I have been watching the media coverage after our competitor finally brought out their new products last week with an architecture strongly reminiscent of AMD’s Direct Connect Architecture.  One thing I noticed is that as the week went on, more and more questions began to emerge.  How can an overhaul of a platform be cost-efficient or easy to manage for customers?  Especially in this day and age?  Does it make sense to go for the highest rungs of performance when that could “break the bank” and arguably isn’t even really necessary for the most part?

In light of this debate, I also talked last week with Graham Lovell at Sun -- one of our technology partners. (You can watch a bit of our conversation below.) Graham is the director of Open Storage and let me tell you, he gets it.  Their Amber Road product line has effectively addressed the important issues that customers can face in determining the storage component of a data center strategy – specifically the need to have highly scalable storage capacity on a high performing network  - storage that is simple to manage and power efficient.  Interesting how storage and server requirements are converging these days.

It seems the tide has been turning a bit in the storage world and there’s a lot more to consider now beyond the “classical” fail-safe back-up.  There are synergies to be had by looking at the overall server/storage/software/virtualization equation.  Sun’s delivered a product line that takes a building block approach to integrating the crucial storage element because that’s the direction the IT managers and the businesses they support are going.  Simple as that.  (Take a look at the massive Internet Archive project which is using AMD Opteron™ processor-based storage in a Sun Modular Datacenter.)

There will likely always be a place for the more traditional back office systems.  But expensive implementations based on proprietary technology and that don’t readily mesh with the increasing need for quick, local, on-demand storage arguably aren’t the best fit given the direction our customers are going.

With more customers looking to virtualization to solve their IT needs, consolidation of storage is likely going to be that “critical first step” in getting the most out of a virtualized environment. Flexibility becomes more important and products like Sun’s Amber Road, built on AMD Opteron processor technology, help drive the right solutions.

Delivering technology that lets you build what you need, when you need it and do so with maximum efficiency -- that still sounds like the right way to go.  I can’t see a future where that doesn’t make sense.

John Fruehe is the Director of Business Development for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.