Chuck's Blog

FCoE Gets Buzz At SNW

So, if you're a regular reader of this blog, you know I've had my eye on FCoE for a while.

For me, this has the potential of being a winner for everyone who uses FC extensively today -- and you know who you are.

Even though I didn't go to SNW (I'm not a big fan of industry shows), I did enjoy watching the ritual and how different people reacted.

"Independent Analysis" -- Is There Hope?

I try to avoid rants in this blog.  It doesn't make for especially good reading, I've found.

But one of the topics that has elevated my blood pressure over the last few years has been the practice of vendors funding "independent analysis" or "independent research" that -- surprisingly! -- says exactly what the vendor might want it to say.

Someone sent a report from the Aberdeen Group my way that actually gave me a bit of hope that the practice -- and its participants -- might be coming around to a different way of doing things.

Put differently, there might be hope!

Storage Encryption -- New Capabilities

Somewhere in the blizzard of EMC-related news this week, the pieces of an interesting story started to come together, e.g. some new thinking and capabilities around storage encryption. 

The story came out kind of piecemeal (see here and here), and I thought it'd be useful to re-assemble some of the pieces. 

Many of you are doing some form of storage or tape encryption today, or are thinking about doing it.

I think there's now a better way to do this sort of thing than there was before.

The Changing Face Of Information -- Conclusions

Well, if you've slogged through this sequence of posts, my congratulations -- and my thanks.

Put together, the handful of megatrends I've tried to identify paints a very complex picture with very few simple, obvious simplistic choices.

But the picture isn't so grim -- and might be even thought of as an opportunity.

Let me explain why.

The Changing Face of Information -- More Metadata

Information has very little meaning without context. 

And for us to thrive in this new information world, we're going to need some help in understanding what a given piece of information might mean.

Hence the growing importance of metadata in this discussion -- information about information.

If you're just dropping in, we're in the middle of a connected sequence attempting to tie together multiple themes sweeping our industry, and our society as a whole.  If you've made it this far; congratualation, we're in the home stretch.

If we step back for a moment, I've introduced this series, written about the growing need for information governance, identified information risk management as the new frontier in security, pointed to the unmet needs of knowledge workers as a crisis in the making, described how the changing nature of applications will change IT, positioned virtualization as creating the potential for "frictionless" IT, speculated a bit on how the cloud might affect us all, and shone a spotlight that -- as digital citizens -- we're going to want more control of our personal information.

And, behind all of this, perhaps our thinking around metadata might have to change in a big way.

The Changing Face of Information -- My Personal Information

One of the most powerful forces in our society is the growing need by information-literate citizens to have control over their personal information. 

I know I'd like to have more control over my stuff, and I think others feel the same.

If you're just dropping in, we're in the middle of a connected sequence attempting to tie together multiple themes sweeping our industry, and our society as a whole.

If we step back for a moment, I've introduced this series, written about the growing need for information governance, identified information risk management as the new frontier in security, pointed to the unmet needs of knowledge workers as a crisis in the making, described how the changing nature of applications will change IT, positioned virtualization as creating the potential for "frictionless" IT, and speculated a bit on how the cloud might affect us all.

But all of this assumes that it's corporate information. 

What if I think of it as MY information?

The Changing Face of Information -- Enter The Cloud

As a marketing wise-acre, I could joke that "cloud" is a marketer's dream -- it's so vaporous, you can make it mean anything you want, right?  Actually, most us here have a pretty precise idea of what it is, and what it might mean.

By the way, we're in the middle of a series of posts here. 

Just to bring you up to speed, I've introduced this series, written about the growing need for information governance, identified information risk management as the new frontier in security, pointed to the unmet needs of knowledge workers as a crisis in the making, described how the changing nature of applications will change IT, and positioned virtualization as creating the potential for "frictionless" IT.

Now we're ready to connect a few of the dots, and take on the concept of cloud computing. 

And, before long, I'm guessing it'll be a very interesing discussion to most of us in the industry.

The Changing Face of Information -- Virtualization Changes Everything

The Changing Face of Information -- Virtualization Changes Everything

I feel bad writing yet another post about how virtualization is transforming how we think about computing -- and IT in general -- but, given that I'm in the middle of a series of related posts here, there's no way I can escape covering the topic.

Just to bring you up to speed, in addition to an intro, I've written about the growing case for information governance, identified information risk management as the new frontier in security, how the unmet needs of knowledge workers are creating a crisis, and how a changing definition of applications will change IT.

How could I ignore virtualization?

So, rather than rehash the obvious, I'm going to try and draw a different view; one that speaks to information directly, rather than computing.

The Changing Face of Information -- What Is An Application?

You're reading a post that's part of a larger sequence.  I'm taking a look at several of the core issues that we'll all be facing in the coming years as we rapidly move to an information economy.

In addition to introducing the topic, I've taken a look at information governance, information risk management, and the growing importance of knowledge workers.

In this post, I want to dig into a fundamental question -- what is an application, or -- more importantly -- what will be an application?

The Changing Face Of Information -- The New Knowledge Worker

Continuing from previous posts, I'm attempting to take a broader look at the implications of our rapid shift to an information economy.

We've looked at information governance, and information risk management.

But what about value generation from information?  Or, more importantly, the people who generate this value?

And that brings the focus to where most of the new value is being created in the enterprise -- the knowledge worker.