Vik Desai of Liquid Computing on Unified Computing

I received a message conveying some thoughts on unified computing coming from Vik Desai, CEO of Liquid Computing. While I haven't had the chance to actually chat with him about his opinions, I thought them interesting enough to pass along to you.

Vik Desai's comments

Unified computing(UCS) is a compelling market that is heating up with all the major vendors jumping into the fray. However,the very benefits of unified computing get negated if customers have to invest in expensive hardware from big vendors with no open architecture. Liquid Computing's solution on the other hand is a completely open solution that can support any combination of standard operating systems or virtual environments. This means that it can be seamlessly installed within any data center, and doesn't require any special or proprietary drivers that can compromise the integrity of application performance.

This coalition (Note: he's refering to the recent Cisco/EMC/VMware alliance) is a further testament to the significance of unified computing for today's dynamic data center. However, based on industry feedback and anecdotal evidence from customers, it remains to be seen whether this alliance will actually benefit the end users.

Customers choose a unified computing solution for three fundamental reasons:

• Open Architecture: where customers can select which brand they deploy;
• Flexibility: to determine what customers elect to virtualize versus what performs better in other deployment options
• Ease of implementation: simple plug-and-go deployment that can be accomplished without outsourcing and offers required control of the data center.

I see the intent of the Virtual Computing Environment coalition is to accelerate brand lock-in. It is a cartel that removes a customer's ability to choose and leverage multiple suppliers in pursuit of the best solution for them.

Snapshot analysis

It is clear from my research that organizations embarking on the journey to a more virtualized environment are often interested in creating a platform-neutral environment. They're trying to escape from vendor lock-ins as well as trying to improve overall efficiency.

Do you agree with Vik's viewpoint? It is clear from HP's recent acquistion of 3Com that major hardware suppliers are taking notice.