Must have competencies for the Cloud in 2013

Following on from my last blog ‘Re-enforcing our doors in 2013’  solving all of the issues of disruptive innovations isn’t going to be possible in a year but we must take some strides towards making some of the changes.  The four members of the disruptive family are Cloud computing, social media, big data and Mobile.

Let’s take Cloud Computing this week and examine some competencies Continue Reading

Andy Tait was kind enough to share some of his impressions of EMC Forum in London 2012.

This year, we’re bringing back EMC Forum to the UK and Ireland. This essential one-day event shows you how cloud and Big Data are transforming our industry — and how you can transform your business to stay competitive.

At EMC Forum you can learn, connect and network. You will hear local and international insights from high calibre keynote speakers and presenters, and case studies featuring the latest integrated solutions from EMC and our partners. A hand-picked selection of partners, such as Cisco, Computacenter and MTI, will be exhibiting their products, and our VLab will offer technical training from EMC engineers.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about the latest solutions, products and services direct from EMC specialists and partners, network with the EMC Community and
discover our vision for the future. Continue Reading

There is  a lot of truth in the adage of what I was taught in the RAF and what has stayed with me in the form of the ‘5 Ps’ – previous planning prevents poor performance, and the work over the past 7 years that has gone into delivering and securing the Digital Olympics is a great example.

The core digital infrastructure, much of which was locked down months ago, has been relentlessly tested to ensure it can cope with the huge demand placed on it during the 17 days of the Summer Olympics and 12 days of the Paralympics.  Organisers of the London 2012 games are confident that the investment in testing the vast array of IT infrastructure and equipment deployed across London and the Olympic venues, and recovery processes in the case of a major cyber attack, will pay dividends.

With all this data flashing around the networks it is hard to visualise Continue Reading

We assembled our key ingredients for Trusted Cloud in Part 1 so let’s look at how to cook them and taste our creation….

How to mix
The formula for building a trusted cloud is to gain control over and visibility into the cloud’s infrastructure, identities and information.

Information can move instantly, often for perfectly legitimate reasons like load balancing, backup, DR. Information mobility is a great resource though it can be a nightmare Continue Reading

This week I was invited to attend a multi-supplier strategy workshop with one of our clients.  The purpose of the workshop was to look at their future storage strategy and all the major industry vendors  were there to present. This style of workshop provides clients the ability to see consistencies and opinions from each supplier. When it was my turn to present , I decided to push things a bit and discuss how sourcing storage and technology would change in the next 5 years.  I started by suggesting that come 2017 the major vendors will not be selling hardware. This may seem a bit of a ridical theory, but by how much? If you follow my reasoning to come perhaps this statement Continue Reading

In my day to day job I have conversations with all levels staff within an IT oganisation, from Systems Administrators to CxO, and the one common theme that appears in all levels definition of Cloud Computing is x86 Virtualisation and, you guessed it VMware.

VMware have cleverly targeted their marketing and developement efforts around Cloud Computing and have succeeded in being, in the majority of cases, the first vendor to be mentioned during any discussions around this capability.

Due to this efficient marketing it has also helped to position the virtualisation Continue Reading

What is a Private ‘Heterogeneous’ Cloud environment?

Well I’m talking about a Private Cloud that spans both x86-64 and RISC based processors using Type 1 hypervisors supporting multiple Operating Systems. In this particular instance I will be talking about VMware for x86-64 virtualisation and the IBM Power Hypervisor for virtualisation of the IBM POWER (RISC) processor. Further supporting infrastructure includes Cisco Catalyst 6500 switches for IP Protocols and MDS9000 Fabric Switches for the FC Protocol, EMC multi-tiered storage (VMAX) Continue Reading

As part of my day job I regularly come across a wide range of multi-disciplined individuals who all have skills and experiences that I can only hope to one day match. They come from all sorts of backgrounds and have a plethora of views and visions of not only the end game but also the approach needed to ensure a successful implementation of the holistic IT department of the future.

Through their enthusiasm and desire to ‘fix’ legacy IT they sometimes fail to recognise that they are all working towards the same end goal, that in fact by working together and learning from each other and taking the best aspects of each others frameworks, definitions, libraries and experiences we can deliver true Cloud Computing solutions. The IT industry is maturing and we have a number of proven techniques to ensure that we meet business requirements, address operational processes and deliver robust solutions.

It is only now as part of Cloud Computing are we seeing many of these come together. Cloud Computing is not only a set technologies, or just some service management, process re-engineering, high level architecture definitions or Infrastructure delivered on-demand to meet your businesses IT processing requirements.

Cloud Computing is all of these any more.

Maybe it’s the furtive geeky life I inhabit, but I’ve lost count of the number of friends and acquaintances who work in one of the digital industries – games, web hosting, data management – who started out as a snotty 10-year old with a humming, hot piece of plastic and an unfettered imagination. When kids got their hands on the first cheap PCs that came out of the 80s, who then could have envisioned that the world would change entirely because of – not just the products – but the change in the means and methods of production that came out of that time. Everyone reading this blog now, the way in which it is being read, and the critical thinking behind it, were born from that dusty explosion of zeroes and ones.

We are now about to enter another new age where our world, the techniques we use to manufacture that world, and our understanding of it, are about to change profoundly.

Thanks to a £22 credit-card sized programmable board – the Raspberry Pi –  kids can now learn Continue Reading