This week, IBM announced several enhancements to its storage portfolio. While there was a lot of good stuff in there, IBM’s new Spectrum Fusion offering deserves a deeper conversation. My colleague Paul Nashawaty covered some of the value it offers in his blog. I wanted to take a step back, however, and look at IBM Spectrum Fusion as it relates to the overall direction of IT storage and Infrastructure.
Insight
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When digital initiatives evolve in the data center, so too should your ability to choose how you consume IT resources. The desire to move to the cloud has some IT leaders intrigued, yet they continue to look into ways to maximize their existing IT investment and bridge the gap to get to the cloud. This has many IT leaders not moving to the cloud just yet but preferring to buy infrastructure via a consumption-based model such as a monthly subscription based on resource utilization for their on-premises data center. -
IBM’s Eric Herzog, Chief Evangelist and Vice President of Worldwide Storage Channels, briefed us at ESG on the recent IBM Storage announcement launch focused on modernization infrastructure for the edge, core, and hybrid cloud. This post will cover key elements in this launch where IBM’s focus is on Spectrum Fusion HCI and the importance of edge, core, and hybrid cloud as well as simplifying Red Hat OpenShift and Kubernetes. (more…) -
The way we interact with content is changing; however, the systems that contain the data are also evolving. Historically, the approach to connecting with businesses was through a website and web pages, often from a laptop. Now, the interaction is much more dynamic. But interaction with web content is only part of the story. Businesses connecting with their customers often require multiple ways of engagement. This can be through a web page, but also through mobile, tablets, watches, and other IoT devices such as beacons. Obviously, the shift of data distribution has evolved and the delivery of content also needs to evolve. (more…) -
While public cloud momentum has been building for more than a decade, there is still a sizeable footprint of on-premises applications and workloads. Presented with this opportunity, many IT leaders are looking for ways to modernize their own data centers by making them more cloud-like. What technologies will be the likeliest targets for investment as organizations look to accelerate this conversion process in the coming 12 months and beyond?
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Digital workspaces, a term adopted by internal IT organizations to describe projects, are often shaped and defined based on what a technology vendor can map to from a technology or solution perspective. I am a proponent of digital workspaces and was pleased to see multiple companies come together in an effort to put consistency behind digital workspaces. Full details on the Alliance can be seen here: Ten Tech Leaders Form the Digital Workspace Ecosystem Alliance to Help Organizations Navigate Remote & Hybrid Work Solutions -
Now that we are within a month of the RSA conference, the security diaspora must prepare itself for a cacophony of hyperbole around three industry initiatives: Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), eXtended Detection and Response (XDR), and zero trust.Yup, all three areas are innovative and extremely promising, but a bit overwhelming as well. Look for more from me on SASE and zero trust in the coming weeks. For now, we’ll focus on XDR. (more…)
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When is a midrange storage array not a midrange storage array? When it can break down the traditional definitions of storage arrays. Given the state of modern IT, it is time to do away with labels such as entry-level or midrange for storage technology. That is an antiquated way of classifying technologies. And the Dell Technologies PowerStore is an excellent case in point. At first glance, someone might think of the PowerStore as just another midrange array, but that would be a huge mistake. -
Join me and Scott Sinclair as we speak in this latest 3-minute video about the impact of digital transformation on IT infrastructure, hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), and the state of artificial intelligence.
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In March 2021, Lenovo announced new offerings that provide new ways for clients to accelerate computing with their Lenovo TruScale Services, which enables flexible consumption of server resources. The purpose of this launch was to accelerate real-time insights from the edge to the cloud; incorporate eighteen new ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile systems in the portfolio by expanding AMD’s family of third generation EPYC microprocessors, including eight new ThinkSystem V2 servers updated with third generation Intel Xeon scalable processors; and deliver ready-to-deploy analytics and AI offerings with SAS edge analytics, city security AI with Addfor, and scalable machine learning with cnvrg.io.
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We all understand that zero trust is a complex initiative. There’s a wide array of use cases, supporting technologies, starting points, and strategy options. On the bright side, one of the keys to succeeding with zero trust remains something companies arguably have the most control over – collaboration across the organization. The less encouraging news? These cross-functional relationships could be better.
Recent Enterprise Strategy Group research has found that many organizations have paused or abandoned a zero-trust project at some point in the past. This includes those who are currently engaged in successful projects. The single biggest reason given was organizational issues in implementing the initiative, which was cited by half of respondents.
Among all of the organizations ESG surveyed (including those who had not paused or abandoned projects, some of the specific collaborative issues faced with regards to zero trust include:
- Communications issues related to collaborative tasks (32%). Simply opening the lines of communication across often siloed teams within and outside of the IT organization remains a challenge. Having executives buy in and craft an overarching strategy is something we often discuss. But without the day-to-day operational collaboration required to ensure that the entire business is moving in the same direction, zero trust becomes an uphill battle.
- Security teams slow to incorporate feedback (32%). There is still an “us versus them” dynamic at play to an extent as well. Non-security practitioners may feel that the security organization slows them down and ignores their concerns. Often times the reality is that security teams are redlined with keeping the wheels on, and zero trust can be described as changing the tires while the car is still moving.
- Lack of clarity about areas of responsibility (29%). Again, the executive role looms large here. Without specificity as to which teams are responsible for what parts of the process, the strategy can break down.
- Non-security teams move too quickly (29%). This is the other side of the “us versus them” coin, where security teams believe their non-security counterparts do not properly weigh cyber considerations and move on a whim. Again, the reality is often more complicated, and this can be at least partially attributed to….
- Different groups measured and compensated on conflicting goals (29%). Non-security teams are likely to be more directly responsible for business outcomes than their security counterparts. This is certainly starting to shift but remains early days. When the KPIs and goals these teams are judged on vary, priorities can deviate.
With these challenges in mind, what are organizations planning to do about it? First, the most common action organizations plan to take over the next 12-18 months to implement or optimize zero-trust strategies is improve collaboration across security operations, IT operations, and the lines of business, cited by nearly half (46%) of respondents. This held true even among those organizations who are further down the path of zero-trust adoption and rate themselves as successful in the implementation. In other words, even those who are seeing zero-trust benefits realize collaboration is critical to success, and there is always room for improvement.
Second, there is momentum towards formalizing these cross-functional working groups through zero-trust centers of excellence (CoE). While still very early, and only formally implemented by a handful of organizations to date, many are actively working towards a CoE, or have plans or interest in implanting one. We’ve seen this model work before with regards to cloud, and the broad applicability across different teams certainly rings true for zero trust as it did with cloud adoption.
Regardless of where organizations are on the zero-trust journey, the focus should be on collaboration. We’re seeing similar trends with regards to SASE, application security, risk management, and other areas. Before getting bogged down in the technology weeds, planning for how the teams involved will successfully work together should be the focus.
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Over the past year, the COVID-19 virus has caused a shift in how IT professionals—and the vendors that serve them—work. In compliance with the regulations from health organizations and governments enforcing work-from-home (WFH) mandates, most organizations have been faced with how to adapt to an increasingly virtual world. This has extended to technology trade shows and conferences, causing organizers to scramble to replace these in-person events with virtual online versions. Among those IT professionals that attended a virtual event in the last year, what was their experience, and how might this impact the future of technology conferences?
When digital initiatives evolve in the data center, so too should your ability to choose how you consume IT resources. The desire to move to the cloud has some IT leaders intrigued, yet they continue to look into ways to maximize their existing IT investment and bridge the gap to get to the cloud. This has many IT leaders not moving to the cloud just yet but preferring to buy infrastructure via a consumption-based model such as a monthly subscription based on resource utilization for their on-premises data center.
IBM’s 
The way we interact with content is changing; however, the systems that contain the data are also evolving. Historically, the approach to connecting with businesses was through a website and web pages, often from a laptop. Now, the interaction is much more dynamic. But interaction with web content is only part of the story. Businesses connecting with their customers often require multiple ways of engagement. This can be through a web page, but also through mobile, tablets, watches, and other IoT devices such as beacons. Obviously, the shift of data distribution has evolved and the delivery of content also needs to evolve. 
Digital workspaces, a term adopted by internal IT organizations to describe projects, are often shaped and defined based on what a technology vendor can map to from a technology or solution perspective. I am a proponent of digital workspaces and was pleased to see multiple companies come together in an effort to put consistency behind digital workspaces. Full details on the Alliance can be seen here:
Now that we are within a month of the RSA conference, the security diaspora must prepare itself for a cacophony of hyperbole around three industry initiatives: Secure Access Service Edge (
When is a midrange storage array not a midrange storage array? When it can break down the traditional definitions of storage arrays. Given the state of modern IT, it is time to do away with labels such as entry-level or midrange for storage technology. That is an antiquated way of classifying technologies. And the Dell Technologies PowerStore is an excellent case in point. At first glance, someone might think of the PowerStore as just another midrange array, but that would be a huge mistake.
In March 2021, Lenovo announced new offerings that provide new ways for clients to accelerate computing with their Lenovo TruScale Services, which enables flexible consumption of server resources. The purpose of this launch was to accelerate real-time insights from the edge to the cloud; incorporate eighteen new ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile systems in the portfolio by expanding AMD’s family of third generation EPYC microprocessors, including eight new ThinkSystem V2 servers updated with third generation Intel Xeon scalable processors; and deliver ready-to-deploy analytics and AI offerings with SAS edge analytics, city security AI with Addfor, and scalable machine learning with cnvrg.io.
We all understand that zero trust is a complex initiative. There’s a wide array of use cases, supporting technologies, starting points, and strategy options. On the bright side, one of the keys to succeeding with zero trust remains something companies arguably have the most control over – collaboration across the organization. The less encouraging news? These cross-functional relationships could be better.