Thoughts on Virtual Infrastructure Management

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Moving Deck Chairs on the Titanic? Ionix Changes Hands … Partially

By Rob Strechay

In a very interesting move and one that makes perfect sense to me, EMC has sold assets (software, development and sales) to VMware.  I think this is an extremely shrewd move by both companies.  But what does this mean to the customers?  Chad’s Virtual Geek blog has a great break down of what went from EMC to VMware and why. 

My thoughts are this.  The Ionix deal went a long way to ensuring that EMC and VMware will not overlap or compete in the management arena as VMware transitions from a hypervisor company to a virtual server and application management company.

What I find very interesting is that this now disconnects the server and storage domains.  If you know Akorri , we’re all about servers and storage, or what we call cross-domain.  Now I am sure there will be overlap within the EMC and VMware portfolios in the future (probably on purpose).  Perhaps one will  leave off or even hand off to the other’s management software.  So does this mean you will need a multi-vendor solution for cloud and virtualization infrastructure management?  I argue yes.

What’s the likely overlap?  I’m thinking SMARTS ADM / APPSPEED and the rest of the SMARTS family.  Almost instantly APPSPEED becomes a formidable APM management platform.  No longer just being J2EE application mapping and performance.  Now it can start to competing with the likes of HP BAC, Dynatrace, AppDynamics,  Bluestripe, Solarwinds, and many more.

As Chad states in his blog on the subject, cross licensing and integration among the software vendors has happened for many years – especially the cross-licensing / OEM’ing of SMARTS by Cisco and others to improve their correlation and event management.

So what does this mean to the customers?  I really don’t think it changes too much in the way the products operate today.  In the future will they become more VMWare specific?  Doubtful.  In fact this could be very positive for the development of the software.  Moving from inside a hardware-come-software-company-lately to a pure software company may bring life and future development focus to the products. 

At the end of the day the winner seems to be VMware in this.  I think for EMC it is a push given the development money spent over the years, the rebranding, and the acquisition costs.  Customers may win too – but we will have to see.

I don’t think it’s necessarily “moving deck chairs on the titanic” but I do think that it draws a line in the sand for the companies and reveals where they are not going to compete.

March 4, 2010 | Filed Under Industry News & Opinion | Leave a Comment 

Cloud Conference Freebie from Akorri

By Lisa Crewe

Akorri is offering Free Registration ($2500 value) for the Cloud Computing Conference & Expo on April 19-21, 2010 at the Javits Convention Center, NY.

While you’re there, attend Rich Corley’s session, Optimize While You Virtualize to Get to the Cloud.

Use the cloudspeakerguestVIPgold (case sensitive) coupon code to receive full conference pass for FREE!

Register here

March 1, 2010 | Filed Under Virtual infrastructure management | Leave a Comment 

Akorri Channel Chief

By Lisa Crewe

Congrats to Akorri’s own Vice President of Worldwide Sales, Bill Simpson, for being named a 2010 Channel Chief by the Everything Channel’s CRN. Channel Chiefs are leaders in creating effective channel programs for solution providers.  They consistently defend, promote and execute effective channel partner programs and strategies.  This is Simpson’s second consecutive year being named as a Channel Chief.

CRN selected Simpson as a Channel Chief because of his recent accomplishments leading Akorri’s channel team. In the past year, Simpson helped grow Akorri’s channel program 120% and added over 30 partners in his first 6 months at Akorri.   Under Simpson’s leadership, Akorri launched PartnerPoint, its new channel partner program. The tiered program offers premier channel members additional marketing and sales support benefits as well as giving all channel partners better online education and certification, additional marketing resources, deal registration and margin protection to support the growth of Akorri’s channel partner business. Since Simpson joined the company in the second half of 2009, Akorri increased its Q3 2009 revenues by 50 percent over third quarter 2008 and Q4 2009 revenues 250% over Q4 2008 in a very difficult economic environment. Akorri’s BalancePoint software also recently was awarded Gold Storage Product of the Year by SearchStorage.com / Storage Magazine. 

As a 100% partner-focused company, this is a huge award for Akorri.  Congratulations again, Bill!

February 23, 2010 | Filed Under Virtual infrastructure management | Leave a Comment 

Managing Virtualization on MSPtv

By Lisa Crewe

I just watched a new program from MSPtv called “Around the Channel.”  This month the topic is Managing Virtualization with special guest, Heather Clancy, a business journalist we’ve had several conversations with over the past year including a recent discussion on virtualization management.

This video presentation is a nice round up of the challenges, current state of virtualization, future plans and recommendations for solving the management conundrum.

A fact I found interesting is that one recent IDC market survey indicates that close to 80 percent of all organizations grappling with more than 50 virtual machines are planning to apply some sort of management discipline to the mix. I think any organization deploying virtualization should be considering a management solution even before virtualizing.  It’s an opportunity to baseline performance of your physically hosted applications before you virtualize so you can show you’re still delivering good application performance after vritualization.  It can also ward off some of the challenges later by putting performance metrics in place from the beginning.

Heather highlights the fact that virtual and physical servers are co-existing in the State of Affairs in the slide below.  This is something Akorri has recognized from the beginning and why BalancePoint monitors both virtual and physical servers as well as the storage environment together to give you control of the complete infrastructure.

Heather Clancy's Virtualization State of Affairs

Heather Clancy's Virtualization State of Affairs

So if you’re trying to figure out how virtual infrastructure management will fit into your overall services mix, check out this presentation.  You can also read Heather’s blog here.  Enjoy!

February 22, 2010 | Filed Under Industry News & Opinion, Virtual infrastructure management | Leave a Comment 

From Virtualization to Cloud Computing: Are You Ready?

By Rob Strechay

If you’re thinking about deploying an internal cloud for your organization then you might find this article interesting. The article explains the three stages of virtualization from Akorri’s perspective based on our work with customers including the evolution and steps to take to assure performance and manage service levels.  This is good stuff to use when you are going between the reality of deploying virtualization and the hype of cloud.  It may give you a few good ideas on line items for your resume too … as you are now a “Cloud Architect” … check it out.

 
Optimize While You Virtualize to Get to the Cloud
— Virtualization is the key technology for the cloud. Its ability to separate the OS and application from the hardware enable it to best deliver on-demand cloud services. Charles King, Principal Analyst at Pund-IT, said it best: “Without virtualization there is no cloud – that’s what enabled the emergence of this new, sustainable industry.” But, how can IT organizations leverage virtualization to create their own private cloud?

February 16, 2010 | Filed Under Industry News & Opinion, Virtual infrastructure management | Leave a Comment 

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