Chuck's Blog

Thoughts From EMC's 2012 Leadership Meeting

Some -- but not all of you -- follow EMC quite closely.

Your reasons may vary, but you do seem to pay attention to us.  Thank you for that.

Many of us have just returned from our annual leadership meeting.  Think in terms of a hand-selected group of about 400 individuals from across EMC's vast holdings -- coming together for three days to reflect and renew ourselves for the challenges ahead.

I couldn't resist the temptation to offer up a short blog post with a few personal thoughts.

Maybe you're interested, maybe you're not ...

It's The Big Launch Day For EMC IT's ITaaS

I consider it an article of faith that many enterprise IT organizations will need to learn to compete for their internal customers.

If you've been following this blog, you know I've been drawing heavily on the experiences of EMC's own IT organization as they progress through this inevitable transformation.

Today represents an interesting milestone of sorts: the formal internal launch of a "critical mass" of self-provisioned IT services that anyone at EMC can freely consume.  

Yes, they've had many of these internal services out there for a while, but now our EMC IT team has started to actively encourage consumption at scale.

I think this particular event serves as an excellent example of how the thinking changes when enterprise IT goes from being seen as a monopoly to being seen as an aggressive competitor.

If you work in an IT setting that's starting to go through some of these changes, I think you'll find the discussion here very enlightening.

EMC Atmos And The Challenge Of Doing Things Differently

There are two ways to bring a new technology to market.

One way is to give people a better product to do exactly what they're doing today: no process change required.

Another way is to give people a better way to do things: substantial process change required.

Meaningful breakthroughs in technology almost always involve process change.  The downside is that any substantive process change takes significant time and effort.  

There's no shortcut that I'm aware of.

In our world, EMC Atmos is an excellent example of innovative technology that demands both a mindset and process change.  The lessons we've learned about how to go about introducing new technology (and new process!) to large audiences is instructive -- not only to other technology companies like us, but to any IT organization looking to introduce new ways of doing things into their ranks.

As technologists, we obviously have to learn to get good at getting people to actually embrace what we come up with.  Otherwise, the stuff just sits on the shelf :)

EMC vLab: What Happens When You Point A Cloud At A Business Challenge

Clouds are exceptionally difficult to discuss in the abstract.  

They become much more real and tangible when you associate them with a particular business challenge.

As a result, I've started to collect various "cloud meets business" success stories.  They're all very cool, but they take some serious time to write up.

I thought I'd start with an internal one first: how EMC's vLab cloud is changing an important aspect of the way EMC does business.

Although there are aspects that are unique to EMC and our particular situation, I believe there are many useful lessons here that can be more broadly applied.

Greenplum UAP And Enabling Your Data Science Team

It must be Data Science Week here at EMC.  

I've already written about our latest findings from the EMC Data Science Survey, and shared how EMC Education is offering their first Data Science Associate coursework to support the increased demand for knowledgeable individuals.

It's almost inevitable that all of this would be leading up to an EMC product announcement, and -- yes -- that's the case.  

The new Greenplum UAP (unified analytics platform) is especially exciting to me because it appears to be the first integrated software suite that is precisely targeted at the newer style of data science teams.

Here's the pitch: in the new world of big data science analytics, all the value comes from the data science team.  Since it's pretty obvious that (a) knowledgeable data science professionals will be very scarce resources for the forseeable future, and (b) their time is extremely valuable, then ostensibly makes sense to build tailored software environments that maximize their productivity.

That, in a nutshell, is what makes Greenplum UAP so unique and compelling.

Big Data Analytics: The New Corporate "Six Sigma"?

If you've been around for a while, you'll remember how a giant wave of Six Sigma investments crashed over corporations around the world in an effort to improve competitiveness.

At EMC, we all went to Six Sigma class, and learned how to DMAIC key processes, and then DFSS.  My personal favorite was the statapult exercise -- big fun if you've never done it.  

Over time, an army of Six Sigma green belts were developed throughout EMC's ranks, augmented by the ultimate masters: the Six Sigma Black Belts.

Why did so many companies make such a large investment in Six Sigma?  

The answer is painfully simple: it quickly became the new competitive ante.  

You either invested in getting good at Six Sigma, or you had better be prepared to suffer at the hands of competitors who had wisely made that investment.

I think we're seeing the opening scenes of a similar movie: a need for investing in broad-based skills in big data analytics proficiency.  

The case for this particular observation is strengthed by recent results from EMC's Data Science survey -- practitioners point to the lack of these broad based skills as one of the major things holding them back.

This time around, the motivation is also simple: invest in learning to use multiple data sources and the newer tools to better predict the future, or be prepared to suffer at the hands of those who have made that investment.

And today, EMC is announcing a key component of our investments to help our customers and partners get better at this new and important skill set: an associate-level one week course and certification in big data analytics techniques.  

I think it's going to be popular :)

The Challenge Of "Innovating Innovation" In Large Corporations

I think I'm fortunate that I get to meet with people on a broad range of topics -- and not necessarily just IT stuff, either :)

The appeal of "innovation" as a topic of executive discussion is near-universal: the more competitive your business, the more you care about fostering all forms of innovation within your ranks.

EMC is generally seen as a successful company, operating at global scale in an incredibly fast-moving and competitive industry.  How we think about important topics (such as innovation) can often be instructive to others who are grappling with similar challenges -- albeit in a different context.

This Wednesday, EMC kicks off its 5th annual Innovation Conference.  Although the event itself is quite impressive in its own right, it's far more impressive as just one component of an overall approach to innovation across many fronts.

Rather than simply beat our chests about how innovative we think we might be, we prefer to take a more serious approach and try to share with our customers and partners how we view the innovation challenge, what we've done about it, and the lessons we've learned in the process.

And I've found there are more than a few tidbits here for other corporate leaders who recognize the importance of fostering innovation across their enterprises.

Five Impressions From Mumbai

I do get to travel a fair amount as part of my role with EMC.  The act of traveling itself can be mind-numbing, but you get rewarded with all sorts of fresh experiences and perspectives on the other end.  

Such is the case with this trip.

I hadn't been to India in many years, but am now here in support of the annual EMC Forum.  The differences between then and now are striking, to say the least.

The EMC Forum itself qualifies as a raging success.  There are two parts to the event, an IT leadership focused event today (attended by ~200 CIOs and similar) and a broader-based IT professional event tomorrow.  

Customers, prospects, press and our partners are here in full force -- it's a big deal.  Sure, there are plenty of technologies here, but these events are really about sharing ideas.

I thought I'd share with you my five key impressions I've gathered so far.

The Squabble Over Single File Systems

Many of you are endlessly entertained by the back-and-forth bickering between us storage vendors over things like benchmarks. 

Sometimes the disagreement is over how the test was conducted, or the use of "lab queen" configurations that would never be found in a customer environment.

And, occasionally, there's very strong disagreement around comparing two very unlike things using a common standard.   That's what this post is about.

Why should you care? 

In a world of exploding data growth, massive scale and limited resources, how you do things may end up being more important than what you do. 

I believe many IT architects will want to take note of this particular debate, because you'll be seeing ever-more variations of this same theme in the near future.

Why EMC Cares So Much About SAP

Today's news release is making the rounds here at EMC: SAP annointing the EMC/VMware combination as preferred partners for cloud.  A somewhat similar release was issued by our compatriots at VCE only a few days ago.

More than a few people here are extremely enthused; I tend to be a bit more reserved simply because it's only the latest signpost of a deep symbiotic corporate relationship that goes back for more than a decade.

That being said, it's also a fascinating industry case study of how one company (EMC) can -- over time -- wrap its entire value proposition around that of another company -- SAP.