Chuck's Blog

When VMware Deployment Isn't Just About Servers

Maybe I'm a bit slow, but when I see the same thing happen 5, 10 or maybe 20 times, sometimes a dim bulb goes on in my head, and I say "wait, maybe there's a pattern here!".

As you know, I spend a lot of time with customers.  It's so much fun, I sometimes wonder why I'm allowed (and paid!) to do it. 

And you know I've written about information infrastructure considerations for VMware ESX before.

So, I'm now starting to see the same thing over and over again.

And it's entirely avoidable.

Green Data Center Goes Marketing Mainstream

I'm watching with mixed emotions as more and more vendors start to describe their products as addressing challenges associated with reducing power and cooling in the data center.

On one hand, clearly it's a monumental challenge -- and opportunity.

On the other hand, I'm starting to see vendors with thinner and thinner claims start to add this message to their marketing drumbeat.

That's not a good thing.

The New Informationists

One of the themes I explored in depth a while back was the emerging role of "informationists" -- those that understand how to store, protect, optimize and leverage a company's entire information portfolio.

One of my more vociferous rants has been that someone is going to have to "own" corporate information.  The trend is pretty clear -- with every passing day, information has even more potential to cost you money, make you money -- or get you in a whole lot of trouble.

I was pleased to see this slick article (by EMC) on the concept -- maybe we'll see more soon!

SharePoint and Documentum

More than a few blogs have been written comparing and contrasting the pros and cons of these two products, which -- ostensibly -- look like they might do many of the same things.

Well, yes and no.

It's my prediction that most larger customers will see a compelling case to use both products.

Here's why ...

Scaling The Home Terabyte

OK, I promised myself I'd never be one of those bloggers that said "found this great post, go read it!" but that's exactly what I'm gonna do today.

Barry Burke (aka The Storage Anarchist) wrote a brilliant post on storage in the home.

The inside joke on the title of this post goes back to 1995, when EMC and Oracle teamed up to demonstrate the first terabyte-sized Oracle database.  Project title: "Scaling The Terabyte".  I think I still have the tee shirt.  I guess things have changed a bit.

Go read it, please!

It'll Never Happen To Us

There's a part of human behavior that when we hear of something really bad happening, we compartmentalize and rationalize along the lines of "gee, that's really bad, I guess we're lucky".

What follows below is an excerpt from a recent 10Q submitted by TJX, who (as you might know) who was unfortunate to be targeted by very sophisticated information theives.

They're not bad guys over at TJX.  They run their shop pretty much like most retailers run their shops.  They don't deserve what happened to them in any regard.  I think that this could have just as easily happened to any of the IT organizations I meet every day.

As you read this, remember, the consequences of this theft have only just begun.   

And, if any good will come from this at all (other than lawyers making a lot of money) it will serve as an object lesson around just how important (and dangerous) information has become for all of us.

Now, imagine this was your company ... [Note: thanks to Bill Bonin who sent this along]

Why XAM Is Very, Very Cool

Maybe you saw this obscure news about an even more obscure industry standard: XAM.

Although I think I've met my quota for blog posts this week (4 so far), I just couldn't resist doing one more, and -- besides -- I'll be travelling next week.

So, what's the big deal here?  And why are certain customers watching this one very closely?

Let me try one of my infamous over-simplified explanations.

Where Does NAS Go From Here?

As a category, NAS (file-oriented) storage has done extremely well in areas where SAN wasn't a good fit.

But every technology evolves (or gets disrupted!), so it's a fair question -- where does NAS go from here?

And I don't think there's a consensus -- there's a very wide diversity of opinions.

So, let's take a step back, and see where it all might go.

My Stack Vs. Your Stack

So, a customer stopped me cold the other day with a very pointed question.  I love when that happens.

Here's what he said:

"Look, every major player in IT is building their stack: EMC, IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, SAP, and so on.  What makes you think your stack is the better stack?"

Brutally candid, but a really, really good question.

So here's what I said.

EMC and Wipro

Perhaps you saw the announcement today.

EMC and Wipro have signed up to a pretty extensive agreeement. 

It's all there (or will be soon) --

• Technology enablement -- making sure that Wipro is fully enabled EMC technology
• Solution development -- identifying a few promising areas where we jointly invest and jointly sell.
• Go to market -- figuring out how to line up Wipro's value proposition and EMC's value proposition in chosen markets.

But press releases never tell the story behind the story.   And, as usual, there's more than meets the eye.