Chuck's Blog

Top Ten Vblock Questions -- So Far!

So, I've been in front of lots of customers since the VCE Coalition announcement, and a lot of them focus primarily on the Vblock itself.

I thought I'd share the questions I'm getting -- and how I'm answering them.

Note: in addition to customer/partner focused questions, there's been a whole lot of snarky sniping from various competitors and others who may have a different agenda.  All part of the fun.  I'll try and cover their concerns later, but -- for now -- we'll focus on the people who pay the bills!

Getting To Good: Vblock + Acadia Customer Reaction

So, I now have been in front of 6 different senior IT audiences since Tuesday's announcement.

Note: this might give you a sense of how frequently I have the privilege of interacting with customers.

I've been able to present the case for VCE, focusing on Vblock and Acadia, and I"m starting to see a consistent pattern in the reaction -- at least so far.

Thought I'd share it with you, because I think we're going to see more of this going forward.

Introducing Acadia

There's a lot to talk about in today's VCE announcement, but one aspect that deserves closer inspection is Acadia, the joint professional services company being announced today.

The good news: there's a lot of good thinking that's gone into Acadia.  The challenge: if our competitors are going to take an unfair swipe at something, it's a likely target.

So, let's get started: what is it, why does it exist, how is it different, etc.?

In a word, it's all about enablement.

Ten Things I Wish We Did Better As An Industry

As the economy starts to revive, and IT spending starts to pick up a bit, I've noticed some optimism return to our industry.

Yes, it's great to see some positive earnings reports in the press.  Nothing wrong with that.

But as our collective fortunes improve, I'm concerned that we'll all lose the motivation to take a hard look at ourselves, and work to become better as an industry.

I thought I'd share with you my pet peeves for your consideration.  I'm not singling out EMC, or any other vendor -- just commenting on behaviors we all exhibit that aren't helping matters get any better.

Big Appliances Vs. Virtual Pools

As the industry starts to move to fully-virtualized models, and cloud-like environments, I'm encountering a specific debate around IT philosophy.

The question revolves which is better for IT: purpose-built appliances, or pools of generic resources that are dynamically used?

And it's turning out to be one of the more contentious issues going forward.

I Want To Hear About EMC's Storage Strategy

Should be music to any storage vendor's ears, shouldn't it?

But, more lately, I've started to groan a bit when I hear those words.

Don't get me wrong -- EMC still generally sets the industry standard for advanced storage thinking and capabilities, much to the continual consternation of our competitors.

No, there's more to it than that.  It has to do with how IT is changing, and how I think that specific request is symptomatic of growing and uncomfortable problem.

Chargeback Vs. Pricing

As we start to move to more pooled and cloud-like models for enterprise IT infrastructure, the age-old "chargeback" discussion is once again popular, but in an entirely new context.

Most people assume the chargeback discussion is all about how you pay for the cost of IT.  That's somewhat true.

Some people think that taxes are only to pay for the cost of government.  Other people see it as a way of encouraging good social policy.  Both are right to a certain degree.

Within IT, I believe it's becoming more attractive to think in terms of the latter, rather than the former.

Managing Your IT Career In Turbulent Times

A while back, I asked for a few suggestions on potential topics that I could explore in this blog.  Some people left comments, but most contacted me directly.

One of the better suggestions came from Bill Bonin, a fellow EMCer.

He observed that I probably spent more time with senior IT executives than most people he knew.

As a result, maybe I could offer up a few observations as to what most IT executives see as the most valuable skills that they're looking for in their organizations going forward?

I thought that was a great idea.

Towards A Private Cloud Architecture

I think we're getting ready to take the next step in the discussion around private clouds -- from an initial set of generic concepts, to a more precise articulation of an underlying architecture.

At a surface level, private clouds are basically fully virtualized environments that allow IT organizations to use a dynamic combination of internal and external resources.

From a concept barely discussed just a few months ago, it seems to have risen as a dominant theme in our currently cloud-crazy industry discussion.  I've lost count of the vendors and analysts trying to either co-opt (or distance themselves!) from the term.

The high-level definition above is enough to get the conversation moving in the right direction, but there's a far deeper level of architectural abstraction that eventually needs to be discussed.

And, despite my limited abilities, I'm going to bravely venture out into this next phase of the industry discussion.

Let me know how I do?

A Starter Private Cloud For IT

So, it's happening more frequently now.

We go into a large enterprise customer, or perhaps one of our partners, and do our private cloud presentation.

We talk about fully virtualized environments, new operational models, and how VMware, Cisco and EMC are working together to accelerate this world.

And then something very interesting happens with increasing frequency.