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Having been around the IT infrastructure business for almost my entire career, I feel like I'm qualified to make some pretty informed observations about things relating to IT.  Frankly, things are up in the air on a lot of fronts, and it's no surprise that IT decision makers are confused.

Let's start with VMware being acquired by Broadcom.  Well, that one purchase has caused much consternation on the part of end users, as well as VMware's resellers and alliance partners, like Dell and HPE.  End users are ticked off about the price increases and being forced into bundled products that they have only a need for one small part of the product, but now have to pay for the whole thing.  Partners all went around and renewed VMware products early, so now there's not a lot of VMware business for them this year.  They urged their end user customers to go longer term to keep access to the "old" products at what were expected to be lower costs.  As long as Broadcom continues to update the products this might have been a good strategy but time will tell.

Meanwhile, Dell and HPE have both announced plans to introduce their own hypervisor, so that their customers will have a choice to move off VMware and not be beholden to Broadcom.  All of this is happening when the market is moving towards containerization in additional to virtualization, and containerization is growing much faster than virtualization.  So who knows if that's a good move or not?  It could be vaporware, for all we know.

My company, Roundstone Solutions, is a partner of Nutanix, and it's the majority of what we do every day.  We know the platform well, but candidly, many of their announcements are confusing, as well.  At the same time as Dell is saying they want to develop a new hypervisor, they've entered into a new partnership with Nutanix for HCI using existing Dell hardware.  Confused yet?

While all of this is going on, end users keep falling for the allure of "moving things to the Cloud" which is code for putting applications into AWS, Azure, and GCP at typically double the cost of what the workloads could be run on-premises.  Disclaimer...I believe that some workloads belong in the Cloud...just not most of them.

It's amazing that this is still happening...I thought for sure that by now organizations would have audited the higher costs and additional function the Public Cloud promised and forced changes.  We're seeing some of that happen, but people don't usually publicize their failures, do they?  Seriously, in your personal life how often do you and your partner say "let's double our cost of living for no real appreciable improvement?"  I'm guessing never.

Look, we can help with all of this.  It starts with doing your homework.  Most of you acquire IT infrastructure once in awhile; we are involved with it every day.  We've continually advocated doing your homework in advance of making a decision.  Simply saying "we're moving to the cloud" might make you think you're being smart, but without having done an analysis (the homework), it's pretty dumb.  Just calling it like I see it.

As you might be able to tell, we're pretty candid at Roundstone Solutions.  Which, in this time of confusion, is needed.  Reach out and we'll have a conversation.  If you think we're full of it, tell us and go in a different direction.  But that's not likely...you'll be impressed by the depth of our knowledge, and the common sense approach we use.  And we'll show you how to save a fair amount of money.

What are you waiting for?

By now, you've either read about or been affected by the failed update security firm Crowdstrike pushed to their customers the other day.  Who could have predicted this?  Actually, anyone could have predicted it.

The world isn't filled with guarantees.  In fact, it's just the opposite.  Uncertainly is part of life.  We try and control things as best we can, to minimize negative outcomes, but sometimes bad things happen.  The fact is that there are just some things that no matter how much you try, you still get wrong.  It's OK; it happens to all of us.

So, your company spent a bazillion dollars on security products in the hope that you could prevent everything bad from happening.  The interesting thing with the Crowdstrike issue is that it WASN'T the bad guys who got everyone; it was a mistake by the good guys.  Which happens.  Clearly, Crowdstrike wasn't trying to hurt many companies and governments globally; it would be unfair to accuse Crowdstrike of any bad intentions.  

But, the thing is that despite all of your due diligence, preparation, and money spent, it still happened.  The issue here is that too many of you thought it couldn't happen to you.  It can, and did.

What can we learn from this?  Probably a few things.  The first is that bad stuff happens sometimes.  The second is that you need to be prepared in the event bad stuff DOES happen.  The third is that you shouldn't "put all of your eggs in one basket".

When a simple error can cause so much global difficulties, you really have to wonder if there was too much risk centered on one vendor's products.  In this case, there was.  You know what you need to do...don't rely on one vendor.  No one is untouchable.  Either from bad guys or from good guys making dumb mistakes.

Don't beat yourself up if you got caught in the Crowdstrike issue, but be smart about things going forward.

On a lighter note, I like the fake Southwest Airline's tweet about the issue:  "Well, well, well.  Look who needs ol' Southwest Airlines now because all of our systems run on a single Commodore 64 in a warehouse in Arlington.  Go to hell."  ​If you thought that was a real tweet, then you got fooled twice this week!

We're several months down the road from Broadcom taking over VMware, and we've now seen pretty clearly the moves Broadcom is making.  Additionally, we've heard the talking heads opine about who will be the winners and losers in this environment.  So far, I've been surprised by the lack of clear analysis of what this means for the average End User customer.  So, let me share my views on things, particularly on what it might/could/should mean for End Users.

To begin, VMware has been selling two products that most End Users have deployed for many years.  VMware's flagship product, and the product that pretty much everything else is based on, is vSphere, also known as ESXi.  This is the virtualization product that VMware is known for, since they invented the product in the early 2000s (over 20 years ago...a lifetime in technology).  The other product VMware is known for is vCenter, which is their management plane, allowing users to manage their virtualized environments.  Both products are well regarded, and most organizations have trained their staffs on these products.

For years, VMware sold their products on a perpetual basis.  You would buy a server from Dell or HPE, and then you would buy vSphere licenses for those servers, in some cases, the vSphere licenses cost as much as, or more than the actual server itself.  You also added the new server to your vCenter license.  Again, you paid once for the VMware products and had the ability to use them essentially forever.  Or so you thought.

Keep in mind that the software industry has had a history of changing the way they charge for software.  Some software companies base their charges on CPU cores, some is based on CPU sockets, some is based on number of users, etc.  Originally, most software companies sold their software with perpetual licenses, so that they could realize the revenue up front.  But years ago, the world changed to wanting recurring revenue over time, and subscription licenses became what most software vendors went to.  A good example of this is how you pay for Salesforce; it's not a perpetual license...it's a subscription.  In other words, you're going to have to pay for that software more than once during the time you use it.  Good business for the software manufacturers, and not at all unfair to End Users.

So now Broadcom decided to change from perpetual licenses from subscription licenses.  That in itself should have been a non-story, but the way they went about it was dumb.  Rather than just move from perpetual to subscription, they decided that they wanted to bundle many software products (that End Users may not have a need for) into the subscriptions for the products that most users liked, namely vSphere and vCenter.  The idea was to add perceived value to the licenses as validation of a large cost increase.  That's what made the costs jump. 

It's not anecdotal information about the rise in costs from Broadcom.  In our business, we've seen cost increases ranging from 40% to over 500%.  Of course, an increase of 500% on a base of $1,000 is measured in the small thousands, but to End Users that were paying VMware a million a year, the increase is in the millions.  Real money.

I believe Broadcom must not have a very smart public relations/marketing department.  I mean, the issues they have today are all self-inflicted.  They've decided to run their business a certain way, which is their right, with little regards for End Users.  Again, that's their right, but, as a customer, you don't have to sit there and take it.

The possible winner in this mess is Nutanix.  As many know, my company is a well regarded partner of Nutanix and we know the platform extremely well.  But I think Nutanix's messaging on the Broadcom situation is off a bit.  Nutanix is going around telling everyone that they're a great alternative (and they are) to vSphere and vCenter.  But it's not like you can just purchase Nutanix's vSphere and vCenter products and run them in your existing environment instead of VMware.  Nope, you need to do something else, WHICH IS WHAT I THINK THE REAL BENEFIT TO END USERS IS.

In Nutanix's view, VMware's vSphere and vCenter are not products anymore, but features.  Nutanix is 100% right about this.  You pay large amounts of money for products, but not features.  So why have end Users continued to pay huge sums to VMware/Broadcom for vSphere and vCenter?  My opinion is that it's Newton's first law.  Remember "objects at rest stay at rest"?   Well, End Users have always avoided doing things until they are forced to.  Sure, most technical people were trained in VMware, and even though there may have been better products in the market, End Users stayed with VMware.  Even when there are alternatives that are FREE!  In your personal life, you wouldn't do that, but in business, well, it's the company's money, not mine.

 Let's go back to the discussion about Nutanix.  Nutanix offers two features with their AOS operating system called AHV, which is Acropolis Hypervisor, and Prism.  AHV is the equivalent of vSphere, and Prism is the equivalent of vCenter.  Both are included, at no extra cost, with every node that Nutanix sells.  In other words, you can have the same functionality as VMware at zero cost.  Who wouldn't consider that?

But what is the real benefit I was talking about?  Well, in order to take advantage of Nutanix's AHV and Prism, you have to deploy Nutanix's HCI platform.  This means, you'll be moving from a 30 year old architecture called 3-Tier to a proven 13 year old architecture called Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI).  If you're unfamiliar with HCI, it's because you must not understand the architecture of the Public Cloud.  The Public Cloud uses HCI, and has been for a very long time.

The real benefit comes from moving to HCI with all of its inherent advantages (much higher performance, simplicity, scalability, choice and lower cost).  The ability to eliminate VMware costs is a cherry on top, not the real driver.

To summarize, smart organizations are using Broadcom's actions to take back control over their IT infrastructures, and migrate to a more modern infrastructure (HCI), with its advantages, and positioning themselves to eliminate Broadcom/VMware costs altogether.

If your partner isn't giving you insight like this, feel free to reach out and speak to Roundstone Solutions.  As you can see, we look behind all the headlines to really understand things, so that we can make the best recommendations for you.  We can be reached at 925-217-1177 (office), 925-324-1582 (cell), or [email protected].

​You'll be glad you did.

As a Nutanix partner, we've been watching this story with the VMware acquisition by Broadcom for over 18 months.  Well, it's finally done.  And users don't seem to be that happy.  Let's talk about it, and see if you've got some better options (you do).

To begin, the acquisition of VMware doesn't help you in any way.  Broadcom purchased VMware for a lot of money, and the only way they're going to make that money back is to cut a lot out of VMware.  Increasing profit is pretty simple; you either sell more of your products, increase the price of the products you're already selling, cut back on the internal costs of the products you sell, or a combination of these (most likely).

So far, we've seen Broadcom do the following:

• Eliminate perpetual licenses (you knew that was coming, because most other vendors changed to term based licenses awhile ago)
• Announce that products will be "bundled", meaning you'll be paying for some products you have no need for
• Prices are going up (the average price increase we've seen so far is over 40%...ouch)
• Are getting rid of their VDI offering (Horizon/View) so you're going to be dealing with a new vendor
• Changed their reseller program to tick off every reseller that previously invested in selling VMware

Can you tell me which of these changes positively impact you in your role at your organization?  You can't...because none of them are positive for you.

It can't feel good to be a Broadcom customer right now.  Them charging you for vSphere and vCenter when both are no longer products but instead are now features isn't cool.  

Nutanix gives you those functions as features of their AOS operating system.  In other words, the two VMware products you most have a use for are free with Nutanix.  And don't tell me the products don't work (they do...beautifully) or that your VMware trained guys can't figure them out (AHV and Prism) because they can get comfortable with both inside of about 5 minutes.

So why keep up with the hassle?  This is a fight you didn't ask for...but you sure got dragged into it.  Let us help you.

We can make it very easy for you to deploy Nutanix and migrate your VMware VMs over to Nutanix's AHV (again, the software and migration are free).  In fact, the price to buy the Nutanix appliance (all new hardware) is most likely less expensive than what you're already paying for VMware itself.

If you were ever looking for a SLAM DUNK, this is it.  You weren't looking for the hassle, because it doesn't help your company sell more widgets, and that's where we can come in.  We'll do the lifting for you.  It's easy.

Reach out and let's start a discussion, like many of your peers have already done.  Thanks...

This post is going to be about the current state of IT infrastructure.  I think it's important...I hope you'll read it and let me know if you agree.

To start, my company, Roundstone Solutions, is a VAR/reseller/partner in the IT infrastructure space, and we make our money by selling products to our customers.  We're very knowledgeable about IT infrastructure, having spent decades in the business.  We always take an objective look at things, to try and help customers and prospects make the best decisions they can.

For years, we've marveled at how customers get mesmerized by various vendors' claims about their products and then shovel millions of dollars at said vendors with hardly a look back to see if those claims ever materialized.  It's as if the job of the IT purchaser is done when the PO is signed.  No one ever really gets held accountable for their decisions, to see if the proposed benefits ever happened.  In most cases, benefits were very oversold, but the money spent still was real money.

With that in mind, my company's approach is to help educate end users so that they make decisions that will stand up to scrutiny today and in the future.  That doesn't mean things don't change and that every decision ends up to be the best over time, but at least the process and resulting decision can be analyzed and defended at a later date.

IT infrastructure decisions often come down to one of the following:

• We've always done it this way, so we'll just keep doing it this way
• Everyone says the Public Cloud is where we should put our IT infrastructure; it's what all the smart companies are doing (hardly)
• This new vendor has promised some unbelievable benefits that we just can't pass up

Sound familiar?  It ought to, because that's how most of you do it.  But is that really the smart way to do things?  No, it's not.

You owe it to yourself to do your homework UP FRONT.  It's not hard to do, and I'm going to share how to do it.

First, it's always about the workloads.  Let me say that again...the workloads are what count.  And workloads should run where they best benefit the organization, shouldn't they?  Of course they should.

You only have a few options for IT infrastructure to run those workloads.  Those options are:

1. Run the workload in your on-premises IT infrastructure (either in your own datacenter or in a co-location facility) using legacy 3-tier infrastructure
2. Run the workload in your on-premises IT infrastructure (either in your own datacenter or in a co-location facility) using Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI)
3. Run the workload in a SaaS environment (typically run by the SW vendor itself)
4. Run the workload in the Public Cloud
5. Any combination of the above options

Now, how many of your really compare the alternatives?  I'll answer that...almost none of you do.  That's crazy.  All of the options are different, with different experiences, security, backup, performance, management, and cost.  So, how do you know you've made the right decision if you haven't looked at the options objectively.  You can't, which is where the vast majority of IT infrastructure spend gets wasted.  Millions more spent that could have been re-directed into innovation.

As an IT executive myself, I urge you to be smart about how you make your IT infrastructure decisions. There's not one right answer to every situation, and you won't know which is best until you do the homework.

So, let's say you agree to the above (and you should), how do you go about "doing the homework"?

First off, you know that any evaluation by a vendor is going to end up saying that you need to buy the vendors' products.  You need to do the evaluation yourself, using your data, not the vendor's data.

And this is where my company, Roundstone Solutions, excels.  We've developed an easy to use template for evaluating the various options.  Contact me directly, and I'll be happy to share it with you.  We want you to make the right decision, by workload.  And you'll be able to defend your decision into the future.

Thanks for reading...hopefully you can tell we're a  bit different than the "typical VAR".  Reach out at 925-324-1582 or [email protected].

To begin, Roundstone isn't a VMware partner.  We've known VMware for 20 years or so, and know they invented server virtualization, which revolutionized the IT infrastructure industry.  This provided users with unbelievable value, in that they could finally extract maximum value out of the server hardware they had purchased.  All good stuff.

But, to be fair, 20 years is a long time, and a lot of things have changed since then,  Everything except that you're all still paying VMware a heck of a lot of money for what has become "table stakes" in the IT infrastructure space.  Simply stated, there's no technical reason why you need to be using, and paying for, most if not all of VMware's product line.  Again, nothing against VMware, except that the market has moved past them.

Still, IT users (who seem to move with a herd mentality) have been reluctant to move away from VMware.  After all, many careers have been made supporting VMware, many technical people have their employment tied to the fact that they're "VMware experts" and, as we all know, objects at rest stay at rest, if you get my meaning.

Until now.  Now you have to act, because the purchase of VMware by Broadcom is hitting you now.  You had nothing to do with it, but like it or not, you're in it.  Which sucks, to be frank.  But you can't sit there and not act.  Your VMware partner has been fired by Broadcom, your products have been changed overnight, many of your products are being ended or sold to other companies, and you'll now be paying for all of VMware's products on a subscription basis.  You have no choice.  Or, do you?

Why be held hostage when you don't have to be?  No one likes to be forced to do things; we all like the freedom to do what we decide to do.  So, this time, since you're being left with no choice, how about you finally make the move away from VMware?  There are tens of thousands of organizations which have already done so, and I don't think a single one has gone out of business because they ditched VMware.  

Here's the answer...get away from VMware by deploying Nutanix, and with it, their Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV).  AHV replaces VSphere.  For free.

Nutanix's Prism is the management tool that Nutanix uses.  Prism replaces VCenter.  For free.

And Nutanix even gives you the tool to make the migration simple.  For free.

What are you waiting for?  Give us a call and we'll help you start the process of getting your freedom back!

Well, the calendar has changed over from 2023 to 2024.  And with it, we have a few thoughts as to what we hope to see in 2024.

If you're a regular reader of my Blog posts, you know that I'm a pretty matter-of-fact person, who is not afraid to give honest opinions about what I see in the market.  I'm a big believer that anyone who is involved with IT Infrastructure has an important role for their company which needs to be taken seriously.  And like things you take seriously, you need to do your homework so that you can make the best decisions.

So, to start, I'm hoping we see more intelligent decision-making than in the past few years.  I believe that a large amount of money spent in IT Infrastructure is wasted by users because of the lack of proper evaluation and decision making.  In 2024, let's return to actually doing the homework BEFORE making decisions with IT Infrastructure.  In other words, look at all of your alternatives honestly.  Don't just blindly follow what you think all of the rest are doing.  Do the work and evaluate your own company's situation to see what's best.

Of course, I'm talking about blindly following everyone into the Public Cloud for your IT Infrastructure.  Unless you're refactoring your applications to be cloud native, you're likely to find that lifting and shifting your workloads from on-premises to the Public Cloud has little effect other than increasing your costs and making management a more difficult thing.  Ask yourself...how does this help my company to sell more of what we sell?  If moving to the Public Cloud doesn't allow your company to sell a hell of a lot more products, than put your efforts into something that will.

But you can't talk about the Public Cloud without this disclaimer...it makes sense for SOME workloads.  Not all, but some.  So use it for some, but not all.

Another big topic as we start 2024 is VMware.  Now that Broadcom has fully acquired VMware, their first few moves are very telling.  For VMware users, your costs are going up.  Plain and simple.  But don't fear...you don't have to use VMware products.  If you're a VDI user, they've already told you that they're exiting that business.  So, as much as you might have liked VMware Horizon, they no longer like you that much.

But the big win for everyone will be to move away from spending money for VMware products.  As a partner of Nutanix, our customers have (for many years) been able to eliminate most of their VMware spend by using Nutanix with Nutanix's hypervisor, AHV.  It works very well, and costs you nothing.  Ask yourself whether you'd pay for something in your personal life that others give away at no cost.  You wouldn't.  So why do it in your business life?  It makes no sense.  Take the VMware spend and put it to better use by developing some new way to help your company make more money.  Contact us and we'll show you how easy it can be.

Overall, we think that 2024 could be the year that companies get smart about their IT Infrastructure spend.  And we're going to help them do that.

Happy New Year, and all the best for a prosperous 2024!