(This will be the first of a series of posts outlining the differences between NetApp’s and EMC’s Cloud Strategies)
The worst-kept secret Acadia joint venture between Cisco, EMC and clearly reluctant VMware finally hit the wires today. Based on the buzz generated by the VMworld rumor mill all the way back in August, today’s announcement probably needs to be added as another example of this.
Jay summarized our strategic view of why “doing best-of-breed right” is better than vendor lock-in by removing customer choice. Apparently, he’s not alone. Yet as I was absorbing the locust swarm of related Twitter commentary and media / blog coverage, an eerie sense of déjà-vu came over me. Has EMC gone and done it again?
Continue reading "Enabling, rather than (V)blocking Cloud Adoption" »
Want some insider info? A few weeks ago, storage insiders got to see and comment on SNIA’s proposed Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) standard. Tomorrow morning at SNW USA in Phoenix, the storage public gets to witness the future of Cloud Storage firsthand.

Continue reading "The future of Cloud Storage – See it (and me!) at SNW USA" »
The ramifications of NetApp’s Cloud Launch last week are long-lasting and profound. So much so that we didn’t even have time to highlight all of the new Cloud-specific resources available. Here are a few of my favorites.
Continue reading "NetApp Cloud Resources" »
Would VMware be in it’s current enterprise server virtualization leadership position if they had decided to cap ESX technology 3 years ago? (not sure of exact timing, but am sure someone will correct me :) What would be the consequences of declaring VMotion requires a whole new image, disk and disk pool format, incompatible with VMware ESX / GSX or Workstation/Fusion formats? I propose that would have resulted in a far worse reality for VMware and their customers than what we enjoy today.
Continue reading "The Burden of Success" »
When learning about new technology and related business models, dialogues are much more useful than monologues. Social Media avenues offer useful tools for vendors to educate the market. Twitter (and I suppose Facebook’s FriendFeed) have become excellent vehicles for engaging in a dialogue with your audience. These tools are also more transparent than some corporate propaganda blogs which attempt to censor healthy debate after posting provocative FUD.
Twitter’s conversational nature is also more conducive to humorous sarcasm. My new favorite tag is @sfoskett’s #selftweetthursday :)
Continue reading "Recap - NetApp Cloud Twitterview" »
Innovation is easy. Particularly when you have limited scope and no installed base to carry forward. On the other hand continuous innovation, delivering compounding value to a growing market at every turn, is not only hard - it is highly risky. So much so that there are startlingly few companies who have survived such ambitions of repeated innovation – along with the difficult transitions involved.
Last week’s historic announcement prompted me to examine several key attributes which set “innovation survivors” apart from the litany of failures.
Continue reading "NetApp 3.0" »
In the beginning of our Journey, I covered Cloud origins and history, as well as NetApp’s definition of our Cloud Market opportunity. Key lessons around not competing against your best customers and the requirement for a Cloud Ecosystem and implementation scope were also reviewed.
This blog will continue the discussion, building on the concepts from my prior blog in order to complete the introduction of NetApp’s Cloud Strategy.
Continue reading "NetApp’s Cloud Journey - Continued" »