Hopefully this blog post finds you well!   Here I am… 37,000 feet (Okay, I have no idea how high I’m up, I’ve had my headphones on the entire time :))

Several curious questions often come up among the community, friends, peers and associates.

• WHERE ARE YOU GOING ALL THE TIME?
• Why haven’t you been writing about the things you’ve been working on!!!
• When are you going to come to MY city?! I am a (Customer, Partner, Community Member, Friend, Ninja)
• What do you listen to while in the air?!
• Why don’t you stay at Hilton, I LOVE it there (Okay, no one actually says they LOVE it ;))

So in an effort to honor all of your questions and beyond, here goes! :)

WHERE ARE YOU GOING ALL THE TIME?!

That’s an EXCELLENT Question!   I’ll work my way backwards for your benefit, starting with where I am right now.   At the moment I’m on a flight from Chicago to Vancouver for a 2 day workshop with a customer.  Exciting stuff, right?   Yea, it is exciting! This is actually a project I got involved with my FIRST week on the job, and it’s finally coming to Fruition! [And you know how us vegans like Fruit! :)] I won’t go into details of exactly what we’re doing, but it’s all about Architectural and Business Transformation which will have impacts far reaching above and beyond the data center. So pretty exciting, right?!

Just a few weeks ago I was involved in a pretty transformational Vblock related discussion while in LA which will involve a combination of tools you’ve heard Chad and others (including me) discuss in the past, so I won’t digress too much, but it’s going to be pretty damn exciting!

Jump to the week before and a rockstars dream of an EBC, which kicked off with Go-Kart racing [Resulting in me winning… Oops! Picture is on Facebook ;)] and then a full day of IT Transformation discussions; I don’t even have to tell you just how exciting those kinds of conversations tend to get.   Fortunately while out in Hopkinton I got to spend a little time with Chuck Hollis where we discussed our pasts, futures and something which will be the fodder for not only an OMFG YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME blog post, but also a book which I know ALL of you are asking for; Publishers get at me and you can get first right of refusal ;)     That very same week I headed off to NYC (Hey, I was like, 5 minutes away!) for some internal meetings followed by what were GOING to be customer meetings.   Unfortunately the unnamed customer I was going to meet at… was severely impacted by the Occupy Wall street Movement making it effectively impossible to have that meeting happen.  I guess you can call that #OWSFail ;)

I didn’t travel during the week of Halloween, because I’m not CRAZY. Who does that to themselves?!   However, that is also because I was just returning home after some insane amount of time on the road between the Alpha class of the new ITaaS Offering, the trip to India [blog post coming;)] and Singapore.    So, I was a little tired and justifiably so! [Honestly, months later STILL working on getting over my Jet Lag which has been keeping me up til 6am every day!]

And then heading all the way back to September, on the heels of VMworld in Vegas, I spent a lot of time in Memphis, and a little time in Detroit and LA for Customer meetings.   In all though, it was quite the way to kick off the new role if you ask me!

So in summation; for those wondering, where am I going?  Almost exclusively, to meet with Customers (Like you)    I am Geo-Preferred so I do like to visit as many customers at a time in the same proximity if I can accomplish it!   If that’s you, let me know… Let’s transform your sHtuff ;)

Why haven’t you been writing about these things?!?!

Well, if there’s one thing you should know about me is certain activities wax and wane.   But the real truth of the matter is; I’m still collecting it all to come to some ultimate OMG moment to share with you.   You can read the tweets if you want to know what is going on Interactively.  But when it comes to something you’ll derive some awesome value from; yea, that is where the blog posts will ROCK it out! :)

Also, another reason I haven’t been writing the blog posts is because I’ve been busy playing Starcraft… err, I mean I was finishing writing my first book on Virtualization – VMware vSphere 5 Administration Instant Reference, with Co-authors Van V. Van Noy, and Andy Daniel.    Now that it is done, I’m not saying I have “more” writing time, because I’m also currently working on VMware vSphere 5 Performance: Solving CPU, Memory, Storage and Networking Issues, so … a cats work is never done! ;)   Oh, and did I mention I’ve been traveling a bit?!?! :)   You’ll get a massive dump of material so much you’ll be wishing I went dark for longer ;)

One additional thing is, I also spend the time between the time working on my plans for 2012, and the constant moving target it may become, so bear with me, it is all for the good, and even more for the best! :)

When are you coming to MY City?

I don’t know.  When am I?    Honestly, you can always reach out to your Account Team, CSD, VMUG Leader, vSpecialists, My boss @vCTO, Me (cc’ing many of those mentioned ;)) etc!   Seriously, I am all in favor to work with you on your next transformational journey taking the advantages and discussions I’ve been having with organizations I’m directly changing and beyond and making that level of impact.   I wonder if I can squeeze in a book tour somewhere in there *giggle :)*   But really the keys are in your hands, just ask for it!    You’ll be seeing some major epic things which I’ve been working on with Chuck, the organization and the community which is going to leave you breathless.    So let’s start planning for 2012, shall we? :)

What do you listen to while in the air?

I know you Audiophiles out there are interested in this, oh and the other ones of you who want to stand in judgment of me, no, of me.    To be honest at the moment I’m listening to Avril’s latest album Goodbye Lullaby; Ironic as I travel up to Canada right? I mean it was potentially going to be Bare Naked Ladies ;)

Though in no particular order, what I will listen to *a lot* and pretty much on every single flight, and often in the hotel is

• Taylor Swift’s Speak Now Album
• Various tracks or entire albums of Taylor Swifts
• Pink Floyd
• Molly Marlette
• Katy Perry
• Erasure (I have the entire discography so it’s random)
• Bare Naked Ladies
• The Smiths and some Morrissey on occasion

My playlist isn’t too comprehensive as far as what it sync’d to my iPhone/iPad, the rest of the musics I enjoy while on the ground via Pandora with such classic stations as

• Matchbox 20 Station (Which plays a lot of good parallel stuff… you should definitely check it out!)
• What the Hell radio (Many influences of Avril, Demi Lovato [Who I gained greater appreciation and respect after she came out of Rehab!]
• Kelly Clarkson Radio
• Weird Al Radio
• 80’s Dance Music
• Lady Gaga (For some Gaga and Britney!)

And ofcourse I’ll watch all of my various TV shows like Gossip Girl and other things I regularly catch up on! But I think that’s enough of that! :)

And out of the kindness of my own heart… I will not share the Epic Hilton fail with you… At this time.

But I hope this helps give you a little hint and highlight into the adventures I am pursuing in this wicked wondrous game of helping IT Transformation take it’s hold upon the Enterprise, the Industry and our very own beings.    Like I said… you’re going to be BLOWN AWAY by some of the blog posts I have queued up to show you!  So stay tuned! :)

I actually wanted to start this blog post (and an entirely different one) off with a completely separate subject.  Yea… I did.   And then I went looking for citing data on what I was going to talk about only to find OMG DID WE NOT ANNOUNCE THAT?! Talk about a major faux paux if I announced something we didn’t even show-case or isn’t even public yet.  #Awkward! That and I’m sure PR/Marketing/OtherScaryFigures would be like WTF CXI and other 3 letter acronyms. ;)

Okay, on to the show! OMG THERE WAS A LOT ANNOUNCED! I know some of you were like ‘How do you follow up that whole Record Breaking thing earlier in the year with 40 some odd announcements. (I forget the exact number… it wasn’t 42, which would have made sense ;))”   Yea, and I’m not looking to basically do a repeat of what was already done and said elsewhere; often quite well in delivery.  No.  This is going to be a very unique perspective on a few things which happened at the show.   For the sake of vanity (Because I’m clearly so vain ;)) I’ll do a little coverage of the most rockingest party #cxiparty, absolute rockstar!   But also, a little message which may have gotten lost in the gist of things, and what I see as an internal AND external direction going forward, citing me to refer to 2011 as OMG YEAR OF THE VCE!

OMFG #CXIPARTY OMFG

Did you attend?   If you did, I’m sure you’re left saying OMFG THE VIEW. or ZOMG THERE WERE SO MANY COOL PEOPLE THERE. or WHY IS CXI TALKING ABOUT SHOES.     Yea baby.  That’s what this was about! Networking, and primarily shoes… :)

So for you naysayers out there who say “Whoa, how can a vegan who doesn’t drink throw quite possibly the BEST PARTY ON THE PLANET”  That’s damn straight! For those of who you could not make it (I received your apologies, due to sickness, other conflicts, etc) and the rest of you; truly missed out on an EPIC and LEGENDARY event.  Relationships were formed which will last forever!   Everyone had a great time and I made some great friends with the exception of the AVNET guy who was BLITZ I think even before he got there! Hey what can you do!    (I guess I could throw a follow-up party at #VMworld ;))

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my sponsors who helped make this possible though!  Nexus IS, Oxygen Cloud, and Storage Staffing!

Between Keith Norbie @keithnorbie from Nexus, Julia Mak @juliamak from Oxygen Cloud and Shelton and Joe from @storagestaffing I was able to provide you with refreshments which made the party that much more enjoyable!  Be sure to check them out, especially if you attended the party!   Oh, as a side note, I’d also like to call out some good friends of mine who helped bring some added cred to the party!

• Rockstar SQL GOD Denny Cherry @mrdenny
• OMG Super Star Chuck Hollis @chuckhollis
• PHD God of FCoE J Metz @jmichelmetz
• NerdHerd Crew – Sean Thulin @sthulin, Luigi Danakos @nerdblurt and Matthew Brender @mjbrender
• The one the only Brian Deloria @storagewtf
• Big Data king Koset Surakomol @koset
• Truth in IT madman W. Curtis Preston @wcpreston

If you are not included in this list, it doesn’t mean you don’t matter; it simply means I finished the list and you still do matter very much! That’s what the ‘who attended’ list looks like in regard!  If you attended and enjoyed it, please provide feedback! I’ve considered doing a surveymonkey on ‘what worked well, what didn’t work well’ etc sort of details.  You let me know either way, as I have complete and total plans of doing the EXACT same thing at VMworld in a few months; so just consider that ;)

OMG VCE!!??!

Okay, at this point if you’re a customer you probably don’t want to read what I’m about to say.  This content is really written to be positioned towards internal sales people, field sales and partners.   I’m not going to STOP you from reading it, but bear in mind you are not my audience! ;)

Hey guys! I think we’re alone.   WOW OMG DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID? In the event that you missed it. Just wow.   The kind of traction, currency, what is available today and what is coming tomorrow (incremental in existing investments) in what VCE is offering.  Wow, just an unequivocal WOW!

I’ve ALWAYS had intimate knowledge of what has been going on; (Past, Present and Future) but what is already public domain knowledge and how things stack up against what I’ll refer to as “competitive converged infrastructure solutions” so as not to call any one out in particular.  Our stack from end to end, from engineering on the floor (I wish I could get you some videos of the actual building process, Sigma whatever all that stuff and the serious hardening and baking it goes through)  and to the point of delivery on your customers floor.  If you are NOT positioning or being able to find a use-case for the VCE – Vblock with it’s magical EMC, Cisco and VMware combo ; you’re doing something fundamentally wrong!   I encourage you then to reach out to me directly (I do NOT work for VCE mind you, or a team which is focused exclusively on Vblocks, but the message is so simple, we can knock it out!)

So the lessons to walk away from this is; 2011 is NOT the year of Converged Infrastructure.   It IS the Year of VCE.    No question, no doubt about it.   You will see things shift, shape, mold and beyond in the coming months; no that doesn’t mean there are more things coming that you need to wait for, quite the opposite.  It’s there.  Start working with the tools available to you today.  I don’t see a reason you shouldn’t be able to grasp that!  Get out there and do whatever it is you do! ;)

Sales, Partners, whoever you can stop reading now! And the rest of my audience feel free to come back!

While that was a little vague, to tell you the truth… I want to get this published, and I should just do a video/audio recording of the whole messaging around this because I don’t want to type it up right now, the OMG passion really comes out when spoken (At least when I speak it ;))  Time to finish this up as I’m in a rocking VPLEX session with a VP! Later guys, and see you at VMworld ;)

OMG! It is THAT time of year again! Are you going to EMC World?  This is definitely the MUST attend event of the year!  (Seriously, you have no idea :))

However, my first call to action for you guys.. is to try to make sure you’re getting hooked up with the FREEBIES if you know you’re going to be going anyway!

A basic chart breaking down what you’re looking at when it comes time to register:

Conference Registration Rates and Breakdowns:

So I decided to take as best of a dive as I could into what these “Special Gifts” are, just to get an idea of what incentive you have to book early (and often?!)

Early Bird Registration Gifts:

Booking your hotel:

Within the Venetian Resort you have the option to select your room to be within the Venetian Tower or the Palazzo Tower. Both towers are equal distance to the conference center. To secure a special conference rate be sure to reference EMC World if you chose to make a phone reservation. All room blocks expire on April 14, 2011.

I cannot emphasize enough because I know a lot of you guys… wait until the day OF the show to book your hotel rooms :)   All Room blocks (at these two hotels) will expire on April 14th, 2011 for this rate.   So just take that to heart when it comes time to book and buy your tickets :)

This is going to be quite the OMG WTF AMAZING EMC World on record, far greater than you can imagine.  And it will ALSO be in Vegas, so if that means a lot to you, further mad crazy times – But in all seriousness, the type of content, the audience, the community, EVERY instance of the value which will come from this event.. this is a MUST attend EMC World.  You think records were broken at our Launch Event on January 18th?  Well, you haven’t seen nothing yet? (Is that grammatically correct?!? :))

What, who, why, Justify to my boss! –

What – (2011 Conference Topics and beyond!)

• Backup, Recovery and Archiving
  Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
  Cloud Computing
  Content Management and Archiving
  Enterprise Applications and Databases
  Mainframe Platforms
  Partner Solutions
  Security and Compliance
  Storage and IT Management
  Technology Directions and Innovation
  Tiered Storage and Automation
  Virtual Infrastructure

Who – (Meet, Greet, Network, Learn)

• Learn directly from EMC engineers, customers, and partners at 500+ breakout sessions. EMC World’s comprehensive agenda includes keynotes, lectures, live demonstrations, hands-on workshops, and birds-of-a-feather sessions.

Did I mention I’m going to be there?! :) And definitely seek me out and I can hook you up with other like-minded individuals, or others who are either doing what you WANT to do, or have already done it and you can share best practices (No, not marketing fluff, but actual real customers, engineers and beyond, networking seeds networking! :))

Why – (Content, Content, Content)

• Challenge your expertise with offerings including tutorials, business tracks, technical training, and developer sessions ranging from novice to expert.

Are you a novice looking to seed your knowledge? Excellent.  Are you an expert, guru, ninja, and you find that no one understands you? Go yell at engineers! (That’s what I do ;))   This is the perfect opportunity whether you’re at the top of your game or just getting involved in the industry.   No stone unturned, you will be able to enhance your knowledge, take things to a new level and become an even greater champion than you already are today! (Champions ARE made just by attending EMC World)  Literally, seek me out and I’ll make sure you’re getting the MOST out of your entire experience – I do it at every show I attend. ;)

Justify to my boss – (Whoa, this is in Vegas, my boss won’t approve that!)

I haven’t seen an official write up ‘slick’ on this yet, so I am writing this FOR you.  I’ve had to do this in the past for past events (VMworld, Microsoft TechEd, Past EMC Worlds, TEC, etc)   You go to your management and you scream “I want to learn, I want to educate myself in order to better drive value into the environment, I need to network with my peers, and see the up and coming and be PART of the future instead of waiting for us to eventually get there”.   Yea, but this is what your management sees. “Jim wants to go to Vegas for a week, blah blah blah conference”  

Do you find yourself in this situation?  If so, let me know (And let others know) I’ll try to make sure you have the right resources to help PROVE this out in your environment.  Whether you’re an EMC Customer today, or one in the future; this will be the value of a life time.   If you spent the entire time in sessions never meeting a single person you will gain benefit and an experience which will pay dividends in your home environment; step outside that shell a little bit and all of a sudden you will become a champion unlike that you’ll ever have seen!  

Do not hesitate to educate! I’ll personally call your management if you’d like and help them understand the value (I’ll get whoever your local account team is involved just to make sure I’m not blindsiding them ;))   But seriously, now is the time to SAVE, as well as to LEARN!   Hop to it!

So, good luck, enjoy and lets all meet up in Vegas for what will be an experience of a life time, this is ground breaking in every possible fashion!  

!Breaking News! !Breaking News! !Breaking News!

I came across something disturbing so I had to inform you the public BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!   This morning while showering, I saw something which I felt needed to be shared.  I have a shower curtain which happens to be a map of the world (Hey, don’t judge! :)) and I noticed something… OMG LOOK OUT, WHAT IS THAT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MAP?!

That’s right! LOOK AT THAT! THE LENGTHS EMC WILL GO TO SPREAD IT’S MESSAGE OF VIRTUALIZATION!

I immediately rushed to WikiPedia to find out details about what this means – And according to WikiPedia:

Chad Sakac, Officially known as the “Republic of Chad” is divided into three major geographic regions.  (Storage, Networking, Compute?!?)

Apparently, the demonym of these folks are called “Chadians” (which is a far stretch from vSpecialist, but hey, I’m not WikiPedia…)

And then, outrageously.. I read this, “Beginning in the 7th millennium BC, human populations moved into the Chadian basin in great numbers. By the end of the 1st millennium BC, a series of states and empires rose and fell in Chad’s VCElian strip, each focused on controlling the Cloud”

Obviously, this entry in WikiPedia is making reference to one by one all of the top tier talent in the Virtualization, Computing and Networking industry were joining one by one to be a member of Chad’s forces.   So what does this all mean? Let me sum it up for you in a few points…

• Chad Sakac apparently has FAR more reach and influence than previously realized.  The fact that his blog gets so much attention is definitely understandable now!
• I came to this realization of Chad’s influence on the WORLD days leading up to EMC World! Coincidence?! I think not! (I’ll see you at EMC World if you’re attending @cxi/emcworld2010 )
• And if you think this revelation and announcement is paramount, keep your eyes on the blogosphere come the rest of this week, Chad’s overtaking a country will look feeble in comparison!

See you at EMC World 2010! Be sure to follow on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and whatever! :)

Hey big datacenter, I think “booyah” is in order, with this almost stealth announcement of UIM for Ionix!  

Look at the big picture and see what this means for your datacenter!

So, out of box today UIM fully supports management of the whole Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) stack, with evolution to support the rest of the Vblock infrastructure!   Which means taking your Pain of glass you have today and truly turning it into a comprehensive datacenter wide pane of glass for managing the entire stack from a single interface.

What this can mean is consolidated views of your entire Vblock infrastructure..

In the first release your datacenter will be cooking with Service Profile Catalogs enabling a “recipe” for building services and the basis for truly delivering infrastructure as a service.  Yea I know it sounds like lip service but when was the last time you truly had this level of ‘cookie cutter’ capability to deploy what you want, where you want it without having to reinvent the wheel every single time – Service Profile Catalogs will be the answer to let you take control of your datacenter again.

Though, if you feel that even creating recipes is a recipe for disaster – Policy-based management helps keep your environment honest to ensure configuration policies are set and enforced to ensure system-wide compliance to avoid configuration drift.   Oh, did I mention this functionality is also fully supported in this release of UIM with Cisco UCS Network infrastructure, such as Nexus and MDS? I say sweet! :)

What helps to complete this story is Unified Provisioning, configuration, change management – and a simplified integration.

What I’m particularly floored by is the deployment, bare metal provisioning which includes automated provisioning of the disaster recovery site! (Whoa, he did not just say Automated DR!)

The story around provisioning, configuration and change management will be the foundation of your success in the datacenter of the future.   Think about it! unlimited revision history, fine-grained tracking, traceability, and reproducibility! This isn’t the datacenter of 2010! This sounds more like the datacenter of 2100!     Out the gate this first release of UIM will focus on the unified provisioning, configuration and change control of Cisco UCS and the related network infrastructure.

You aren’t going to get away so easily though! I did say simplified integration and I mean it!   UIM Element management integrates with your existing enterprise management solutions on the floor today, providing change and compliance events to help track critical changes.   Furthermore, it leverages Cisco UCS manager APIs and EMC storage management systems allowing you to take advantage of existing instrumentation and component configuration.

So, putting all the marketing jibber jabber aside what does this mean for you, the datacenter owner?   This means that old fashioned model of “Is UCS ready? WTF is this VCE thing? Why do I even need a simplified datacenter operation? What do you mean Private Cloud, it’s sunny outside!”  It means welcome to the future of your datacenter.   The days of silo provisioning, configuration, management and troubleshooting are over!   You know that the top of mind conversation for the 2010 datacenter and on ever C-class’s lips will be  datacenter virtualization, reshaping the data center, and enhanced security – Take a look at that Gartner list and you tell me that VCE isn’t the answer to 5 or more of them ;)

So, the future is most definitely here (hey, 14 days ahead of schedule! How can you go wrong?!)  So there’s no better time than the present to educate yourself about this opportunity and what the rest of the future lay in store.  if you’re looking to discuss the future of your datacenter, let me know because your priorities are my priorities!

I’ve taken the liberty to consolidate all of the Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager 1.0 documents here for your ease: (Powerlink credentials required)

? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Release Notes
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Data Sheet
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Installation Guide
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Report Advisor User Guide
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Backup and Recovery Guide
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager System Management Console Guide
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Regular Expressions User Guide
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Infrastructure Driver Release Version Support Matrix
? EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager Non-EMC Software Read Me
? EMC Ionix Device Services Engineering DASL Language Changes

I’d also like to thank Chad Sakac for this great YouTube Video and post More VCE Vblock Details including EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager and Storagezilla for their post Vblock and Ionix Unified Infrastructure Management