Hewlett-Packard Kills Utility Data Center

HP is breaking out pieces of the UDC model to give enterprises more la carte choices and let them implement those components that they can quickly cost-justify. This strategy could help to chop up UDC, which was so comprehensive that few enterprises--even those at the top of the food chain--could choke it down. UDC promised to turn the chaos of heterogeneous IT environments into automated sanity, but no one could afford to spend the millions of dollars and integration hours required to find out if the promise was true.

Although UDC was too much for any enterprise, IT managers should take a closer look at some of the pieces. For example, HP has already announced a swallowable tool for the management of blade servers--a utility that does make sense.