Chuck's Blog

Data Loss Prevention -- New Thinking

I've had another "aha" moment -- actually, a whole series of them -- recently.

The first hint that something big was going on came as part of a flurry of announcements at RSA World, including this hidden gem around DLP.

It turns out that I only had a half-baked notion of what all the fuss might be about, until late last week.  I was privileged to spend some quality time with the RSA team who went through the concepts and demo'd the product.

When they were done, my head was spinning.  Not so much around the product capabilities (which were very cool, to be sure), mostly it was the new way they were approaching the problem that got me so excited.

I probably won't be able to fit in all into a reasonable-sized post, so consider this the first installment exploring a topic that I'm sure we'll all be interested in -- sooner or later.

One Emergent View Of IT

Came across an online interview that's probably worth reading, "GM's Ralph Szygenda Drives IT Innovation" in eWeek.

In it, I saw how they'd created a very different picture for themselves about what IT is all about, or -- more importantly -- might be in the future.

If you work in an IT organization, and ever wonder "what's it all about?" -- it's worth a few minutes of your time.

Which NGDC Do You Want?

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?

Information Governance -- An Update

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". 

The Future of IT (Professionals)

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.

Bang!

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.

Green IT -- Are We Missing The Point?

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.

The New (Mobile) Desktop

About two or three times a year, I have a "d'oh!" experience, one where something hits me so strongly that I wonder how I missed it.

Generally speaking, these are trends in the industry that I was only paying casual attention to, but -- suddenly -- I realized that something big was going on here, and it really mattered.

I had a "d'oh!" experience this week while travelling in Europe, visiting with a few telecommunication providers.

And I finally started to really, really grasp what this mobile thing was all about.

Maybe you already "get it", and I'm the slow one here. 

If that's the case, I apologize in advance.

EMC To Acquire Pi Corporation

In a world of corporate acquisitions in information technology, there are those that eventually matter, and those that are just part of the landscape.

Everyone is free to come to their own conclusions regarding this particular acquisition by EMC, but I for one see this as signaling yet another shift in the technology landscape – one whose impact probably won’t be blatantly obvious for some time.

Let me share with you why I think this isn’t your everyday acquisition …

Can You Trust Your Cloud?

The industry is all abuzz with conversations about things cloud-like these days.

Sure, EMC has added our views to the discussion in terms of technology, architecture, requirements, use cases, etc.

But there's a certain element that's going to be required for this stuff to really take off.

And that's trust.

SAP and EMC?

Saw this little gem come across the wire today, speculating on a tie-up between SAP and EMC on "web hosting services".

And, while it's very true that EMC brings a lot of value to an SAP environment, I'm not going to comment on the specifics of this article -- sorry, folks, that's beyond my pay grade ;-)

But the author did a great job tying together a number of concepts and trends into an interesting story, and I thought it'd be worthwhile to spend a bit of time and share some of the behind-the-scenes thinking here.

Corporate Social Media -- Lessons Learned

If you're a regular reader of this blog (or an EMC employee) you probably know I'm running a corporate social media initiative at EMC, among other things to keep myself out of trouble.

Over a year ago, I became dazzled by the transformational potential of social media as a business tool. I was lost, as many people are, in a babble of buzzwords, trying to figure out what to do.

Thankfully, I regained my composure, figured out a reasonable plan, and started hammering away.  Not only are we making delightful progress, but we've learned some lessons that aren't really talked about in the usual stuff you read.

I'm writing a more detailed blog on our journey, since I know that others will follow at some point, and -- like an explorer probing somewhat new territory -- I think my notes will be useful.

Information Infrastructure for SOA

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.

Thought Provoking Video Of The Day

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 ...

It's Not About Web 2.0 Storage

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.

The New (VMware) House

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.

The Nicholas Carr Interview

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.

Looking Ahead: The 2008 Predictions

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 ...

The Changing Face(s) of IT

If anything, I write about a lot of different topics.  Maybe not particularly well, but people tell me there's no shortage of breadth ;-)

Someone suggested that maybe I bump it up a level, and try to summarize and integrate some of the key trends that are making us all think really hard these days.  You know, tie together the big threads and create a short, comprehensive picture.

So, I'm going to give it a try -- let me know how I do?

A New Category of Information?

Not surprisingly, EMC is all about information infrastructure.

A lot of our thinking involves thinking about different categories of information, the unique requirements of that information, and how we can build infrastructure solutions to help people store, protect, optimize and leverage all of it.

In the past, we've made distinctions between, say, structured and unstructured information.  Changing vs. static information.  Managed vs. unmanaged.  And so on.

Our thinking is that by understanding differences, and you can come up with some pretty clever solutions -- simply by focusing on the information itself -- and what makes it different.

And, I'd like to offer, maybe it's time for a new category of information.

The Metadata Conundrum

It doesn't take too long at looking at the overall information management problem before you quickly realize that metadata (information about information) is one of the important keys to all of this.

With the right metadata, it's not hard to imagine a world where by simply looking at the metadata, you could figure out where to store it, how much protection it needs, retention, security.

Or, in terms of value-generation, what are the key attributes of this piece of information that might make it valuable to other parts of the business?  Easy to find and use?

And then you get into the gritty details of how, and why ...

I was first intrigued by this discussion when EMC started to work on ILM (information lifecycle management).  Metadata (or tags) could help a lot in the day-to-day management tasks associated with information. 

But it's not as a simple or straightforward as we all would have hoped.

Beyond Document Collaboration

I may have mentioned already that one of my more fun projects is figuring out how to get EMC more proficient at this whole social media thing.

And it's made me realize that value-creating IT environments will be evolving here very, very quickly around this new paradigm.

When I'm in front of customers, sometimes I make the mistake of sharing that I'm working on this.  And, more than once, we've found ourselves spending all of our time on this topic, rather than the technology stuff I was supposed to be talking about.

When Can We Delete Something?

Simple questions can have complex answers, e.g. "daddy, why is the sky blue?" which leads to a discussion of Rayleigh scattering and other topics a bit too daunting for most seven-year-olds.

And in that category, we've got the simple question above -- when does IT (or anyone else) get to stop storing, protecting, managing a piece of information, and consign it to the dustbin of history?

The answer seems to lead towards a few of the themes I've written about before, and -- I now have met my first customer who has worked out a semi-practical way to decide when something gets deleted.

It's a tortuous journey, and not for everyone, but it's an interesting story.

Virtual Trade Show

I did a short gig with Ziff Davis where we talked a lot about the new role of storage and information management. 

No new big themes, but I was pretty concise, and it turned out pretty well.  Some of the questions were pretty interesting as well.

Unfortunately, ZD will want to know a lot about you prior to giving you the privilege of viewing this (my apologies), but if you can tolerate the registration process, might be worth a view.

Is There A Cloud In Your Future?

I am at the stage where I'm constantly thinking about a new concept.  It's burning a hole in my head right now, it is.

In a few months, I'll probably be able to articulate it clearly and concisely, but right now I'm rambling a bit.

If you can bear with me during my learning curve, I'd like to start a discussion about what I'm starting to realize may be the *real* next-gen IT.

Something that makes things like SOA, grid, virtualization, etc. look like warm-ups for the main act.

Tomorrow's Thinfrastructure

Occasionally, I trip across a clever word to describe a relatively complex concept.

This one comes from Kartik, one of our field CTO types.

And I think it's a handy way to describe many aspects of tomorrow's IT infrastructure.

Free Market IT

If you watch the various EMC blogs, you're probably aware we're holding an Innovation Conference. 

From across the reaches of EMC, we brought people with an innovative streak together to collaborate. 

To put it mildly, it was very, very cool.

There was a contest for best innovative proposals.  More good ideas than I could fully comprehend.

But I happened to sit in on a customer presentation who really set the tone for advanced IT thinking.

Creating The Social Computer

I don't know if I've shared this with you, but I sort of have a new set of responsibilities at EMC.

One of them is to figure out how we get more proficient at social media.  And in the process, I've developed a pretty good storyline about why this is important, and how to think about doing it.

And, since many of the people who read here also think about broader topics, I thought I'd devote a post to this -- framed in technology tools.

Information Philosophy Day

Two quick things I wanted to share with you.

First, there's now a cool downloadable widget -- the Information Clock -- provided by IDC and EMC.  It estimates the amount of information we're generating every second of every day. 

Feel free to use it in your next IT budget request.

Second, they shot some video of me being interviewed around broader societal issues associated with our rapid transformation to an information society.  The interview went on a lot longer, but they got a few nice bits on tape that you might find interesting (QuickTime format, 100MB, about 9 min).

Creating The Virtual Runbook

Discussions move fast in this industry, especially with customers.

Yes, server/desktop virtualization is cool.  We're in, they say.

Yes, we get that the supporting infrastructure may have to change -- servers, storage, backup, replication, management, security, etc.  We're evaluating that one.

But what about the most important part of IT -- the people and process?

It's All About The Children!

One of the more blatant marketing appeals, to be sure.

But on a serious note, I've been unable to avoid thinking about what our rapid shift to an information society is doing to how we think about educating the next generation.

And I keep finding clear discontinuity between The Way We've Always Done Things and The Way Things Are Going To Have To Be

I Take It Personally

We're becoming an information society -- much too fast to have the normal time to adapt to the wrenching societal and cultural changes that such paradigm shifts usually cause.

And the more I look, the more I see a gap between How We Used To Do Things and How We're Gonna Have To Do Things.

And this post has to do with identify theft.

Little Things, Big Impact

So today, I'd like to share with you a little thing that'll probably have a big impact.

It's a fun game -- take something innocuous, and see if you can follow the impact trail.

Towards Thin IT Organizations

As you know, I meet with a lot of customers.  Most of the time, we talk about the growing importance of information, and the new role IT will have to play in the future.  Or we talk about technology: EMC's and others.

But once in a while, we get into the very important (yet sensitive) topic of the IT organization itself -- what should it look like going forward?

And I have seen a noticable and inescapable trend towards what I've come to call "thin IT organizations".

Information Governance

No, not IT governance.  Information governance.

OK, if you're a regular reader of this blog, you know my rant.

• information is becoming the most important business asset in the world.
• someone's going to have be the "CFO of information".
• and you're going to need new tools -- information infrastructure -- to do this.

At most companies, there's pretty good governance around something else that's important -- financials. 

What about information governance?

So Where is ILM These Days?

Alive and well, thank you ...

EMC started aggressively promoting the idea of ILM (information lifecycle management) maybe four years ago.

I thought it'd useful to offer a bit of a retrospective on the concept; where it's worked, where it hasn't, how it's evolved over the years, and where it might go from here.

It's turned out to be one of those divisive topics in the blogosphere, so I'm expecting a bit of commentary to follow ...

IT's Next Inflection Points

Today, I'd like to invite you to go see Jeff Nick's excellent presentation at the recent Software 2007 conference. 

No, I'm not just being lazy.  It's very good material, IMHO.

For those of you who haven't met our CTO yet, Jeff is one of those very rare brilliant and insightful individuals who packs a ton of heavy structured thought into each and every statement.   Usually it takes me more than a few cycles to unpack what he's said, and realize the depth of the thinking.

If you want to climb deep into EMC's strategic view of the future of IT, you might want to take a moment to see him in action.

Text version is here.  Videos are here.

Excellent material, and extremely thought-provoking. 

BTW, if you go to the video page, check out some of the other presenters as well ;-)

Classification Convergence

Maybe you saw the recent acquisition of Zantaz by Autonomy.  Nice piece in Byte and Switch about not only that deal, but other related activity.

A few months ago, I took a leap of faith and annointed information classification as an up-and-coming "killer app" for the next few years.

I got a few scornful comments at the time.  But I think recent activity might be pointing in that direction.

Grass Roots Innovation

If you tend to read the usual management articles and books on airplanes like I do, you probably realize that the whole subject of innovation is a very hot topic. 

As well it should be.

I see it as analagous to Darwinian evolution -- unless there are some good mechanisms in place to adapt and thrive in a changing ecosystem, the outlook for your species is very poor indeed.

Much of the discussion I've read about is around "organizing for innovation", which sounds interesting at the outset, but I find it difficult to reconcile with how I think people and organizations work.

Simply put, I think that "organizing for innovation" will require -- ahem -- innovative approaches.  And I think that each of us -- regardless of role -- can become innovators without waiting for organizational mandates.

Yes, even in IT.

Classified Thoughts

The next big thing in IT? 

Information classification tools, I think.

Tools that can help IT discover information sources, classify them, make a decision, and process them to save money, make money or stay out of trouble. 

The stakes are getting higher. 

We can't ask users to classify their own information.

And, according to IDC, we'll have six times as much information sloshing around in a few short years.

All signs point to a personal forecast of extreme customer interest in information classification tools sooner than later.  It's already started.

Here's why ...

Towards Information Laws

No, I'm not talking about new legislation that might make for more work.  I think we've seen enough of that, but we all know there's more coming.

I mean laws in the sense of Moore's Law (or Murphy's Law) -- inexorable guiding principles that will guide our thinking of information and information management over the next few years.

Today's post was triggered by an excellent post by Mark Lewis, in which he outlined 8 laws ("information laws") around what he calls "Information 2.0". 

I don't know if he was looking for a discussion on his proposal, so apologies in advance if this was not the case ;-)

I wholeheartedly agree with the first premise -- we'll need some new architectural thinking in IT that shifts how we think about information.  And the notion of guiding principles (e.g. "laws") works for me.

And, now that you mention it, I agree with the second premise that this changed mindset around information will probably need a new label, hence "Information 2.0".  The evidence is overwhelming.

So, please allow me the opportunity to expound and expand on Mark's proposed laws.

Process Innovation For IT Vendors

I had another "connect the dots" experience the other day. 

Two data points got connected for me that made me go "aha!", at least in my own little world.

It started with Mark Lewis' humorous post on process innovation.

And then a bit on how Dell was directly engaging with their audience.

Aha!

Echoes of the Digital Big Bang

As you know, EMC recently sponsored a study with IDC to estimate the amount of information we as a society are generating, and make some forecasts for the future.

The response and feedback was a little surprising, at least to me.

(update: someone sent me this great clip from a CTV news story on the topic)

I think we've hit a nerve here, folks ...

Disaster Savings Time

Sounds like a harmeless enough idea, doesn't it?

Let's move back Daylight Savings Time in the US, and potentially save some energy.

The last time we did this, back in the 1980s, it seemed to work out pretty well.

Fast forward to 2007, and the world is a very different place.

The Billion Dollar Laptop

I enjoy debating industry issues with other people.

An interesting thread is the intersection between the new forms of inadvertant information breaches (once was once private is now public) and the legal system.

Simply put: will the legal system recognize this new form of tort?

I'd like to hand the microphone over to Bill Bonin, who's a fellow EMCer and a lawyer by past experience.  I found his insight a bit sobering ...

More Digital Big Bang -- IDC Study

A while back, I wrote about what I called the digital big bang -- a rapid transformation in human society brought about by the ubiquitous growth and use of information.

It turned out to be one of my more popular posts, maybe because I took a stab at looking at some of the fundamental social issues that were in play as a result of this transformation.

Today, IDC released a study (sponsored by EMC) titled The Expanding Digital Universe.  In this research, they try to estimate the total amount of information we've generated, and -- more importantly -- how fast it's growing.

We had worked with UC Berkeley on an earlier study several years back; we thought it'd be great to have an updated view on how things had changed.  And, boy, had they changed.  Much bigger numbers, to start with.

So just how much information have we generated so far? 

The answer is -- drum roll please -- 161 exabytes of information created by humans through 2006.  For those of you who lose track of zeros, that's 161 billion gigabytes.

So what does this mean?

IT As Change Agent

I think there’s continual turmoil in most IT industry workers regarding the inevitable friction between the way things are, and the way they could be.

All of us who love technology are passionate about the potential we see around new and existing technologies. 

But most of us work in a world where little of that promise seems to be ever realized, or takes too long to bring vision to reality.

Which brings up the central question stated above – how does IT drive change?

I’m not an expert on the subject, but I’m a knowledgeable observer. 

I have the privilege of meeting with literally hundreds of IT thinkers, and I’ve been able to piece together elements that seem to work.

I wouldn’t call it a recipe, more of a list of ingredients that are common themes that I’ve seen in IT organizations that have been successful in driving change.