Storage Nation

OK, cool contest alert. The folks at the EMC Developer Network are sponsoring their first ever EMC Monster Mash with over $25K of prize money .  Hint: that's better than a free iPod The idea is simple: go over to the EDN site and create a creative mashup of two or more EMC products using the published interfaces, combining external services as you see fit, and submit your entry. Lots of EMC platforms to choose from, storage, security, management, content, etc.  And, of course, a big world of non-EMC external services as well … Why are we doing this?  First, we've got a big world of mashable capabilities across our portfolio, and we'd like people to get more familiar with them.  Second, we think that intermixing this stuff with popular online services would be pretty interesting, and demonstrate even more powerful functionality.  Finally, we thought it'd be pretty fun.

It's most definitely an uncomfortable topic for many of the IT organizations I meet with on a regular basis. More often than not, I find myself asking how IT governance is done in their organization? And I've begun to see a very strong correlation between good governance and good IT.

The primates at StorageMonkeys periodically run a fun poll on "best vendor blog" and "best non-vendor blog".  Tim Masters, who seems to be the tribal leader, does a good job of getting the storage community engaged and talking about things that matter.

The decade may have ticked over, but the C-4 issues persist:  cost-containment, compliance, continuity and carbon footprint reduction continue to be Front and Back Office priorities in every shop I visit.  So, our efforts at the C-4 Project continue into the new decade.  And we are pleased that a second wave of sponsors have signed up

I've been trying to lay low on the whole private cloud things for a while — really I have. But then I stumbled across a blog post that brought some key points into focus for me, and did a lot to reinforce some of my fundamental beliefs. Not that I need any more reinforcement, mind you … A Cloudy Headache Before we get started, you should go read this post from Alan Williamson.  Alan brings three interesting perspectives to this discussion

You're deep into a series of posts where I attempt to lay the foundations of an idealized "information utility" for most enterprises. The idea is simple: the vast majority of enterprise information isn't particularly mission critical, and we should start thinking in terms of an internal "information utility" that's modeled after phones, power, etc.

This just in. One of our premises is that — as we virtualize — certain disciplines can be made *far better* than they were in the physical world.  Security is a prime example. Nowhere does this play out as much as with virtual desktops.  In the security landscape, they're the endpoint that causes everyone to lose sleep

Yesterday was a busy day.  EMC made our big FAST announcement .  And, almost as an attempt to  distract, one of our competitors announced an expanded relationship with Microsoft . The majority of the buzz yesterday was around the first topic.  That's good.

For the last few weeks, I've divided my blogging time between this site and a new one I've been helping with: privatecloud.com Thought I'd give you  quick view into some of my more recent posting over there — if you're interested! " A Real Private Cloud " — I interview Matt Coviello of EMC who has successfully built and operated a private cloud for internal use. " The Economist Debates Clouds " — an interesting discussion from outside the industry, but useful insight into alternative perspectives. " The Industrialization of IT " — fresh from a Goldman Sachs investor conference, I share my thoughts about the major themes and trends.

I wanted to let everyone know that one of the projects I've been working on is now available for your perusal. Privatecloud.com is a joint effort between the VCE coalition to create a portal into the industry-wide private cloud discussion.  If you've been trying to follow all the different conversations, you know how hard it can be. We've invested some editorial resources in assembling the best discussions and content, and putting it all in one place.