Chuck's Blog

Storage Made Simple?

Ever have to explain this storage stuff to someone who doesn't really have a background in it?

I find myself speaking to all sorts of people these days, including more and more that are relatively new to all of this.   One example is at press events -- there are people who follow these topics closely, and those that are relative newcomers.

The first few times I tried to explain the wide world of storage to an outsider, I'm afraid I made a terrible mess of everything, and ended up leaving people more confused as a result!

As a result, I've been searching for a quick way to explain to people why storage is such an interesting topic to so many people.  I've sketched out some of the key ideas below.

Let me know how I did?

EMC Takes Atmos Storage OnLine

Perhaps the first big announcement to come out of EMC World is the twin combination of the new Atmos OnLine service, as well as AT&T's new Synaptic Storage as a Service based on Atmos.

While the new services and capabilities are interesting in their own right, I think they're emblematic of certain trends we'll inevitably see more of in the future.

And that's worth discussing ...

Securing The Private Cloud

So much to write about, so little time. 

I guess I'm going to have to think carefully about the topics I write about going forward -- I could easily spend every day doing nothing but blog posts on interesting topics.  Sure, that'd be fun, but my day job would seriously suffer.

A few interesting announcements last week that we can correlate:

• VMware's vSphere announcement -- all about the private cloud
• The Jericho Forum issued their best practices around secure cloud computing
• VMware and RSA made an interesting announcement as part of last week's RSA Conference

Put it all together?

It's all about securing the private cloud ...

Thoughts On "The State Of The CIO"

Rather than blather on incessantly about my company and products (again!), I thought I'd share with you some commentary around some great work by a few EMC people to summarize the 'state of the state' when it comes to CIOs.

Most of this material came from a recent CIO Magazine survey, but the EMC team added a few more data points that amplified the general story.  Thanks, guys!

I get to meet more than my fair share of thes individuals, and I found the research intensely interesting.  Maybe you will too.

Keep in mind, this isn't strictly about the person who is the CIO -- it says a lot about how thinking is evolving in enterprise IT in general.

Although many sources were used to create this composite picture, you'll see some very consistent themes throughout.

Say Hello To EMC SourceOne

I love major product introductions at EMC. 

Fortunately, we get to do this on a relatively frequent basis :-)

Sure, it's great to go through all the new features and functions, but what I like to do is attempt to reflect on some of the thinking behind any new product -- what trends does it try and anticipate?

Such is the case with EMC's new SourceOne platform, publicly announced today.

And you can look at the product one of two ways.

Is it just an email archiving platform with extremely advanced features? 

Or is it a new generation of ILM software that just happened to target emails first?

Opportunities for Telcos and Service Providers

Greetings from Istanbul, Turkey!

I'd never been before, but here I am.  It's a surprisingly rich and colorful city -- definitely on my list of gotta-get-back-here-some-time destinations.

I took a quick picture from my hotel balcony.  That's the Bosporus behind me, connecting the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea. 

My side of the water is essentially the end of the European land mass -- across the water is the beginning of the Asian continent and the Middle East. 

Kind of cool when you think about it from a geographical, historical and cultural perspective.

It's even more cool when you think about why I'm here -- it's for EMC's annual Middle Eastern Telecom Summit. 

Dear Mr. Kundra

Today, Vivek Kundra was appointed as the first CIO for the US government.

Mr. Kundra's appointment is big news on several levels. 

I felt moved to write him a note -- which he may never see -- that expressed a few sentiments for the occasion.

Information Logistics

By now, I've had to explain COS (cloud optimized storage) and Atmos many, many times.

On this one, though, it's important to come up with a pretty clear and insightful explanation.  When it comes to COS, you either really need it (and have very few alternatives!), or you wonder what the fuss is all about.

And I've come up with an explanation that's working pretty well -- let me know what you think?

The Information Protection Wheel

In my travels and discussions, I'm always on the lookout for new ways to create more complete views of challenges we all face.  Sometimes, I stumble on a useful graphic or picture that explains the concept in an interesting way.

My good friend Brian Fitzgerald (VP Marketing at EMC's RSA division) shared just such a graphic with me the other day, and I wanted to share it with you.   

No earth-shattering insights here, just an easier way to explain multiple topics in a single motion.

The Informationist Revisted

Blogging over several years can be an interesting experience. 

You have an idea, you explore it for a bit, and then you move on.  But, thanks to the wonder of search engines, people still can stumble on your post as though it was written yesterday, and comment with an entirely new perspective.

Such is the case with one of my more popular (as opposed to infamous) posts -- Are You An Informationist?

Back in November of 2006 (!) I thought that we would be seeing a new set of skills and behaviors emerge as we all started to grapple with the unique dynamics of this stuff called information -- an entirely new source of wealth, costs and risks.

And -- to this day -- people are still finding the post, and occasionally comment. 

So, what's changed since 2006?