Chuck's Blog

EMC And Oracle

As the industry consolidates and standardizes, we as vendors are getting far more comfortable in the new world of co-opetion with other vendors: a nuanced world where we cooperate in some areas, and compete with others.

No longer can various inter-vendor relationships be easily and exclusively categorized as either "friend" or "foe" -- the answer is usually  mix of both, with customers giving as strong input on where we need to cooperate, and where they'll encourage a little friendly competition.

Many of the customers I work with are getting more comfortable in this new landscape as well.  They're learning to look beyond the press releases and brochures to figure out how well various vendors are working together -- or not -- as the case might be.

And I think the relationship between EMC and Oracle is an excellent case study in how these dynamics can result in better outcomes for everyone: customers *and* vendors.

IDC Q2 2010 Storage Tracker -- Shifts Abound

Last night, IDC released their storage market share analysis for what happened in Q2.  Some things remained the same, other parts seem to be changing.

And if you watch this market as closely as I do, it's worth reviewing some of the more interesting bits.

The Cloud Rush Has Officially Begun In Earnest

As I sit back and contemplate the last few weeks, I keep coming to the same conclusion. 

The market has clearly expressed its strong interest in all things cloud-like, and just about every technology vendor on the planet -- large and small -- is frantically repositioning themselves just as quickly as possible.

Whatever "tipping point" we all were waiting for, it's clearly happened.  Game on.

And I think this rapid shift has caught many in the IT industry by surprise: technology vendors, system integrators, consultants -- few people are really interested in IT as usual. 

Everyone wants to talk about the cloud.

Consider the following ...

The Power Of Pooling

In my discussions with customers, I often ask the "V" question: how are you doing with virtualization?

Occasionally I get an interesting response: they're an entrenched IBM customer, and they point to the use of virtualization on their mainframe, and perhaps their big AIX boxen, and say they're largely virtualized.  Asked and answered.

I need to ask them a better question: how are you doing with pooling of resources?

Charting The Intel Effect

Two bits of news, oddly correlated.

First, there's EMC's recent SPEC benchmark posting, where a single Intel-based Celerra data mover absolutely *smokes* every other NAS device out there.

Second, there's Timothy Prickett Morgan's take on the IDC server numbers, where -- once again -- the market bought more Intel-compatible servers and fewer of the other kind.

I think I've seen this movie before, and I know how it ends :-)

Now HP Gets Into The Act For 3PAR

This morning's M+A news was equally as interesting as the news from a week ago: HP submitted a bid to top Dell's offer for 3PAR.  And, if 3PAR trading prices are any indication, there's investor confidence that the price will go higher still.

When I wrote about Dell's bid last Monday, my central premise was "it's all about competing with HP, folks".

Turns out I was closer to the truth than I thought.

My Take -- Dell To Acquire 3PAR

[One week after this post was written, HP has announced their competing bid for 3PAR.  Not entirely surprising, either.  Not clear who's going to end up the victor as of now]

Nothing like a little M&A action to spice up a Monday, no?

Today's news is rather straightforward -- Dell intends to purchase 3PAR.  Not entirely a surprise if you're a close industry-watcher like I am.

Some interesting commentary is starting to result (including this piece by Dave Vellante), so I thought I'd offer up some personal observations as well.

Private Clouds, VCE And The Channel

Sometimes I write the blog post, sometimes it gets written for me :-)

Wanted to offer you all a quick link to a drive-by interview I did with Steven Burke at CRN yesterday.  He threw some great questions at me -- hopefully my answers hold up.

You be the judge -- here.  I also got this unrelated pickup here at ZDnet.

Thanks, Steven -- hope we get a chance to do it again some time soon!

The Impact Of VMware Storage Integration

Today is the day that VMware announces the availability of 4.1, and a key set of storage integration APIs (VAAI) that provide all sorts of cool speed-ups between server and storage.  EMC's announcement of day-one support is here.

Chad Sakac (our legendary Virtual Geek) does a great job of explaining what they are, how to use them, and what they can do for you.  If your passion is hands-on tech, please head on over there.

However, if you're more like me, and are always curious about what things might mean in a broader sense, this post might be more to your liking ...

An Offer You Can't Refuse

From aspirational to pragmatic:

EMC Unified Storage Is 20% More Efficient.  Guaranteed.

That's the tag line for the storage efficiency campaign we've recently launched in this hotly contested part of the market.

And, from all indications, it appears that it's working quite well ...