Chuck's Blog

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.

Vblock FastPath/VDI -- Changing The Model

If you follow this blog, you know I'm an ardent and passionate fan of the Vblock concept.  I just can't help myself.

For me, it represents acceleration.  

At a tactical level, that means getting results faster.  

At an operational level, it's the ability to spend more time on the stuff that matters and less time on the stuff that doesn't.

And -- strategically -- it means accelerating IT's transition to an internal service provider.

If you've sat through the Vblock roadmap sessions, you'll notice that development is progressing nicely around two axes.  One important axis is "better Vblocks": faster, more efficient, more functionality, better security, better operational integration, and so forth.  I always am surprised at just how fast these folks are moving.

The other axis is becoming important as well: pointing the Vblock concept at well-established IT use cases, and creating sinlge-SKU "products" that bring the Vblock model (real product vs. reference architecture, speed of deployment, pre-integration, single support, etc.) to specific and popular use cases.

Such is the case with the new Vblock FastPath/VDI.  In a nutshell, it's a single product you can buy that does VDI -- at scale -- in a box.

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.