We’re spending the next two days at Hewlett-Packard, discussing its networking strategy and the changes it sees in the networking market.
The discussions echo conversation we’ve had with people in recent months about how the networks will have to adapt as the amount of data scales to a point where it can not be managed without some intelligence built into the infrastructure.
For HP, a number issues are emerging that illustrate the new realities of the enterprise. Here are a few discussed today:
- For customers, reliability is still critically important to the network but it’s no longer the primary concern. The network can no longer be untouchable, managed by a few with training in the black arts of networking management. Adding bandwidth does not solve the problem. The network needs more intelligence and elasticity.
- The business process is at the center of everything. Applications have to be launched on the network in a fraction of the time that had been done before. The network has to be flexible, open and much easier to manage.
- Application development is not what it used to be. More companies follow the Agile process that provides a streamlined method for developing applications. The same kind of urgency needs to be integrated into networking. Applications are changing so often that the network has to be optimized.
These are just a few of the issues surfacing in the enterprise. Is this a real assessment of what customers are saying?
Hewlett-Packard covered the airfare and hotel expenses for the author to attend the company’s HP Networking Day.
