Chuck's Blog

Storage Shenanigans

I'm taking a break from morbidly watching the global economy reverberate, as I saw an interesting item pop up in email a few hours ago.

I should really leave this one alone, but I can't.  I find it just too amusing at a certain level.

An Open Place To Talk About Security ...

I think this is an idea whose time has come.

The people at RSA have set up an open community (non-vendor-specific) to talk broadly about emerging information security challenges that we'll all be facing before too long.

I found the discussion pretty interesting, and it looks like anyone is free to blog, post, discuss, etc.

If you're as interested in this topic as I am, it's here.

Going to SNW?

I guess I'm going too. 

I'll be delivering a general session keynote-type thing there on Tuesday, Oct 14th from 11:30 to 12:00 on "The Global Shift To An Information Economy".

See you there!

Oracle Does Hardware

Well, it's been discussed for a while, but the news is out in the open: Oracle will be selling a data warehousing "appliance" (server and storage) built by HP.

In typical understated Oracle fashion, they bill this as "The World's Fastest Database Machine".

But, all posturing aside, it's an interesting example of the different trends going through the industry right now.

SMB -- It's All About Market Reach

Noticed that our long-time customer Staples just announced their new "Thrive" set of IT services aimed at small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs, in the industry vernacular).

And, of course, it was great to read that they'd chosen EMC as their partner in this venture.

So, what's going on here?

Another Year, Another Blogoversary

Yes, folks, it's time for me to write that obligatory meta-blogging post, e.g. blogging about blogging.

You see, it's been two years since I fired up a TypePad account and starting sharing my thoughts with anyone who cared to read.  Go read my very first post, if you're interested.

And -- let me tell you -- it's been one of the most singularly interesting experiences of my career.

Hot Spots And Flash

As EFDs (enterprise flash drives) find their way into more and more customer environments, we're learning that "conventional wisdom" has to change in a few subtle -- but important -- regards.

Old wisdom -- hot spots are bad!

New wisdom -- hot spots are good!

Enterprise Apps More Efficient Under VMware?

For a few years, the main rationale for virtualization has been consolidation of poorly used server resources.

Take a bunch of applications that are barely using the servers they're running on, pop them into virtual machines, and have them share a single physical machine.

It took a little longer for people to get their head wrapped around using VMware for larger, enterprise-style applications.  I mean, if you weren't going after massive consolidation, what was the point?

There was still a strong rationale for virtualizing, but it pointed more to fast provisioning, being able to relocate running applications, exploiting things like DRS, HA and SRM, and so on.

Still a good thing to do, but for a different set of reasons.

And now, over the last few weeks, evidence has begun to emerge that -- well -- maybe it IS the case that there's a consolidation benefit as well for these enterprise-style applications. 

And the results are eye-opening to some of us ...

Managing In The (New) Virtual World

No good deed goes unpunished, the saying goes.  And that's especially true in IT, and even more true as we consider the total impact of virtualizing our data centers.

Saw this EMC press release regarding a survey done by ESG about new challenges in managing virtual environments.

Yes, of course it's an obvious setup for new EMC Smarts and ControlCenter features that remediate portions of this new challenge in VMware environments, but I found the underlying survey more interesing than usual.

And maybe you will too ...

The Brilliance Of Virtual Clouds

Sometimes when you hear about a concept, it grows in your mind until you finally get a full appreciation for its strategic significance. 

I seem to remember reading that when Einstein offered up the notion of the relationship between energy and matter, it took a while its significance to become widely obvious.

OK, we're not talking about the basic structure of the cosmos here, but -- in its own way -- the notion of vClouds as presented by VMware this week may have its own underappreciated signficance.

It may end up being the way most businesses first take advantage of the cloud.

And, eventually, perhaps define how most business users of IT come to think about "cloud".