The computer is now the network

Cisco is turning Sun's famous tag line into reality, only backwards.

I happened to be at the off-site meeting in the mid-1980s where a roomful of Sun Microsystems marketing types came up with the catchy slogan: The network is the computer. (Who actually first utter the deathless phrase, though, is claimed by many. But it wasn't me.)

At the time it was intended to highlight how Sun's engineers came up with the Network File System and that its Unix workstations could be more easily networked together than the competition. And it had a snappy dissonance to it that made people stop and think.

However, Sun was never able to completely blur the distinction between the network and the computer and, to this day, relies on its networking partners, like Cisco Systems, to leverage the network to work for the computer. But Cisco may actually be besting the computer crowd with its Unified Computing System (UCS).

As Matt Hamblen reported better here than others did elsewhere, Cisco is taking a big chance by integrating blade computing with its router and switching technology. Not only is it angering its data center partners, like IBM and Hewlett-Packard, its going to cut into its own margins, always a dangerous move.

That said, I believe Cisco has the capability to triumph in the data center. In fact, it has an edge. For one thing, history is on Cisco's side. Hardware consolidation is a relentless process that is pushing more and more once-discrete parts into fewer integrated subsystems. Virtualization is blurring the very notion of specific computers processing specific software. Separateness is gone. Everything is happening together on the network.

To think, as one HP executive said defensively about Cisco's UCS, that server vendors' engineers will be better at designing a data center than Cisco's network gurus, or "plumbers" as he disdainfully called them, is silly. Getting the network right is the hard part of designing a data center. If anything, the Cisco side has an advantage.

IT managers win here no matter what. If Cisco creates lower margin UCS machines that out-perform current servers and network gear, IT wins. If HP, IBM and Sun react with better or lower-priced servers, IT wins. And, most of all, if the computer and the network finally merge beyond the slogans into reality, we all win, including IT.