The data center is more than the fabric that connects servers

David Spark reporting for Riverbed at Interop ’09, Las Vegas, NV.

I chatted with Mark Day, Chief Scientist of Riverbed who spoke on this morning’s keynote panel, “Reinventing the data center.” There was a series of agreements and dissent on the panel around this subject. Together, Day said they all agreed that the highest ROI thing you could do would be to consolidate the data center. Doing so delivers a multitude of savings, such as savings on power, licenses, and server maintenance.

Day was hoping that the conversation expanded to issues of how the changes in technology like cloud computing and storage duplication and WAN optimization affect the data center. They focused on the narrow issue of the fabric of one data center. You need to think about it more holistically.

For more, check out all of Riverbed’s Interop ’09 Las Vegas coverage.