Category Archives: Management & Automation

The Proof is in the Process: People, Process and Technology are Essential for Successful IT Operations.

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The Proof is in the Process
People, Process, and Technology are essential for successful IT operations.

These days we are all talking about IT cloud enablement or IT-as-a-Service, and increasingly these conversations are now about optimizing IT processes to facilitate successful cloud deployment. Based on my own past experience as a technologist, I thought that the most important (and cool) thing to do in IT was deploy the latest and greatest technology. However, today, I am linking technology evolution to process integration because only by optimizing our IT processes will we enable cloud computing successfully. I recently read Peter Fingar’s book, “Dot.Cloud: The 21st Century Business Platform“, and I’m sold on his notions of how the cloud can be applied to day-to-day business operations.

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IT-as-a-service

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Ok, so Chuck beat us to it – he liberated our EMC IT slides here and they are all out and creating a buzz by themselves. A more elaborate explanation is needed on some of the content, so here goes for a start in outlining our thinking before I dive into details in future posts.

As Chuck called out, one of the key objectives in our journey to the Private Cloud is IT-as-a-service. IT-as-a-service starts with a focus on the customer (our own internal business units).  What does that mean ? It means  ensuring that we within IT can provide (i) the agility that is demanded by the business, (ii) at the desired quality of service, (iii) with the appropriate security, risk and compliance considerations, and of course (iv) at the right cost model. It also goes to the heart of customer satisfaction – the model of IT being the sole provider of services is long gone even as different SaaS and cloud offerings have enhanced what the customer can avail of. So our vision and goal for IT-as-a-service is to optimize both the IT delivery and business consumption of  services and be the service provider of choice. Continue reading →

Trust, But Verify

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Lately I’ve been in an increasing number of conversations about “multi-tenancy,” and its viability/fitness for use in business IT. Most start out framed as technology discussions. One recent exchange reminded me of a blog post and comment thread back in January on “secure multi-tenancy.” The comments, predictably, devolved into heated debate over who claimed which technologies could do what, who disputed whose claims, and so on.

For my own part, I don’t see technology alone as adequate. What intrigues me, though, is how many IT people that believe technology can—indeed, must—somehow address all this. Continue reading →

Getting More For Less By Virtualizing Oracle

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My EMC colleagues and I often advise IT leaders to begin their own Private Cloud journey by virtualizing everything. That includes “Tier One” applications. When IT people hear “Tier One,” a few brands immediately pop into our heads. When I describe how EMC’s internal IT organization is aggressively building a Private Cloud, I’m not surprised when asked, “What about Oracle?” Continue reading →

Why EMC IT Is Going “All In” On Private Clouds – Part 5

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This is the final part of a series of posts outlining how our IT organization started its aggressive journey to private clouds. Previously, I described IT’s strategy shift, the trigger for its urgency, navigating through “cloud fog,” and the unusual path IT decided upon.

In this post, we’ll take a look at EMC IT’s overall strategy for actually making this journey. Continue reading →

Why EMC IT Is Going “All In” On Private Clouds – Part 4

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This is the fourth of a multi-part series exploring why our IT organization is aggressively transforming EMC’s corporate datacenters into Private Clouds. Previously, I described IT’s strategy shift, its newfound sense of urgency, and navigation through some “cloud fog.”

In this post we look at the unusual course EMC IT charted for its Private Cloud journey, and how the team approached selling its plan to our top execs. Continue reading →

Integrating RSA Security in EMC’s Private Cloud

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Join Nirav Mehta, Senior Manager of Product Management at RSA, as he describes RSA’s view on virtualization security and how EMC’s security division is participating in EMC IT’s Journey to the Private Cloud. It includes some examples, such as ways EMC IT is using RSA technology to secure virtualized desktops.

David Freund also provided some background in this post.

Security: Don’t Leave (Physical) Home Without It

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A lot of ink has been spilled recently in the press about cloud security, and even virtualized-server security. Many lead off with alarming headlines like this recent example that declares, “60% of virtual servers less secure than physical machines, Gartner says.”

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Calculating Desktop Virtualization Costs/Savings

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One of the initiatives we have underway in EMC IT is virtualizing our desktop infrastructure. And like most IT organizations, ours needs to be able to calculate a reasonable cost/benefit ratio before continuing beyond the pilot stage. Naturally, there are many consultant-provided cost and savings models available. Just as naturally, most focus on hardware equipment costs and savings. Then there’s the usual rule of thumb that says operational costs are between double and triple the equipment costs.

But every IT shop has to verify that they either follow the rule, or are an exception. And that means lots of number crunching.

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Chronicling EMC IT’s Private Cloud Journey

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We at EMC have been talking about private clouds from the perspective of an IT vendor for quite some time. But EMC is also an IT consumer. Our IT organization supports over 40,000 internal users in 61 countries (and 20 languages), and many hundreds of business applications on over 6,000 server instances spanning five data centers worldwide. Never mind the thousands of terabytes of storage, tens of thousands of devices, and hundreds of thousands of network ports used to conduct business every day.

It comes as no surprise, then, to be asked: “is EMC’s IT organization doing this?” when discussing private clouds with enterprise customers. My answer: “of course.” That’s not hubris. EMC IT began its journey a few years ago. The evolution in EMC IT’s thinking and plans—leveraging virtualization as a technology building block, then taking it to the next level—reflects the evolution in thinking and plans that led us to our vision of private clouds and the VCE coalition.

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