Chuck's Blog

Do-It-Yourself Storage

I've always been amazed at the different ways you can slice the storage market: by access method (DAS, SAN, NAS, CAS, etc.), by architecture (single controller, dual controller, multi-controller, RAIN, scale-out, clusters, etc.), even by consumption model (e.g. traditional vs. storage-as-a-service).

To this growing list of taxonomies, I think we're going to have to add another: pre-integrated storage vs. do-it-yourself.

And, strangely, I think that there will be certain places where this is going to be popular.  But most organizations will probably never consider it seriously.

Here's why ...

Single Vs. Multiple Vendor Approaches

A while back, I commented on the growing disparity I was seeing to these different approaches to storage in larger customer environments.

Not surprisingly, I was taken to task by many over my observations.  "Of course", they'd offer, "what else would you expect a large vendor to say?"

Well, I'm signing up for another round of punishment.

Why?  It's getting even clearer to me with each passing week.

I Don't Know Quite What To Think ...

If you follow this blog, you know I have heartburn with cheap marketing stunts in our industry.

But last night, I came across a clever one, and -- to be honest -- I'm not quite sure what to think about it.

Let me explain it a bit, and perhaps you can share your thoughts?

Interesting Reactions To EMC's 1Q08

Well, all things considered, I thought EMC's results were pretty good: strong growth across the board, new products doing well, share gains in many segments, etc.

But I guess a few people didn't see things the same way, e.g. "EMC Weathers Stormy Quarter, Denies Technology Threats". 

OK, so it makes for an attention-grabbing headline, but that's hardly the case.

But I thought some of the core questions -- and answers -- were worthy of a bit of further discussion.

Common Criteria Isn't So Common

This post was triggered by yet another innocuous EMC press release, this one announcing that many of our platform products have been certified under the Common Criteria Information Technology Security Evaluation.

Don't know about the Common Criteria?  Wikipedia has a decent write-up on the basics, but only goes so far.

No, this is not just a federal government thing -- it's got wider applicability than you might think.

And, once again, the real story is what goes on behind the scenes ...

Data Loss Prevention -- New Thinking

I've had another "aha" moment -- actually, a whole series of them -- recently.

The first hint that something big was going on came as part of a flurry of announcements at RSA World, including this hidden gem around DLP.

It turns out that I only had a half-baked notion of what all the fuss might be about, until late last week.  I was privileged to spend some quality time with the RSA team who went through the concepts and demo'd the product.

When they were done, my head was spinning.  Not so much around the product capabilities (which were very cool, to be sure), mostly it was the new way they were approaching the problem that got me so excited.

I probably won't be able to fit in all into a reasonable-sized post, so consider this the first installment exploring a topic that I'm sure we'll all be interested in -- sooner or later.

The Most Popular Topic

I get to meet a lot of customers.  And I get to talk about a lot of topics.

I'd bet you'd never guess what the most popular topic is turning out to be.  And I think the "why" behind the topic's popularity is worthy of some discussion.

Hint: it's not virtualization, or dedupe, or cloud, or anything like that ...

One Emergent View Of IT

Came across an online interview that's probably worth reading, "GM's Ralph Szygenda Drives IT Innovation" in eWeek.

In it, I saw how they'd created a very different picture for themselves about what IT is all about, or -- more importantly -- might be in the future.

If you work in an IT organization, and ever wonder "what's it all about?" -- it's worth a few minutes of your time.

Of Vendor Presentations

As of late, I have been asked to do all manner of speaking engagements to large audiences.

I don't know whether it's the season, or people are more interested in what EMC has to say than before -- it doesn't really matter.  All I know is that my calendar is now relatively full with all sorts of high profile speaking events.

And, of course, this is causing me to reflect a bit on what's going on, and what it might mean.

The Other Side Of Bricks

Lots of interest in Xiotech's ISE announcement last week.

Many of the industry pundits found their approach, well, interesting to say the least.  One industry curmudgeon (I loathe to call him an "analyst") was almost falling over himself to praise Xiotech for what they're doing.

Now, I don't know much about their product (other than what I've read), and -- of course -- nobody can actually buy one yet to see what it's all about, but I found myself explaining the pros and cons of such an approach.

Of course, it really doesn't matter what I think, does it?  Eventually, the marketplace decides these things ...