Today I’ve had the opportunity to comment on Enrico Signoretti‘s blog post about Cisco’s storage strategy and their new UCS Invicta (Whiptail) solution. In his blog post, Enrico expresses a very similar opinion as the one I hold on Cisco strategy, what I read earlier this week on El Reg and making myself an opinion at a Cisco DC update make me think that Cisco is really at a crossroad and they should make up their mind whether they want to become a storage player or not.
What is your opinion? I also encourage you to check out Enrico’s blog post and comment on how you see it.
If you’re really lazy, here are my two cents:
For Cisco it’s either eat the humble pie and write off Invicta, or expand and become a threat to EMC and NetApp. Cisco has so much invested in promoting FlexPod and VSPEX platforms that I am enclined to believe that they will write off Whiptail, on the other hand it’s also clear that the missing piece in Cisco’s product portfolio is a storage solution, or rather a solid storage range to deliver a fully integrated infrastructure stack. I don’t think there is a place for a middle way where they keep Invicta as a niche product, I think Cisco are an ambitious company and their strategy is either all or nothing. If Cisco decides to write off their partnership with EMC and NetApp, it will have negative consequences for partners and integrators who’ve been investing in training personnel promoting VSPEX and FlexPod validated architectures.