Yes! And we’ve been doing so since 2001. Although we refer to our PAN (Processing Area Network) software by a different name, “Unified Computing” is characterized by use of stateless blades, abstracted/virtualized I/O, and converged/virtualized networking. In this manner, servers (both physical and virtual) and infrastructure can be instantly re-purposed in the cases of changing demand or equipment failure.

Now, for some perspective

Now, why does all of this matter? In a word, Maturity.

Obviously, being “first” is good for a bit of chest-thumping. But in this business, what matters to customers regarding  being first is (a) that you adhere to solid technology vision, and (b) that you’ve been evolving the product longer than others.

Regarding vision, Egenera has had our technology vision of the Processing Area Network, of stateless virtual I/O and of virtual networking (including load balancing) since 2001.  This was well before even OS virtualization was mainstream.

Regarding product evolution, Egenera’s software is currently in its fifth-generation version, and on two (soon to be more) hardware platforms. It’s all about maturity-of-solution, and of years listening to customer requirements. Some illustrations:

• Simplicity: First-and-foremost, our approach is simpler than anything else we’ve seen on the market. That includes the fact that it’s simple-to-use, and that it obviates the need for nearly a dozen IT operations point-products.
• Functionality: Our system is more than just about converged networking.  It bundles virtual I/O and converged/virtual networking with automated services like High Availability, Disaster Recovery, pre-configured server profiles, multi-tennancy, chargeback facilities and more. Plus it has been scaled to support hundreds of blades across dozens of locations.
• Platform support: Our unified computing approach is based on PAN Manager software, which first operated our  BladeFrame products, and now the same software operates the Dell PAN System
• Endorsement:  Finally,  our approach is in use by hundreds of companies in thousands of worldwide locations.

Net-net: Let our vision and maturity speak for itself.  And if/when others claim a “first”, dig a little deeper to check for the facts.