CloudCamp Cincinnati is here. It’s this Thursday, June 3rd, in Cincinnati from 4pm-10pm. Registration and session info can be found here. It’s being held at the MET Center which is supposed to be a pretty nice venue.
EMC is sponsoring and I’ll be doing a lightning talk on private cloud. If you haven’t been to a CloudCamp before, it follows the unconference format. CloudCamps have been extremely successful because of the user participation.
Here are some of the topics that have been covered:
- Infrastructure as a service (Amazon EC2, GoGrid, Rackspace, Nirvanix, etc)
- Platform as a service (AppEngine, Azure, etc)
- Software as a service (salesforce.com, Yahoo! Mail, etc.)
- Application / Data / Storage (development in the cloud)
Things change. I’m not talking about my wife, job or car. I’m talking about myself and infrastructure consisting of servers, storage and networking. I don’t want underutilized resources that take time to manage and don’t let me get things done.
Let me explain. I flew into Boston to give a couple of Executive Briefings on the Virtual Datacenter this week. Some customers saw exactly where I was going and others probably thought I was insane. I started at a high level and then went into the details but here’s the problem. When we talk about infrastructure becoming a pool of resources that you’re able to push and pull workloads into and out of, some people think it’s fairytale land. It’s not. I used to build my own computers but I don’t anymore. I buy one that has the most, not all, of the best technology and is good enough.
DIY vs All-in-one - DIY image via ~keiby on flickr
What they see:
- Complex infrastructure with many moving parts
- Legacy applications, some virtualization adoption
- Thick fog that’s hard to see through
- They think they’ll have to trust something new
What I see:
- A multi-step process that takes time
- Virtualization allows us to focus less on the boxes, cables and spinning platters
- Platforms (Springsource with Azure, Amazon’s AWS also qualifying) enabling quicker development
- We can make existing infrastructure and software better
Infrastructure AND platforms are both part of the “Stack” and “Cloud” conversation. It’s about businesses being able to let their most valuable asset (their people) work on deploying applications faster instead of provisioning servers. Yes, the “server huggers” and “IT pros” as Brian Prince (Azure Evangelist at Microsoft) calls them, will still be needed to make sure we’re architecting and deploying apps properly on the infrastructure.
Change is ok. Things aren’t perfect but continually improving. Most of us drive cars instead of ride horses and we buy clothes instead of make our own. People trust technology (network, shared storage, memory, etc) and build around its faults (RAID etc.).
Recently I was bluntly accused of spouting an EMC-centric view. As if other technology companies didn’t see it this way too. Guess what, it’s not just EMC, it’s many end-users and vendors both who share this view. The view of and challenges posed to enterprise customers is much different from those faced by sometimes smaller and more public-facing web service companies. I get it. There are still security challenges, management challenges, and legacy application challenges but before so quickly dismiss stacks and cloud, open your mind a bit.
Here are some notes I took during the keynote at the 2009 Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference I attended months before joining EMC.
Session: Bridging the private and public Cloud
- Move has been to get higher utilization
- It’s about the applications and working to get them into the cloud
Opportunity
- Build rich apps for the cloud while preserving app symmetry w/ the enterprise
- Frictionless deployment across the spectrum
- New breed of apps that span from on-premises to cloud
Warning: This isn’t a technology post but it’s worth your time. It’s about a fire.
Do you feel like you could do something else that would make you happier? Do you want to make a difference? My answer was yes to both questions. Even before having my daughter I’ve always had something burning inside that made me want more out of life. It’s one of those things that drives you. I feel like it’s a constant battle to do what I can to be better. It’s probably silly but I want this for others too.
A couple of things happened recently that prompted me to write this post:
- I joined EMC as a vSpecialist almost 5 months ago. The draw was the culture that Chad Sakac had fostered. I felt tapped out in the role I was in at another organization and most importantly felt like I could make a *bigger* difference elsewhere. It has been unbelievable.
- I read “Tribes” by Seth Godin. The book hit me at the core. It’s about being a leader. What’s holding you back in life? Most of the time it’s fear. I’ve overcome so many fears in life by just taking the risk.
- I sat next to a lady on a plane who helped her son go after his dreams. Her son decided he wanted to go to MIT before his teens. She fed his never-ending desire to learn math and reading. She took him to museums and lego robotics competitions. Now he’s at MIT doing what he loves.
- Chris Hoff tweeted that he had donated to Kiva for the 83rd time. Kiva does micro loans in developing countries. Imagine if you could loan money to someone to buy a cow and that in turn helped out their whole family or village in a developing country. With Kiva, you can do it.
- Wade O’Harrow (Director of vSpecialists worldwide) called me one morning to help me set up my iPad and we got on the subject about “smiling”. Just smiling makes you feel better and makes those around you feel good. Wade is one of those energetic leaders who knows what matters.
- Ade Olonoh, who I consider a best friend moved to San Francisco. An idea he and John Wechsler (Formspring.me) had while running Formspring.com took off like wildfire. I’ve known Ade from way back in the day when I interviewed him for a job (my peer) at the Indianapolis Star.
- I turned 30.
Seriously, I’m one of the luckiest people on the planet. I’m surrounded by incredible people who have all made an impact on me I could expand the list above for hours. You’ve probably heard these tips before but it’s always good to be reminded. It’s so easy to make a difference. It’s the little things and they all add up.
- You can do anything you want to do. I’m not kidding.
- Find what your passion is and do it.
- Pay it forward. If you’ve been given something, give back. It makes the world a better place.
- If you fail, just get back up. What’s worse? Trying and failing or never having tried at all?
- Read “Tribes” by Seth Godin.
- Smile.