Project Mystic…My Intriguing Observations

Project MysticWill You Be Left Out?

In a recent article about Project Mystic posted on CRN, Kevin McLaughlin, dives into what his sources say are the good and bad side of working with VMware as a partner. But as I see it, Project Mystic isn’t anything new because Google and Amazon have been building converged infrastructure hardware for years in their clouds. Or did you not read my last post on white box servers?

So let me ask – what makes VMware building a converges storage, network, and server appliance any different than let say Cisco UCS? Easy, they have the secret source code…

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News Worthy…

If you’re like me then you follow the news on VMware partnerships and wonder, right? For example, I am still waiting for the news to break about what VMware is doing with OpenStack. I’m just speculating but I know for the Linux and KVM crowd it won’t be good news once the cat is out of the bag. But that’s a different topic and yet not so different to the news about Project Mystic.

Project Mystic…

Just asking but could you do not pick a more obvious name to try and generate interest? I’m sure over the next few months we’ll hear a lot about what this new converged infrastructure appliance will do…

…but let me try and guess:

  • network in a box
  • with storage in a box
  • with compute in a box
  • all in a converged infrastructure appliance (aka CIA)
  • and all running on the same vkernel

…and let’s call the product, hmm, I know…VMware vMystic or how about EMC Mystic!

I’m Intrigued

In closing let me give my condolences to all the partners who have been uninvited to the party with VMware for reasons sources say were because they poached system engineers. And yet didn’t I just read about VMware poaching from Amazon’s crew?

Furthermore, I can’t help thinking about the meeting I attended this week to review VSAN and I’m left wondering how VSAN will play out in EMC long term. Is VSAN only a step towards EMC’s new product line of Converged Infrastructure Appliances? I am normally very positive about VMware but I see something brewing…

To learn more about how vSphere works, we recommend reading our guide to VMware training for beginners.

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