Size of an Elephant: Why the Ability to Scale Is Important in Design

When I was a small child, I used to enjoy watching a Japanese language program. Called Monkey, it was all about a disruptive monkey with a massive ego. The monkey was turned into immortal being that could shrink and grow and travel on a flying cloud. Punished by the heavens for its transgressions, it was traveling with a …

Breaking the Purchasing Cycle

I once received a valuable piece of advice about responding to a changing economy: “Start giving away free what you used to charge for, or start charging for something you used to give away free.” In other words, be prepared to change economic models, which can completely change the way customers buy. There is a real challenge …

Scale Is a Matter of Perspective

A lot of new technologies and techniques were invented and developed to enable large cloud businesses. Enterprise IT organizations are now looking at these innovations with an eye toward realizing business benefits from doing the same thing. Techniques like continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) are helping cloud companies. Enterprises are looking for the same …

NetApp Picks Up SolidFire; Should Someone Pick Up NetApp?

A week later than some people predicted, the news has broken. NetApp has bought SolidFire for $870M. This continues the trend for established storage companies to acquire start-ups with great flash products rather than building their own. SolidFire initially targeted the service provider market with its scale-out all-flash array. In the last year or so, SolidFire has taken aim …