It’s all about the content or “What’s in the Case?”

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Edward

Steve Herrod’s super session was one of the things I enjoyed most about this year’s VMworld. Not only were the technologies and ideas that were introduced inspiring and where I was hoping to see VMware head but there was real passion for making content accessible evident throughout the entire presentation. VMworld coming so soon after the great one day class from Edward Tufte really increased the impact of the message. I had been thinking of content in terms of Big Information, of how do we present information to people, how do we share and collaborate etc. Steve’s presentation pushed that point even further, it’s all about the content really, the receptacle that it’s delivered in is irrelevant, it could be a briefcase, or a Ming vase, all the end user cares about is what’s in it. Just take a gander at Vincent Vega there staring at Marsellus Wallace’s soul, the briefcase isn’t what was cool in Pulp Fiction, it’s what was in it. Continue reading →

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Solved problems

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Edward

I took time out a few weeks back to attend Edward Tufte’s One-Day Course on “Presenting Data and Information” and learned several new things and had several ideas reinforced by the methods and examples that Edward used.  One of my favorite things that Edward brought up was encapsulated in this quote: “These are largely solved problems (displaying information); don’t get an original, get it right”.  This of course immediately brought to mind the dreaded “Not Invented Here” syndrome and led me to think about how often I’ve encountered this in the IT world.  On the other hand, innovation is terribly important and we take it very seriously at EMC - so how do you find the right balance of “solved problems” and innovation? Continue reading →

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Knapp Shoes – RIP Old Friend

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Peter

Dear Knapp,

I tried.  I gave it my best Pete's Last Pair of 2359sto keep the relationship alive.

Look…my grandfathers wore your shoes to the factory floor and the avionics shops before, during and after WWII.  My uncles wore their Knapps to school, then to the engineering lab, then to work.  My first pairs of Knapp style 2359 Plain-Toe Rocker Bottom Oxford saw me get married, built Legoland California and ushered in the birth of my children.  We have history, you and I.  I won’t forget that. Continue reading →

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What is Virtualization?

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Edward

It's all about mobilityI’ve been interviewing several people to lead up the Virtualization group of my organization lately and one of the candidates asked me an excellent question, “Well, what do you mean by Virtualization?”.  Very good question, am I talking about VMware, the hypervisor, virtualized infrastructure, what?  Apparently I’m in a heretical mood these days because my answer was, “No, I don’t mean any of that, I don’t want to limit it to that.  When I talk about Virtualization and what I want this team to focus on is bigger than that. Virtualization to me is technology enablement allowing IT to run the workloads you need to where you want to.” Continue reading →

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What, you wanted me to report the NEWS?

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Peter

I rarely catch CNN any more.  I clearly need to start watching Don Lemon.

Don Lemon via Jon Stewart

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Spam Cache Hides? Say it ain’t so!

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Peter

Trolling the forums I came across this gem of a topic:

LuckyPlan asks…
Where we live, there is a cacher who ownes about 2 1/2 thousand caches under his account. Many/most are of very poor quality and of course, unmaintained. He really is taking up so much space he dominates and frankly, isn’t allowing for others to place good quality caches in many areas. It has got very frustrating sometimes.
He’s a good guy and everything, but I don’t know what utility he is getting out of all the caches he owns.

I was wondering, are other areas having this problem? Does anybody think GC.com will limit or should limit this type of behavior to encourage better quality caches?

Differentiate this thread from the “ban all micros” threads that pop up way too often in discussion.  In this case, the issue is spam caches and gaming the system to circumvent the guidelines/rules.  I know this cache hider.  He plays the game with people of the same mindset, just like everyone else plays with people of their particular philosophical bent.  Clearly, there are others who enjoy this style. Continue reading →

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Cloud Heresy

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Edward

I’m about to commit a bit of cloud heresy as a technology guy writing about cloud and claiming that it’s really not all about hypervisors, automation and orchestration.  Sure, you need a measure of these components in order to be able to deliver on the cloud vision and model efficiently, but does that really solve the problems that are driving the consumers of IT to try and skirt enterprise IT and give their dollars to the public cloud?  I think the number of services being consumed that are called cloud but really aren’t and the amount of cloud washing going on in the marketplace clue us in on the fact that it’s not the technology per se that is driving the consumption of cloud.  The key thing I am hearing from my customers, and more importantly their customers, is that what is driving people to consume these services, some of which are actually inferior from a service management stand point to what is already offered internally, is the ease of consumption.  Consumers are voting with their dollars for quick provisioning, knowing what they’ll pay and the levers that effect that cost, and transparency around what they are getting and using. Continue reading →

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NASA’s 4TB Per Day

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Peter

I imagine these folks know something about a cloud.  That NASA collects 4TB of data per day was actually a little surprising to me; I thought the number would be higher.  Still, it’s a staggering quantity on the order of 500 fully-loaded, double sided DVDs filled every single day.  At close to 1.5PB of new data every year to manage NASA must have some fairly mature processes and tools for handling it all.  Their open source and cloud initiatives sound pretty interesting and I would LOVE to know more about what they are doing. 

Hey boss, when do we visit NASA?

Tip o the hat to the Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait.

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It slices, it dices…

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Peter

The Ginsu...what CAN'T it do?!

I get e-mail.  Like this one from one of our technical sales consultants:

Hi, dumb question but I have been asked it a couple of times and I wanted to see how you would answer it.  Why would clients choose [insert some consulting engagement type here] versus just using [insert some Swiss Army Knife technology here]?

Let me translate the question, first (and while I believe there are dumb questions, this was not one of them):

Why would I take a look at my data and application requirements, first, before buying a technology solution that promises to solve the problem for me so I don’t have to?

Product is not the answer to this old chestnut but a tool to implement the answer.  As with all tools it is at least helpful to know what you are going to do with it once you have brought it home from the store.  Products are nice but anyone who says “there’s nothing for you to worry about” is really saying “worry, just not until after I get a signature”
Continue reading →

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Why Information is like Cognac

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Edward

Nectar of the godsWith apologies to Chuck Hollis at EMC and James Governor at RedMonk I decided to take a crack at this whole “Why Applications are like fish and Data is like Wine” meme by extending it to posit that Information is like Cognac. Now, I’m not usually one to kick a dead horse but I think that all the talk of Big Data has maybe obscured something that I view as a problem with Big Data: knowledge workers don’t consume data, they consume information. I see Big Data as a problem quite frankly, and the IDC Digital Universe Study put it in context. If Big Data is the problem, Big Information is the goal, and to get there we need automation and analytics. So if you’ll bear with me I’ll share how I think Information is like cognac.
Continue reading →

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