Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and other large IT providers insist that data center customers want to deal with fewer, bigger vendors for more of their IT needs. But many IT pros say this “one throat to choke” mantra is self-serving at best and often demonstrably false.

Their response could be summed up this way: “Well, of course HP wants to sell me my servers, my switches, my routers, my storage. But why would I want to source all that from HP, if its storage and networking gear is not up to snuff? Cisco Systems is now, famously, in the server market, but why would I want to trust my data center to a newbie server provider? I want the best server, the best router, the best storage and they come from different vendors.”

In fact, most IT pros say that the mere presence of multiple vendors in their shops ensures that they get better pricing and service from each.

The more throats the better for IT support, pricing
“I have found that to keep a vendor honest and hungry for your business, you should have some competition on-site,” said an IT manager at a large New England medical center.

more of the SearchDataCenter article from Barbara Darrow