Chuck's Blog

A Cloud Governance Model for Enterprise IT

So many things are tantalizing mixes of unknown opportunity and unknown risks.  And, certainly, for many enterprise IT organizations, the topic of "cloud" certainly fits this description.

You can't hide your head in the sand.  You can't plunge headfirst into it and ignore the obvious risks.

In between these two extremes is the notion of governance: a policy-making function that attempts to assess opportunities and risks in a dynamically changing environment.  Several years ago when I was doing the corporate social media strategy thing, I found that a good governance model can accelerate change.

I think it can do the same thing with enterprise use of clouds as well.

And, today, I'd like to share with you a "cloud governance model" that EMC's IT team is using to navigate the choppy waters forward.

A New Chapter Begins In The IT Stack Wars

I was at a customer dinner event last night, and predictably I got asked what I thought about yesterday's NetApp announcement by several EMC people.

My answer?  I didn't see it as big news, simply because Oracle's formal acquisition of Sun is far more intriguing and challenging in so many ways.   That's the real news, from my perspective.

Now, working for EMC, I'd always like to have fewer competitors than more competitors -- but many of us recognize we've got the potential for an entirely new competitor for us to contemplate and consider.

Much will be written and said about this combination going forward -- so I guess it's time for me to go "on the record" as to how I see this playing out.

Thoughts on Secure Multi-Tenancy

All of the sudden, everyone at EMC was asking me about this topic.  Where the heck did this come from?

Doing a bit of digging, I figured out why -- one of our competitors has started promoting a solution in this space.  Lovely.  I dutifully found the source documents, and realized that there was a good deal more to this discussion than white papers and marketing videos I was able to find.

So, without too much competitive rancor, please join me in a quick discussion of secure multi-tenancy, because it shows all signs of being an increasingly popular topic over time.

My Friday Rant

Over the several years that I've been blogging, I have learned many times that most people don't appreciate a rant -- especially when it comes to one vendor criticizing another.

Now, given the extremely competitive nature of our industry, and the fact that I obviously work for a vendor, this makes for a problem -- how best to share my somewhat pointed comments about what others are doing?  And not annoy everyone in the process?

I see what everyone does, and -- given my obvious biases -- I still think I have a worthwhile perspective that might be interesting to some -- what to do about it?

So, I'm going to go with a "truth in labeling approach".  In this post, I'm going to rant a bit at others in the industry -- including a few rants that necessarily include EMC.  Forgive my crankiness ...

And if that sort of thing isn't your cup of tea, better to skip this post and go on to something else.

</begin rant>

Private Clouds And The Fixed Vs. Variable Discussion

Yes, I'm still talking with customers about private cloud models, day in and day out.  The funny part is that now they're asking me, rather than me bringing it up.  That's progress, I guess.

Just to refresh your memory, in my simple world clouds have three major attributes:

* they're built differently -- dynamic pools of virtualized resources

* they're operated differently -- zero-touch or low-touch aggregated models

* they're consumed differently -- they're convenient to consume

I seemed to have spent the first part of 2009 discussing the technology.  Fortunately, many people now generally accept that fully virtualized environments can be better than their physical counterparts in many situations.

And, as I think about it, I spent a great deal of time during the second part of the year on operational models: the need for self-service, the importance of flexibility, how traditional roles and responsibilities change, and attacking the people / process / politics part of the problem.

Haven't solved that one entirely yet in people's minds, but we're starting to make progress :-)

Which brings us to the third chapter: different consumption models.  And therein lies the most critical debate: how is all this great stuff paid for?

Big Fun Over At StorageMonkeys

The primates at StorageMonkeys periodically run a fun poll on "best vendor blog" and "best non-vendor blog".  Tim Masters, who seems to be the tribal leader, does a good job of getting the storage community engaged and talking about things that matter.

The interesting part?  It brings out the hyper-competitive nature in so many people.  There's the predictable squabbling about methodology, obvious vote recruitment going on by vendors, jockeying for standings, etc.  All big fun, in my book.  Don't take the results too seriously.  I don't :-)

However, if you read various vendor blogs, and are somewhat interested in storage, why not vote?

To register, go here -- and to vote, go here!

BTW -- I admire what Tim is trying to do with his community and site, so any traffic I can drive his way is a good thing!

Can You Innovate In Marketing?

I'm pleased to see that EMC's getting more and more credit for innovation: not only for our technology, but our overall strategy and business model as well.  We're even getting some nice credit for how we've embraced social media as a business tool.

Today, I'm going to take on the relatively sensitive topic of "marketing" in our industry.  And I'm going to openly share with you how EMC is approaching innovation in marketing.

I know, that sounds like an oxymoron, but it's not.

Maybe you'll find this interesting, maybe not ... but it's good material for some, and I wanted to share it.  However, if you prefer technology debates, better skip this post!

There's More To This Than Dense Storage, Folks

Was chatting with a customer about the impact of a recent EMC announcement where the CLARiiON now has a 4:1 advantage in capacity density: twice as much physical capacity (due to 2TB drives) as well as also doing so in half the space (due to double density packaging).

Rather than incessantly brag about the achievement (sooner or later, other vendors will eventually figure out how to do this), I thought it was indicative of how our thinking around storage is starting to change -- and fast.

I Should Have Majored In Psychology

Way back when, I thought it useful to do two courses of study.  I wanted that CS (computer science) degree, but the whole topic, while fascinating, seemed so self-contained.

At the time, I thought adding coursework in economics was the right thing to do.  Even way back in the late 1970s (yes, I'm that old), I could see the two interweaving in very interesting ways.

I was wrong.  I should have chosen to add in psychology rather than economics. 

Because -- at the end of the day -- I'm finding that success with technology has more to do with how people perceive things rather than the hard facts we all work with every day.

Better Tools ... Or Better Models?

I read with empathy recent posts on Wikibon regarding the general perception that storage management tools could be a whole lot better.

One excellent post spoke of managing storage performance.  Another speaks to large warehousing workloads meandering through the fabric, and the havoc that caused.  Good reading.

It'd be easy enough to say, "yes, darn it, we need better tools!".  And plenty of storage admins would agree with me wholeheartedly.

My argument, however, is that tools in isolation can only get you so far.  At some point, the model needs to change.  And that's a more difficult proposition.