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I'm called on frequently to speak about a variety of topics, and -- recently -- there's been a renewed interest in infrastructure associated with SOA.
You probably know about SOA -- service-oriented architectures. It's a (relatively) new way of thinking about how applications are designed, developed and deployed. .
But, like anything else, anything big and hairy (like SOA) has serious infrastructure implications.
And SOA -- at scale -- is no exception.
You know that all of us at EMC think a lot about information, informationists and how information is changing the way we live, work and play.
If you like "future histories", you'll like this ...
I'd like to invite you to come join all of us at the upcoming EMC World in Las Vegas May 19-22.
I know what you might be thinking -- you're probably not crazy about most trade shows. And, generally speaking, I'm in the same camp.
But you might want to consider this one.
That's what the press release SHOULD have said ...
I thought I had seen it all before.
But my colleagues at NetApp win this week's prize for "creative marketing".
They've just submitted SPC-1 benchmarks on a few of EMC's products.
And written a nice press release as well.
My oh my ...
Continue reading "NetApp Takes Benchmarketing To New Levels!" »
It wasn't too long ago that outsourcers were causing considerable consternation in both IT customers and vendors.
Mega-outsourcing was all the rage. If you were a large IT organization, you took this trend very seriously, for all the right reasons. And if you were an IT vendor like EMC, your world was very different if your customer got outsourced.
But I think that the outsourcing marketplace itself is going through some pretty massive changes. And, as I spend more time with outsourcers, I realize that some are moving quickly towards the new reality, and other -- well -- others are moving a bit more slowly.
And, if you're an industry watcher like me, it's an interesting story for customers, vendors and outsourcers alike.
A relatively big announcement from EMC today, not so much on what we're doing specifically, but how we see the IT marketplace is evolving in very important ways.
The press release looks innocuous enough, doesn't it? EMC announcing an enterprise version of Mozy-based backup. Sure, that makes sense, sort of.
But I think there's a much more interesting story here ...
Continue reading "EMC Does SaaS -- Reading Between The Lines" »
Every now and then, I get a ringside seat on a textbook example of human behavior in this industry.
And, I have to share with you, the reaction to EMC's recent announcement of enterprise flash drives for the DMX was very interesting, less about the factual content of what was said, but the different positions everyone took, and why.
And, going back over past experiences, I'm realizing that the last few days is a template of how a fiercely competitive, vibrant industry (e.g. storage) reacts to something truly new.
Continue reading "Enterprise Flash Drives and DMX -- The Aftermath" »
This week, many of us are out in Las Vegas for our big annual internal meeting.
If you're not particularly interested in EMC culture, this would be a good post to skip.
Otherwise, you might be interested in this "state of the union" post ...
In the industry press, there's a certain group of people who disdain the enterprise approach to storage, thinking the world's important information will be entirely stored on commodity boxes running open source software.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
High-end storage arrays such as the DMX reflect the very latest in storage technology. And there are a lot of very serious IT people out there who won't run their business on anything else.
Today, EMC announced some fascinating upgrades to the DMX -- including one that I'm sure will absolutely intrigue most storage techies like myself -- enterprise flash drives.
But, as with most things that EMC announces, there's two stories here: not only what we did, but how we did it.
If you're surfing our little corner of the blogosphere, you might have noticed that a spontaneous debate has broken out about the idea of "web 2.0 storage": what it is, what it isn't, and so on.
One catalyst seems to be the availability of all sorts of free (or low cost) over-the-network storage schemes from Google, Amazon and others. Another catalyst was IBM trying to position their recent acquisition of XiV to revive their storage business.
I'm sure there's more that's been written around this, but here's the point: I think this "web 2.0 storage" discussion, as currently framed, is a big head-fake.
And, while I have no problem with competitors running off on a wild goose chase, I think there's an important cadre of IT thinkers that will want to focus on what's going to be important here.
I thought I'd take a moment to circle back to an announcement from Dec 20th that EMC made around this topic, because I thought the story-behind-the-story would be interesting.
The press release is innocuous enough (as are most press releases). Simply put: EMC is offering a complete set of business continuity services: in addition to the usual assessment / design / implementation stuff, we now can help you operationally run your business continuity environment.
So why do I think this is interesting? Like any glacier or volcano, the interesting stuff is underneath ...
To many industry watchers and IT consumers, VMware looks like just another technology to add to the list of operating environments they have to support. The mindset might be that there are some places where it'll work, some places it might not work so well -- really, it's just part of the landscape.
But the more I talk to some customers, they've changed their perspective.
It's not just part of the landscape, it's THE new landscape.
And it's interesting to watch how people's thinking shifts over time.
Usually, I don't recap EMC product launches here unless there's an interesting aspect or two that goes beyond the datasheet sort of stuff. After all, EMC announces new things pretty frequently, and I don't want to be one of those blogs that simply regurgitates press releases.
But I thought this one was interesting in two regards: first, the thinking that went into the product, and -- secondly -- a valiant attempt to correct some misperceptions out there.
OK, it's just another small storage array, how interesting could this be?
It depends ...
Today, we launched an entirely new version of the company's portal, EMC.COM
Now, you might think that not worthy of a blog post. I mean, how interesting can this be?
Well, it gets a bit more interesting when you consider some of the thinking that went into the new site, because that's a reflection of how EMC is evolving.
After all -- your web page *is* your company these days, isn't it?
When I wrote my bit around "Desperate Times In Storage Land?" I had no idea we'd see so many strategic transactions from storage vendors.
First Dell, then IBM ... and now this!
So, what's up?
Sometimes I get to do something very cool that's really not part of my job.
A few weeks back, I was asked to interview Nick about his new book (The Big Switch) for an upcoming piece in ON magazine, EMC's publication to customers. His book hadn't been published yet, so I got sent a preview copy, which I read thoroughly.
I loved the book. It's now on my right rail. Or, go see this interview with Wired magazine.
More importantly, I really enjoyed talking with Nick about all manner of things.
Thought I'd be able to ease back into the new year slowly, but - no - right off the bat IBM made a bold move that's got everyone talking.
You can see the press releases here and here. Basically, IBM paid somewhere between $300m and $350m for a storage startup.
I'm sure lots of people will weigh in here, but I'd like to offer a few thoughts on this one.
I had the unprecedented luxury of almost completely shutting down over the holiday season. OK, I peeked at my CrackBerry a few times, but -- mentally -- it was a total shutdown. That's a good thing to do every so often, I think.
One of things I did think a lot about was this post -- what's going to happen in 2008?
Hopefully, I can keep my accuracy at something close to last year's levels ...
