This week’s Tech Field Day roundtable discussion is an audio chat on the subject of stack wars – the creation of all-in-one “stacks” of IT equipment by the major vendors. These stacks have been quite a hot topic of discussion both inside Gestalt IT and in the community as a whole.

The discussion was wide-ranging, and we’ve split it into two episodes. This second episode includes discussion of the following:

• HP’s unique position as a soup-to-nuts infrastructure supplier
• The enterprise readiness of 3COM, D-Link, Virtual Connect, Xsigo
• Cisco’s secret plan with UCS marketing
• The concept of integrating the VMware hypervisor as firmware in the stack
• The exact definition of stack – what does it really mean?
• Is there a difference between a “marketing stack” or reference architecture and a “real stack”?
• What is the compelling economic driver that makes people move to vertical integration?
• What is VMware’s long-term strategy for stack wars?
• Was vBlock designed for the cloud?

Joining the call are the following Gestalt IT authors and Field Day delegates:

• Jason Boche (@JasonBoche, Boche.net)
• Rich Brambley (@RBrambley, VM /ETC)
• Carlo Costanzo (@CCostan, VMware Info)
• Chris Evans (@ChrisMEvans, The Storage Architect)
• Greg Ferro (@EtherealMind, EtherealMind)
• Edward Haletky (@Texiwill, The Virtualization Practice)
• Joerg Hallbauer (, Joerg’s Storage Blog)
• Robin Harris (@StorageMojo, Storage Mojo)
• Rod Haywood (@Rodos, Musings of Rodos)
• John Hickson (@StudioSystems, Studio Sysadmins)
• Scott Lowe (@Scott_Lowe, ScottLowe.org)
• John Obeto (@JohnObeto, Absolutely Windows)
• Devang Panchigar (@StorageNerve, StorageNerve)
• Bas Raayman (@BasRaayman, Bas Raayman)
• Ed Saipetch (@EdSai, Breathing Data)

Download the stack wars roundtable podcast now, or subscribe in iTunes to tune in to the discussion!