the storage anarchist

4.007: vmax hits the big screen...again!

Last June we shipped 8 VMAX systems to Detroit for the filming of the movie “The Double” which stars Richard Gere, Martin Sheen and a list of other top names. Like all of the product placements we do, we simply provide the producers with the systems and they choose how to use them.

The trailer for The Double has been released and VMAX plays a very prominent role in several of the scenes, which bodes well for its role in the actual film which hits theatres on Sept. 23rd.

 

Coming soon to a theatre near you: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/thedouble/

(Interesting coincidence of a post number, don’t you think?)

 

technorati tags: EMC, Symmetrix, VMAX, The Double

3.015: mmphmy hlmmphums, emphmgmy!

First, apologies for the radio silence over the past few months.

Second, thanks to all of you who have inquired as to my situation. But no, I am not ill (crazy, maybe, but not ill), I didn't win the lottery (yet), and – apologies to my competitive adversaries – the storage anarchist is not retiring.

It isn't that I don't have anything to say – far from it, I actually have LOTS that I'd like to talk about. It is just that I have not been able to actually say much of it lately due to other demands on my time. It seems that Q4's are always busy, with closing business, budgets, and closing business, Customer Councils, and closing business, planning for kick-offs and the like. But Q4'2010 is perhaps a bit more hectic than most.

All part of growing VMAX's market share faster than the high-end market growth, I guess (according to IDC Storage Tracker data).

There have also been more than a few things consuming my personal time. My wife and I found on out All Hallow's Eve (Halloween) that we're going to be grandparents for the first time! This warranted an unplanned trip to visit our daughter for Thanksgiving to celebrate. We also just closed on a new vacation property in York Beach, ME (one that will need a LOT of sweat equity to get into shape for the grandchildren). By the way, the old one is for sale, if anyone is interested!

So, there is a lot going on – and lots that I have to tell you I won't get around to actually discussing until the New Year. Hopefully you'll all still be interested in hearing what I have to say when I return. So, until then:

Happy Holidays, Everybody!

P.S. If you look around my blog site's sidebar, you might just find links to enough timely and interesting topics to hold you over until I get back to the keyboard…enjoy!

technorati tags: EMC,VMAX,market share,grandpa,happy holidays,for sale,york beach maine

3.004: tell them why - an idea worth spreading

One of the more rewarding aspects of my job is the customer interaction it affords me to have with some of the largest IT organizations in the world. I am frequently called upon to brief customers in EMC's renowned Executive Briefing Centers, both here in Hopkinton MA as well as at our other EBCs in Santa Clara and Cork, Ireland (to name just two).

Thankfully, EMC has invested to deploy Cisco Telepresence at numerous EMC facilities, and recently we've linked our TP network with several partners (like Cisco and AT&T), affording the opportunity to speak with multiple customers around the globe on a single day, without even one second spent in an airplane.

I humbly admit that I'm pretty good at what I do, or perhaps even more humbly, allow me to politely note that customers and sales teams alike consistently rate my briefing sessions and presentations very highly in their visit and event assessments. I am often pleased to receive follow-up feedback from an account team that attributes a portion of their success to an EBC session with me, or to receive a note from a customer asking me if I could find time to share my perspectives with their management or peers.

And, as you might expect, I am often asked to explain how it is that I handle these briefings and presentations so well, and indeed that is a very difficult question to respond to. To be sure, simple experience plays a role, as does a deep understanding of the topics that I am called upon to discuss. But there are oodles of experienced subject matter experts who aren't good at this sort of thing (I'm sure we've all sat through more than one death-by-PowerPoint session, eyes glued to the clock in hopes that the session ends before the misery saps our very lifeblood away – so to speak). As a result, the true answer has eluded my conscious response for years.

Last week, while on vacation, I happened upon what I believe is the answer to the question; the answer not only to why my briefings stand out for my audiences, but perhaps indeed the secret behind all why inspirational, motivating and enjoyable presenters.

Notice, I said "Why" and not "How" my presentations are different, or "What" makes my sessions click.

The answer is in the "why…"

3.000: another year older

Another year bolder?

And so, we begin Year Four of the storage anarchist, and judging by recent events, it looks to be another very interesting year.

I've been crazy swamped as I gear up for the upcoming EMC World (and my daughter's wedding, plus a few other things), and haven't managed to get many posts out recently. Turns out this year is no different than the last several years, in fact: I'm spending a lot of time reading, writing, proofing, editing and approving miles of content that's going into this years event and it leaves me little time (or desire) to blog.

Still, the few words I've proffered in the blog and on Twitter seem not to have gone unnoticed.

We've had a few rounds of lively discussions on the meanings and customer value of the notion of Federation, leading up to Marc Farley's attempts to document definitions on behalf of the debaters. I enjoyed some lively chats with the Gestalt IT visitors about some things historical and some things-not-yet-public. And last Friday's little short story has claimed a lot of attention, with customers and competitors across our industry debating whether the vision is real, unique, or even desirable.

What fun!

2.037: #20years of the web, as seen by the storage anarchist

Since I blogged about the latest edition of EMC's On Magazine (the web at 20) earlier this week, the magazine has attracted lots of attention. Some might find it odd that it is an information storage company that tackled this story first, especially given the significance that a 20 year anniversary justifies.

As an EMC insider, it was no surprise to me at all when the preview copy arrived in my office at the beginning of January. As I pulled it out of the red interoffice envelope and read the simple Post-It note attached to the front, I instantly recognized and respected the intent and foresight of the team behind the magazine.

The note said simply:

ON will be available on www.emc.com on 1/18.
Is there a blog here for your audience?

(Happens all the time, by the way. I even get emails from competitors about impending product announcements asking if I want a preview before the announcement. Tempting though these offers may be, so far I have dutifully rejected them. But hey, it says right up front I'm an EMC employee.)

So I read the magazine, and as I said, learned a lot about how we got where we are today, and where we may be going. Blogged a post about the magazine and moved on.

Then Len Devanna tagged me to answer the questions posed in the magazine:

• How has the Web changed your life?
• How has the Web changed business and society?
• What do you think the Web will look like in twenty years?

Not being one to shirk a challenge, here's a peek at my perspectives:
 

2.034: call to action, *2

Happy New Year!

Just a quick post with 2 simple asks for my readers:

1. If you are a storage professional and/or storage manager, we'd love to get your input for EMC's 4th annual Information Storage & Management Challenges survey. This survey is open to everyone except EMC employees, and we'd especially love to get participation from those who use arrays from vendors other than EMC.
   
   Instructions for participating in this survey are here on the EMC Community Network, and you don't have to register to participate (although you may – consider this a shameless plug for joining EMC's Customer and Partner community). The first 500 participants are being offered a 2010 inspirational wall calendar. The results of last year's survey are also available on the above link.
2. Another shameless plug for another survey: the Storage Monkeys are running their Top Vendor Blog Poll again, and once again I am a nominee. This year they are trying to avoid the shenanigans by restricting votes to registered Storage Monkey members. You don't have to manage storage to participate in this poll, and you can even be an EMC employee!
   
   So go ahead, sign up and vote here.

Thanks!

 

technorati tags: storage management,EMC,storage blogs,storage bloggers

2.013: a dr. who blast from the past

For those of you who remember Prime Computer, I'm proud to acknowledge that cut my teeth on high tech pre-sales support, performance engineering, and product marketing there in the late 70's and early 80's.

Back in those days the "Route 128 High-Tech Beltway" was the east-coast precursor of Silly-Con Valley, where the long-haired preppies hippies cut their hair, donned suits and ties, and collectively laid the foundation for the technology transition from the monolithic mainframe to the departmental computer and eventually to the desktop PC.

Back then I had as customers likes of Polaroid Corporation who used the Prime 300 RTOS to monitor the self-contained instant film packaging machines (Polaroid was the largest manufacturer of batteries at the time – go figure!). I also supported Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston of Software Arts, inventors of VisiCalc – inarguably the "tipping point" application to bring desktop computing out of the denizens of home hobbyists and word processors and onto the desktop of knowledge workers worldwide (few know that Dan and Bob used a Prime system to develop and maintain VisiCalc – Bob also introduced me to the first port of Emacs to the Prime platform).

I also helped bring to market the Prime 50 Series, complete with the first-in-the-industry green LED "power on" lamp. All the LEDs on most every minicomputer were red prior to that (mostly because red was the cheapest – or only – color). At my suggestion (which was based on my experience as a computer operator in Prime's IT department) beginning with the 50 Series, green LEDs came to mean "all good," red meant "serious problem" and yellow indicated "caution" (as in, remote access enabled). From then on operators could tell at a glance the state of their systems.

Those were the days, my friend.

This past week we have witnessed the passing of three great icons of the 80's: Michael, Farah and Ed McMahon, and these events caused me pause to reminisce about my life back then. Coincidentally, a fellow co-worker from Prime sent me this link to a series of Dr. Who television ads that Prime had developed for the Australian market, and this post was borne of that inspiration.

They just don't make 'em like that anymore.

If you're not a Dr. Who fan, getting Tom Baker to do adverts for your product back then was huge, as the show was insanely popular in the UK and Australia. Cult-like popular, even – the longest running science fiction television show in the world, according to Guinness World Records.

Thanks for the memories...

P.S.: I'm still looking for the videos of the Prime Australia "Keep Computers Confusing" campaign which featured a "robot" named Dr. Primestein. Leave a comment if you have a link.

 

technorati tags: Prime Computer,Dr. Who,1980's,Dan Bricklin,Bob Frankston,VisiCal,Software Arts

2.005: emc – 30 years young

In celebration of EMC's 30th anniversary this year, EMC's "house band" RunEMC created this little fun little video. No competitor-bashing, just a happy tune to celebrate the accomplishment.

Enjoy!

 

This post is from the storage anarchist.

 

technorati tags: EMC,30th Anniversary,RunEMC

2.000: storage anarchy two-dot-oh

Wow – has another year gone by already?

Time sure flies when you're having fun.

I've been all kinds of busy lately, what with all the global customer interest in Symmetrix V-Max and FAST. It is truly refreshing to take a step back from the blog wars and share perspectives and insights with customers and prospects. And because the V-Max addresses so many of the efficiency, cost and ease-of-use concerns facing IT today, while setting a unique and differentiated path for the future, I'll tell you that the conversations are truly exciting.

I won't do a retrospective of the past year, but if you want to take a walk down memory lane, start here with my one-dot-oh post. Looking back, a lot of the things I discussed a year ago are still true today, which should be sorta obvious, since V-Max is the most significant new technology in the storage industry since EMC introduced Flash Drives at the beginning of 2008.

Not much else has changed (insert token competitor-backhand slap here :-).

But anyway, here's to another year in the world of the storage blog-o-sphere, and to the growing social network of customers and competitors that will undoubtedly continue to underscore the conversations of our industry. With all the new Twitter, FaceBook, FriendFeed, BackType and LinkedIn stuff intermingled, we've created a pretty broad spectrum of interconnected people. And it's kinda fun hearing from my non-techie friends that they find my blog entertaining, even though they have nothing to do with the storage industry.

So to all my readers: thanks for your continued support-slash-debate (as the case may be).

TTFN!

 

technorati tags: the storage anarchist,EMC,Symmetrix V-Max

1.046: administrivia - more feeds

In addition to the Comments Feed for all comments posted here on my blog site, there are a few other RSS feeds my readers might also be interested in.

• tsa's shared items feed – a feed of the posts and articles that I share using Google Reader, updated whenever I find items that I think my readers might be interested in. The titles and links to these also appear in the sidebar (under Recommended Reads); this feed gives you the complete posts. There is also an HTML page for my shared items.
• tsa's global comments feed – a feed of (almost) all the comments I leave around the blog-o-sphere, as captured by BackType. If you want to see what I think about other blogger's perspectives, this might be of interest to you (sadly, does not include IBM's blogs, apparently their blog site can't be parsed by BackType). And if you prefer the HTML web page instead of the feed, visit http://www.backtype.com/thestorageanarchist.
• enterprise storage friendfeed – not specific to just my content, but this friendfeed room encapsulates the posts of most every storage-related blogger around. (I'm not bothering with my own friendfeed, since this "room" pretty much encapsulates everyone I'd gather).
• The Who's Who of Storage Blogosphere – yesterday's post by David Panchigar in his StorageNerve blog captures most all of the storage-related bloggers in one place (send David a Tweet if you're not included). And if you like getting connected via LinkedIn, David's latest post lists a plethora of Storage/ VMware/ Cloud Computing groups over on LinkedIn. Thanks for both of these, David!

Enjoy, and Keep on storin'!

1.045: administrivia - comments feed and new tsa domains

For those of you who have been trying to follow the integrated site comments on my blog via the Comments Feed link in the sidebar, I have (finally) found and fixed the problem that had it showing only the first 50 comments from my first posts. It now properly distributes the most recent 100 (or so) comments.

I’ve also registered a few alternative domain redirectors for my blog (just for the heck of it). You can now use any of the following to reach this blog:

• thestorageanarchist.typepad.com
• thestorageanarchist.com
• tsa.blogdns.com
• tsa.blogdns.net
• tsa.blogdns.org
• tsa.blogsite.org
• tsa.is-a-anarchist.com (not really, but it was available)
• tsa.readmyblog.org

Enjoy!

1.017: vp cred

It appears that Chuck Hollis and I have earned a little credibility with Margaret Rouse over at TechTarget nee SearchStorage.com. Or at least, our blog discussions of Virtual Provisioning (yes, that "VP," not the Dick Chaney kind) have caught her attention over the weekend (might have been the heat and humidity - I don't know).

Anyway, we both were recognized back-to-back on Margaret's Overheard in the Blogosphere (RSS feed) - me first with Virtual provisioning is a Catch-22, followed closely by Chuck's Feature lust can be a bad thing.

Toot-toot!

Margaret also asked for (and received) permission to use my definition of virtual provisioning in SearchStorage's ever-expanding IT encyclopedia and learning center. She even made it the Word of the Day (RSS feed) on the Whatis.com portal for Monday, July 21, 2008!

Thanks for the shout-out Margaret, and keep it up - I think both the Overheard... and the encyclopedia are great additions to the blogosphere!

And welcome to first-time visitors to my blog. If you're interested in learning more about my perspectives and observations on virtual provisioning (or any topic) you can find all of my posts by scrolling down to the categories section of the sidebar and clicking the appropriate link(s).

Or simply click here for my thin provisioning category.

 

technorati tags: virtual provisioning,thin provisioning,EMC,Symmetrix,dynamic provisioning,space efficient volumes,SEV

1.011: administrivia

Sorry for the delay in posting - it has been a bit busier than normal for the past several weeks. But I'll be back soon, with thoughts on such subjects as the "Laurel and Hardy" battle that's brewing (starring Sir BarryW as Laurel and HHSNBN as Hardy), the realities of net usable storage for various platforms, and a few other choice topics that I won't reveal just yet.

Meanwhile, I'd like to call your attention to several new things around my blog site itself.

First, some of you have noticed the sidebar widget I added recently that displays "the anarchists interests" - a list of blog posts and news articles I've read that I thought might also be of interest to my readers. I try to update this frequently, even when I'm not able to post myself on the topic. Give it a glance once in a while - you might be surprised!

By the way, this ability to share interesting posts is a neat side-feature of using Google Reader as my feed reader. And Google Reader also available for the iPhone and iPod touch, which means I can actually follow my feeds from just about anywhere without having to wade through articles I've already read. Pretty cool!

Second, there's a bunch of new EMC employees who have ventured out into the world of public blogging recently (and a few more to come very soon). Several of these employees have agreed to be linked on the Community / Blogs page over on EMC.com, even though most of them are in fact personal blogs that are not hosted, funded or edited by EMC. I've also added many of these to the Google Custom Search widget "search blogs of many emc employees" available on the sidebar. If you're looking for the opinions or assertions of EMC employees, this is a great place to start. For you newcomers, the list of bloggers currently included in this custom search is maintained in post 0.028.

Other recent additions to my blog site include the recent visitors widget, and the visitors also liked widget, both from Feedjit. The former displays the physical location of the last 100 or so visitors to my blog superimposed on a dynamic map (click on the widget to see a detailed map), while the latter lists other posts that visitors to a particular page also viewed. Useless trivia, or interesting perspective? You be the judge!

Finally, and if you're ever looking for old posts from my blog, you might want to visit the archives and categories page. I've shortened the timeout on the archives list in my sidebar, but the complete list is always available on that page.

Enjoy, and I'll be back to my regular programming soon, I promise.

1.000: happy anniversary, baby!

Today marks the 1-year anniversary of this blog.

My my, where did the time go?

I guess I was a bit optimistic with my chosen numbering scheme, as I allotted 3 digits for the post number, but I managed to craft only 78 posts. Not sure if that's good or bad - surely there are several readers who would have preferred that I'd done a few less posts (or a few less posts about their products, perhaps ).

All in all, I think not a bad start.

Oh sure, I've left a few loose ends, and I've opened the door on a few topics that I never quite got into. Hopefully it has still been been interesting to you, and maybe you even had a good chuckle every once in a while. To be sure, your comments, criticisms and feedback has been much appreciated, and I hope that I can expand the conversations in the coming year.

In fact, I'd really like to hear from you about what topics you'd like me to explore. And I mean that, whether you are a customer, prospect, competitor, work colleague, industry analyst, peer, friend, journalist, or someone who just happens to find my blog interesting - I wanna know what you wanna know...

So please, write a comment to this post with your questions and/or topic proposals, and I'll see about working them into my agenda, and maybe I'll hit more than 100 posts in my second year.

Many thanks to all of you! You've made the first year of storage anarchy better than I could have imagined!

ttfn!

0.077: ...priceless!

It's Friday, I'm back from a three-day trip out to EMC's Santa Clara Executive Briefing Center, the New England weather is the best its been all year, and somehow I just don't feel about blogging enterprise storage technology today.

So I won't.

I have taken a fair bit of ribbing this week about my apparent taste in music (many of you missed the fine print at the bottom of my last post). Sadly, the experiment failed - I have roughly the same number of subscribers this week as I had before enlisting the Britney factor. This week's musical reference will probably just dig me in deeper, but I'm wondering if maybe I picked an artist on the wrong side of their career slopes.

But you have to admit, when a major pop star names her "emancipation" album after your company, that's pretty special. Add in her TV & radio promo tour and the inevitable concert series, and that adds up to a boatload of global goodwill and brand awareness.

And while I most definitely am not a fan-o-Britney, I will admit to appreciating (and enjoying) most of Mariah's music.

The E=MC² album is perhaps a bit more "produced" than I prefer, but undoubtedly it will give her at least a couple more #1 singles - enough probably to put her atop the Billboard charts for all time total chart-topping hits. In fact, "Touch My Body" has already topped Billboard, pushing her past Elvis (who had 17 BB #1 hits). Two more and she'll tie The Beatles with 20.

If only she'd released the album a couple of weeks earlier - I could have had some REAL fun with it on Lirpa Sloof Day!

 

0.072: wanna get away?

For those that haven't seen it, Southwest Airlines has been running an ad campaign called "wanna get away?" for the last year or so, depicting many of life's embarrassing moments when you just wish you could disappear. They even ran a "wanna get away?" contest for the best user-submitted  video over the past several months.

Unfortunately, Joe Tucci's entry missed the cut-off date:

 

This is in fact the actual video of the auspicious event chronicled by Dan Shaughnessy in yesterday's Boston Globe. You can see the rest of the videos from the EMC/Red Sox visit to Japan here.

UPDATE 03/31/2008: Joe "Fastball" Tucci was back in the office today, and one employee stopped to rib him in the cafeteria about his wild pitch. In true form for an ex-catcher, Joe grinned and replied "Yeah, but he should have caught it!".

Oh well, it probably would have been disqualified for being too similar to the original:

For those of us of in New England who have been living through the incessant repetition of Southwest's ad campaign throughout the entire Red Sox and Celtics seasons (in HD with Surround Sound, no less), the word that the contest is over is hopeful news that we'll soon see something different for the coming baseball season. 

Unfortunately, this year's Mohegan Sun commercial will probably have a rather detrimental effect on NESN's Red Sox viewership - especially since they tend to run the same commercial dozens of times each game.

Now THAT'S gonna make me wanna get away, for sure!

 

technorati tags: Joe Tucci,Joe & Oki,Joe Tucci Video,Wanna Get Away?,Joe's baseball gaff,Red Sox Japan,EMC,EMC Japan,Southwest

0.071: changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes

I took off for a week-long sojourn to the Conch Republic [history] last week, where I celebrated the half-century mark of my life with friends and family on St. Patrick's Day .

It couldn't have been better - from the boat drinks by the pool and the strolls down Duval St. in the unseasonably warm (and humid) weather, to an afternoon listening to Michael McCloud and sucking down Land Shark lager at Schooner Wharf, to the tours of the homes of Hemingway, Truman, Audubon and more butterflies than you can possibly imagine, to watching some of the most picturesque sunsets I've ever seen from Mallory Square and Fort Taylor State Park. And then there were the dinners at Louie's Backyard, Blue Heaven (in the company of chickens), Salute' and El Siboney (twice!). Not to mention the night life! [link intentionally omitted ]

Yes, Key West is a great place to turn 50, even if you're NOT a pirate (did I mention that it was Spring Break?)

Amazingly, and even though I did bring my laptop, I was able to resist the temptation to respond to the storage news of the week. With all the R&R I was enjoying in Margaritaville, it was a struggle to keep my fingers off the keyboard (NOT!).

Something about the weather just made it all seem so...unimportant!

But trust me, the week's events didn't go by without notice...
 

0.054: viral video marketing

If you also follow Chuck Hollis' blog, you've already seen this.

But for the rest of you, the wacky bunch over at wallstrip.com have created a vidblog about EMC and its recent stock surge (here on YouTube or here on wallstrip.com). Wallstrip.com also covered the VMware IPO earlier in the year, if you're interested in a little flashback here at years-end.

Now, I don't think either of these videos are going to meet David Vellante's standing $1,000 challenge for anyone to create a viral storage video that gets more than 225,000 YouTube views within 12 months. But they are politely fun and surprisingly accurate (and no, they weren't sponsored by EMC).

EMC did sponsor a contest this year for home-made viral videos - you can see the entrants and winners here.

I don't know if they're planning to repeat the contest in 2008, but if you have the Viral Video itch, you could always just save a screen dump of David's challenge (in the comments to my hitachi rifs mr. t post) and post your entry on YouTube. Drop me a pointer, and I'll handle the advertising for you (and I won't even ask for a cut!).

 Happy Holidays!

0.052: ahhll-be-bahhk!

Wow, where did the time go?

Seems like only yesterday, I was doing back-to-back blogs on Thin Provisioning with the Boys of Wikibon. But all of a sudden, here it is 32 days since my last blog post.

No, I didn't fall into a crevasse. And I wasn't censored by my management. And I didn't just give up - no such luck (sorry, HHSNBN).

Like my blogging cohorts Storagezilla and Len, I just got overloaded with other things, and blogging didn't make it onto my todo list for the past month or so. (Unlike Chuck, our job descriptions don't include "blog at least twice a day!").

So, I apologize for my absence. The time was well spent, including face-to-face meetings with key customers, prospects, industry analysts and yes, even my family  over the Thanksgiving holidays. Got a complete physical and my first over-50 plumbing checkup(doc says I'll probably live, at least  long enough to pay his bill). Even snuck in a vacation week in Olde Victorian Cape May, all dressed up for the holidays, where I took more than a few photos that I'm rather proud of.

Most importantly, I had the honor to participate in three separate customer advisory events, one of EMC's "secret weapons" for making sure our roadmaps and plans are aligned with our customers requirements and expectations. Hopefully I'll be able to share a little of our learning from those with you in the coming months (and if you're one of the customers who participated in those events, thanks again for investing your valuable time to provide us with your insights and feedback).

And of course, it's the end of the fiscal year, the end of the biggest quarter of the year, the time for getting budgets and headcounts aligned for the coming year, and the time we prepare materials, collateral and positioning for our Q1 sales kickoffs and announcements. Oh, and it's the holiday season to boot (thank goodness for Amazon.com this year!).

Lots going on.Thankfully, in my absence, my blogging peers have kept the misleading blogketing, chicken littles, and market share fiction writers in check (thanks, guys - I owe you a couple 's, to be sure ).

So, in the inimitable words of the Governator, I promise, I'll be back, and soon!

0.037: storage anarchism recategorized

At the request and suggestion of several readers, I have re-categorized this blog, classifying my posts along specific storage themes, topics and technologies. Hopefully, this will make it easier for new readers to find topics of interest and follow along. I've also simplified my sidebar a bit to make it easier to find things. Thanks for the suggestions.

And while I'm here, thanks also to Margaret Rouse for making my "Hitachi math" infamous as the September 27, 2007 entry on her Overheard in the Blogosphere blog. The anarchist is honored to share space alongside the likes of Larry Ellison and Bill Gates...and Margaret's blog has claimed the pole position in my own blog reader.

0.034: a baker's dozen

Another week, and another couple of EMC employees have started their own blogs. It's starting to get crowded around here!

First, I'm proud to introduce my friend and colleague Dick Sullivan and his Energy Matters blog, focused (obviously) on matters related to energy-efficient data centers and Green IT. A fellow member of EMC's internal Green Team, Dick is a key interface between the Storage Product Operations development organizations and EMC's customers on matters green. I expect his insights on how to reduce your energy footprint through more efficient use of currently available products and technologies will be of interest to practically everyone.

Second, a "nod" of welcome to Andrew Chapman and his insightful Compliance - Never Talk When You Can Nod blog. 'Nuff said

Significantly, each of the 13 "bloggers who work at EMC" now included in my EMC Blogger Search have distinctly unique areas of focus, offering a broad spectrum of insights into the people who work at this place Where Information Lives(tm). And I know of at least a couple more who'll be joining, just as soon as they conquer their stage fright (come on in, the waters' fine!)

Finally, on a personal note, I have to apologize for the delay in getting part 3 of my tiered storage series out. Some family matters have taken me away from the keyboard for the past couple of weeks. Thanks to those of you who've emailed to ask if all it OK - it is now, and I should be back on my stride next week.

0.032: seek and ye shall find: another emcer is blogging

Len Devanna simply can't resist a stage. Didn't make it in broadcasting, washed out as a JavaScript Jockey, and now finds himself saddled with the onerous chore of corralling the blind genius of 35,000+ EMC Web 2.naughts into a cohesive (if not yet fully coordinated) eBusiness presence.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

The self-proclaimed eBiz Junkie has started his own blog, and his inaugural topic is quite fitting: Web 3.0 and the emerging importance of community-driven search. Sort of a human twist on grid computing, where lots of people spend a little bit of time each to build a contextual and referential search utility. Clearly a topic worthy of more than a casual fly-by, and it clearly has Len's attention. I hope he explores more topics like this.

In fact, I'd like to think I was one of the first bloggers that Len alerted to his presence precisely because my new Google Custom Search Engine is sort of an infantile pre-cursor of the whole trusted advisors-driven search engine. Lots of people are already using it, and he wanted in. So Len's the latest addition to the EMC CSE (available at the top of my blog's sidebar).

Let's all give a Big Hand for Mister Len Devanna!

0.030: new site tool - snap shots from snap.com

I just installed another handy little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts (like for EMC and VMware) and more.

Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.

Oh - and like my embedded Google CSE, it is very likely that these snap shots don't work if you're viewing this post in an RSS reader. Sorry - you'll just have to drop by my actual blog to utilize these new tools - the storage anarchist.

0.028: new site tool - search the blogs of emc employees

I've been experimenting with the Google Custom Search Engine, and I've come up with a CSE that searches across the corporate and personal blogs of several EMC employees. I've integrated it directly into my blog site (in the sidebar), or you can test-drive the non-integrated version here:

If you use Google Home Page, you can integrate this search using this button:

Currently, the search domain for this CSE includes posts and pages (but no links) from the following blogs:

Oracle Storage Guy (Jeff Browning)
the storage anarchist (Barry Burke)
Never Talk When You Can Nod (Andrew Chapman)
Andrew's Blog (Andrew Cohen)
Cornelia Davis' Weblog
Len's Blog (Len Devanna)
Info Muse (Brian Fitzgerald)
Dave Graham's Weblog
Chuck's Blog (Chuck Hollis)
A Journey in Social Media (Chuck Hollis)
dotConnector's Blog (Dr. Subramanian Kartik)
Mark's Blog (Mark Lewis)
Adventures in Corporate Education (Gina Minks)
No there there (Peter Quirk)
Polly Pearson's Blog
Craig's Musings (Craig Randall)
Dave Talks Shop (David Spencer)
Energy Matters (Dick Sullivan)
Information Playground (Steve Todd)
Storagezilla (Mark Twomey)
The Backup Blog (Scott Waterhouse) 
Virtual Geek (Chad Sakac)
 

Note that this search does NOT currently include the blogs of the following EMC subsidiaries and acquisitions. They each have their own well-established and topical social networking infrastructure. If you have interests in their products and markets, I encourage you to visit them directly.

Geniant
RSA: Speaking of Security
Planet VMware

If you are an EMC employee (or subsidiary) with your own blog and you'd like to be included (or removed), please drop me an email using the "email the anarchist" link in the sidebar. I'll update this page whenever I add or remove blogs to the search engine.

And I apologize in advance for the blogvertising - it's the price Google extracts for this custom search engine. Any revenues that I may collect from these adverts will be applied to the cost of running this blog site; excess will be donated to charity.

June'08 Update: EMC now list many employee blogs on the Community pages of EMC.com.

technorati tags: EMC blogs,EMC bloggers,EMC weblogs,EMC,EMC blog,EMC social media

________________________________________________________________________________

change log

2007-08-17: First post
2007-08-20: Added references to Geniant, RSA, and VMware social networking portals
2007-08-27: Added "Confessions of an eBiz Junkie (Len Devanna)"
2007-08-28: Len changed the name of his blog. One more, and then you're out, bud!
2007-09-05: Added "Compliance - Never Talk When You Can Nod (Andrew Chapman)"
2007-09-07: Added "Energy Matters (Dick Sullivan)"
2007-10-29: Added "dotConnector's Blog (Dr. Subramanian Kartik)"
2008-01-18: Removed Josh Maher's blog
2008-02-06: Added "Information Playground" (Steve Todd)
2008-03-11: Added "The Backup Blog" (Scott Waterhouse)
2008-03-26: Added "Info Muse" (Brian Fitzgerald)
2008-04-05: Added "Polly Pearson's Blog"
2008-04-05: Added "A Journey in Social Media (Chuck Hollis)"
2008-06-19: Added "Dave Talks Shop (David Spencer)"
2008-06-19: Added "Virtual Geek (Chad Sakac)"
2008-06-19: Added "No there there (Peter Quirk)"
2008-06-21 Added "Adventures in Corporate Education (Gina Minks)"

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

0.023: kirby's next vacation?

Ok, normally I wouldn't do this. But I was among the first to welcome Kirby Wadsworth to the blogosphere (just like I scooped everyone this weekend on the entrance of Barry Whyte). So I think I've got dibs on this one.

Will Kirby get to finish his Revivio story, now that F5 is purchasing Acopia? His first installment was a definite cliff-hanger - I'm sure I'm not the only one who'll be if the story remains unfinished.

In any event, here's hoping that the acquisition doesn't stop Kirby from blogging - I mean, seriously, what would we do without the Sanity of the OSG around here (restrain yourself, 'Zilla-man).

0.022: be careful what you ask for

A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of what I'd like to believe was a very insightful debate on the merits of the SPC benchmarks, Barry Whyte of SVC-fame and I exchanged a couple of comments on Tony Pearson's blog. Silly me - in the heat of that debate, I suggested that Barry should have his own blog, since he is clearly up-close-and-personal with the SVC. Not to mention that I think he has a great first name.

So Barry has indeed started his own blog this weekend, entitled An exchange and discussion of Storage Virtualization. I'm proud to be one of the first to shine the spotlight on his efforts. I know I'm probably going to regret having made this suggestion in the first place, so I figured I might as well put as much pressure on him as possible right from the outset.

I sincerely look forward to Barry's engineering and technical perspectives on Storage Virtualization, and I'm not surprised in the least that he has avowed to stay away from the misrepresentations common on the blog of He Hu Shall Not Be Named. I am sure that the two Barrys will get the chance to knock heads every once in a while, and I sincerely hope that we both add value to the discussions.

So, BarryW, here's a hearty welcome to the blogosphere from BarryB (and perhaps your first Technorati Authority points from a non-IBM blogger)!

Welcome!

0.001: kirby's blogging too

The world is odd sometimes.

The very same weekend I've jumped off the blogging ledge, my pal Kirby Wadsworth (from way back at Pr1me Computer) starts his blog too. Except he seems to have actually done it...I've only just gotten my toes wet so far.

Oh, I have 5 or 6 posts in Draft form that I'm working on, but Kirby just dove right in.

Congrats, dude - way to go!

Only slightly odder than starting to blog on the same weekend is that the focus of his first topic is also in my queue. Although I didn't (don't) plan on hoisting Hu Yoshida up on a pillar just yet.

0.000: introducing the storage anarchist

Well, I have finally been convinced to jump into the world of blogging. Oh, I've been thinking about it for months, but somehow I never found the time. Or the motivation. Or my muse.

Whatever - I can't resist any longer. I've gotten a lot of requests to do this from my peers and mentors. And a lot of this has to do with a growing realization that I need a forum to share my insights with a broader audience. I simply can't reach enough people through the usual 1-on-1 briefings and training presentations that I do on the job. I don’t have the time or energy to personally share my insights and perspectives with all of the interested audiences. Nor can I say everything I think needs saying while in the work environment.

But frankly, most of my motivation to start this blog has come from the world of storage blogging itself, along with the more formal industry press, albeit indirectly (and probably unintentionally). See, I just can't sit on the sidelines any longer while meaningless FUD passes for fact. I can no longer watch myopic conventional wisdom go unchallenged. And I feel an obligation to share a perspective that seems absent from the traditional storage & IT discussions - the point of view I have found in the rarified air of some of the world's largest mission-critical enterprise IT organizations.

Please, allow me to introduce myself...