Chuck's Blog

Press and Analysts React To Private Cloud

I've worked with the press and analyst community for many years. 

Say what you will, but I've found them a very good barometer of what ideas will fly, and which ones won't. 

Sure, they don't actually buy IT products.  But they do get exposed to just about every IT pitch in the world, and they usually have a good nose for what's going to be a popular discussion, and what won't.

I've now had a few outings where I've had an opportunity to share private cloud concepts with these folks -- and how VMware, Cisco and EMC are working together to accelerate this vision.

The reactions have been mostly favorable, but with a few interesting wrinkles here and there.

Backup and The Private Cloud

OK, so I'm on a theme here. 

The concepts around private clouds have been introduced and discussed, and there are even a few large enterprises who have declared they're building one.

I'm now very interested in looking at the operational impact -- going from IT topic to IT topic -- and seeing how familiar discussions change radically -- and for the better -- when thinking about private clouds. 

The last post was about securing the private cloud; this one's about backup.

And, as we'll see, how we think about something as familiar (and essential) as backup might be up for some wonderful re-thinking in this world.

Accelerating Virtualization And The Private Cloud

I really haven't met anyone recently who thinks that virtualizing as much of their environment as possible isn't a good idea -- at least in the abstract.

I mean, if you're a career IT person, it's a pretty attractive prospect.

Sure, there are issues, challenges and concerns.  If doing this was easy, everyone would be doing it already, right?

This specific discussion comes up when I'm discussing private clouds with an enterprise customer.

Generally speaking, they like what they see, and ask how they should get started.

The inevitable response?  You've got to get busy virtualizing as much of your environment as you can.  The sooner, the better.

So, what's holding you back?

And that can lead to some interesting responses.

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 ...

Cisco and HP Square Off In Server Land

We all enjoy it when vendors face off on key technologies -- like next-generation server architectures. 

Not only is it fun to watch, but intense competitive pressures are good for customers and good for the industry.  And we've only seen the first few salvos in what should prove to be a sustained battle for data center supremacy

Now, my biases should be clear (rooting for Cisco!) -- but, with the latest round of HP announcements, you can begin to see some very distinct differences in architectural thinking between the two companies.

vSphere as an I/O Engine

As more and more people consider bigger and bigger workloads running in virtual containers, the discussion inevitably turns to I/O throughput and latency.

Now, VMware is no slouch at driving big I/O workloads.  I shared one proof-point discussion from testing done last year in this regard on a previous post.

But today, VMware took a big leap forward in this regard with EMC's announcement of PowerPath/VE.

So, why should you care?

The Real Impact of vSphere

Another milestone day today -- VMware announces their "cloud operating system" -- vSphere.

Much will be written about what it does and how it works.

I thought I'd step back and talk about what it means -- at least, what it means to me.

Symmetrix V-Max: A New Paradigm For Storage Virtualization?

OK, today's a busy day in storage land -- EMC has some pretty big news.

But -- somewhere in all the speeds and feeds, architectural discussions and weighing in -- we in the storage world have an entirely new model to consider around storage virtualization.

Rather than take the extreme view that "this new model rocks, and all other are no longer worthy", I would say that the storage virtualization model embedded in the V-Max architecture is considerably different than those that have come before, and -- just on that basis alone -- it's worthy of discussion.

Symmetrix V-Max: Storage Architecture Redefined

Today is a very big day for EMC -- and for the broader storage industry. 

EMC has announced an entirely new approach to high-end storage architecture -- nothing more, and nothing less.

I think it's going to take a while for people to fully appreciate what's been done here, and what it means going forward.

Say what you will about EMC, but we're not afraid to make very big bets on very big ideas -- and that's what we've done here.

EMC 2009 Strategic Forum -- Paul Maritz and VMware - Part 1

We're continuing a sequence of posts recapping key themes and ideas from this event (targeted to investment and industry analysts) on March 10th.

Many important highlights, one of which was the sheer pleasure of listening to Paul Maritz, CEO of VMware, present his vision and strategy to this important audience.

Paul is one of those must-see industry speakers.  If you ever have a chance to hear him stretch out on his favorite topics, make the effort to go see him.

And this time, he did not disappoint -- even going farther than the material he shared at the recent VMworld in Cannes.