Incredible Times in the IT Industry

March 13, 2011

Hi, thanks for stopping by and obligatory apologies for not having posted in almost 3 months. I’ve still been quite active on Twitter, sharing on Google Reader (also goes to my other Twitter account), and writing about IT for work. Here’s a quick update on some of the things I’ve been involved with lately.

Incredible Beings by Hugh Macleod (shared via CC)

Earlier this month, I was interviewed by Countdown to Storage Expo (a UK-based marketing group), here’s the link: Storage Networking & Social Media Maven: Q&A with @Stu Miniman, Principal Research Contributor at Wikibon. After doing the interview, I found out that I will be attending my first SNW next month.

It’s an exciting time in the IT industry and I’m lucky to be able to cover a lot of different topics as an analyst. Here are some links to some of my favorite articles that I’ve written lately:

Big Data is a nascent trend which is at the intersection of analytics, mashups, cloud computing and some really smart data scientists. After watching the O’Reilly Strata, I wrote a blog post explaining some of the basics of this trend.

Cloud computing is a huge portion of the IT landscape. My angle has traditionally been from the enterprise perspective, since I was working on “private cloud” solutions back when we simply called them next-generation or virtual data center solutions. As with most technologies, enterprises must balance existing legacy equipment an processes with the desire to take advantage of newer cost and operational models. I wrote a piece on hybrid clouds discussing solutions that look at bridging private and public clouds.

Server virtualization has seen strong adoption from companies of all sizes and desktop virtualization is seen as one of the next significant areas of growth for virtualization. While there are plenty of success stories across many verticals that are adopting virtualization, the overall solution set is still fragmented. I posted a research piece discussing the journey that the ecosystem needs to undertake to mature VDI.

Of course, I still keep a close eye on the networking space, especially storage networking technologies like iSCSI and FCoE. My most recent article on the topic discusses unified/flex ports which have the capability of switching between Ethernet or FC, giving customers flexibility and investment protection.

In addition to SNW, I will also be attending EMC World in May and likely a few other conferences in the upcoming months. If you’ll be at one of the shows, I’m always happy to chat about the various technology spaces or social media. Conferences usually give me lots of ideas and plane time to write, so I hope to update this blog more often in the coming months.

Cheers,

Stuart Miniman

https://blogstu.wordpress.com

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Q&A from First Week on the New Job

June 4, 2010

The first week at Wikibon has flown by.  I’ve gotten a bunch of questions from people and thought I’d do a quick Q&A.

What does “Wikibon” mean? Very simply, Wikibon = wiki (quick from the Hawaiian wiki wiki) + bon (good) >> Quick & Good Information

What is the logo? The bee is associated with community.

What will you be doing? On the technology side, I will be doing research and being an analyst.  The area that I am going to focus on is the “the convergence of server, network and storage – INFRASTRUCTURE CUBED”.  I’ve written a couple of blog posts on the Wikibon site already, I will tag all of the posts on this topic with the infrastructure_3 tag which you can find here.  My first full post is FCoE related; I’ll be branching out to cover virtualization, infrastructure and lots of other topics.  You can also subscribe to the Wikibon blog.

As for the community/social media aspect, I also put my first entry on the wiki side – an idea on how to further engage and leverage the community to help create an “Executive Primer” on the various technologies that get discussed.  It’s a very broad community which I’m looking forward to getting to know more about and engage with.

Have you met with any EMC competitors yet? Yes, I had my first NDA meeting and it was with a competitor (one of the attendees was a former EMCer who I knew – no shock since there are lots of great people at EMC, and plenty of great people who have left EMC to work on other things).

How is the commute? I can get to the Wikibon HQ a few different ways depending on traffic. The morning ride for me is 10 miles further than the old one, but is the same time since it is highway instead of back roads with plenty of lights and school busses.  The ride home is a bit tricker.

Do you have time for lunch? The month of June is rather busy, but possibly yes.  Within a 1 minute drive from the office are Five Guys burgers, Chipotle, Panera, an Indian restaurant and many more.  The grocery store nearby has a good salad bar which I’ll be trying to use more than the other places and I’m going to need to hit the gym to make up for all of these indulgences.

What about the Blog Stu site? I expect to be very busy writing in a number of places.  My current plan is that the more technical (Infrastructure Cubed) posts will be on Wikibon while general social media and innovation related posts (such as what I’m doing next week at the World Innovation Forum) will go on this blog.  There will be times that I’ll syndicate content on both sites (I also post on SiliconANGLE).  My Twitter account and Google Reader/Buzz shared items will be a good central source for all of my content.

Thanks everyone who has been writing me notes of encouragement and for reading and following on the various sites.  I’d welcome any feedback or suggestions on how I flow content between the sites – let me know how I’m doing at balancing the “personal vs. career“.

Stuart Miniman

https://blogstu.wordpress.com

PS – Am I link too much?  Would you prefer references at the end rather than links embedded? See “Delinkification” from Nick Carr.

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Stu goes to Wikibon

May 18, 2010

My new position is as a Principal Research Contributor for Wikibon.  This means that I will be focused on the tech, doing research and being an analyst.  Louis Gray broke the news of my new position — listen to our 8 minute interview on the CinchCast site or by clicking play below.

https://blogstu.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/wikibon.mp3

I’ve been humbled by the outpouring of goodwill including a blog post from Storagezilla and so many notes on my blog post, Twitter and Facebook.

@stu has a new gig which sounds pretty cool for him. We’ll miss him at EMC, but he’ll still be in the clan!


SOCIAL MEDIA + CAREERS: Another EMC ROCK STAR OFF TO GREAT THINGS … Very happy for @Stu. RT @stu: [Blog] http://bit.ly/bOe6N1 #notgoodbye

I’m not moving — Wikibon’s HQ is in Marlborough, MA.  I will continue to post on this blog site.  I’ll need to figure out the balance of what goes on this site and what goes on other sites — feedback is always welcome.  If you’d like to follow the journey, please consider subscribing (click this link or email notification available on the right bar)

Thank you,

Stuart Miniman

https://blogstu.wordpress.com