He adds that it's interesting how often acquisitions follow successful partnerships, basically the partnering process allows both companies to road test their relationships and tell whether they want to work together more closely. "There may also have been competitive issues at play. LineSider's other partners include EMC and HP. EMC's OK, as Cisco already partners closely there, but Cisco may have decided that they'd prefer to own LineSider rather than risk a potential deal with HP."
There is an overwhelming need to create software that ties servers, storage, and networking together to really reap the rewards of the cloud, says Andre Kindness of Forrester Research. "In addition, customers are asking for integrated data center stacks, and it only makes sense for Cisco to bring the software solution in-house to fill out their networking, UCS (Unified Computing System), and management story," adds Kindness.
Networking, in general, missed the virtualization cue, and Cisco is scrambling to catch up to what VMware did in the data center, says Kindness. "When a VM gets moved, server personnel communicate the move, and the networking personnel make config changes. Most of the automation that vendors talk about today is in the server and at times the link between the server and switch port. The rest of the network doesn't change unless it is manually changed. In a dynamic and virtualized environment, changes need to be done on the fly, automatically."
