Taking some steps out of stealth

I’ve been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work over the past few months as my new company Framehawk has been preparing to come out of stealth.  That has meant the volume of posts here at Data Center Dialog has dropped off a bit, but that’s all about to change if things go as planned.

Last week’s Under the Radar conference was our first official Framehawk public event.  Our CEO, Peter Badger, was onstage for 6 minutes (14 minutes, if you include the Q&A) to explain who we are and what we do.  And the outcome was pretty encouraging:  we won the Audience Choice Award for the Mobile Access category.  (You can see video of his award-winning presentation -- and live demo -- here.)

That event also served as a bit of a milestone for us, marking our emergence from stealth.  We’ll still be very focused on the success of our early customers (like UBS), but we won’t be quite so secretive going forward. 

As a result, we’ve spiffed up our website a bit and even started our official company blog. Surprise, surprise: I’ll be one of the consistent contributors there.  I’ll be cross-posting appropriate content both there and here.

The first couple posts are already up over there:  one saying “hello world,” one talking about the Under the Radar conference itself, and another two (one by me, one by our CTO Stephen Vilke) starting to scratch the surface on the BYOD topic.  I’ll also continue to blog here on other cloud, IT ops, and data center topics not necessarily connected to Framehawk as appropriate (but isn’t all about mobility and cloud computing these days?).

Check us out over there, keep reading here, and let me know if you want to know more about what we’re doing at Framehawk.

For me, it's that time again: start-up life -- and chair building -- beckon

After over 2 years at CA Technologies and almost 6 years with a vendor focused on what is (or would become) the cloud computing space, it’s “that time” for me again.

It’s time for me to jump back into a start-up.

CA has been a welcome change of pace and a rich set of experiences for me. I came into CA from the Cassatt acquisition back in the summer of 2009 -- shifting from Cassatt’s 50-person approach to problems to one in which we could bring the resources of a $4-billion and 12,000-person company to bear.

I like to think that I've helped move things forward at CA and for customers thinking about cloud computing. I joined the team that laid the groundwork for and built CA’s cloud business from the ground up. Following some very impactful strategy discussions, we pulled in a bunch of key acquisitions, including Oblicore, 3Tera, and Nimsoft, and have been building businesses on it since. (See here for what some of luminaries in the cloud market working with CA are doing and here for the company’s most recent cloud-related moves.)

The importance of building…chairs

But, deep down in my DNA, I like doing start-ups. I'm about to join my fourth. Sometimes they work out great, sometimes not, but the connection between the work you do and the results is fresh, visceral, and immediate. They give you a feeling of belonging that is hard to replicate.

I remember Alfred Chuang, one of the founders of BEA, telling over and over again how he had actually put together the chairs for the company’s first conference room in our rental space in East Palo Alto back in ’95 (I was with BEA from those early days until I joined Cassatt in ’05). I remember looking forward to when Ed Scott (my boss at the time) would be on the road with Bill Coleman or his sales team, since I was sharing an unassuming corner of Ed’s office. The office frankly seemed a lot bigger when only one of us was trying to use it at a time.

The New Thing

So what’s the New Thing that I’m going to?

I’m joining a small, stealthy cloud computing /mobility start-up in the Bay Area as VP of marketing. I will share details, the name, and world domination plans as soon as I can.

I start this coming Friday (and I’ll be on a plane with my new CEO twice that day, amusingly enough for those that follow my too-frequent Twitter flight exploits). I’ve worked with several of these folks before – a *really* important prerequisite in my book – and the others come highly recommended.

In one of my meetings with the CEO, I helped folks lug a few boxes out of the conference room so we could meet. While we were talking, a few team members were just outside the door putting together what was in those boxes. Yep, you guessed it: office chairs.

Now, many of the market signs that I’m seeing are pointing in the right direction for my new company and its space. But, when they started putting chairs together, I think that sealed the deal for me.

Getting started

So, this week I’ve been taking a little R&R, playing House Dad a bit, catching up on some blog posts, and buying a few gadgets to get me started.

Going forward, I’ll continue to write here at Data Center Dialog on most of the topics I’ve already been covering, plus expanding into a few more at the cross-section of cloud, mobility, and IT consumerization. I also intend to continue to contribute to Cloud Commons (and will re-subscribe to This Week in Cloud as a non-CA person).

And, when we’re ready, I’m also expecting to have the relevant posts show up on my new company’s site as well.

Thanks to everyone for reading the blog so far. I'm excited about what's next and see it as a great extension of what you've been reading here. I hope to continue to make this a worthwhile dialog for all of us.

At the very least, I should be an expert if you ever need your office chair adjusted.

A cloudy look back at 2010

Today seemed like a good day to take stock of the year in cloud computing, at least according to the view from this Data Center Dialog blog – and from what you as readers thought was interesting over the past 12 months.

Setting the tone for the year: cloud computing M&A

It probably isn’t any big surprise that 3 of the 4 most popular articles here in 2010 had to do with one of the big trends of the year in cloud computing – acquisitions. (Especially since my employer, CA Technologies, had a big role in driving that trend.) CA Technologies made quite a bit of impact with our successive acquisitions of Oblicore, 3Tera, and Nimsoft at the beginning of the year. We followed up by bringing onboard others like 4Base, Arcot, and Hyperformix.

But those first three set the tone for the year: the cloud was the next IT battleground and the big players (like CA) were taking it very seriously. CRN noted our moves as one of the 10 Biggest Cloud Stories of 2010. Derrick Harris of GigaOm called us out as one of the 9 companies that drove cloud in 2010. And Krishnan Subramanian included CA's pick-up of 3Tera and Nimsoft in his list of key cloud acquisitions for the year at CloudAve.

As you’d expect, folks came to Data Center Dialog to get more details on these deals. We had subsequent announcements around each company (like the release of CA 3Tera AppLogic 2.9), but the Nimsoft one got far and away the most interest. I thought one of the more interesting moments was how Gary Read reacted to a bunch of accusations of being a “sell-out” and going to the dark side by joining one of the Big 4 management vendors they had been aggressively selling against. Sure, some of the respondents were competitors trying to spread FUD, but he handled it all clearly and directly -- Gary's signature style, I’ve come to learn.

What mattered a lot? How cloud is changing IT roles

Aside from those acquisitions, one topic was by far the most popular: how cloud computing was going to change the role of IT as a whole – and for individual IT jobs as well. I turned my November Cloud Expo presentation into a couple posts on the topic. Judging by readership and comments, my “endangered species” list for IT jobs was the most popular. It included some speculation that jobs like capacity planning, network and server administration, and even CIO were going the way of the dodo. Or were at least in need of some evolution.

Part 2 conjured up some new titles that might be appearing on IT business cards very soon, thanks to the cloud. But that wasn’t nearly as interesting for some reason. Maybe fear really is the great motivator. Concern about the changes that cloud computing is causing to peoples’ jobs certainly figured as a strong negative in the survey we published just a few weeks back. Despite a move toward “cloud thinking” in IT, fear of job loss drove a lot of the negative vibes about the topic. Of course, at the same time, IT folks are seeing cloud as a great thing to have on their resumes.

All in all, this is one of the major issues for cloud computing, not just for 2010, but in general. The important issue around cloud computing is not so much about figuring out technology, it’s about figuring out how to run and organize IT in a way that makes the best use of technology, creates processes that are most useful for the business, and that people learn to live and work with on a daily basis. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here to say that this topic will be key in 2011, too.

Learning from past discussions on internal clouds

James Urquhart noted in his “cloud computing gifts of 2010” post at CNET that the internal/private cloud debate wound its way down during the year, ending in a truce. “The argument died down…when both sides realized nobody was listening, and various elements of the IT community were pursuing one or the other – or both – options whether or not it was ‘right.’” I tend to agree.

These discussions (arguments?), however, made one of my oldest posts, “Are internal clouds bogus?” from January 2009, the 5th most popular one – *this* year. I stand by my conclusion (and it seems to match where the market has ended up): regardless of what name you give the move to deliver a more dynamic IT infrastructure inside your 4 walls, it’s compelling. And customers are pursuing it.

Cloud computing 101 remained important

2010 was a year in which the basics remained important. The definitions really came into focus, and a big chunk of the IT world joined the conversation about cloud computing. That meant that things like my Cloud Computing 101 post, expanding on my presentation on the same topic at CA World in May, garnered a lot of attention.

Folks were making sure they had the basics down, especially since a lot of the previously mentioned arguments were settling down a bit. My post outlined a bunch of the things I learned from giving my Cloud 101 talk, namely don’t get too far ahead of your headlights. If you start being too theoretical, customers will quickly snap you right back to reality. And that’s how it should be.

Beginning to think about the bigger implications of cloud computing

However, several forward-looking topics ended up at the top of the list at Data Center Dialog this year as well. Readers showed interest in some of the things that cloud computing was enabling, and what it might mean in the long run. Consider these posts as starting points for lots more conversations going forward:

Despite new capabilities, are we just treating cloud servers like physical ones? Some data I saw from RightScale about how people are actually using cloud servers got me thinking that despite the promise of virtualization and cloud, people perhaps aren’t making the most of these new-fangled options. In fact, it sounded like we were just doing the same thing with these cloud servers as we’ve always done with physical ones. It seemed to me that missed the whole point.

Can we start thinking of IT differently – maybe as a supply chain? As we started to talk about the CA Technologies view of where we think IT is headed, we talked a lot about a shift away from “IT as a factory” in which everything was created internally, to one where IT is the orchestrator of service coming from many internal and external sources. It implies a lot of changes, including expanded management requirements. And, it caught a lot of analyst, press, customer, -- and reader – attention, including this post from May.

Is cloud a bad thing for IT vendors? Specifically, is cloud going to cut deeply into the revenues that existing hardware and software vendors are getting today from IT infrastructure? This certainly hasn’t been completely resolved yet. 2010 was definitely a year where vendors made their intentions known, however, that they aren’t going to be standing still. Oracle, HP, IBM, BMC, VMware, CA, and a cast of thousands (OK, dozens at least) of start-ups all made significant moves, often at their own user conferences, or events like Cloud Expo or Cloud Connect.

What new measurement capabilities will we need in a cloud-connected world? If we are going to be living in a world that enables you to source IT services from a huge variety of providers, there is definitely a need to help make those choices. And even to just have a common, simple, business-level measuring stick for IT services in the first place. CA Technologies took a market-leading stab at that by contributing to the Service Measurement Index that Carnegie Mellon is developing, and by launching the Cloud Commons community. This post explained both.

So what’s ahead for 2011 in cloud computing?

That sounds like a good topic for a blog post in the new year. Until then, best wishes as you say farewell to 2010. And rest up. If 2011 is anything like 2010, we’ll need it.

Watching cloud computing trends for 2010: the vision, customer reality, & downstream impact

We’ve crossed into a new decade (or not, if you’re a numbers purist), and it seems to be an appropriate time for a little reflection, and maybe a chance to get some feel for where things are headed in the 2010 for IT operations, especially as they look at what cloud computing is going to mean for them.

Last year, I rattled off a Top 10 list of Top 10 lists. This year, I, for one, am suffering from a bit of Year-End Top 10 Prediction Fatigue, so I’ll hold off on that for the moment. Instead, I thought I’d check the stats from this Data Center Dialog blog as a way to get a bead on things that people have been interested in here. That way I’m not just pulling commentary out of thin air. Plus, it’s more scientific that way, right?

So, to mark Data Center Dialog’s a-bit-more-than-one-year anniversary, here's a look back at the most popular posts over the past 6 months. My guess is it gives some indication of what people will be considering for the initial months of 2010 as well.

Beyond definitions: looking for vision…and then practical cloud considerations

It’s probably no surprise that the most popular new post here was also the one that explained a bit about the biggest news story to involve us (now former) Cassatt folks: the acquisition of the Cassatt assets and expertise by CA in June. I provided a bit of commentary on the acquisition just before taking an extended few weeks off in Berlin prior to starting my current gig at CA. It’s not too far-fetched to predict that in the months ahead there will be lots more details to talk about regarding what we’ve all been doing at CA since then. (That’s an easy prediction, for sure.)

Fumble! What not to do at a cloud computing conference – The endlessly repeated ploy of starting panel sessions at cloud computing events with the question, “So what is cloud computing?” finally took its toll on me in November. The result was a bit of a (popular) rant about why the people working on cloud computing need to move on to much more useful questions. At least that’s the only way I’m going to be able to sit through another cloud computing conference.

Judging by the numbers, I think you’re with me.

Not that talking about definitions was bad. 2009 was a year in which the definitions of cloud computing (public/private, internal/external, hybrid, and the like) came into focus as the discussion evolved throughout the year. To prove the point, the most popular entry of the last 6 months was the same entry that was the most popular of the first 6 months of the year: Are internal clouds bogus? That post was followed closely by one that described the shifts in the discussion toward hybrid clouds – and the speed with which the combination of public and private cloud computing was likely to become a reality (answer: it’ll take a bit; there are some missing pieces still). In fact, my highlight blog entry that tracked the evolution of the private cloud from the front row seat I’d had was also a favorite.

So, yes, there was a place for the definitional conversation. But real-world information about what customers are doing now was in great demand (and still is, say the stats). This pragmatism is heartening and it propelled reader interest in the entry I did on the 451 Group’s cloud computing customer panel at their ICE conference, alongside a post from earlier in the year listing actual customer questions that our field team had been getting about private clouds. There’s nothing quite like getting things from the horse’s mouth.

Here’s something that was perhaps part of that same trend about getting in better sync with reality: measurement of what is actually going on in data centers (even when it’s showing a trend toward upholding long-established patterns of inefficiency) was also of interest. I saw that as good news, especially since we also had lots of interest in our post from earlier in 2009 discussing the fact that many data center managers don’t actually know what their servers are doing. The first step to a solution is understanding what the problem is, right?

Notable Data Center Dialog interviews: Steve Hamm of BusinessWeek, Bill Coleman, and Mark Bramfitt

Some of the Data Center Dialog interviews (a feature I started at the beginning of 2009 with Al Gillen of IDC) were a few of the most popular posts in the second half of the year. The most read interview? It was one in which I turned the tables on a member of the so-called mainstream media and interviewed him: BusinessWeek’s Steve Hamm had some interesting insights on Silicon Valley in general. It didn’t hurt that he linked to the interview from his blog, too, of course. Interestingly, he has now done what many journalists are doing out of necessity -- changed careers. Steve noted via Twitter a few weeks back that he’s now at IBM.

Also interesting to our readers were the conversations I published about two folks well-known in the world of IT management talking about their Next Big Things. Bill Coleman, my former CEO, gave his take on where cloud computing is now (just Version 1.0, he said) and what he’s working on after Cassatt. Mark Bramfitt talked about his move from a leading role in PG&E’s data center energy efficiency programs to private industry in a two-part interview just published at the end of December. Both Bill and Mark included some candid thoughts on what’s gone well and not so well in their previous roles.

The longer-term implications of cloud computing

We also saw interest in some of the posts pondering what cloud computing might mean to the industry as a whole. Will it mean less will be spent on IT, or, in fact, help accelerate growth? And what about the oft-noted bogeyman of automation? Will the cloud finally mean that automation takes center stage without being cast as the human-hating Skynet from the Terminator flicks? That topic generated some interest for sure.

And, of course, Twitter…

And, as you might expect, our readers were in alignment with the rest of the industry (world?) in its interest in Twitter in the past few months. I used VMworld as a case study of 7 ways that IT conferences can be improved by using Twitter – and 2 ways it makes them worse. That one seemed especially popular with folks who found us via – you guessed it – Twitter.

So what does this all mean for 2010? I have no idea. But I’d bet a couple of these trends will continue to be important. The discussion around how private, public, and hybrid cloud computing will work will certainly continue. I’m expecting, however, that it becomes more focused around the day-to-day practicalities that end user IT departments need to know.

I’ll do my best to make sure I continue to interview folks of interest in the industry with useful perspectives that will benefit IT operations and those doing big thinking about the many ins and outs of cloud computing.

And, Data Center Dialog will continue to be a place to get a pulse on topics at the forefront of the way data centers – and IT in general -- are being run and managed. As customers continue their focus on cloud computing, this blog will too. Thanks for being part of the dialog.

Luckily, it's time for the next chapter in cloud computing

After a few weeks of quiet here at Data Center Dialog, it's time to rev things back up again. The timing seems right: after everything that's driven the cloud computing phenomenon to the top of the hype chart, I'm expecting (and I think we're seeing) some qualitative changes in the market. Hey, some of those changes even impacted me personally (for example, I'm sitting in front of my same old computer, but in a completely different office building with a brand-new employer).

The big build-up of cloud computing, leading to...

We've all been watching (and in some cases, participating in) the market frenzy around cloud computing. The last post I did here gave a bit of a snapshot of where we have come from in the past 6 months, recounting early discussions about public clouds, to arguments about internal clouds, to predictions about hybrid clouds -- and all the much-discussed nuances in-between.

But, if things continue as they have been going, you'd think at some point we will be awash in an undifferentiated tide of cloud computing press release boilerplate.

And that's bad.

Luckily, the market seems to have a built-in mechanism for self-correcting when it reaches truly oxygen-free heights on the buzz scale. Gartner calls the whole darn process the hype curve, and they are currently busy publishing this year's batch of them describing all manner of markets (their clients can go here to see exactly how close to the hype peak they placed cloud computing this year). This process could also be likened to a pendulum...or even just a rubber band. When things get pretty far over the top, that's when they snap back to reality.

Or at least people start remembering to ask some simple yet important questions.

And that's good.

Snapping back: the "simple questions" to ask about cloud computing

What's going on now seems to be the next chapter in the cloud computing story -- the chapter where reality starts to rear its ugly head. All of the promises that have been talked about now need to be matched with some actual delivery.

Whether you listen to Gartner or someone else, or if you're reading the industry (and business!) press coverage, you know we're about as high on the ladder of expectations as we can go. The backlash stories have begun, attempting to knock everyone down a few wrungs. Even though some of the "cloud computing will never work" stories are not always deserved, a little more rigor in the industry's conversation is always welcome. My take? As soon as the backlash starts, things get interesting. Those making claims now can't just paint a nice vision; they have to defend their turf. And their PowerPoints.

I like this part. This is where you see ideas that started as a little flash of inspiration in a customer's head, fueled by a willingness to take a risk, turned into a real, legitimate IT project that other people will want to hear about.

And it's the part of the market where reporters, analysts, VCs, and the like start asking the simple questions that they have often been neglecting to ask for some reason. Questions like, "hey, when is a customer actually going to be able to use that capability you just described?" And, "is anybody using this yet?" Or even, "why would anyone want to do that?"

The result will be a much more tempered view of cloud computing, but one that will be much more helpful for IT operations.

Just this week, in his farewell column for InfoWorld, William Hurley put it nicely: "Keep the hope; lose the hype." And, "[b]e realistic about what you're getting into." The Eucalyptus folks have a nice page of cloud computing myths they shoot down (a favorite of mine, as you know from previous posts, is the myth that virtualization *is* cloud computing). Jon Brodkin of Network World even printed a set of "half-truths" about virtualization, and he helps set the record straight about them. His list also shoots down the concept that "virtualization is the same as cloud computing."

See, it's getting better already.

Continuing the Data Center Dialog and the Cassatt perspective

Now, I may be assigning a little more of a turning point to our current moment in time because it also coincides with the transition of Cassatt (including me) to CA. At Cassatt, we certainly did our best to have practical, results-oriented conversations, but we were still quite a bit ahead of the market. I'm hoping that combining all we learned at Cassatt with some additional in-the-trenches realism from CA will be a good thing for all.

So, how should this Cassatt Data Center Dialog blog reflect these changes? As you probably noticed, we've done a little visual revamping for starters. Since Cassatt expertise, assets, and employees have been picked up by CA, that's where the vision that we built is being carried forward. I'm personally learning quite a bit about what CA already has to offer and am working with the team here on some innovative ideas going forward. It's interesting stuff, and I'm planning to have it trickle down to the blog in a couple ways:

· The name of the blog is now just Data Center Dialog. Since this really is a look across the market (and since Cassatt is now part of CA), we're removing the Cassatt name. However, we'll keep going with the concept we started with at the outset: having a dialog about what's going on in the data center, with an eye toward the fundamental changes that many of us think are possible (and, in the end, required). I'm also hoping that the simple change of templates has made the blog easier to view & read. If not, say something below.
· Expect more interviews. Some of our most popular posts over the past 6 months were interviews with people with something useful and intriguing to say about what's going on in the data center. There are plenty more where that came from.
· We will explore different viewpoints. I definitely have a point of view built from our experiences at Cassatt. That's going to be interacting with what's going on at CA. I'll definitely include CA-specific info in the blog, because that's what I'll have the most exposure, access, and personal investment in. However, expect other angles as well. The goal is to be as useful to the folks thinking about IT operations as possible, and that requires listening and considering a lot of different ideas. (By the way, that will of course continue to include posted comments from you.)

One other note: the Cassatt links in the older blog posts will likely point to CA or stop working some time relatively soon. Do not become alarmed; it's just part of the acquisition process. All of the posts from July '09 onward will certainly have updated links. I think we'll just leave the rest as a part of the historical record. Reminders of the chapter we just finished.

And now, time to turn the page. The next chapter has already begun, and it's certainly not waiting around...