Chuck's Blog

When Public Cloud Isn't Cheaper

The economics of various cloud models has been hotly debated back-and-forth for over four years.

Are public clouds cheaper? Are private clouds cheaper? Under what circumstances is one form of cloud more cost-effective than another?

I don't think we'll ever have the definitive answer, but there's some interesting new data to contemplate, courtesy of the recent EMC analyst day.

For most people doing IT at any reasonable scale, the number shows that private clouds can be significantly less expensive than public alternatives in many situations.

And that's *before* any concerns about availability, security, regulatory compliance, control, etc. are factored in.

Software-Defined Storage And The Potential For Disruption

Last weekend, two weather systems merged off the coast of New England, creating a blizzard of "historic proportions".  Each weather system wasn't particularly important by itself; but somewhat disruptive when combined. 

And it took a while to dig out :)

I believe a similar pattern is brewing in our IT world -- two trends are on a collision course; with the likely result being a significant disruption in the storage sector.

The first trend is, of course, the software-defined data center, and all its software-defined subcategories: server, network, storage, etc. 

Anything that's virtualized has demonstrated it's far easier to consume: easier to acquire, provision, and manage -- and that includes storage.

The second trend is the insatiable demand for ever more storage capacity and associated functionality.  Historically a market with healthy growth, it shows clear signs of ratcheting into an entirely new gear, fueled by demand for all sorts of big data applications.

Although this particular IT mega-storm isn't here yet, you can see what's likely to happen.  And all of us are advised to think ahead.

What I Mean When I Say "Enterprise Storage"

The recent announcement of the VMAX 10K brought up an interesting discussion for us storage folks: what -- exactly -- might "enterprise storage" be?

I find that the definitions offered by the industry analysts are incomplete and unsatisfying at best. 

And there's certainly strong motivation for any storage vendor to slap an "enterprise" label on their product in an effort to attract more potential customers.

My credentials to offer an informed perspective are substantial, but not impeccable.  I've been in the storage business now for almost twenty years.  I meet over a hundred customers and partners every year, and I've been doing that for many years.  My biases are to be expected: I've been at EMC now for 18 years, and have worked closely with the Symmetrix and VMAX product lines for virtually all of that time.

Like another infamous quote, I know an enterprise storage requirement when I see it.

Of Puppet And Razor

Cool-hunting at EMC is much more fun than it should be.  Over time, you keep finding the same people doing really cool stuff.  And there are a lot of them here.

One of our most visible cool-masters is Nick Weaver (@lynxbat).  You might know him as the guy that did all those great "uber" Celerra emulator releases. 

Or the guy who built the ultimate VMware partition alignment tool and handed it out to everyone.  Or perhaps the mad scientist behind many of the face-melting demos you've seen at EMC World.  Or a whole bunch of other cool stuff.

Well, Nick is now part of the CTO Office at EMC, which means he now has the opportunity to do even more amazing things.  That's part of the fun of working at EMC.  And, with this announcement, I think he's surpassed himself.

And, in the process, he's made EMC an essential part of the burgeoning open stack cloud and devops discussion.

Introducing VSPEX

This morning, EMC introduced VSPEX: a partner-centric pre-configured and pre-integrated infrastructure stack.  

Yes, we're pretty excited.  

Some will inevitably classify this announcement as yet another variation on a popular theme in the IT infrastructure marketplace.  

I mean, isn't every IT vendor packaging up infrastructure in new ways?  

Yes, somewhat true -- but many of us believe that there's plenty of room left for innovation and differentiation in this category.

VSPEX is not only interesting in what it does on its own, but how it nicely fits in to other things EMC is investing in -- like VCE and Vblocks.

When Technology Transformed Education

In this blog, I end up writing a great deal on how information technology has the potential to change the world around us.  

From big data to mobilization to social to cloud: there's no shortage of fascinating examples where the potential for great changes are visible -- if we choose to pursue them. 

Like many of you, I am drawn to examples where technology can change people's lives for the good: health care, poverty -- and especially education. 

In this morning's New York Times, we read about the example of Mooresville, North Carolina who have used rather conventional technology to re-engineer the educational experience.

As a result, they are drawing considerable attention -- not so much because they're using technology -- but because they're changing their entire approach to education around what the technology can do.

New IT, New Roles, New Tools

The conversation ought to be familiar by now.  

Many IT organizations are taking a hard look at themselves, and are realizing they have to learn to compete for internal customers.  

To do so, they need to start looking more like a modern IT factory, and less like your father's IT shop.  

A successful transformation essentially boils down to organizing for success: reformulating many existing IT roles, and creating entirely new ones.

Transforming even a moderate-sized IT shop takes a unique brand of leadership.  The journey isn't quick or easy, but it does offer substantial rewards to all involved.  

And, to put it gently, in many cases your options to ignore or postpone the inevitable aren't all that appealing :)

New IT inevitably means new roles and new processes, which -- of course -- implies the need for newer tools that are oriented around creating easy-to-consume services vs. simply monitoring the underlying technical components.  For example, most VCE Vblocks are shipped with UIM as an "orchestral enabler" that can expose infrastructure and allow it to be consumed as a service.

But not all clouds are Vblocks, and not all IT environments can be managed using a single paradigm.

Into this transforming IT world, EMC will be launching IT Operations Intelligence v9 early next week.  

While the product has plenty to like on its own merits, I'd like you to consider this a preview of some of the bigger ideas finding their way into next-gen IT management tools -- both from EMC and others.

From Lightning To Thunder

We all know that thunder closely follows a big lightning strike, and with today's unveiling of Project Lightning (now VFCache), there's thunder as well, as in Project Thunder.

To get a real appreciation for what this is all about, I'd strongly encourage you to read this background post first, and then my overview of VFCache.

Now, with all of that out of the way, let's dive into this interesting technology preview.

VFCache Means Very Fast Cache Indeed

Big news today for IT infrastructure professionals. 

EMC has taken the wraps off of the much-talked-about Project Lightning, and there's much more there than most people expected :)

In my previous post, I did my best to set context as to what was going on, why this was important, and so on.  Unless you're a storage technologist, you really should start with that post.

In this one, we're going to get into the details: what it is, what it does and how it's different than what's come before.

And in my next post, I'm going to preview its sibling -- Project Thunder -- which, as you'll see, is a natural extension of what Project Lightning accomplishes.

The Next Generation Of Enterprise Flash Storage

Big news today for IT infrastructure architects -- and the businesses that depend on them.

Today's "Lightning Strikes" announcement from EMC represents a new milestone in giving our customers a new-found ability to deploy advanced infrastructure that's more efficient, more optimized -- and a helluva lot faster :)

It's a big deal.  There's a lot to cover, so I'm breaking this into three posts.

In this post, I'm going to set context -- what the problem is, what server-side flash brings to the party, what challenges exist with existing approaches, and so on.

In the next post, I'm going to dive into the details of VFCache (formerly known as Project Lightning): what it does, how it's different, what's there now, what's down the road, etc.

And, in my final post, I'm going to introduce you to Project Thunder -- which *hasn't* been as widely talked about -- but, as you'll see, is a natural extension of what Project Lightning (now VFCache) is targeting -- only at scale :)

If you're into IT infrastructure at any level, go get a cup of coffee, and let's dig in together.  Yes, there's a lot to digest, but you'll probably end up just as impressed as we all have been internally for a while now.