Chuck's Blog

Storage And Cloud

One of the more popular questions that gets directed at me by journalists and others these days is around the above topic.

I guess since EMC does storage -- and is very active in things cloud-like -- they expect us to have some nice sound bites.

Well, I have my pre-packaged answer that's suitable for the press, but -- if you have the time and the interest -- the deeper answer is much more engaging.

The Three Faces Of Cloud

Going out to the GigaOm Structure09 cloud event gave me an opportunity to reflect on "what is cloud" and, more importantly "what is not cloud".

While many of the discussions were interesting, I did feel that there were way too many contrived arguments needed to support thinly-veiled product pitches.

At the event, a journalist I know stopped me, and begged me for a very short, understandable description of what this cloud stuff was all about so she could better understand what everyone was talking about.

Needless to say, I was very sympathetic.

I did my best to oversimplify -- let me know how I did?

Element Management vs. Service Orchestration

One continual theme that comes up around any strategic discussion of fully virtualized environments and private clouds is management.

"There aren't any tools!". 
"There are too many tools!". 
"The tools don't work the way I do!"

So what's going on here?

Getting Comfortable With Oversubscription

It's a key concept in getting any sort of shared resource efficiency.  We see it everywhere we look in our daily lives.

But as we talk about IT strategies, private cloud and fully virtualized environments, one of the biggest stumbling blocks I'm encountering is the idea of intentionally pushing oversubscription of IT infrastructure resources -- servers and storage.

And that's going to have to change, I think.

Barriers To Private Cloud Adoption

I've must have had the private cloud discussion well over a hundred times with customers.

Begin to fully virtualize your environment

Learn to manage it more like a cloud, and less like a data center from 1989.

Start to consider the strategic implications of the new choices you now have -- everything from dynamic federation of resources to a bring-your-own-laptop program.

Mostly, it's gone pretty well.  Far better, in fact, than any other discussion I've had with customers -- ever.

And I'm starting to see more and more consistency regarding the structural barriers to private cloud adoption by enterprise IT groups.

Private Clouds and Portable User Experiences

When talking about private clouds, there's just so many interesting angles to dig into -- it ties so many different themes in IT into a consistent story that I keep getting drawn in like a moth to a flame.

Fortunately, I'm not the only one -- all of the customers I talk to are starting to get the buzz as well.  At some future point, I'll share my reasons why I think this is the case, but -- for now -- I'd like to discuss the user experience part of this discussion.

This post was triggered by a VMware news item describing how health care professionals can use VMware View to create a "follow me" user experience across thin clients, laptops, desktops, tablets -- just about any reasonable user device.

IT gets to package up a user experience, push it to multiple devices, and manage it all centrally.

Talk about your win-win scenario!

The Future Is Here

Those of us who speak on IT topics often find ourselves waxing poetic about the future of technology, or the future of the data center, or something similar.

We wave our hands, and talk about what could be.

What happens when the future is here?

Do we immediately acknowledge that entirely new things are possible and set off in new directions, or do we as human beings take a considerable period to adapt to our new circumstances?

For the last few months, I've been focused almost entirely on private cloud concepts, and the alliance of VMware, Cisco and EMC that has formed to accelerate the adoption of these fully virtualized IT environments that form the basis of private clouds.

I don't think anyone is really arguing that much with what I'm saying.  But changing our thinking and our actions is going to take a while, it seems ...

EMC Makes Surprise Play for Data Domain

Never a dull moment …

EMC just announced our offer for Data Domain.  You can read the full press release here.

I’m sure – like any other acquisition move – there will be a healthy amount of speculation around the motives.

While it’s always fun to read what different people think, I thought I’d offer up my personal perspective as to the rationale for this move.

And it might not be what you think.

Press and Analysts React To Private Cloud

I've worked with the press and analyst community for many years. 

Say what you will, but I've found them a very good barometer of what ideas will fly, and which ones won't. 

Sure, they don't actually buy IT products.  But they do get exposed to just about every IT pitch in the world, and they usually have a good nose for what's going to be a popular discussion, and what won't.

I've now had a few outings where I've had an opportunity to share private cloud concepts with these folks -- and how VMware, Cisco and EMC are working together to accelerate this vision.

The reactions have been mostly favorable, but with a few interesting wrinkles here and there.

FCoE, iSCSI and the Meaning of Life

Lots of great content coming out of EMC World, including this very thorough treatise by Stuart Miniman of Blog Stu fame. 

Update: saw this blurb today that IBM is "embracing" FCoE -- at least the server guys are!

I'll link more as I see them ...