The JBGeorge Tech Blog

Hello all – hope you’re having a good Saturday / Sunday wherever you might be.

Wanted to finish putting down thoughts, insights, etc from my time at the Gartner Data Center conference this past week.  (You can read Part 1 here –  https://jbgeorge.net/2010/12/11/thoughts-from-2010-gartner-data-center-conference-part-1/.)

• We need to understand the success / real world utilization of ITIL and other benchmark frameworks – are they working?
• More and more, in the era of cloud, we are finding it is no longer necessary to keep an individual system up at all costs, as long as overall compute and storage integrity are maintained
• Traditional management models assume that systems should be managed so that failure should rarely happen. Newer models assume that failure WILL happen, and focus on shortest MTTR (mean time to recovery / repair).
• Traditional models try to implement pervasive automation, whereas newer models focus on selective automation.  Why must we automate / virtualize / etc everything?  Choose wisely based on criticality and true need.
• We’ve heard of JEOS – the “just enough” operating system.  Gartner spoke of “just enough” practice vs “best” practice.   Are we at the era of “just enough?”
• Again, reiteration of the need of DevOps skillset.
• Organizational alignment is still a key facet of moving the IT organization.
• “We are only at the end of the beginning” of the cloud era.  Watch for Cloud 2.0 in the years ahead (market based computing, hybrid clouds the norm, etc)
• Still a lot of talk about the Big Four (HP, CA, IBM, BMC) – they were slow to jump on w virtualization, but more aggressive with cloud.
• Definite focus on the network being a key management focal point.  Similar to the theory that your band’s ripping concert is only as good as the quality of your sound man.
• The recession will be viewed in hindsight as a pivot event for the server market – paradigm shifts, vendor repositioning, etc.
• Some important trends to watch going forward: big data, unified communication, client virtualization, compute density / scaling vertically, converged fabrics

Another great event – look forward to next year. 

Until next time,

JBGeorge
@jbgeorge