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It's hard to remember a time when people thought that Amazon was crazy about getting into cloud computing because it was so far removed from the core e-commerce of # 39; company. Nobody laughs now.
It seems that history can be repeated. According to an article in The Information, Amazon would have targeted a new industry, although dominated by a giant player and multiple competitors in good health – network switching activity. This decision would place it in direct competition with Cisco, HPE, Juniper Networks and Arista.
"As is the case in many other categories, Amazon plans to use the price to reduce its competitors," the report says. "The company could encrypt its white box switches between 70% and 80% less than comparable Cisco switches, one of the people with an estimated program knowledge."
Now, Cisco products are not cheap, but how do you get it from 70% to 80% and you do not bleed money, even if it 's all about money. a leader in cloud services.
Patrick Moorhead, founder and senior analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said this decision made sense. This makes sense, especially since most switches use the same Broadcom chipset and can run the same software. The TDR are close to the merchandise ", he tweeted .
The switches would be specialized in connecting private data centers and Amazon Web Services (AWS). They would use unbranded hardware and free software, with specialized connections to AWS cloud services. And it's not like AWS was starting from scratch or working with the bottom of the barrel. AWS-rated information uses these same switches in its own data centers, and partners proposed by AWS are Celestica, Edgecore Networks and Delta Networks.
These are established players who have a healthy corner of the market. More importantly, Celestica and Delta are American companies, while Edgecore is in Taiwan. Given concerns about Chinese network and server vendors, AWS, Microsoft, Google, IBM, and most cloud providers are using unbranded white boxes from the United States and China in their data centers. in preference to the more expensive and general purpose servers of HPE and Dell. These white box servers tend to have some features removed, such as unnecessary ports, with high throughput.
Such use has made the box server market a resounding success when sales are made collectively. HPE and Dell are still the best individual sellers. Yet with Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google building data centers the size of football stadiums, he has done wonders for these guys.
Challenge for Amazon: Provide Support Services
The true Achille Heel for AWS does not run against Cisco; It's a support. As The Information notes, networking is one of the most complex challenges for companies that want to couple their private clouds with public clouds such as AWS. If Amazon devices are trying to simplify the hybrid cloud connection, I have a question: Who will support it?
AWS has partners, but the company does not respond to Microsoft MVPs and IBM Global Services consultants. I've read more than once with AWS, you're often alone compared to Microsoft Azure. AWS will have to dramatically increase its consulting offer if it wants to make these devices easy to access its services because the last thing a company wants is for an Amazon delivery truck to drop a bunch of boxes in their lobby and say, "See you! "AWS will have to bring people in for installation and configuration.
Still, the report says that Amazon will have 18 months of launch, which will give it ample time to resolve all these issues." 19659013] Join the global community network on Facebook and LinkedIn to comment on the top topics.