Michael Dell recently gave the keynote at the Gartner Symposium in Cannes. One of the topics he discussed was the two IT paths available: evolutionary and revolutionary.
Taking it higher
What I find interesting is that while we at Dell have been talking about evolutionary and revolutionary paths to the cloud, Michael re-labels the discussion in terms of IT paths. I like this up-leveling since it presupposes a cloudy future while at the same time providing a broader context.
Also in this short video, Michael gives a shout out for Dell’s Virtual Integrated System which fits perfectly with the evolutionary angle and he mentions the Modular Data Center that our group is responsible for when talking about the revolutionary angle.
You say you want an Evo/Revolution
In case you’re wondering, here’s how we define these two paths:
- The evolutionary approach is when you take existing enterprise applications and systems, that were never intended to be used in a scaled out-environment, and through virtualization you retrofit them for a cloud environment.
- In a revolutionary approach you develop cloud native apps which are designed, from the start, to be used in the cloud and a highly scaled-out environment. The systems that support this model are ultra-dense and efficient. For this to be practical you need the luxury of a Greenfield environment.
Pau for now…
Extra-credit reading:
- Michael Dell at Gartner Symposium in Cannes, November 10, 2010
- Tier5 first to fire up Dell’s 3rd-gen Modular Data Center