Hello World: Welcome to the Datacenter Interop InfoCenter

Hardware interoperability (or lack thereof) has become an enormous challenge for today’s IT professional. In a perfect world, their organizations would simply clear inventory and start from scratch with products from one manufacturer, thereby avoiding the pains of compatibility. But costs prohibit such as actions in the real world, so the IT professional must continue to make different products from different manufacturers work together – seamlessly and efficiently. No easy task.

As IT professionals have come to learn, most manufacturers don’t spend any time documenting how their products work with those from other manufacturers – leaving it up to the IT pro to figure out via “trial and error” on a case-by-case basis. This represents an enormous opportunity cost, as every minute spent troubleshooting data center hardware could be spent on optimizations and enhancements elsewhere. We live in a world of heterogeneous hardware, but with no manual or roadmap to support it.

But with the right information, hardware interoperability is not only possible – in some cases, it’s actually preferred. In that spirit, we are pleased to launch this new InfoCenter sponsored by HP. Recognizing that enterprises are not homogenous in their hardware selection, this InfoCenter will explain – in precise detail – how to get HP hardware to efficiently interact with those from others, mainly Cisco.

Covering a wide range of use cases, the content will be tailored to those organization leveraging HP’s blade system switch, and who wish to improve compatibility with Cisco servers. Here are a few of the many topics we’ll be addressing the coming days and weeks:

·         Configuring IRF & FCoE Technologies on HP 6125XLG Ethernet Blade Switch and Cisco Nexus 5500/6000 Series Switches

·         Comparing VMware vCenter Management Plug-ins

·         Configuring ProLiant rack mount servers with Nexus 6000 series Switches

·         Updating drivers: HP Smart Update Manager vs. Cisco Host Update Utility

·         Configuring HP 5900 Series and Cisco Nexus 5500/6000 Series TOR Switches

We look forward to helping you alleviate the pains hardware interoperability. Stay tuned!