Scale Computing is now a seasoned veteran at presenting to the TFD audience. However, this is a new market for the company. Presenters will need to talk beyond speeds and feeds. Unlike competitors such as Nutanix, Scale Computing doesn’t offer support for the VMware ecosystem.
Read MoreI've talked about VMware Cloud (VMC) on AWS for a few weeks since the GA release during VMworld 2017. The solution is unique in that Amazon doesn't modify its data center design for any partner. VMC on AWS required the two companies to work together to make two very different data center designs work. The solution raises the question around lift and shift as a cloud migration strategy.
Read MoreThe hotel industry represents an entire vertical integration of technology and the consumer experience. However, Airbnb is in the process of disrupting the entire industry. Digital transformation is only part of the equation.
Read MoreWe had Intel on the CTO Advisor Podcast discussing Optane Storage and what it means to the data center and applications. During TechField Day Extra at VMworld 2017, we were reminded the physical memory technology is only as good as the protocols carrying the data. Kingston memory presented their vision for NVMe based SSD along side startup Liqid.
Read MoreWith VMworld 2017 less than a week away, I thought it made sense to take a look at where VMware sits in various parts of their strategy vs. competitors.
Read MoreThe NSX team was describing how application flows over the virtual network. The team described the interchanges within the hypervisor. The interchange system was called a switch. While not new, the concept threw me for a curve.
Read MoreComing off of DellEMC World, HPE Discover and Interop, I'm convinced that legacy IT infrastructure companies need a reset. Today, AWS and Google are having conversations directly with the consumers of technology. It's ironic that the theme of digital transformation is to remove friction in a business relationship. Shopping online is disrupts brick and mortar because online shopping removes friction.
Read MoreAre all Software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) solutions alike? With over 40 vendors in this space, I’d say that it’s likely not. Talking with The PacketPushers’ Greg Ferro on Twitter, he believes that many of these vendors will survive. While the space is fragmented, Ferro believes there’s room enough and market opportunity for most of the existing players to make a going concern of the SD-WAN business. It’s the question, of what makes one SD-WAN vendor different from another that I approach the follow-up to the TELoIP presentation at Network Field Day 15 (NFD15).
Read MoreGigamon is a company most networkers already know. It's difficult to do a preview on a company so well known. In my coffee chat, I talk about what I want to see out of Gigamon at #NFD15.
Read MoreUp next in the Network Field Day 15 previews is Network Operating System company, IP Infusion. The elephant in the room will be differentiation of IP Infusion from Cumulus Networks.
Read MoreSo, this post will not be a preview of NSX. There’s plenty of information out there from me and others about what NSX is and isn’t. I’ll speak to what I want to see from VMware during NFD15.
Read MoreI love the architectural concept of HCI. Collapsing storage, compute and possibly networking into a single set of x86-based nodes is a brilliant idea. Place upon that a software management overlay and you have the makings of a private cloud. My pause? I'm not convinced this to be a standalone product category.
Read MoreHere on the CTOAdvisor, I wrote how the AWS Snowball Edge solves a fog computing technology challenge. My post on TechTarget.com goes into more detail around the use case of data collection and the sources of data. The post was written prior to the Snowball Edge announcement.
The transition to a cloud service model is an arduous journey - whether from the customer or provider side. Going from a legacy IT vendor to a cloud-first vendor is as painful if not more so than moving your enterprise to a cloud-first delivery model. Recently HPE, VMware, and Cisco announced disruptive customer changes to their cloud strategies. It highlights why I frankly don’t trust Google for enterprise cloud.
Read MoreBefore Ethernet won the LAN wars between Ethernet and token ring, there was a legitimate debate of speed over architecture. In the 90’s, Ethernet moved from 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps while token ring moved from 8 Mbps to 16 Mbps. While a significant difference in speed, an argument of dedicated bandwidth in token ring vs. contention-based Ethernet was interesting. The industry settled on raw speed. There’s similar debate in today’s Ethernet. Customer needing speeds above 10 Gbps must make a decision on 25 Gbps vs. 40 Gbps.
Read MoreI made a hyperbolic statement on Twitter. I claimed that AWS’ Snowball Edge device was a direct competitor to Nutanix and other hyperconverged platforms. It’s Twitter. Tweets like mine are meant to generate conversation. It’s equivalent to clickbait. Of course, Snowball Edge isn’t a direct competitor to Nutanix and other HCI solutions. I further explained my position over on TechRepublic.com. However, Snowball edge strengthens Amazon’s position as a competitor to traditional IT including classic HCI.
Read MoreA cloud executive and engineer that I highly respect wrote a blog post detailing why he believes CIO’s should avoid building private clouds. Subbu Allamaraju comes from Yahoo and Ebay. He knows private clouds extremely well. He’s now the VP of Cloud at Expedia. So, he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to building and managing private clouds. I don’t doubt any of his advice. I found the advice well thought from his lens.
Read MoreI felt like I heard two completely different pitches surrounding container networking from the two companies best positioned to discuss the topic. Both Google and Docker presented on container networking at the VMware-sponsored FutureNET event. FutureNET is a future of networking summit. It was nearly impossible to tell what company sponsored the event. We heard a ton about OpenStack and SDN with little reference to either vSphere or NSX. Let me share the highlights of the Google talk and then discuss the takeaways from the Docker discussion.
Read MoreThe thought that Michael Dell is going to leave VMware alone is crazy. To play on his statement on theCube when asked if he was going to sale VMware - People simply don’t understand the present and the future of enterprise IT if they believe VMware will remain autonomous. To Dell’s point, EMC is currently a cash machine. With free cash of $5B a year, EMC can service the debt needed to pay for the merger. In theory, this leaves VMware’s cash flow clear for re-investment in R&D and what VMware’s management deems critical to the future of the company.
Read MorePeeling back some of the data points from VMworld reveals some interesting insights into the state of Cloud in the enterprise. According to VMware only 5% of enterprise data lives in the Public Cloud. In five years that number is expected to jump to 50%. What does this mean?
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