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Things come in waves, don't they?
Just now, someone sent along a great presentation on how ControlCenter 6.0 (EMC's multi-vendor storage management software) does useful things like report on storage utilization on a per-VM basis, visualizes VMs in the storage topology correctly, even does chargeback on a per VM basis (among other neat tricks).
If you're thinking about managing VMware storage at scale, it's worth a scan ...
I know a lot of you out there are really into this VMware thing, as am I.
Well, someone sent me a few cool links today, and I wanted to share.
The first was an impressive WebEx demonstration on using space-spaving snaps to make VDI setup and administration a breeze. Not for the technically faint-of-heart.
Yes, it's really fast, but I wonder how fast it'd be on an enterprise flash drive?? ;-)
In the same vein, I also got sent a WebEx link showing SRM (Site Recovery Manager) going through its paces with EMC replication technology. Again, not for those of you who don't like gory details.
I really enjoyed both, and learned a lot.
See all the VMware-related videos from EMC here.
I've been noticing increased activity from vendors large and small to offer newer tiers of storage in our crowded, noisy marketplace.
That's a good thing -- the more choices we all have, the better.
But, at the same time, I think it's also important to have a bigger context about what's going on here, and what it might mean for consumers of these technologies.
There's an important new class of information that's being captured more frequently -- and that's physical security information.
All those CCTV devices and other sensors you see everywhere are silently gathering more and more information about us and our movements.
And, despite the obvious benefit of providing more security for all of us, it's raising interesting questions at several levels.
This post was triggered by an interesting press release today, announcing further progress on EMC's physical security solutions.
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know I like to dig down behind these announcements, and share the story behind the story; hopefully to expose an interesting thought or two.
And this one is no exception.
Continue reading "Physical Security and Information Management" »
So, you either believe that IT is undergoing yet another upheaval, or you don't.
You either buy into Nicholas Carr's core premise (as found in "The Big Switch"), or you don't.
But if you do buy into these ideas, there's another implication to consider.
There will likely be very little medium-sized IT in the future. Just the very big, and the very small.
Continue reading "The Future Of IT -- Very Big and Very Small?" »
The acronym stands for "next generation data center", and -- once again -- this discussion is very much in vogue across the industry.
So many pieces are coming together, that there's a new hunger for a conversation around "what does it all look like in a few years".
I think there's actually two distinct NGDC models emerging, and -- the real question is what kind of business do you see yourself in?
Like many of you, I tend to be on the lookout for interesting trends in this industry.
No surprise, but trends come and go. Some start out strong, but may lose steam or morph into another discussion entirely.
Others continue to gather steam until the concept becomes part of our overall fabric of thoughts and ideas.
And I think I owe you an update on "information governance".
We all read lots of different things from different sources.
But, I've got to tell you, I'm starting to read the Xconomy guys more and more -- great, insightful thinking that goes far beyond the usual coverage that's either shallow, incorrect or both.
As an example, you'll probably appreciate this take on some key aspects of EMC's acquisition strategy.
Interesting reading!
Ah, you've got to love this bloggy world we're living in.
Today's post was driven by industry speculation that EMC and Quantum might be doing something.
Which, of course, lead to a broader discussion on data deduplication.
And, inevitably, I felt I might weigh in and try and attempt a tiny bit of clarification here.
I've never seen anything like this in the industry. VMware is going from strength to strength in a way that's hard for many of us to fully comprehend.
Just when you thought the server-oriented ESX party was raging, over the last 6-12 months the VDI discussion has become extremely interesting, especially to larger organizations who are seeing the potential to save money, deliver better user experiences, improve security and so on.
As a result, a number of vendors are being drawn into extremely interesting conversations around VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure), including EMC.
I thought I'd offer up a few thoughts on this, based on what I'm hearing from people.
Now, lest you think that EMC is entirely about technology, profits, markets, beating competitors, et. al. we do have a distinct charitable side to our corporate ethos.
EMC invests considerably in a wide range of "make the world a better place" initiatives, both on a local and global scale.
And, a few years ago, we started working in an area that I find fascinating.
So, I'm occasionally having an interesting experience these days.
Very often, I'm asked to share EMC's views on what's broadly called "the future of IT".
And, in the act of doing so, we usually end up in a discussion around "the future of IT professionals".
I think this is a discussion we'll be having more often in the future.
Perhaps you've noticed that EMC has entered the prosumer market to a certain extent, by offering LifeLine software that hardware OEMs can offer to their customers.
A few weeks ago, I was offered the opportunity to try one such LifeLine-based product -- the Intel SS4200
I took it home, set it up, and had a blast.
I thought I'd share my impressions here, since many of you have your own personal storage farms at home.
Many of you noticed NetApp's recent rebranding push this week.
Since I'm sort of a marketing guy, and NetApp is sort of a competitor, I watched with considerable interest.
Simply stated, it didn't seem to go so good for them.
And I think there are some lessons to be learned for all IT vendors.
I fear I may have been neglectful in my blogging duties.
I've fallen behind in a couple of areas, specifically regading a few recent developments in EMC's resource management strategy.
Go ahead and blame me, but there's a lot to cover around EMC, and I still have my day job(s) to get done ...
So, with apologies out of the way, let's dig into a fascinating portion of EMC's portfolio -- resource management.
In last month's Scientific American, there was an interesting article that basically stated that the scientists were wrong; that the universe we all live in is expanding far faster than we previously imagined.
And they detailed some interesting consequences to this, but -- thankfully -- we wouldn't start to notice for billions of years.
Today, IDC updated last year's landmark study on "The Expanding Digital Universe" with a new one ("The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe"), basically saying they were wrong, the digital universe is expanding far faster than they orignally estimated.
But, rather than billions of years, the effects are likely to be far more immediate to all of us.
If you generally like this blog, you'll probably enjoy Steve Todd's blog: http://stevetodd.typepad.com
Steve is one of those incredibly bright, multi-dimensional people who also write well. Given his inarguable credentials in storage technology development, he's definitely worth a read. Some people take a while to get good at this blogging thing; Steve just jumped in and showed us all how it's supposed to be done.
Yes, he's an EMC employee, but that doesn't seem to hold him back ;-)
Funny, isn't it? How most technology questions break into religious camps?
I've noticed that there's a fair amount of religion around which storage protocol is "better" for VMware: FC, NAS, iSCSI?
And, like most things, a fair amount of agnosticism might be appropriate.
I've gotten into the habit of recapping the IDC storage vendor share reports here on this blog.
Not to brag on EMC's behalf, per se (although there's some opportunity to do that, which I will studiously try to avoid), but to pick out some of the more interesting trends in market evolution.
No real surprises, from my perspective, but some interesting nuggets that might be worth considering.
Finally, everyone is trickling back from the VMware show in Cannes last week.
I recently covered the VMware solutions we announced there, but it turns out that there was a whole lot more cool stuff that got presented there.
As these bits come in, I'll share them with you to the best of my ability.
Over time, we're getting more passionate bloggers here at EMC. And we enjoy debating different topics back and forth among ourselves. I think we were all argumentative as children -- must be in the DNA.
Dick Sullivan and I were having an interesting discussion that many of us (vendors, IT and business people alike) perhaps missing a really big point around the whole "green IT" thing.
It's simple -- yes, it's important to have "green IT", but what we're really after is efficiency.
And -- more often than not -- the efficiency gains we're after with green IT lead to even bigger efficiency discussions that many times have nothing to do with energy or carbon footprint.
One of the most frequent questions I get from EMC customers in our briefing center is "how are we doing?".
They're curious to know how well they're measuring up in managing their growing storage and information management environment as compared to other IT shops.
Now, any sort of rigorous, scientific answer is beyond my scope. But what I can do is share with you some of the broad averages as I see it from my perspective.
And, yes, many of them think they've made real progress on taming their storage beasts.
