HWandSWTogether

Does such integration matter when evaluating storage systems? Does it deliver any real-world performance or efficiency benefits?

From a pure CAPEX perspective engineered systems can deliver a 40% cost reduction without compression benefits.

One of the most transformative business advantages is the ability to have on demand business analytics / insight for workloads that traditionally ran overnight.

easier to deploy, easier to manage and easier to support

The integrated storage/DB is one of biggest advantage. Many perf and interoperability problems stem from server to external storage connectivity - especially scaling data growth

The best advantage of engineered systems is increased reliability and ease of maintenance because supposedly all the problems of stack integration have already been worked out by one vendor. Once you have that you can start to fine tune.

Commodity solutions are just that. They offer flexibility & lower cost at the expense of higher performance. Commodity will always mean lowest common denominator. You will never equal the perf. of a complete "stack engineered" solution.

It should be noted, all integrated strategies are not created equal. SAP and Microsoft PARTNER to make their software work with hardware. Oracle ENGINEERS software and hardware, this is unique and delivers sustainable value to the end customer.

https://twitter.com/JLOracle/status/439064061264035840

It has multiple effects, efficiency being one. Time to value is really big - there are too many external influence that is creating a sense of urgency to adapt. e.g. mobility, social, analytics

Here's a video showcasing University of central Florida using Oracle SW and HW together to innovate their campus solution

UCF Oracle Applications Together with Oracle Systems

http://medianetwork.oracle.com/video/player/3059826738001

Software drives this an more and more value is become in software. Agree on the cost of running those systems. esp commodity hw lots of hidden costs.. for some that's ok some it's not at all

agree-things can become complex very quickly as business requirements start changing and it becomes difficult to keep BOB integrated

Agree. Integrated systems along w/ new deployment models like public/private clouds or financing models can lower cost of entry - and shrink the ROI payback window

And what if BYO is BOB?

I am seeing large enterprises going for purpose built. IBM sold their low end servers to Lenovo and focusing on optimized systems. Steve Mills validated that appliances (or purpose built) is the winning formula

Integrated approach doesn't preclude best of breed but that is one of the points to look at if you consider an integrated approach

Gartner's "Ten Trends and Technologies to Impact IT" article talks about this trend, saying IT is getting too complex to be buying at the component level, and more companies are looking for vendors they can trust to do this integration.

As far as applications, the areas that show the greatest potential are enterprise wide, mission critical like Financials, HR, Merchandising, etc.

One of the drivers is that organizations have fixed resources of time as well as money but time is always finite

BOB is even better if it comes pre-integrated

So if you can imagine the benefits of being able to time to your team. For example, what would your team do with an additional 4 hrs a week for each member of your staff

Or, what would it mean if you could complete your supply chain plan in less than an hour than overnight. You can run it during the day and adjust to unforeseen changes

There are several areas where an integrated approach will drive unique and extended value due to the optimizations developed across each layer of the stack. OLTP, Batch, and In Memory workloads in particular.

Any standard processes (GL, HR, etc) with big batch reports or heavy transactions. But even customers innovating custom java apps, see huge adv w/ with integrated DB or MW platform

Is there a presentation you'll be presenting or just a discussion based on your questions?

seems like a very high number

There isn't a formal presentation. We'll just be discussing points of view and responding

We also look forward to questions from the crowd

I think that scale out on commodity hardware is something that is gaining traction but it's not always optimized lots of innovation still needed in that market. Purpose built systems are winning with software driving value

How can business innovate keeping this equation for IT resources? We have to re-balance this equation where we can free up resources that are used up for "Reactive, keeping the lights on" type of activities to "proactive and innovative"

So do you think that’s why everyone is looking to go to the cloud? To reduce OPEX?

Here's a video that brings context to what we are discussing today.

http://medianetwork.oracle.com/video/player/3092316277001

Complexity is the enemy of the efficiency, insight and flexibility which is needed to be responsive to changing conditions. Simplifying IT puts you in position to shift your resources to more innovative efforts.

there's an IT labor problem - all that non-differentiated heavy lifting is killing IT organizations

Is Gartner advising clients on how to create new/better KPIs to measure the impact of IT to the business? ie. beyond just typical OpEx (support, environmentals, admin)

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