MARCH 19, 2009

Unified Computing Begets Unified Testing?

Cisco's Unified Computing announcement has been covered throughout the blogosphere and mainstream media, the latest in several that unveil the shift in network infrastructure. In this realm we've seen Juniper's announcement with IBM, the Cisco and VMware announcement and rumors yesterday about IBM and Sun. The basic premise; network equipment is becoming more evolved, automated and content-aware while applications and the data center are becoming more virtualized and network-aware. When once you had disparate players serving different markets you now see these markets converging and the players turning towards each other in order to compete and/or partner. This convergence will only speed up rapidly throughout 2009, evaporating the once static network infrastructure into a dynamic entity aligned appropriately with enterprise IT needs. Greg Ness wrote a nice piece that reviews this evolutionary shift quite well over at SeekingAlpha and helped spark this post.

Reading all of this coverage I started to think how or if this alters the network equipment testing tools industry. The need for realistic testing is something we talk about a lot on this blog and that has come about due to the push towards next-generation network devices which are content-aware. This has been happening for a long time, even the push to "unify computing' is not new, Cisco has just made the latest in-roads. Will the notion of a unified computing fabric mean a need to look at a more unified testing approach? Or have we already moved in that direction and we refer to it in a different manner?

One example comes to mind and there are plenty more obviously. Cisco is trying to provide consolidated access to both SANs and NAS, this support for a "unified fabric" will mean an ability to access storage over Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet or iSCSI. In order to make this a reality there are a lot of moving parts, bound both by the network infrastructure, the IT infrastructure, the application infrastructure, the virtual infrastructure and more. The term "unified" makes it all seem simple, but there are a lot of moving parts, not to mention protocols, packets and devices (although that would be reduced). As the Enterprise shifts their network infrastructure towards this vision, whether it be from Cisco, IBM or another player, it continues to be critical that testing is done with this unified and realistic approach in mind. Unified computing begets unified testing.

OK, but what does unified testing mean? Let's go back to the Cisco announcement. The success of unified computing means adhering to transparency. In the case of Cisco, partnerships are being made with once competing interests, those partnerships will live or die on the level of transparency and cooperation provided. In the testing world the same holds true, transparency or truth in testing helps create better and more secure equipment. We now find ourselves back to the need to provide realistic testing scenarios, even if the numbers aren't exactly what you wanted to see. Truth in testing is critical in making sure that all network equipment and application servers are ready, whether they are deployed in a traditional manner or as part of a unified fabric. In fact, I would argue as equipment and applications begin to rely on each other more and more that the idea of unified and truthful testing becomes paramount.

What do you think of the Cisco Unified Computing push? How do you see this movement altering the testing tools market and the way in which you test your network equipment and application servers?