Chuck's Blog

The Trivialization Of Enterprise IT

Scan any half-dozen vendor pitches, and you come away with the impression that doing enterprise IT isn’t all that difficult.  

After all, all you have to do is buy/use/implement a few simple things, and the rest is easy, right?

Just consider the marketing phrases we’re using: single pane of glass, pushbutton automation, cloud, one click to upgrade, etc.

It conjures up the naive picture that in some strange alternate reality, IT admins sit comfy chairs -- idly monitoring a bunch of green lights and occasionally clicking on an icon when needed.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

While it’s true that enterprise IT is inherently complex — and could certainly be simpler — no one is doing anyone any favors by creating a false impression of the challenges involved.

Doing enterprise IT right is hard work, and it means knowing the details.  A healthy dose of skepticism doesn't hurt, either ...

On Competing

Many of you who follow the going-ons in our little corner of the IT industry may have noticed a continuing dust-up between myself and many Nutanix employees.

Competition is generally a good thing for our industry, when done right.  Maybe I'm naive, but I think that IT professionals deserve ready access to critical information that could impact their decision.  

As every IT pro knows, a lot is at stake when you sign that PO for that new thing :)

It's funny -- not many folks want to go toe-to-toe against another company in a public forum.  For some reason, that isn't a problem for me.  I consider it a healthy industry behavior.

Since this isn't my first competitive rodeo in the industry, I thought I'd share how I go about being a strong industry competitor when the situation arises.  Usually, the trigger is a competitor who is seriously and consistently misrepresenting reality, as I believe the case is here.  And getting to the truth can be hard for many IT pros -- so I do want to help.

Who knows?  For those of you who work at IT vendors, you too might be called to do what I do!

Life Beyond Hyperconverged

Well, I certainly gave the hornet’s nest a good, healthy smack with my recent post (“Ten Reasons Why VMware Is Leading The Hyperconverged Market”).  

Never underestimate the power of a well-written blog post to shake things up :)

In addition to hearing from dozens of enraged Nutanix employees, the usual round of pundits are now weighing in with their perspectives as well.  Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and there seems to be no shortage of those.  

Although I do find it interesting that no one has yet attempted to refute any of the facts behind the ten arguments I presented.  That's typical in these situations: lots of passionate emotions, very little discussion of the underlying facts.

The good news: I did have a chance to have a few great conversations with intelligent, non-partisan folks who said they were thinking differently after reading my thoughts.

Thinking differently is always a good thing :)

The observation: most strategic technologies in IT put their users on a pathway to something bigger and better.  That’s what makes them strategic, no?

The basic question: if hyperconverged is truly “strategic”, what bigger and better world should it lead to?   Or, is it an end unto itself in its present form, and thus not strategic?

Clearly, this is a great question, and worth a blog post or two to discuss …

Cloud Rumblings

I don't usually do much commentary on industry happenings these days, but things do seem to be heating up as of late.  

It's getting interesting again, especially with regards to all things "cloud".

I had a good introduction to the Hindu pantheon at an early age, and I keep thinking of cloud as Shiva The Destroyer -- knocking down the old IT world order, and creating the opportunity for the next.

Simply put, cloud changes all three aspects of traditional IT: the technology model, the operational model and the consumption model.

Everything we know is being remade, and will be remade again and again.

Anyone who claims to have this all figured out is either being presumptive, or is far smarter than I.

You can appreciate my fascination :)

When Icarus Fell

Do you recall the classic fable? 

The master craftsman Daedalus built wings from feathers and wax to escape Crete with his son Icarus.  He told Icarus to not fly too close to the sun, as the wax would melt.  Icarus — of course — ignored his father's warning and fell to his death.  

Gravity wins again.

Without being unduly over-dramatic, I see the same scene played out countless times for those of us that work as IT vendors.  Many of us aspire to be truly consultative to our customers and clients — but the gravity of having to sell specific products and services (with assigned quotas) inevitably drags us down to where we started.   

If we fly too close to the sun, we can fall very far indeed.

But it's somewhat paradoxical: the IT industry is changing fast.  Simply having a better widget isn’t any guarantee of success; what really matters is your customers’ ultimate success.  And that demands a consultative approach.

We often talk the talk, but walking the walk is proving to be much more difficult.

The Problem With Storage Swiss' Analysis -- On VSAN

One aspect of our industry that I find especially annoying is the "pay-to-say" analyst model.  The usual scenario is that one vendor wants to discredit one or more other vendors to make themselves look better.  They contract with a freelance analyst, who hopefully brings more expertise and the appearance of independence to the table.

The few analysts who use this model fiercely brand themselves "independent", perhaps in the sense that they are not affiliated with one of the big name industry analyst firms. 

I guess by the same standard my lawyer is "independent", but I certainly pay for results!

Shortly after VMware announced VSAN's general availability, George Crump and Colm Keegan of Storage Swiss published a short piece entitled "The Problems With Server Side Storage, Like VSAN", which appears to be sponsored by GridStore. 

Despite taking substantial criticism from many IT practitioners in a number of forums, George has stubbornly defended his statements, encouraging those who object to offer up a "professional response".

I find myself doing so reluctantly: weighing the need to correct many of George's and Colm's erroneous statements vs. giving unwarranted attention where none is deserved.  All of my responses are based on widely published information; a simple Google search can disprove many of the assertions.

And, to be fair, I know many independent analysts who do very good work on behalf of their vendor clients. 

Unfortunately, this isn't an example of that.

From Outsourcing To Public Cloud: Can We Learn From History?

The recent price cutting from the big public cloud vendors (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) has re-energized the familiar debate about which is more cost-effective: using a public cloud service, or doing it yourself?

While any intelligent answer involves a healthy amount of “it depends”, I found myself thinking about another time and place — where we as an industry were debating the merits of outsourcing vs. keeping IT operations in-house.

Then as now, the primary argument for outsourcing was economic.  A lot of people took the bait — but it didn’t always work out well.  

Of course, things are certainly different in 2014 — but are they all that different?

When Clouds Collide

With Google’s announcements today at the GCP (Google Cloud Platform) event, the public cloud landscape appears to have dramatically snapped into an entirely new configuration.

Google made it clear it fully intends to be the ultimate price aggressor: not only for today, but for the foreseeable future. 

And Amazon simply matching Google’s stance isn’t as simple as it might sound.

Although it’s going to take a while for all the ramifications to be felt, today was certainly a big day in the evolution of the public cloud marketplace.

Now we have to figure out what it all means ...

The Arguments For — And Against — "Engineered Systems"

As IT organizations start to transform to look more like modern service providers, there are many speed bumps along the way. Certain topics inevitably come up, and the answers aren’t always easy.

One topic that’s unusually difficult to wrestle to the ground is what to do about what is often referred to as "engineered systems" -- vertically-integrated single-purpose software and hardware stacks, designed to be consumed as a dedicated appliance. I would put Oracle’s Exa line in this category, as well as data warehouse appliances such as Teradata and Netezza.

Just to be clear, I consider these purpose-built beasts as quite distinct from the horizontal converged infrastructure offers (Vblocks, etc.) that can be used for many different purposes as well as support open management integration.

And, as I tell anyone who will listen, this is going to be one of the harder choices you’ll have to make. 

When The Storage Bubble Bursts

For those of us who’ve been in the storage business for a while, these are exceptionally interesting times.

All sorts of new technologies and ideas are coming to market these days, many by small startup companies, fueled by an apparent ocean of venture capital.  We now have a rich supply of new storage options to vigorously debate and discuss.

But the demand side of the picture isn’t nearly as rosy.  Selling at any scale in the enterprise storage biz is a difficult task, and there are many good solutions from proven vendors with established relationships.  

While I admire the enthusiasm and passion of these many startups, my inevitable conclusion is that the market can’t support even a small fraction of what these newer companies are trying to do.

And I think there’s going to be a nasty shakeout very, very soon.