Chuck's Blog

VMware To Acquire Cetas: Making Analytics Easier To Consume

Today VMware made an acquisition that's extremely interesting from several perspectives: cloud, virtualization stacks, big data analytics and more.  

While certainly no Instagram, I think we'll all look back in a few years and agree -- yes, this was an important one.

Cetas describes themselves as ".. an early stage startup that delivers Analytics-as-a-Service to customers and is driving the democratization of analytics and business intelligence by dramatically lowering the barriers to entry for all companies, from SMB to large enterprises."

Yes, quite true when they were a standalone entity.  

But as part of the VMware (and, by extension, the EMC) family, it gets much more intriguing indeed ...

Doing More With Less: VCE Vblocks and EMC UIM

OK, I admit it, I'm a big fan of the Vblock concept, and -- by extension -- UIM, the Unified Infrastructure Manager provided by EMC.

Why?  It represents some of the very best thinking in cloud-like infrastructure available today.  More and more IT professionals now realize that -- yes -- there's now a better way of doing things. 

I think that anyone who's looked closely at IT-as-a-service concepts realize that rampant standardization coupled with intelligent automation is where the real action is; the hardware simply is an enabler. 

So, it was with great interest that I got a preview a while back on what was coming soon with the next major release of UIM. 

The Ascendency Of VMware

Last week at VMworld was an eye-opening experience for me on multiple levels.  

I thought I was doing well to get four posts out around specific announcements made at VMworld, only to be completely schooled by my EMC colleague Chad Sakac.  If you haven't read his posts, you should.

Since that event, I've had time to think and reflect on everything I saw and heard.  For me, VMworld 2011 marked the clear recognition that VMware has become the next great data center operating system.

Almost like a line of demarcation, that week in Las Vegas made it very clear that one era was coming to a close, and the next one was in full swing.

A Big Step Forward In Creating A Cloud Marketplace

Lots of great news starting to come out of VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas.

Technically, I'm supposed to be there right now, but we had this hurricane come through ...

Metaphorically speaking, though, a hurricance isn't a bad analogy for describing the impact of this important event.

The scope of VMworld has expanded far beyond the initial boundaries of server virtualization and pulled in all sorts of adjacent disciplines: cloud, IT transformation, application transformation, next-gen user experience as well as all sorts of related technologies: servers, storage, security, backup, orchestration and management ... it's perhaps the most compelling cross-section of advanced IT thinking in the industry.

And one of the first blockbluster announcements from VMware concerns signficant and meaningful progress towards establishing a marketplace of compatible service providers, based around VMware technologies.

When Virtualization Changed Databases

Inexorably, virtualization is changing how we think about every aspect of IT.

It’s already vastly changed how we think about physical IT infrastructure: servers, storage and network. 

From static allocations to dynamic pools of resources – without VMware’s popularity, we really wouldn’t be talking much these days about cloud and transforming to IT to a service.

But what about databases and data management?  

Clearly, many of these technologies haven’t made the transition to the new model.  At best, we've only been able to encapsulate and containerize legacy databases using virtual infrastructure vs. revisiting how databases might intelligently work in this new model.

How do we get databases to intelligently use dynamic resources?  How do we deliver database as a service?  And how do we make databases as easy to consume as other forms of infrastructure?

Today, VMware announced their first foray into this new (and important) realm by announcing the new vFabric Data Director.  

And many of us think this is very big news indeed.

Reflections on VMware's Cloud Infrastructure Announcement

The day before yesterday, VMware had their most-significant-ever product announcement.

The amount of technical goodness -- and what it means for the industry -- takes more than a little while to wrap your head around.

A bit of that awesomeness was overshadowed by reactions to VMware's new pricing scheme.  I watched the vocal back-and-forth intently as it unfolded through Monday and into Tuesday.  Wisely, I kept a safe distance from the fray.

But I did want to weigh in at some point.  I think some people are missing a few key perspectives, and I'd like to take a shot at broadening the conversation.  

Disclaimer: This is just plain old me talking.  VMware, as an independent company, runs their own affairs.  I am speaking strictly as an industry observer here, and not in any way communicating the official position of EMC, VMware, or anyone else for that matter :)

Creating A Pool Of Paths

So much of what we're doing around large-scale virtualization, private cloud, etc. revolves around the pooling of infrastructure so it can be used in a dynamic and intelligent fashion.

VMware intelligently pools server resources.  Storage products like VMAX and VPLEX and FAST illustrate intelligent storage pooling concepts.

But how do we create a "pool of paths" between servers and storage?  Especially when we're talking demanding block protocols?

I Want My pNFS!

From time to time, various vendors attempt to combine the best of the two most popular storage access models in our industry: block (presumably on FC, iSCSI or FCoE) and file (most always on ethernet/IP).

Historians of our industry can point to many brave but ultimately unsuccessful attempts to combine the inherent simplicity and ease-of-management of NFS with the performance and availability attributes of SAN.

Many of us have been tracking the progress of pNFS in this regard, and it looks like the time is nearing when customers can seriously consider enterprise-class implementations of this converged access model.

The big question in everyone's mind: will it permanently blur the lines between file and block access?

EMC And Oracle

As the industry consolidates and standardizes, we as vendors are getting far more comfortable in the new world of co-opetion with other vendors: a nuanced world where we cooperate in some areas, and compete with others.

No longer can various inter-vendor relationships be easily and exclusively categorized as either "friend" or "foe" -- the answer is usually  mix of both, with customers giving as strong input on where we need to cooperate, and where they'll encourage a little friendly competition.

Many of the customers I work with are getting more comfortable in this new landscape as well.  They're learning to look beyond the press releases and brochures to figure out how well various vendors are working together -- or not -- as the case might be.

And I think the relationship between EMC and Oracle is an excellent case study in how these dynamics can result in better outcomes for everyone: customers *and* vendors.

Why EMC Is The #1 Choice For VMware

The data is mounting: more people are turning to EMC for their VMware deployments than anyone else.

Whether it's storage, data protection, security or management --  they're obviously voting with with their dollars, putting EMC in the enviable #1 position in supporting the de-facto standard for virtualization.

While some are still quibbling over the data, others are asking a more pertinent question: why?

So, I thought I'd share with you the 10 reasons I think are driving this strong preference for EMC from IT organizations large and small.