2013-02-26

I Just Bought Some Kitchen Faucets/Hypervisors

A few weeks ago I discovered leak in one of my kitchen faucets. At the time I managed to fix it - but it was evident, it would not hold for long, so I needed to get new ones. The previous ones had served me well for a good 10 years.

I do not know about you - but things like kitchen faucets in Israel are not cheap - they can go from anything from $100 - $600 (Yes I know this outrageously overpriced - but that is what they cost).

I went to a couple of stores and looked around, asked about the products.

  • Where they were made (almost all the answers were China)
  • What guarantee came with the product, service etc.
  • What could go wrong with them (usually rubber washers)
  • The material it was made of  (the mechanism is either ceramic or brass - body can be plastic, brass or zinc)

Now that I had all my detailed information - I weighed my options, do I want to get it here from a local store or perhaps should I go directly to the supplier.

Since the manufacturers are all from China - I started to look around to see if it would be possible to get itfaucet directly from there.

To cut a long story short. I found the manufacturer and purchased directly from them including the shipping through DHL it came to 25% of the original price. I had the product within a week.

So we have gone through my faucet saga (but I hear you saying, Why the heck are you blogging about this????")

This brought me to think about how people talk about changing hypervisors, or adding another hypervisor into their environment.

You go to your current software provider (VMware for example) and you want to replace/renew something - it costs you $$,$$$.

So you go around the market and ask about the products:

  • What are their features (HA, vMotion, DRS etc… )
  • What support do I get the products (24x7 phone support for example, local support personnel in my country)
  • What could go wrong (where do I start……. ????)
  • Stability, market share, price
  • Cloud options

According to your window shopping spree you will come to your conclusion - if it is possible and financially viable to change / switch add another hypervisor to your environment.

There is no need to say that buying a kitchen faucet is not the same as a hypervisor, definitely not. But it does show how close we are coming to the stage that infrastructure is becoming a commodity, something we can "go to a store" and buy elsewhere.

  • If the price is right.
  • If it does what we need.
  • If it is reliable.
  • You can support it correctly.

As always you can leave your thoughts and comments below.