The session Blades & Storage Evolution for the Next-Generation Data Center,  is my first full session here at Oracle OpenWorld.

It is presented by Richard Fichera, a strategist in the Enterprise Business OU at HP.

As the Chief Technology Officer for Logikworx, learning more about the directions major vendors are taking/about to take, is a major component in my decision-making about what directions we at Logikworx and affiliated/associated companies, are going to take.

Richard didn’t disappoint.

The data center is getting to the point where we are only going to achieve diminishing returns from a single-server domain.

An evolution of the data center, he said, would require the use of integrated systems, utilizing optimized solutions derived from chip to facilities. Scaling-out, as opposed to scaling up, will allow for greater utilization of assets. The current drive towards even greater levels of aggregation at all levels would invariably lead to ever-increasing demands on a data center’s power and cooling infrastructure.

This position is made more difficult due to the fact that there aren’t any industry-standard frameworks for power and cooling.

Moving forward, we are going to see more peripheral functionality embedded into CPU silicon, such as cryptography, networking, etc. Flash-based storage is a disruptive technology that is moving from high-end products to the most basic ones, especially since we are approaching storage densities of one petabyte per rack.

Virtualization and automated provisioning are two more necessary requirements of that next generation data center, while avoiding vendor lock-in is an issue to be wary of.

Finally, a call to arms: ISVs (independent software vendors) have to start developing for multi-thread, multicore, multi-socket computing.

Totally fascinating.

I hope to have more information, including slides, shortly.

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