思科是唯一安全的选择?

Kevin Jennings

11월 30, 2015

这是“揭穿思科神话”系列文章的第2部分

这是“Demythologizing Cisco" 

可以说，安全存在于旁观者的眼中. 安全感往往建立在客观的基础上, observable, 可核查和可证伪的数据点.  在许多其他情况下, it is based more on subjective feeling or impression than on objective facts.  所以，在采购和部署方面就是这样 Cisco solutions 与竞争对手的产品相比?  The answer is not completely cut and dry, and can be based on circumstances of a given situation.  My observations: That for every case in which the so called “safety” of buying Cisco constitutes the salient legitimate basis for its selection, 有十几种甚至更多的情况不是这样. More accurately, where the relative comparative advantage of the safety offered by Cisco is far outweighed by other factors, such as comparative technology and overall value proposition (read: price for what one is getting), 事实并非如此.

To cut through to the paramount point -- when considering safety in choosing technology solutions, it boils down to issues of whether the manufacturer will be in business, 他们会继续开发这款产品吗, and will they be servicing the product for the term of its useful lifecycle in your network.  Network infrastructure products possess notoriously brief lifecycles, in part driven by the demands placed on them by mushrooming bandwidth and other communications requirements, and in part by the artificial promotion and adoption of the latest and greatest technology hype fostered by vendors and adopted by the business community alike.  Whatever your individual expectations are for the lifecycle of a given networking infrastructure deployment, the market seems to have voted for something along the lines of 3 to 5 years.  As such, 在看网络设备时, one has to consider whether or not the vendors being considered will likely be viable for that period of time, and will likely be improving and servicing the equipment for that period of time.  I can’t tell you how many times I have encountered truly intelligent people opting to go with Cisco, 并因此愉快地缴纳思科税, with the justification that it is really the only safe choice for them.

让我把事情搞清楚...  Does anyone really believe that HP is going to go out of business in the next five years?  Is Dell?  是ALE(运营品牌为阿尔卡特朗讯企业), 我所代表的公司, 将在未来五年内破产?  答案是，不，不，不! 以ALE为例, I can tell you that the California State University system doesn’t believe that it will.  CSU is three years into rolling out an eight year technology infrastructure upgrade in which over 4,000 Cisco data switches are being replaced by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise switches.  This would be the height of folly on the part of CSU if ALE were not perceived by them to be a safe choice.  他们认为ALE是一个安全的选择，你也应该如此.

在一个非常真实的意义上，这个安全问题是二元的.  供应商要么安全，要么不安全.  Cisco is safe.  HP is safe.  Dell is safe.  ALE is safe.  许多其他供应商是安全的.  “思科是唯一安全的选择” is a myth, deftly and effectively promulgated by the mythmaker, Cisco itself.

Bandwagon Safety

If it is true that there is safety in numbers, then I guess Cisco does win on this count.  如果一个人想赶时髦，融入人群, 收购思科让一个人在那里.  它看起来是个安全的地方.  但前提是完全忽略所有其他考虑.  Cisco charges an extraordinary premium for one to be a member of the club, and membership conveys little more than the emotional reinforcement that one is doing what most everyone else is doing, regardless of whether it makes overall economic stewardship sense to do so or not.

不负责任的安全

这一点与这句话背后的概念密切相关, “Nobody ever got fired for buying Cisco” (which merits its own treatment in the next installment in this series).  There is a sense of safety that comes with hiding under the umbrella of not being “blamable” for electing to go with a market share leader, especially one that has built such a mystique around itself as Cisco has.  这次我没有什么妙招.  If one’s primary criterion for measuring whether to go with a solution is that “no matter how it turns out, 我将是清白的，不能真正为此负责,“思科可能是一个正确的选择.  Then again, many leaders shudder at the thought of making decisions on this basis, 而是选择权衡所有因素, 包括他们实现卓越的责任, 同时为他们的组织创造最优价值.  Many leaders want to be held accountable for mistakes because they see it as the necessary counterbalance to being rewarded for a job well done.  To them, hiding behind a vendor because that vendor will be given a pass simply based on its name is an unpalatable prospect that they eschew.

不牺牲安全的价值

如果思科是唯一安全的选择, any decision making process can be streamlined by eliminating all other considerations.  毕竟，不执行一个安全的选择是轻率的.  If, as I have argued, 思科并不是唯一安全的选择, 相反，还有许多其他安全的选择, including ALE, 然后是其他的决策标准，比如技术优点, serviceability, 价格和TCO在这个过程中占据了应有的位置.  When they do, Cisco faces a host of challenges to stand up as the optimal solution.  That is why Cisco counts on its prospect eliminating all others vendors from any genuine consideration on the basis of perceived lack of safety before 真正的评估开始了.

有人说，“从来没有人因为收购思科而被解雇。.这是真的吗?  We’ll take it up in the next installment in this series of Demythologizing Cisco.