Chuck's Blog

EMC World 2013 -- The Tribe Is Strong

I can't remember how many EMC Worlds I've been to over the years.  These days, I don't pay much attention to the metrics: number of attendees, number of sessions, etc.

I'm far more interested in the soft side -- the discussions, the concerns, what is getting people excited, etc.  

For me, it's not just a big technology event -- it's more of a tribal gathering.

So, if EMC World is a tribal gathering -- how is the tribe doing?

And I can safely report -- the tribe is quite strong.

Introducing EMC ViPR: A Breathtaking Approach To Software-Defined Storage

I'd like to think I have a pretty good capacity for approaching new technology concepts, internalizing them and explaining them effectively. 

Those capabilities were severely put to the test when I first approached EMC's new product announced at EMC World: ViPR.
 
The effort paid off: I came away with a deeper understanding of some of the more powerful forces at work in our industry, as well as a breathtaking appreciation for what ViPR intends to achieve: both now and into the future.
 
Rather than debate terminology and categories, the best approach with ViPR might be to relax, follow the discussion, and come to your own conclusions: what ViPR does, what it means to the IT industry, and -- most importantly -- how it might affect you in your world.
 
Trust me, the journey will be rewarding ...

Isilon's OneFS -- The Definition Of A Modern File System?

As part of the EMC World festivities, EMC's Isilon group is announcing a few new features available today -- as well as previewing their next release, dubbed Waikiki.

Even with my obvious EMC bias, I can make a strong argument that OneFS is now clearly in a class of its own: architecture, functionality, robustness, performance, efficiency, etc.  You could teach an advanced course in file system design and use OneFS as a perfect example.

The gap between OneFS and everything else shows every sign of widening over time.  The Isilon team now uses a fast-cadence development model, and we should be expecting regular drops of tick-tock functionality on a 6 month cadence going forward.

Join me for a quick recap of "what's new" in the OneFS world -- there's a lot to like.

Why Cloud Was So Darn Confusing

Many of us have watched trends wash over the industry landscape.  Some come and go quickly; others make more substantive changes.

I've had the unfortunate privilege of observing many different waves hit, and I'd like to think I can learn a bit from each one.

As we sit here in 2013, it was only four short years ago that the first vituperative cloud arguments started to erupt online: true clouds vs. fake clouds, clouderati, accusations of cloudwashing -- remember all that?

From my perspective, the root cause was simple: collectively we were using a single term with multiple meanings -- and thus being perceived very differently depending on your viewpoint.

History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme: the same phenomenon was evident when the big data conversation erupted a few years back.  Once again, a single term was being stretched and tortured to mean very different things to very different audiences.   Frustration and cynicism is an inevitable by-product.

I suppose the most recent phenomenon is software-defined anything.

Those of us who are vendors and industry-watchers historically have matters much worse for everyone else.  We focus on one shiny aspect or another of the discussion, and often don't take the time to construct a broad enough perspective for the less-entrenched participants.

Since IT is an industry powered by big ideas, I think we're doing ourselves a disservice.  People can't act on a concept until they understand it -- in their terms, not yours.

Are Snaps Dead?

No, not really -- but a surprising number of IT shops have moved beyond simple snapshots towards continuous data protection -- a DVR-like model that allows recovery to any point in time, and not just to potentially stale snapshot.

Perhaps the best example of continuous data protection in today's marketplace is EMC's RecoverPoint.

There's a lot to like in the product: extreme flexibility in defining protection modes, well-integrated with applications, operating systems and hypervisors alike, extremely efficient in its use of network and storage resources, and seriously storage agnostic on the back end.

Customers have embraced the product enthusiastically -- there are now over 10,000 RecoverPoint units in production today, and more of our customers are coming on board every day.

Don't get me wrong: snaps are handy things to have around, and they've saved more than one administrator's bacon over the years.

But when you start studying the challenges associated with larger environments, better automation, efficiency, etc. -- you start looking for something with a bit more architectural meat on it. And that's where RecoverPoint shines.

Today, EMC is announcing version 4.0 of RecoverPoint. This is no minor release; there's a slew of new capabilities that are worth reviewing. Hopefully, you'll come away with the same conclusion I've reached: snaps have their historical place, but the industry is moving to a continuous data protection model for recovery -- for good reasons.

Friday Ramblings

It's Friday, the weather has turned stunningly gorgeous here in New England, and I don't have any well-organized thoughts to share with you this time.

Instead, I thought I'd share some of the loose thoughts rambling around in my head, sort of like empty bottles in the trunk of a car: clanking and rattling at every turn. 

No big thoughts here, just idle commentary and observations.

GE Invests $105 Million In Pivotal

Occasionally, we get very clear signs that significant change is in the air.  When large sums of money unexpectedly change hands, people take notice that something interesting and perhaps unexpected is happening.

This morning, GE announced that they were investing $105m to take a significant stake in Pivotal, the new initiative jointly owned by EMC and VMware.

On one hand, we have GE: perhaps one of the best examples of an exceedingly well-run global corporation with a market cap of over $220B.  On the other hand, we have Pivotal: a nascent analytics platform company formed from EMC and VMware assets, with an exceptional leader at the helm: Paul Maritz.

Why would a well-resourced and exceptional global corporation take a significant stake in what might appear to be a technology startup venture? 

And what might this signal going forward?

The New "How Can We Help?"

Historically, I've done a *lot* of direct customer and partner interaction.  I've always found that you can't fully appreciate what's really going on in the IT marketplace unless you spend a lot of time with the people that matter.  Reading analyst reports (no matter how good) can only get you so far :)

All this frequent interaction gives me the opportunity to spot subtle yet persistent shifts in the gestalt of enterprise IT.

Good news: I've started to regularly encounter an entirely new class of post-transformational IT leadership team.  They recognized the need for substantive change a while back.  They knew what needs to be done, and took on the hard work involved.  Their journey was not an easy one.

But -- and here's the good part -- they're visibly moving ahead on a wide variety of initiatives, and clearly starting to reposition the IT function from a cost-center to a value generator.

And we, as vendor/partners, are inevitably starting to adjust our engagement model around their new reality.

My Thoughts On HP's Moonshot

This morning, HP took a bold step forward with formally unveiling their "Project Moonshot" -- a new class of servers targeted at (apparently) hyperscale web server farms.

While I'm certainly a big fan of disruptive innovation (even from EMC competitors), I've come away with mixed emotions.

HP has certainly picked an interesting target to aim at.  And they have enough resources and influence in the larger ecosystem to drive a specific agenda.

But I think it's going to take an awfully long time before the jury is in as to whether they've been successful or not.

NYSE Technologies and The Community Cloud

Almost two years ago, I wrote about how NYSE Technologies was launching a "community cloud" targeted at the financial trading community.  At the time, it was a brave experiment, with powerful ideas behind the offering. 

I was duly fascinated.

Now, two years later, they're now reaping the benefits of being the first mover in their industry: many customers, expanded services, increased investment -- success is clearly at hand. 

Could the dynamics behind their success lead to similar community clouds for other industry sectors?

I think so ...

Escaping The Channel Partner Vise

One of the more interesting things I've done recently was speak with the executive leadership of one of EMC's valued channel partners.  They were going through a strategic planning cycle, and wanted an outside perspective. 

I thought that wonderful on several levels.

First, they were investing serious leadership effort in a meaningful and non-trivial strategic planning process.  It seems that far too few of our channel partners do this, and -- given all the structural changes occurring in our industry -- it's probably a good time to do so.

Second, they invited me (on behalf of EMC) to lead a business discussion -- not on technology, but on the broader industry, the changing face of IT, new business models and -- hopefully -- what it might mean for them.  Although mapping my world to their world was a bit of an stretch for me, I like that sort of exercise.

The title of this blog post came from an industry analyst who described their business model as "in a vise" -- as in under severe and unrelenting pressure from several directions.  I found it an apt description, as simply maintaining the status quo means you're planning on getting compressed into a smaller space.

Although we talked about several subjects (and I did what I could to link them together into actionable scenarios), there's one key thought I wanted to share with anyone who's in the VAR / reselling / distribution end of the IT business.

Going To EMC World? Interested In Software-Defined Storage?

EMC World is right over the horizon (May 6-9 in Las Vegas) and we’re all busy making preparations. 

If you're debating whether or not to attend, I'd strongly recommend it -- every year the event is more amazing: more content, more big ideas, more great people to interact with -- and (yes!) more fun stuff!

One of the bigger themes at EMC World this year will be software-defined storage: what is it, why does it matter, and what EMC is doing about it.

But the EMC storage team isn’t the only part of the broader EMC federation focused on this topic: related efforts are well underway at VMware as well.

The fun part is that I’m now working with the VMware team: focusing on software-defined storage, software-defined availability and related topics.

This VMware team will be at EMC World 2013 -- and would very much like to meet with a small number of interested customers and partners: to share their strategy and roadmap, and get valuable feedback.

We’ll be scheduling small NDA sessions throughout the EMC World event. Figure about 60 minutes of your time – and conveniently close to the main show floor.

If this sounds like something you and your team might be interested in, please drop me a note at chuck dot hollis at emc dot com. We’ll try and accommodate as many of these as we can handle, but – understandably – space is very limited.

Looking forward to seeing you at a great show!

Offering Your Users Hadoop-As-A-Service

It's great to see so many businesses start to experiment with Hadoop and its unique toolset.  But I'm sure all this exciting experimentation is creating more than one headache for the IT team.

Today, VMware announced some very useful extensions to Project Serengeti, essentially allowing the creation of virtual Hadoop clusters with very different characteristics to be easily delivered as-a-service on top of existing VMware infrastructure.

While I'm sure there are Hadoop purists who might object to anything other than a dedicated, bare metal hand-crafted implementations, I think the VMware team has come up with a great capability that encourages increased experimentation of Hadoop's capabilities across the business without breaking the bank.

When Enterprise IT Met Macroeconomics

I came across a fascinating read that juxtaposes two of my favorite subjects: enterprise IT and macroeconomics.

In "How The Internet Is Making Us Poor", Christopher Mims reprises an excellent case around how progressively more use of enterprise IT is fundamentally restructuring our economy, and -- more importantly -- our labor force. 

Vast categories of familiar middle-class jobs ('cognitive workers') are now at risk around the globe, thanks to software eating the world. It's happened before (e.g. agriculture, manufacturing) but perhaps never at this pace and scale.

While I'm not advocating a Luddite stance, perhaps we all should be somewhat more cognizant of the macro changes we are collectively enabling, one modest IT project at a time.

From Storage Products To Storage Workloads

We, as technology vendors, are collectively obsessed with products and technologies -- not only our own, but those of our competition.

Our fixations on debating the merits of Product A vs. Product B, C and D inevitably draw other groups in: partners and customers.  Any random walk of the interwebs will show countless opinions, comparisons, debates, shouting matches, etc. along these lines. 

All of this may not be particularly productive, but I guess it's entertaining to all the participants -- sort of the way people tend to debate sports.  But getting stuff done in IT is a serious endeavor for most people; the outcomes matter so much more than how your favorite team is doing.

Here at EMC, we've started to make some changes to improve the situation.  We've begun to shift our discussion from products to workloads.  We talk about use cases and customer requirements first, and then debate the merits of one approach over another in a specific context.

In addition to sharing how we're trying to improve the discussion, I'd like to enlist your help in encouraging others to do the same.

When Public Cloud Isn't Cheaper

The economics of various cloud models has been hotly debated back-and-forth for over four years.

Are public clouds cheaper? Are private clouds cheaper? Under what circumstances is one form of cloud more cost-effective than another?

I don't think we'll ever have the definitive answer, but there's some interesting new data to contemplate, courtesy of the recent EMC analyst day.

For most people doing IT at any reasonable scale, the number shows that private clouds can be significantly less expensive than public alternatives in many situations.

And that's *before* any concerns about availability, security, regulatory compliance, control, etc. are factored in.

How EMC Views The Evolving Storage Market

A while back, I shared how the industry analyst firm of IDC viewed the storage market.  A surprising number of people were interested in what could ostensibly be categorized as a rather boring tech subject.

As part of the recent EMC investor day, David Goulden shared a very detailed, behind-the-scenes EMC view of the evolving storage marketplace. 

It's probably the best segmentation model I've seen to explain the macrodynamics of what's going on right now -- and well into the future.

IDC and the other industry watchers do a nice business in studying the storage landscape, and selling their insight to subscribers.  Not to be disrespectful of anyone's work (we do buy their services) but you should to keep in mind that -- as EMC -- the majority of our multi-billion dollar business is either storage, or things that relate to storage. 

So we really, really care about having good models :)

If your interest in storage technology and market dynamics is more than a passing one, you'll find this model very interesting. 

I did.

Does Horizontal Win?

Joe Tucci -- Chairman and CEO of EMC -- thinks so.

Conventional IT industry wisdom presumes the ultimate vendor goal is to "own the stack": not only the key components your customer needs, but the key interfaces between them. 

Alternatives are discouraged, increasingly more is bought from a smaller number of vendors, revenues and margins increase, competitors are at a disadvantage, and so on.

Large-scale industry examples are everywhere: IBM, Microsoft, HP, Oracle etc.

At yesterday's "Strategic Forum for Institutional Investors", we saw a veritable fireworks show of powerful ideas from Pat Gelsinger (CEO of VMware), David Goulden (COO of core EMC), and -- most interesting for the audience -- Paul Maritz who shared the rationale and structure of the new Pivotal initiative.

But I think Joe gets the prize for the most subtly controversial idea of the day: how does one become a disruptive stack vendor without the traditional model of "owning of the stack"?

I think his argument is pretty compelling.

ITaaS -- Creating That Retail Experience For Your Users

ITaaS: a familiar topic to many of my readers. 

But there's a new (and interesting) perspective: when you go through all this transformation stuff, how does IT function appear to the average knowledge worker in a large organization? 

I'll give you a hint, and it's very familiar. 

We all know how to buy and use technology in our personal lives, why should our corporate lives be any different?  Sellers of consumer tech strive to create great online retail experiences, why wouldn't we import that idea  into the enterprise IT world?

We have an excellent example of this concept within EMC itself: our own "InfinIT"-branded one-stop shop for most of your day-to-day end-user IT needs.  It's slick, well-marketed and very representational of what happens when IT re-orients around making IT easy to consume vs. easy for the IT organization.

Perhaps you've done better in your own IT group, and -- if you have -- congratulations!  For everyone else, the tour might be very interesting indeed.

The Shape Of Today's Storage Market

So often, I talk about industry directions and future scenarios.  That's to be expected, but my view is built on decent understanding of what the marketplace looks like today. 

IDC just released their storage market estimates for 2012 -- both Q4 and for the full year.  As I was going through the numbers, it struck me that many people might not have a high-level appreciation of how big the market is, what the major categories might be, and so on.

Although EMC continues to do very well as you might expect, this post isn't really about taking yet another victory lap -- it's more about drawing the broader picture of the storage industry as it stands today.

Consider it Storage Marketplace 101?

From Compute Clouds To Dataclouds

Evolution and differentiation -- a powerful theme in life sciences.  Also in IT.

Just as our current understanding of clouds evolved from what came before, clouds themselves will inevitably evolve and differentiate.  Crossbreed cloud concepts with big data concepts, and the offspring is what we're starting to informally call a "datacloud".  

Children not only can inherit the best traits of their parents, but often they exhibit talents that neither parent had.  The same is true of dataclouds -- clear lineage with the parents, but showing some unique traits as well.

It was great to see the positive reaction on my recent post "From Databases To Dataclouds".  Lots of interesting discussions resulted, so now I'm encouraged to share more of the thinking.

Since many of us are familiar with cloud concepts as well as big data concepts, I'd like to outline my case as to why the latter will inevitably shape the former.

Hardware In An Era Of Software-Defined Everything

The next mountain to climb is clearly in sight: it's the software-defined data center, or SDDC.

Many might justifiably see SDDC as a linear extension of familiar server virtualization concepts, now being applied to things like storage and networks. 

While that's quite true, there's a much smaller group who sees something far more impactful -- a complete re-thinking of cloud-scale IT infrastructures: both software and hardware.

I have recently converted to this second smaller group, sorry to say.  As a result, I have become much more extreme than usual around the potential of what's in play here -- nothing less than yet another redrawing of the industry: the vendors who supply, and the cloud-scale customers who consume.

From a vendor perspective, it really doesn't matter where you play in the stack -- there's nowhere to hide.  SDDC concepts are going to change your world. 

If you didn't like the previous disruptive waves, you're really going to hate this next one.

Yes, much of what we think of as "hardware" today becomes dynamic, virtual services under software control.  But, in this new world, we start thinking about hardware differently as well -- especially at scale.

It's A Flash World: EMC's "Flash.next" Announcement

By now, most people who work with storage -- vendors, customers, partners -- appear to have read the memo: we're in the midst of a technology transition from spinning disk to flash storage. 

All the signs are clearly visible.  From an industry perspective, it's certainly gotten noisy and will only get noisier: all the familiar players and many new ones are out there with newer, flash-based products.   Just as you'd expect.

Even the slower moving storage vendors have started to respond to the inevitable -- it's becoming a flash storage world, perhaps faster than some may have thought.

I love a good disruption ...

Today, EMC announced significant enhancements to our existing all-flash storage products, now rebranded under a new "Xtrem" moniker, and -- perhaps more importantly -- shared a bit more perspective of what's coming before too long.  

Chris Mellor, as usual, does a great writeup at The Register.

While I'm sure that the merits of EMC's offerings will be widely debated, there's no debating that we're investing like crazy to stay ahead of the technology and customer demands.

From a vendor perspective, that's what a good technology disruption is all about ... take it seriously, or suffer the consequences.

The Three Transformations of ITaaS

Because I work for a technology company, I frequently get asked to present on "the future of the data center".  I think the expectation would that I show up and start talking about shiny new technologies.
 
While I can certainly do that, I often decide instead to hold up a large mirror to the audience, and instead present on how the nature of enterprise IT is fundamentally changing: new mission, new measurements, new roles and new models. 

Collectively dubbed ITaaS (IT as a service), the idea is for IT to deliver IT services that business people prefer to consume vs. acting as a traditional silo'd technology shop.
 
From my perspective, the technology is moving very quickly indeed: far faster than the ability of most IT organizations to effectively consume it, providing yet another motivation for model change. 

I get to see it both ways.  On one side, I'm reasonably immersed in various technologies these days.  On the other side, I can point to literally hundreds of customer and partner interactions over the last year or so. 

And, for some, the gap is getting wider.
 
It's now gotten to the point where I have three distinct flavors of various talk tracks, depending where I think a customer might be: pre-transformational, transforming, or post-transformational.  Why?  EMC, as an IT vendor, has clearly started to put more investment into the needs of the post-transformational crowd, causing a certain cognitive dissonance with pre-transformational IT audiences, e.g. why the heck would you guys build something like that?
 
The more you work with a topic like ITaaS, the better you get at simplifying the core ideas down to their essences.  I and EMC have been discussing IT transformation now for several years, and -- predictably -- we keep getting better and better at getting to the core essence.
 
Today's example of extreme simplification comes from EMC's Global Services organization.  They've come up with three powerful graphics that boil a very complex topic down into into three largely sequential initiatives.  They're so useful, they're now part of my standard deck I use on the topic.
 
See if you agree ...

From Databases To Dataclouds

I was fortunate to sit through a wonderful, thought-provoking session given by Charles Fan, who is now the SVP of storage, data and applications at VMware. 

I've known Charles through many roles over the years (he has a most fascinating career story) and I can always count on him for a fresh, insightful perspective.

The event itself was pretty interesting as well: it was one of EMC's TAP (technology advisory program) sessions. 

Various groups at EMC routinely run small, informal forums where customers and partners are invited to come in around a specific topic, listen to what we have to say, and -- most importantly -- share their unique perspectives. 

There's about 20% EMC talking and 80% listening, which is one of the reasons I enjoy them so much.

This one did not disappoint -- we were discussing the shifting database landscape, and wanted to really understand what our customers were seeing and experiencing.   

Charles was kind enough to lead a discussion on the future state of databases and data management.

After the session, I asked Charles if I could share the essence of his presentation with a wider audience.  Graciously, he agreed. 

I hope you find this as thought-provoking as I did.

EMC's VSPEX: A Winning Formula

One of the better stories of 2012 was the rapid adoption of EMC's VSPEX -- a relatively new solutions delivery model for EMC.
 
Since there are so many different flavors of various pre-integrated solution stacks in the market today, I've been curious as to what made VSPEX different, and why this one variation had been so successful so quickly.
 
I found some time to catch up with Daanish Ahmad (the marketing lead for VSPEX), and wanted to probe a bit on the story behind the story.

Hadoop Is Growing Up

For many, Hadoop has become much more than just an interesting data management technology -- it's starting to be seen as the potential strategic successor to the familiar relational database world. 

It's the platform where the next generation of big data applications will be built.

Along those lines, EMC's Greenplum division -- now part of the nascent Pivotal Initiative -- has announced a considerable suite of extensions and enhancements to the increasingly popular Hadoop environment. 

But please don't get lost in the product detail -- there are some very big and potentially controversial ideas in play here. 

The role that Hadoop is now playing in big data analytics is now unquestionable; the race is now on for who can provide the best enterprise platform and ecosystem.  And, from where I sit, the new Pivotal group is doing a stellar job of earning that title.

With this announcement, there's a new high-performance SQL layer to make more data available to more data workers. 

There are new capabilities to parallelize analytics processing.  There's now a meaningful set of integrations with VMware and virtualized infrastructure.  There are new consumption options for infrastructure and especially storage.

And there's a new set of management tools aimed squarely at the administrators of these environments. 

All of this wrapped up in a new name (Pivotal HD) that reflects the new direction of the team.

Hadoop is growing up -- fast.

From Periphery To Center: The Evolution Of Vblocks

I make no apologies whatsoever. 

I am an unabashed fan of Vblocks: a converged IT infrastructure, produced and delivered by a converged entity (VCE), and consumed by converged IT organizations. 

I was one of the earliest -- and perhaps the most vocal -- proponents of this new model.  My posts on the subject drew more than a reasonable amount of criticism and outright scorn at the time. 

That's to be expected, really.  I was challenging conventional wisdom of how IT infrastructure should be organized and delivered.

But time has a way of helping people catch up.  For many, the discussion has now evolved from "why would we do that?" to "how quickly can we get there?".

People tended to focus on deconstructing the Vblock itself, rather than the stepping back and understanding the context it was envisioned for.   For example, if you run your IT infrastructure group as traditional, isolated silos, you look at something like a Vblock and say "that's not how we do things".  And you'd be quite right.

However, if you've invested in delivering services vs. silos (ITaaS), the logic and appeal of a Vblock is almost irresistible.

As more IT groups are evolving their model, Vblocks continue to succeed in the market.  That success enables additional investments, forming the basis of today's big VCE announcement.  For me, there's two components of the announcement: the sort of thing you might expect, and a rather controversial surprise worth discussing in more detail.

So let's dive in.

Introducing VMAX Cloud Edition

To this day, too many people still get hung up over the word "cloud" -- they dismiss it as merely marketing fluff, or an unpleasant flavor of vendor hype.  To each their own, I say.

However, if you're closer to the topic, you'd probably agree it's a fundamental restructuring of how IT services are produced, managed, delivered and consumed.

Collectively, we've thankfully moved beyond debating definitions, and started on the more challenging work of embracing the new models.

But just because the model changes doesn't mean the core requirements change.

Critical IT services still need to be highly available, performant, secure, recoverable, efficient, etc. -- irregardless of whether we're talking about cloud or a more traditional IT delivery model.  And that discussion applies to enterprise-class storage as well.

That's the core essence of the new VMAX Cloud Edition.

It still delivers on the core values a VMAX is known for -- but it now fully embraces the newer as-a-service model behind cloud.  And I think it's clear proof that an even an older dog can learn some impressive new tricks -- if it's smart enough!

Software-Defined Storage And The Potential For Disruption

Last weekend, two weather systems merged off the coast of New England, creating a blizzard of "historic proportions".  Each weather system wasn't particularly important by itself; but somewhat disruptive when combined. 

And it took a while to dig out :)

I believe a similar pattern is brewing in our IT world -- two trends are on a collision course; with the likely result being a significant disruption in the storage sector.

The first trend is, of course, the software-defined data center, and all its software-defined subcategories: server, network, storage, etc. 

Anything that's virtualized has demonstrated it's far easier to consume: easier to acquire, provision, and manage -- and that includes storage.

The second trend is the insatiable demand for ever more storage capacity and associated functionality.  Historically a market with healthy growth, it shows clear signs of ratcheting into an entirely new gear, fueled by demand for all sorts of big data applications.

Although this particular IT mega-storm isn't here yet, you can see what's likely to happen.  And all of us are advised to think ahead.

Information: The Third Pillar Of Business

You study a situation, you make assertions about what will likely happen -- and then you see real-world examples of those predictions becoming reality.

The big notion?  Traditional enterprises will be forced to recognize their aggregated information as a strategic asset, much in the way they think about money and people.

Enterprises with digital business models already view the world this way.  Traditional enterprises are evolving into digital ones.  Ergo, as they evolve, one of the visible markers should be a pronounced shift in how they view their information resources: from ancillary to strategic.

I now have enough observed examples at hand to claim at least partial validation of this effect.  And, as a benefit, I think I can now start to make more confident assertions about what more organizations will be likely seeing in the next few years.

2012: A Good Year In Storage For EMC

There’s simply no arguing with the numbers – EMC continues to do very well indeed in the broader storage market and continuing to gain share in almost all sub-segments. 

While we’re not ones to rest on our laurels, I thought it would be good to dive down a bit deeper into some of the more interesting stories behind those big numbers.

For example, our mid-range product division (EMC’s USD – makers of the VNX and VNXe storage arrays) has certainly had an exceptional year.  Many of the powerful forces at play in the industry happen much faster and stronger in this incredibly competitive segment of the broader storage marketplace. 

I took some time to sit down with Eric Herzog, SVP of Product Management and Product Marketing, to get his views on 2012, and what things we might see in 2013.

When Big Data Changed Security

This morning, EMC announced a new landmark product: RSA Security Analytics.

While there's a lot to appreciate in the specifics of the product itself, I think the real story is how this announcement evidences a substantial shift in how we think about information security.

Information has quickly become the most critical enterprise asset.  It's inevitably attracted a new class of attacks and attackers. 

As a result, information security concerns have quickly escalated beyond IT to the board of directors.  The threat landscape has radically shifted over the last few years -- and people are paying very close attention.

At the same time, big data analytics has amply demonstrated its power to radically transform the effectiveness of most any important business process.  Powerful predictive models fed with diverse data sources routinely produces astonishing results. 
 
Improving information security most certainly qualifies as one of those critically important business processes.

And it shouldn't be any surprise that security professionals are starting to reach for a new class of more powerful tools.

The Big Data Storymap

In "The Power Of Visual Thinking?" I shared a great visual tool that had been created by EMC Global Services -- a somewhat humorous storymap showing how IT organizations transformed from silos to service providers.

That PDF has proven to be amazingly popular: both in the context of a consulting workshop, but more broadly as a tool for IT leaders to share with their teams -- helping to put all the ideas and concepts into a digestible context.

Well, our EMC Global Services team is at it again.  They've created another powerful storymap, this time around how organizations learn to be proficient at big data analytics.  I'm sure it will be at least as popular once it gets around.

You can read much about it from our own Bill Schmarzo here.  Download the PDF here.  Or experiment with a Prezi-formatted presentation here (not in final form yet).

Either way, I see this as a very useful tool in the arsenal.  Thanks to Bill Schmarzo, Mark A. Lawson and Glenn Steinhandler for their great work, and for sharing with us all!

My Favorite Posts

I've been taking a break over the last month or so from my typically frenetic blogging pace. 

For me, it's a good time for reflection, contemplation and recalibration -- all positive.  Part of looking forward involves looking back over your shoulder, and acknowledging how much ground you've covered. 

Digging back into my older blog posts, I'm often pleased to discover something neat I've written -- and which I've completely forgotten about.  Fortunately, there's plenty to choose from: 1000+ posts spanning 6+ years, generating 2m+ direct page views.

Compared to many of my tech blogger compatriots, I think I cover a lot of ground -- not only in the technology world, but in the business world as well.   I seem to have no fear in latching on to a difficult topic, and attempting to wrestle it to the ground as best as I can.

I thought I'd share with you a collection of my personal favorites -- the ones that have stood up well over time.  If you're a long time reader, some of these will undoubtedly be familiar to you.  If you're relatively new here, this is my weak attempt at a "Best Of" collection.

Thoughtful comments are always welcome ...

The End Of The Group File Share?

It was certainly a big deal many decades ago: the notion that one of your desktop drives ("H:\") could actually be shared with your co-workers over a LAN.  No more floppies.  A shared repository, usually up-to-date.  A huge productivity leap forward, back in the day.

Over time, shared drives became file shares, and repositories, and content-oriented collaboration was layered on top, and then -- the world changed.

We all went mobile.  Not just on one device, but often several.

We wanted personal control of who we share with, and under what terms.

We craved simplicity: we want our files are kept up-to-date automatically with nothing for us to do other than get on a network once in a while.

Our circles got larger: not everyone we worked with was a badged employee, and they certainly didn't have access to the corporate network.

But IT still had that responsibility to be in control: what data, where it lives -- and who can see it.

Today, the Syncplicty group at EMC announced that their impressive sync-and-share cloud app can use on-premise IT-owned storage -- in effect, creating a private cloud for next-gen file sharing. 

And I think it's pretty cool.

What I Mean When I Say "Enterprise Storage"

The recent announcement of the VMAX 10K brought up an interesting discussion for us storage folks: what -- exactly -- might "enterprise storage" be?

I find that the definitions offered by the industry analysts are incomplete and unsatisfying at best. 

And there's certainly strong motivation for any storage vendor to slap an "enterprise" label on their product in an effort to attract more potential customers.

My credentials to offer an informed perspective are substantial, but not impeccable.  I've been in the storage business now for almost twenty years.  I meet over a hundred customers and partners every year, and I've been doing that for many years.  My biases are to be expected: I've been at EMC now for 18 years, and have worked closely with the Symmetrix and VMAX product lines for virtually all of that time.

Like another infamous quote, I know an enterprise storage requirement when I see it.

Enterprise Storage Heats Up – Again!

Once you spend any time inside the storage marketplace, you'll come to appreciate there are many segments and subsegments. 

The need to store information is ubiquitous -- the approaches are not.

Sit down and attempt to segment the storage marketplace, and you'll quickly end up with a fairly complicated model.

One familiar category is what is imprecisely called "enterprise storage" or sometimes "tier 1" -- the storage that supports the enterprise's most critical applications. 

These are no-compromise environments that demand the best in predictability: performance, availability, recoverability and so on.

A subsegment of this market appears to be heating up very quickly: the entry-level enterprise-class storage array.

EMC has its very successful VMAX 10K.  Hitachi has recently offered the HUS VM.  And HP has invested heavily in enhancing 3PAR in this segment.  IBM, NetApp, et. al. really don't play in this game, despite what their aspirational marketing might say.

So -- one has to ask -- why is this particular subsegment of a rather familiar storage landscape becoming popular all at once?

And -- of course -- what is EMC doing about it?

What A Modern Factory Can Teach You About High-Performance IT

I'm not the only who's fascinated by high-performance IT organizations, and the transformations required to get them there.

In my travels, I've encountered others who share my fascination.  And -- each and every time -- we all inevitably gravitate to the same set of analogies: modern factories and how manufacturing works.

This should be no surprise.  In the digital economy, IT is the new factory -- it's responsible for delivering the organization's value proposition in the digital world.

So perhaps it behooves us to study modern manufacturing -- how it works today, and -- more importantly -- how and why it evolved.

You'd be surprised on just how many concepts and ideas can be carried across.

SDDC And The Elephant In The Room

Like many companies, we at EMC start our new year with a leadership gathering.  We gather to celebrate, connect, strategize and share.  They are *always* great events.

I found this year's gathering was particularly rewarding in terms of deep content.  The majority of the meeting was spent unpacking the depth behind  the core elements of EMC's strategy: cloud, big data and trust. 

We dove in from a product and technology perspective.  We came at it from a services view.  Another take from a services and skills viewpoint.  And, finally, the organizational and business model implications.

For me, it was like a wonderful meal that just went on and on.  Rich, detailed and exceptionally well-thought out -- although your head started to hurt after a while.

Underlying much of the discussion was the central notion of a software-defined datacenter (SDDC for short), representing the next generation of infrastructure and operational models.  All through the discussion, that was clearly the conceptual foundation for so much of what needed to happen in the industry.

And I started to realize we still have a lot of explaining to do: not only around the concepts themselves, but what they mean to IT groups and the organizations they support. 

I've now had some time to think and digest, and I wanted to add a few different perspectives to the mix.

The Big Picture

This year, I was very honored to receive multiple invitations to speak at customer events. 

Many of the larger IT organizations EMC works with have their own internal kickoffs for the new year.  Frequently, they go looking for someone who can bring an outside perspective -- a context -- to their situation. 

Somehow, they find me.  And I am very flattered to be considered worthy for that task.

But it's not an easy gig.

You can't just show up wearing your IT vendor badge, and blather on about your various products and technologies.  I've seen vendors do that before, and I'm pretty sure they won't be invited back.

Nor can you go too "big picture" either -- you can start with big ideas, but you have to bring those same concepts back to their world and make them relevant and somewhat actionable.

And, of course, you've got to do all of this in about 25 minutes, while holding people's attention.

Unfortunately, this year I only was able to accept a few of these invitations. 

For everyone else, I thought I'd do the next big thing -- share my 2013 keynote presentation via this blog post.  If you're a regular reader, you'll certainly see familiar material -- just re-assembled and re-packaged to be more consumable.

Even if you're not part of a large IT organization that's having a kickoff, you might find this material worthwhile to consider as you start the new year.

Thanks For The Chocolate

Perhaps a better title for this post is "Why More Data Is A Good Thing".

As we engage with our customers around big data analytics, one of the harder points to get across is why more data can lead to better predictive insights.  Perhaps they suspect we've got an agenda to sell them more storage? :)

One of the big uptake vectors for the new school of big data and predictive analytics is the dismal science of marketing.  Big data and predictive analytics are quickly transforming how marketing gets done, even here at EMC.

We're all the target of marketing pitches: some well-aimed, some not-so-well-aimed.

Recently, I was the recipient of a lavish marketing pitch.  Through the old-school lens, you could understand just why I was involved.

But through the lens of big data and predictive analytics, you start to realize just how far we have to travel.

Does IT Need A New Concierge?

There's a new business model brewing in the ranks of the enterprise IT marketplace.  In some ways it's a new idea; in other ways it's a linear extension of familiar concepts.

As with any emerging model, you'll hear it described in many different ways: a cloud services broker, ITaaS-as-a-service, a new variation on the outsourcing model, front-desk-and-back-office, and so on.

The core idea is conceptually simple: a new, external IT service that makes other external IT services easier to source and easier to consume by the broader enterprise. 

An "IT services concierge" service, if you will.

Will some IT leaders be interested in such a thing?  Inevitably. 

Does the model have long term growth prospects?  That's more debatable.

Building A Executive Digital Literacy Program

Being perceived as a visionary is a relatively easy task.  All you have to do is identify a handful of clearly visible trends, extrapolate a bit, and then loop back with practical advice on what to do about it now.

Example: I have a friend who's currently looking at oceanfront property.  He showed me a place that was right on the water.  I suggested he might consider a house with a bit more elevation?  Sure, it might not be a visible problem now, but if you think out a few years ...

Here's the point: there's rapid and unprecedented climate change in the business world.  Our society is forcefully transforming to a digital world.

Our current business models -- designed for the physical world -- now have to be dramatically re-engineered to adapt and thrive in this new economy.  A palpable sense of urgency is at hand.

IT can supply the platforms and tools, but do our leaders and management teams have the necessary skills and context required to lead the way forward? 

If you can answer "yes", you're quite fortunate -- the rest of us have some heavy lifting to do.

Just like we had to learn to thrive in a global economy, and a sustainable economy -- we now have to learn how to thrive in a digital economy. 

And that's something they didn't teach us in business school.

I wish I could point to a proven body of knowledge and delivery mechanisms to achieve this important goal, but no such luck

I've been looking, and there isn't much out there at the executive level -- sure, there are pieces here and there, but they certainly don't fit together as I'd like to see.

At some point, this will surely change, but in the meantime, it's a roll-your-own proposition.

I've now been asked several times -- if I were constructing an agenda for mid-to-senior level leaders -- what would I put in it?

So, in an effort to kick-start the discussion, here it is:

Why There Shouldn't Be A Single Version Of The Truth

Legacy thinking can get you in trouble in so many ways.  The challenge is that -- well -- there's so much of it around.

Maxims that seemed to make logical sense in one era quickly become the intellectual chains that hold so many of us back.  Personally, I've come to enjoy blowing up conventional wisdom to make room for emerging realities.

I'm getting into more and more customer discussions with progressive IT organizations that are seriously contemplating building platforms and services that meet the broad goal of "analytically enabling the business" -- business analytics as service, if you will.

The problem?  The people in charge have done things a certain way for a very long time.  And the new, emerging requirements are forcing them to go back and seriously reconsider some of their most deeply-held assumptions.

Like having "one version of the truth".  I've seen multiple examples of it get in the way of organizations who need to be doing more with their data.

EMC Joins OpenStack

Today, our EMC logo went up on the OpenStack Foundation's web site as a corporate level sponsor.

You'll see many other logos up there as well -- all good.  I'm sure each participant sees OpenStack through their own lens. 

With this post, hopefully I can share a bit of EMC's perspective and motivations.

Because -- as with most things -- the pattern should be familiar by now.

Charting The Digital Universe: IDC's 6th Annual Study

Climate change has been hotly debated for well over a decade now. 

The evidence is largely in, what remains is a discussion around root causes, and what -- if anything -- can be done. 

Personally, the topic became particularly urgent when I saw a recent documentary ("Chasing Ice") which features stunning time-lapse photography of massive glaciers and ice sheets melting before your very eyes.

Seeing is believing.  Our world is changing, faster than we thought.

In many ways, the most recent IDC Digital Universe study provides clear evidence that our world is also changing from a physical one to a digital one, and much faster than we previously thought.  In addition to attempting to quantify and forecast how much information we collectively generate and consume, it highlights particular "big picture" topics of concern to many.

Many of us now live our lives primarily in a digital world.  We work digitally, socialize digitally and spend our off hours digitally. 

Our children are being raised and educated largely in a digital world.  Businesses are in hot pursuit to re-invent themselves in this digital world, followed closely by public sector.  "IRL" (in real life) has started to become the exception rather than the norm.

Our world is changing, faster than we thought.

But unlike climate change, our digital world is mostly good for all involved -- a major leap forward for us as a society: richer lives, better answers to social problems, and -- above all -- easier access to the information riches the world now has to offer.  Like all transformations, it presents its own unique challenge.

In many regards, I see the IDC study as useful and important -- it measures the "digital footprint" of this unprecedented transformation.  And, as in past years, there's much more insight to be gained other than just appreciating some really big numbers.

E&Y: Trust And The Cloud

I'm lucky to meet a wide range of IT organizations scattered across all sorts of industries.

Some are bravely charging ahead into the new world of cloud-based IT service delivery: transforming their internal operations, consuming more external IT services, and learning quickly as they go.

But others are holding back, and for what turns out to be very sound reasons. 

A tough set of regulatory concerns, for example.  Challenging security and data privacy laws.  Compliance and auditability.  High-risk IT applications that can't afford any sort of a bad day. 

These IT groups believe they can't move ahead unless *all* of this is sorted out -- ahead of time.

If you're reading this and nodding your head, you know who you are.

For these organizations, the move to a modern IT model has to be done with trust and confidence.  It's not an IT thing, it's a business thing -- and it's not optional.

Enter Ernst & Young

More known for tax, audit and regulatory consulting, they've developed an interesting set of IT transformation consulting services precisely targeted at these more risk-sensitive industries. 

While perhaps not known as a technology powerhouse, they do bring deep expertise in establishing the required "trust assurances" across the organization needed for a move to any form of cloud.

As I've started to work with their team, I've gained a new-found appreciation around a an entirely new path to the cloud. 

By focusing on a tough set of business concerns first and foremost, they may end up being far more successful in helping their clients get to cloud than us technology-focused types.

There Is No Automation Pill

So many discussions these days with customers around IT transformation -- three of them yesterday alone.

While every discussion has its own unique nuances, there are observable patterns where people frequently can fall into a predictable trap -- not just IT organizations, but us as IT vendors as well.

And, not surprisingly, one of those topics is automation.

Here's the trap: since automation is "good", let's start by simply adding automation to what we're doing today.  More automation -- that's what we all need!

The customer goes for it.  The IT vendor goes for it.  And then I often have the uncomfortable and unpopular task of unwinding everyone from a mutually agreed goal.

Unfortunately, good automation is always the result of substantial process redesign.  It's the outcome of hard and persistent work to understand the real value at hand, how things get done, realigning tasks, workflows, measurement and more.

Good automation is an outcome of a massive process re-engineering effort.  More broadly, it should never end -- you should always looking for a better or more efficient process design, and hence always should be revisiting your automation approach.

There's no magic "automation pill" that I've ever found. 

Want to lose weight?  Eat less and exercise more -- but that's hard work, isn't it?

Lost In Translation?

Part of my role here at EMC is to spend time with writers, bloggers and journalists on various topics.  It's a global endeavor, often crossing language and cultural barriers.

Most of the time, it turns out pretty well.  What ends up in print is a reasonable reflection of what I said - maybe not perfect, but close enough.

Once in a rare while, the result can get jumbled.  When it does, I certainly share a decent amount of the responsibility: was I clear, did I speak slowly, did I make it simple enough?

A few days ago, a write-up of a recorded interview appeared in Storage Newsletter.  I was dismayed that it had a bad case of that "lost in translation" problem. 

I'm not quite sure how it happened.  The questions were reasonable; I thought my answers reasonable -- but the result wasn't ideal.   To make matters even more problematic, one of the industry bloggers pounced on one of the many misquotes as "evidence" of a broader set of issues. 

Nothing goes unpunished on the social web. 

So, in the interest of continual improvement, I thought I'd reprint the entire interview here, along with an improved transcription of what I said.  The answers are the same, they're just a bit easier to read.  I've also added some expansion points (clearly indicated) as needed.