Some people are competitive. I’m not. Sure, I taunted my 62-year-old father after dunking on him… on a 6-foot hoop… at my son’s 6th birthday party. Yes, I cheat at Candyland to beat my 4-year-old daughter. And I have been known to race cars on my way to work – on my bicycle. Sometimes, though, ...

  Well, it has been about 3 days or so since I have returned from VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) in Las Vegas, and to be honest, there still hasn’t been enough time to fully digest all of what I took in while at the conference. At the same time, I thought it would be a ...

Over the past couple of years, one of the key themes for NetWorker has been to make it easier to maintain and license. Included in this has been the consolidation of database and application modules. Previously, NetWorker depended on a lot of different modules for various database and application protection and many vendors still do ...

For the past couple of weeks now, my colleagues and I have been talking about the past, present and future of backup. A good deal of this conversation has centered on the lightning-fast adoption of purpose-built backup appliances (PBBA) worldwide. And while there’s no question PBBA isn’t your grandmother’s backup and recovery, is it really ...

When I was younger, I believed chronicling the past was far simpler than predicting the future. Little did I know that “history” means “incessant squabbling over what really happened in the past” (did you know there are multiple active magazines about the American Civil War?). On the other hand, people very rarely check on the ...

Calling all partners! VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) 2012 Feb 12 -16 in Las Vegas offers a fantastic conference to accelerate your business and learn how VMware and VMware Partners solutions can transform your customers’ data centers for new levels of efficiencies and cost savings. Don’t gamble by missing this conference – register today! A few ...

Have heard from a lot of partners wondering about PEX and the EMC plan…  First of all – VMware Partner Exchange is the event of the year for VMware partners – and when it comes to what’s going on in the channel/integrator/partner community, that’s pretty well the center of the universe   It’s Feb 11-16 ...

According to a new IDC report a whole lot of you do. In fact, you’re deploying purpose-built backup appliances (PBBAs) far faster than market researchers had forecast and industry pundits ever thought you would. And the numbers are impressive indeed – even to those of us in the business. Just look at IDC’s latest data: ...

It’s that time of year again, and, no, I’m not talking about the time to make resolutions. You should have already done that. (And if you’re surprised that it’s 2012, put down the DLT IV tape cartridge, turn off the Chumbawamba CD and walk outside.) It’s the time of year when bloggers use the “reflections ...

I don’t know about you, but I have a love/hate relationship with New Years. I love it because we’re given a blank slate (of sorts). I hate it because with the blank slate comes certain expectations. And from a professional standpoint, since the timing of New Year’s doesn’t necessarily align with the start of the ...

No series of blog posts, regardless of wittiness, insight and general brilliance, can provide a prescriptive answer about how to protect your VMs. (Of course, if you do find some blog posts with wittiness, insight, and brilliance, please send them; I’d love to see how it’s done. Except for Chad’s posts. Don’t send those.) The ...

During World War I, Will Rogers, noted American humorist, was asked by a young reporter how he would stop the U-boat attacks on ships, to which Rogers responded, “Boil the ocean.” But when pressed for how he would do that, Rogers quickly replied, “I’m just the idea man here. Get someone else to work out ...

Every Moo Down in Moo-ville Liked tape backups a lot… But the Grinch, Who lived just north of Moo-ville, Did NOT! The Grinch hated tape backups! He considered it treason! Now, some might ask why. But there’s not just one reason. It could be that he hated working all through the night. It could be, ...

In the last few weeks, I’ve been in the process of moving my lab and as my environment gets bigger, it gets increasingly difficult for me to stay on top of it. In talking with customers, many of you share the same problem and are looking for tools to make managing your environment easier and ...

“Just because I’m not a huge enterprise company, doesn’t mean my data is any less important to my business than theirs is to them.” – Midsize enterprise customer  While many companies deploy traditional storage-based replication for critical applications and data, the disaster recovery (DR) “solution” for much of their data is still “putting tape in ...

You don’t know what you don’t know… I’d like to say that in the world of backup and recovery ignorance is bliss, but it’s not. What we don’t know about our backup environments today will – just as we can’t avoid the tax man – come back to bite us down the road. The problem ...

I had the opportunity this week to attend the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) convention in Chicago. Now, you might think this is an odd place for EMC – much less a backup guy – to show up at, and, well, in some respects it is. However, when you consider the rapid growth rate ...

I am sleeping much better lately, but that’s because I recently purchased a new mattress. We all know a good night’s sleep is critical for good health and a productive mind. But, as much as I would like to believe that getting a new mattress will solve all your sleeping woes, the reality is unless ...

One of the things I miss living abroad is the connection with American politics. In particular, I miss the State of the Union address. I’m not exactly sure why, but I find it reassuring to have the President address Congress and give his views on the state of our Union. Not that I’m comparing myself ...

It’s the time of year regular gym-goers dread; the proverbial lull before the storm. In just a few short weeks, droves of well-intentioned New Year’s “Resolutioners” will hit the gym en masse, and for several weeks, gym life as we know it will change. Parking spaces, gym equipment and floor space will all become highly ...