I searched the internet for “connect and forget”. Wonderbox.net offer is described as a “revolutionary computer server”… I think of wonderbox as a “computing appliance”, but Wikipedia limits the definition to storage and network only. The endpoints are better defined: The PC continues being the most productive device to create digital content while information appliances including Smartphone's, PDAs, embedded systems and in-car systems mostly consume content.

I believe Database technologies are shaping the future of IT. Consider how this important workload can be delivered:

1. As traditional software-only and hardware servers
2. Over the public cloud, enabling new scenarios. Either as a “fabric” cloud offering or a plain RDMBS software appliance.
3. Hardware Database appliances will be the delivery mechanism for private clouds. After ~16B have been spent by Oracle, SAP, EMC, IBM and Microsoft on acquisitions (Netezza, Sybase, Greenplum, 3PAR…) during the last few months, there is little question that full stack databases technologies are the future. Most of these vendors sell hardware/software singularities as the new market standard.
4. There is a thin line on when a Reference Architecture (RA) ends; the SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse reduces hardware testing and provides better performance out-of-the-box than costly fine-tuning that has take place over many years. Before a computing appliance exists, there must be a RA that is used by OEMs and system builders.

The fundamental change is automation going beyond a few servers to thousands of servers. While we’re still early in cycle of data crossing boundaries (e.g. MDM), the new models are arriving – become a leader and embrace computing appliances and hardware+software reference architectures for database and other IT workloads.