Chuck's Blog

Gaining Control Of Information

I just love talking to customers.  I could do it all day long -- if I didn't have a day job.

Sometimes, you have an intense customer discussion that gives you new insights into what it’s all about.

I had just such an experience this morning, which I want to share with you.   It was fascinating, at least from my biased perspective.

The key question: how does IT gain control of information in a large, complex organization without waiting for a lengthy, top-down organizational process to complete?

And, at the end of the story, there’s a few nuggets of learning which I wanted to pass along.

Corporate Blogging Redux

Since I started doing this back in October, the experience has been fantastic – on both a personal and professional level.

I thought I’d take this post to step back a bit, describe the journey, and answer a few questions I’m continually asked.

Where Are The EMC Product Forums?

I like to think I know a lot about what's going on at EMC.  At least, I try.

Sometimes, though, I get a pleasant surprise of something cool that's going on that missed my radar screen.

Had such an experience yesterday.  Someone asked "where are the EMC product forums where people can share information, workarounds, etc.?".  I was worried that -- somehow -- we'd missed this along the way.

Turns out I'm pleasantly surprised.  Not only do we have a products forum, but it's big, sprawling, active, funny, engaging, etc.  Nothing worse than a boring discussion forum, right?

So here ya go: http://forums.emc.com/forums/index.jspa

Registration is required, but there are lots of ways to get that: customer, partner, internal EMC person, etc.  If there's an audience that can't get to this site and wants to, let me know and I'll see what I can do about it.

Thanks!

Enterprise Applications For The 21st Century?

One of the most fundamental advances in the IT landscape during the 1990s was the emergence of integrated enterprise applications like SAP, Peoplesoft, more recently Oracle Applications, and so on.

For the first time, companies could design their core business processes in such a way that they were integrated yet flexible.  Basic work processes were automated.

Yes, we all spent an enormous amount of effort getting these environments in, and they still present issues to this day, but I saw this shift as unleashing an enormous amount of productivity and competitiveness from the companies that made the investment.

As we sit today, you wouldn’t try any run a good-sized company without an enterprise application suite that implements your core business processes.  It’s table stakes.

But the world has changed in the last decade. 

What’s the next "enterprise app" that will unleash the next order-of-magnitude productivity from our companies, and how will it change the competitive landscape?

Some would say it's the SOA versions of what we're doing today. 

I have a different perspective.

Being An Informationist -- Where To Start?

I’ve found a strong resonant note with my observations (and exhortations!) about IT’s transformation from technologist to informationist.

If you missed the back story, you can pick it up here, here and here.

But I’m being asked more frequently – where do I (or we) get started? 

We see what you’re saying in our own shop – costs are rising, risks are increasing and we’re not exploiting the value of the information we already have.

But it’s not clear how we get from where we are to where we need to be.

I can’t provide the magic formula, but I’d like to offer a few thoughts that might be helpful.

A Tale Of Two Architectures

Just saw Brad O’Neill’s recent article “Face Off: EMC DMX-3 vs. Hitachi USP 1100” in Storage magazine.

I thought it was very good on several levels, and would recommend it to anyone who’s interested in storage at scale.  Yes, you need to be a subscriber to read it, but if you’re reading this blog, you might consider filling out the form for a free subscription.

As many shops are going to be joining the infamous Petabyte Club over the next few years (or are already there!), I think there will be more and more people interested in what’s going on here.

Even if you don’t think of yourself as ever being interested in high-end storage, there are a few nuggets to consider.

Although Brad went farther than most, there’s still more interesting angles to explore. 

Considering EMC.next

One of the things I enjoy about my job is watching EMC evolve and change, sometimes much faster than anyone expects.

If you’re not an EMC watcher, you should probably skip this post. 

If you are, it’s time to get out your scorecard, because changes are afoot.

During my time here, I can point to events that I think were clear landmarks in EMC’s evolution.  The day we beat IBM in storage market share.  The day we split our business into hardware, software and services, instead of just storage.  Our first large strategic acquisition.  And so on.

Monday of this week marked just such a transition point in my mind. 

Prior to Monday, we were one sort of company.  After Monday, it was clear we had evolved into a very different company.

Will We Ever See Information Management Service Providers?

A business strategy debate is going on in quiet corners of the industry. 

Will there be a huge new opportunity for service providers in new areas of information management?

Or will the market go the way of the ill-fated storage service provider (SSP) bubble?

The jury’s out, but one thing is for sure: the outcome will have ramifications for vendors and customers alike.

The Informationist Manifesto

I've stirred up a great discussion around my (and EMC's) thoughts around the shift of information responsibility to IT, and what this means.

I was presenting at an event in Paris, and they captured me on video doing a pretty good job of explaining the core concepts, the impact, and what EMC is doing about it. 

Best part is that I'm speaking slowly and clearly ...

I thought I'd share it with you if you're interested.  Video and sound are pretty good, WMV format, 77 MB, runs about 25 minutes.  [note: the first time I posted, the file was corrupt -- seems to be OK now, though]

The slides had been translated into French, but you can get a PDF of the English slides here.

And, if you're interested, seems that our friends at Gartner have picked up on the concept of Information Infrastructure, here's a piece in the usual Gartner-ese.

Drop me a line if you'd like to discuss ... thanks!

To RAID 6 Or Not To RAID 6?

In our little storage blogging world, a spirited (yet ultimately friendly) spat has broken out between Storagezilla and Ruptured Monkey over the issue of RAID 6.

[note: where do they come up with these blog names?  I am most desperately uncool by comparison …]

I’m not going to wade in here on the pros and cons, but what I am going to do is step back a bit and talk about how EMC viewed the situation, and what we did about it.

It’s an interesting behind-the-scenes story in the contrast between IT vendors providing features, and IT vendors solving problems.