Storage Nation

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 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? The Bigger The Better Any time you pool resources, you're angling for a better outcome.  Lower cost-to-serve through scale efficiencies.  The ability to load-level across multiple, shifting demands.  Being able to react quickly to new and unforseen demands.  Efficient processes that manage resources in the aggregate, rather than individually

Lots of activity at VMworld this week, plus the predictable flurry of vendor announcements.

Just wanted to share the most recent (and the funniest!) EMC 20% Guarantee video, this one starring Oggie — The Prince of Dataness.

Occasionally, people find a way to make something familiar so much faster and better that you've got to do some mental re-calibration.  My favorite example is this crew, who've found a way to conveniently insert a military jet engine into what looks like an ordinary school bus.  The result really isn't a school bus anymore — it's something quite different to behold. Similar thoughts went through my head as I contemplated this morning's news from EMC: a passel of performance, efficiency and management enhancements for the CLARiiON and Celerra midrange storage platforms. Having worked with both for so long, I'm finding myself having to re-calibrate my expectations

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.

No matter what you do, there's always a strong incentive to do what's expedient, as opposed to taking a more thoughtful approach.  For example, everyone has good intentions when putting their IT environments together, but it's so easy to get lost in the moment. The distractions can be plentiful and tempting: feeling bound by legacy decisions, a vendor offering a too-good-to-be-true deal, perhaps a shiny technology bauble that distracts. We're starting to have far more engagements with customers and partners around end-to-end fully virtualized environments, rather than just individual piece-parts.

As some of you know, I'm over in Rome for a few days of meetings, to be followed by a week of overdue vacation time. Much has been said about EMC and VMware's recent strong quarters, including this unique perspective from Storagezilla , but I wanted to share one big thought that stood out above all else. All About Earnings Calls Earning calls in our industry are mostly about economic results — how well did you do, how well do you expect to do, etc.  All of that is pretty standard fare.  You can listen to EMC's here , or get a transcript here .

Many of the IT organizations I speak with have started their journey to a private cloud model. Every road has its speed bumps: knowing what they are likely to be helps a great deal. I thought it'd be useful to simply share my perspectives of likely issues, concerns and challenges that tend to show up in each phase of the journey

I think people know by now that I get to meet lots of customers and partners in the course of my work.  Actually, I really don't consider it "work", it's really a lot of fun. And they even pay me Sometimes, though, you get this great juxtaposition: you get to see how different IT organizations approach the same fundamental challenge in entirely different ways. And the contrast can be stunning ..

If you've been following this blog for a while, you know I've been describing how EMC's IT organization is progressing in re-envisioning our IT capabilities based on a private cloud model. You've seen bits and pieces here on this blog, as well as EMC IT's own web site . Today, I received a nice white paper entitled " EMC IT's Journey To The Private Cloud: A Practitioner's Guide ".  While not as complete as many of us would like, it does serve as a nice contextual overview of of our journey: the rationale, the phases and the results to date.