Avastu Blog: Sustainable Global Clouds

Industry leaders who have founded largest companies in the world and are still leading them successfully, even in these turbulent times, such as Larry Ellison , William Gates , Steve Jobs already knew how to do business . I had been wondering lately if B-schools like Wharton are really worth anything at all. In this age when we are looking at the East and South (Africa and S. America), we are not into any of those ivy cuddly alumni circles anymore. We are doing businesses with people who have learned the business the hard way. The real world way, the path the likes of Ellison, Jobs and the Gates took. So I will be writing these multi-part series where we'll do school to school analysis. I'll try to call up the PR per school and ask them simple questions as if I were applying for a admission and would like to have things like these answered: Why would I throw away 2 years and spend 100,000 to 200,000 dollars into a school? So expect this multi-part series to be a amalgam of r...

Here's an excerpt of my interview from StackSafe : We were able to catch up with Tarry Singh of Virtualization for Everyone and get his thoughts on enterprise IT today and where virtualization fits in. Tarry is a Dutch citizen and virtualization enthusiast who frequently shares his insights on the emerging trends that will affect the business community and global economy as a whole. At VMWorld 2008, he spoke with executives from Citrix and Microsoft on XenServer, XenDesktop (soon to be GA), XenApp and Hyper-V. Tarry’s expertise and passion for virtualization is exciting and we are happy to provide his views on IT’s About Uptime. SS: What do you see as the biggest trend for enterprise IT today? TS: Trends in data centers and virtualization cloud computing will be big by 2011. With cloud computing we will see data centers that will run like big yet efficient power plants. There will be several technologies, including virtualization, that may be deployed in those data centers. Wi...

Another view from Michael, Director Hydrasight Bold opinions here ;-) VMware's unassailable position in server virtualisation will continue through at least 2012. By this time, more than a third of workloads on industry-standard Intel/AMD enterprise servers will be virtualised. Citrix and Oracle will not make significant inroads into the enterprise data centre due to a lack of proven enterprise management capability, nor will Microsoft. Beyond server virtualisation, IT organisations will increasingly explore differing layers of virtualisation within the technology stack including storage, desktop, information and application. This will inevitably lead to greater confusion. You will have to register to read the rest of it.

The global economy is like an elephant, it is coming in terms with its center of gravity. One legged elephant, meaning US, that it has been, is now finding it's other legs in Europe, China and India. It needs time but it eventually will settle down. A lot of markets will suffer, a lot of inflation and in some cases, over-heated economies might flirt with deflation as well, but it will settle down. Anyways, I blog about it a bit, from my own experiences, on ITtoolbox: We are going in a recession. I have been screaming about it for quite some time. I have been born and brought up, as a professional, in this increasingly flattening global economy. I draw an analogy of global economy being an elephant which has been an big fat beast standing on one thick leg, the US economy. What is happening now is that this elephant is unfurling its other three legs. They are Europe, China, India (feel free to disagree with the legs analogy with me here). This is obviously creating a lot of unrest, i...

Commoditization of HPC is just about beginning. This is the next wave that is going to come at us. when I said, in a previous post where I commented over "overwhelming innovation", I meant this as well. HPC is on its way to reach out to consumers. We look today, for advice and counseling, to big firms like Gartners, Forrsters etc. But the tomorrow, which is today, is in all of our hands. HPC just happens to be that for us. Think of genome research, power issues, geographic and tectonic researches, meteorology, mining, oceanography, etc will happen in homes tomorrow. Look at this news by RapidMind , where they are moving aggressively towards the regular x86 boxes. News from Rapidmind: Over a thousand developers of high-performance computing (HPC) and enterprise software are using RapidMind to realize the performance benefits of new multi-core processors. The RapidMind platform is being successfully leveraged in developing applications for database transactions, image/video ma...

We are all in for a bumpy ride. what we will see in the next 18 months: Lots of consolidation to come in. Virtualization will continue to grow but expect lot of other contenders contesting for market share. This will create a weird* scenario since the markets will continue to suffer in other sectors, while IT will be the savior (not everywhere though). A lot of restructuring to take place. A lot of Global Sourcing model adoption . Some large firms have been arrogant to have not chosen this model, but soon they will realize that not having chosen a model and the time lost while resolving to that "state-of-flux", will force them to take drastic measures, sometimes too desperate, risking their firms to more "threats" than "opportunities". Acute shortage of expertise (Business analysts, Architects, Tech professionals: I keep saying this but its tme for firms to start banking and training A-players to become the "versatilists" with executional capa...

This (check link below) is an eye opener (both for VMware and the community). People often relate to this blog as a VMware blog but I think its time to open up and talk about some real things here. So I'll play the devil's advocate for a while here. VMware may very well be looking like what Microsoft was in the 90s. We all loved Microsoft for what it could do. We got the GUI! Wasn't that cool? VMware is today's hero when it comes to providing us with a "next level" stuff. Ask yourself these serious questions, and no they are not based on my reading of Tom's book "World is flat" on that Flattener #2 netscape analogy, although there is a question that may make you think what VMware can do to avoid the downfall : What is it really that VMware actually does for you besides jamming in loads of files into a physical server? What is it that VMware does for you that an Open Source virtualization can't? Now the idea is not to scare you as a client ab...

Let me tell you why, before I point you to the original post of such speculation. Enterprise virtualization is almost done, that having said..hang on, lets do it even better and make a "Year of" game: 2007-2008: Year of Integration : Here you will experience massive deployments of virtual infrastructure. Obviously you have to be nuts to think that virtualization is going to last forever, it won't even last the next two years. Why? simply because VMware is hell-bent on that next level strategy. Here it will use the "curve-ball strategic maneuver" to take the market into...well, the next level! 2008-2010: Year(s) of Enterprise Applications : Here the application stacks will be totally revamped, redone and deployable with concepts such as "Virtual Appliances". VA will reach the inflection point by then. That is why it makes sense for VMware to go for Apps now! 2008-2009: Year of Monitoring : Or call it management, no matter what you as the IT director, I...

Reading this story only reminds us of all those dropouts who just, kind of , were rebels. This kid was too. Today he is the CEO of FaceBoo k. He founded it and he seems to be on a totally different track (read the article fully, its a great read!). Oracle, Apple, Microsoft etc CEOs too dropped out BTW. Great read for me too. I am wanting to pursue my MBA. I always wanted to do it. Why? Don't I have the guts to go amuck and run a shop like them? Haven't I lived on the edge and faced a shotgun right in my face in a vague country ( It was Nigeria, BTW, back in 1991)? Didn't I quit a career and start afresh in a country that spoke a language I couldn't comprehend? I've had my share of "excitement"! And they were all fun! The reason today I am in need of a legit means to kick some ass is because I am not a 22 year old bloke anymore. I've got kids and won't risk walking in the dark picking up a quarrel just because some kid wants to steal my $20 Casio (...

This is an interesting and yet painful phenomena. There are lesser and lesser IT undergrads and people are expecting IT to just flow like water and electricity. I have said it long ago, Virtualization will speed up the commoditization of IT. Most IT firms are already changing their tag lines and mantras. Soon IT will be managed by some poor bloke in Elbonia . I don't think we can stop the commoditization but what we surely can do is to bring back the innovation. I was speaking (yesterday) to a young dutch student from our University (born in Holland with Chinese origin). His folks sent him to China to learn Chinese, the culture and values. This kid had done IT and is not at all excited about how IT is treated in Holland. He was eager to go back to China to continue his studies as he "didn't like the drag here". This is playing massively in developed countries. IT has been pushed out and given to the cheapest bloke to manage. IT isn't fun anymore, and while a lack ...

Look around you. Ask your colleaues of what they want. Look at the micro-managed desktop and server environemnt. Look at disgruntled clients/customers because their services/requests have to wait weeks and weeks to pass through that agonizing ITIL beast.. change manager needs to approve, activities need to be planned, test/development/staging environments have to be reinvented. Hang on, this conversation is something many of you can very well understand. You've gone through it! All of you (I know it!) There is an acute need for flexibility, scalability will come. Scalability will come because you client/customer will want to continue to do business with you and you will discover new ways to provision and manage these ever increasing but highly manageable environments! Anyways Arn Australia says the same things... The next challenge is whether you need to run your own enterprise applications in-house. A few years ago software-as-a-service was experimental. Things have changed, and a...

I just changed the title of this post as I am very interested in talking about the whole new era of IT. We, in the corporate world, are so lagging behind the development. The developments that is fuelled by the consumers and users alike. Where are proactive and collaborative communities? Who is building websites these days? Who makes money from selling software (People offer tons and tons of disk space for free!)? Bloggers are the king today. Blogging is also sometimes called as "citizen journalism". The young ones are going for the run. I get emails from CEOs offering me to test their product and still telling the world about it. Why? Its all about marketing! I market their product and they give me the goods to test and play. We both turn out heroes :-) Well this is 101 (One-on-One) tacit tie-up. But the same is already happening in the business world . And universities too are looking to catapult themselves to fame by doing the favor and returning favors to the consumers. W...

Quick list of what organizations should be doing. I am a firm believer of action. I have gained tremendous amount of [atleast I'd like to think so :0)] a sense of urgency, if you will, when it comes to getting things done from my experience at sea. Getting going with things. Moving on to the next level. Shedding skin all the time. Well you get the point, I see. What should a typical High Performance Organization be doing and what should it stop doing right away. Stop doing the following: Prolonged meetings Endless discussions Brainstorm sessions Planning (Strategy, Future plans whatever that falls into some category where endless hours are wasted making some drawings that die almost immediately after the first presentation) Debating Talking about teams and teamwork (It's really dry) Stop talking about best practices (They are best for the guy who wrote for his organization's success NOT yours) Standards for performance and task oriented thinking Ok this list can go on and ...

I know lots of folks don't really want to listen to podcasts. So here comes the textual version of "The Versatilist". PS: I should be done by tonite (When my migraine has settled down) Update 3 Nov 2007: This will be done this week!

Click on the title to listen to this Audio Blog. I will write more on this later here at TarryBlogging. Or listen on my Audio Blog here . Aristotle, Plato and the likes were true versatilists. But those were the good old days. They had all the time in the world. And then we have you. A regular IT Joe/Jane. A true specialist and even proudly touting as a generalist . But is it enough for you to stay afloat? Enough for you to keep your job? Enough for you to advice your kids to take up a Sysadmin job as a profession? Answer = NO! How are you going to cope with the ever changing scenario and at the same time stay competitive. Its hard to stay motivated with the rapid globalisation, massive outsourcing, new technologies sweeping you off your feet and constantly feeling like a lost zombie when suddenly being exposed to some 17 year old who has done a lot of work like yours just for fun !!! Anyways this part 1 we will try to Talk about what a versatilist is like? See how to embrace it Ge...

Here I am going to talk a bit about what bounded awareness blocks crucial and critical information from registering into our consciousness. You could be a CEO, a Project Manager, a Father/Mother facing a teen issue, just about anyone. Now getting locked into this kind of mode will not help us come to a decision which might help us make a Killer Decision . Here I talk about my experience from my maritime career where I kind of compare it with a situation in dense traffic in a busy English Channel . It's real busy channel and you are navigating with all possible means. Radars Watchmen Extra watch on the forecastle (front part of your ship) multiple GPS Land Bearings (taking positions of multiple landmarks/beacons to mark them on the chart) Advanced Electronic Charts And lots more by now I'm sure (I quit in 99) Still known and experienced Captains have had head on collisions! Why? Listen to what I have to say about it. We will also continue the article later...

I just edited a post I created in December last year and thought that it would make a good candidate for the "RedHot Future Of IT" series. Excerpt " So what is V irtualization S ervice A rchitecture? Well something that will be the norm tomorrow. But seriously it is the architecture that we will use in the coming years when talking about starting with our company. The idea will be to start running your services almost right away and they could be physically located really far far away! Meaning for instance you want to start with a Social Networking Company (you know stuff like making one simple virtual or web office suite on the web , there are enough companies who are into this game already like Zimbra , 37Signals etc , check out this ZDnet blog for more on that) and you just don't want to go through regular hassles like hiring a place, hiring people, buying hardware, list is endless. So how do you do it? Well..." Read it here

Click on the title to hear what I have to say, alternatively click here to listen to what I have to say here . So what is a virtualized workplace? Does it mean it does not exist? That it's virtual? Well in a certain way YES . This is where the future of our workplace is going to be. Well it is already a reality in some countries. OK lets start by asking ourselves these questions: Do you really bond with your colleagues? (think Team cohesiveness ) Do you spend great amount of hours talking about great things that you will do together? (think collaboration ) Do you really feel that you give 100% at work? (think effectiveness ) What do you really miss at your desk? (think personalization ) Is your desk comfortable enough? (Again think optimizing personalization , OK you have done your best to make it your place) Does it really matter to your employer that you are there for him/her? (think commitment ) Or do you get micromanaged over petty issues? (think mismanagement ) Do you see you...

I had promised about the "RedHot IT Future Series" and so we discuss here how you should market yourself EFFECTIVELY as an IT professional in this new (and dangerous) web age! Web is the place where you're a hero today and villain tomorrow. While there are lots of professionals who are active on the web, not all are enjoying a good reputation as they got "personal" with others and got into a cockfight. The passive IT professional has nothing to lose but nothing to gain at all ! I know "marketing" might seem as a greasy term but the idea is to have the truth about you out there. You know you're a good person and your family knows that you're really smart person but the rest of the world doesn't! So the question is how do I market myself on the web as a true "nouveau IT professional". A guy who companies will be tempted to pick up the phone as say "Hey, we wanna talk with you. Can you fly over to Palo Alto (or Guatemala or ...

So what is V irtualization S ervice A rchitecture? Well something that will be the norm tomorrow. But seriously it is the architecture that we will use in the coming years when talking about starting with our company, a high profile project (be it migration, outsourcing, moving applications) or even plain and simple administration (admit it, no matter what you say about cutting costs you will be needing someone to watch your systems). The idea will be to start running your services almost right away and they could be physically located really far far away! Meaning for instance you want to start with a Social Networking Company (you know stuff like making one simple virtual or web office suite on the web , there are enough companies who are into this game already like Zimbra , 37Signals etc , check out this ZDnet blog for more on that) and you just don't want to go through regular hassles like hiring a place, hiring people, buying hardware, list is endless. So how do you do it? W...