Is converged infrastructure the future? Major technology companies are now offering integrated compute, storage, and network in a box. Leading the pack is the Vblock system by VCE. Vblock consists of hardware and software from Cisco, EMC, and VMware.

Similarly, servers, storage, and network vendors are also offering their own integrated system. NetApp, a storage vendor, is selling FlexPod. A FlexPod combines NetApp storage systems, Cisco Unified Computing System servers, and Cisco Nexus fabric into a single, flexible architecture.

Cisco, a networking company, has been selling x86 Unified Computing System for years and recently bought Whiptail, a high performance storage company, to enhance their unified infrastructure offering. HP, a server company, is offering the POD solution.

These converged infrastructure solutions are not only suited for small or medium sized data centers but they are engineered for large scale, high performance, and highly reliant data centers. In addition, security, automation, and monitoring are built into the package.

With these solutions, companies do not need to spend time and money architecting and integrating servers, storage, and networks. Most importantly, operations and vendor support will be simplified. There will only be one point of contact for vendor support and finger pointing between vendors will be minimized.