If there was still any doubt about the real world use cases for cloud computing, the US Federal Government last week published a 38-page report entitled “State of Public Sector Cloud Computing†(link to PDF at CIO.gov). Attributed to the…
Author: Andi
Andi Mann is an accomplished digital business executive with extensive global expertise as a strategist, technologist, innovator, marketer, communicator, and thought leader. For over 25 years and across five continents, Andi has built success with Fortune 500 corporations, technology vendors, governments, and as a leading research analyst and business consultant. Andi is a sought-after commentator on business technology - published in USA Today, New York Times, Forbes, CIO, and Wall Street Journal; presented at Gartner ITxpo, VMworld, CA World, Interop, Cloud Expo, SAPPHIRE, and Citrix Synergy; participated and hosted interviews for radio, television, webcasts, podcasts, and live events; and more. Andi has been named to Business Insider's Top Thought-Provoking Enterprise Tech Execs, Huffington Post's Top 100 Cloud Computing Experts, Gathering Clouds Top 5 Cloud Experts - Who’s Who in Cloud, SAP's Top 50 Cloud Computing Influencers, and in research firm ITSMA's Best Practices in B2B Thought Leadership. Andi is co-author of the popular handbook, 'Visible Ops – Private Cloud'; and most recently, 'The Innovative CIO'. He blogs at 'Andi Mann – Übergeek' (http://pleasediscuss.com/andimann), and tweets as @AndiMann. Outside work Andi is an avid sports fan who loves cycling, skiing, basketball, and rugby; he also enjoys cooking, eating, travelling, art, photography, and gaming.
Is ‘VM Stall’ the Next Big Virtualization Challenge?
There appears to be a challenger to ‘VM sprawl’ as the scourge of virtualization success – a problem I call ‘VM stall’.
We know about ‘VM sprawl’ – because new virtual machines are so easy to deploy, organizations can end up with more VMs that they can handle, or even use. This has the potential to cause severe problems to availability, performance, compliance, costs, security, and more.
However, I am seeing more and more evidence of this new phenomenon I think of as ‘VM stall’ – the tendency for virtualization deployments to stall once the ‘low-hanging fruit’ has been converted (typically around 20-30% of servers).
I think it happens more or less like this…
Does Virtualization Security Really Matter?
Whatever happened to virtualization security? Back in the day, everyone was talking about blue pills and red pills, about sideways attacks and DOM-0 threats, about security profiles and isolation policies, about perimeter defense and security embedded in the hypervisor. Then,…
Myopic View of DevOps Misses the Mark
I am hearing a lot about the rise of a concept called “devops” – a mashup of “development” and “operations”. I am not at all an expert in this area, but from what I can tell, devops is aimed at…
In Cloud, ITIL, and SOE – Heterogeneity is the New Standard
I read recently a good blog post from Thomas Bittman (@tombitt) of Gartner Group, about how sometimes close enough is good enough. Talking specifically about private cloud, he talked about how an ‘imperfect’ cloud deployment – one that does not…
Your Favourite Technology Will Not Kill Anything
I have a request. I hope it is not too onerous, because something is really starting to grind my gears. Can we in IT please all stop claiming that any technology is going to kill another? The latest I am…
On My Leaving EMA to Join CA
For those who have asked, and others who may care to know – the rumours are indeed true. After many happy years leading the fantastic systems and storage management team at one of the very best IT industry analyst and…
Is BYOPC Really Key to Attracting Millennials?
There is a growing chatter about the idea that businesses should provide staff with a free choice of PC technology (including Windows, Mac, Linux, or other devices), and indeed that staff should be given a cash allowance (at Citrix, for…
In Cloud Computing, Downtime is Endemic – But Does it Matter?
There is a perennial debate in cloud computing about whether a failure of one cloud service provider can be more generalized to a “failure of cloud computing”. It is an important question because availability is a key decision factor in…
Is KVM a credible choice for x86 server virtualization?
The other day I saw someone post a poll question, “Is KVM a credible choice for x86 virtualization?†My immediate response was – “Is that even a credible question?†If you read my many contributions to TechTarget, you will know…
Microsoft Acquires Opalis
Today Microsoft Corporation (NASD:MSFT) announced a definitive agreement to acquire Opalis Inc., the leading independent vendor of IT Process Automation (ITPA) software. IT Process Automation (ITPA) is a Data Center Automation (DCA) discipline that EMA defines as “the ability to…