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More for less is driving hardware channel trends


Johannesburg, 18 Aug 2004

Customers` demand for more performance and manageability at less cost is shaping the hardware market and driving resellers and systems integrators to adapt.

That`s the view of Spiro Zambelis, Sales Manager: Infrastructure at African Legend Indigo, local Sun Microsystems iForce partner. Zambelis says those customer demands have already prompted the boom in centralised computing.

"The general market trend is that everyone wants more for less," he says. "What that leads to is more centralised computing with more manageability. This has driven the rise in `rack and stack` and at the same time boosted the larger enterprise-type systems as well. Rack and stack is now more manageable and cost-effective than before - hence its uptake - and skills shortages have created the need for more centralisation in the data centre. We have come full circle from the mainframe to distributed computing and now back to a centralised model."

Zambelis points out that Sun is specifically well geared to large enterprise with data centre type servers. "As well as having the kind of scalability and manageability suited for an enterprise environment, all components on high-end Sun servers are interchangeable. This provides room for growth and protects the customer`s investment. The newer generation servers such as the 2900 even allow mixing different CPU types in the same box so you can grow how you need and get that more performance for less cost.

On the operating system side, all Sun servers run exactly the same OS - Solaris 10. Previous versions of Solaris differentiated between Trusted Solaris - the very secure build used in critical installations like the US Army - and normal Solaris. Those have been merged into a single version where the security features can be enabled if required. Having a single operating system across the board obviously reduces the overall cost of your installation."

But Sun is also interested in the low end workgroup server where it has recently introduced competitive models based on AMD`s Opteron CPU. The dual-processor Sun Fire V20z server, first in a new line of AMD Opteron-based servers from Sun, delivers high performance, reliability and scalability in a low-cost, ultra-dense, rack-optimised 1U form factor. With a single architecture, the Sun Fire V20z server supports both 32-bit and 64-bit computing, with the advantage of maintaining an existing x86 infrastructure while still enabling a smooth migration to next-generation 64-bit operating systems and applications.

Zambelis says the consolidation of servers and services has been different for corporates and SMEs. "The corporate move towards consolidation has really been driven by manageability. Sun itself, for example, will have just three data centres worldwide by the end of the year. Most SMEs still use the distributed model because bandwidth costs are cheaper. It`s more cost-effective in SA to have servers in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town and a thin data pipe connecting them than a large server in Johannesburg with wide connections to the other centres. Obviously with the emergence of wireless solutions and the SNO, this could change."

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AL Indigo

African Legend Indigo (AL Indigo) is a black-owned IT company focused on the delivery on cost-effective enterprise systems solutions that make a real bottom line difference to its customers` operations. The company is a member of the respected African Legend organisation through a 57.5% shareholding by African Legend Technologies.

Editorial contacts

Elize Knuppel
African Legend Indigo
(011) 808 6300
spiro.zambelis@alindigo.com