Field Notes: Architectural Principles and Design Notes

This Field Notes series chronicles my experiences with a major transformation project I’ve been involved in for the past eighteen months. I have worked on almost every aspect of this project, from application rationalization to portfolio management to reconstructing business processes and aligning and synchronizing IT with the business.

Where to Persist Your Containers

When we were first introduced to Docker containers, we were told that they should be ephemeral and stateless. It turns out that there are lot of great uses for Docker containers that are either stateful or long-lived. The stateful part is leading to a bunch of startups that have storage products to deliver persistent storage to these …

Managing Change: More Notes from the Field

Companies are still facing an era of unprecedented and continuous change. In fact, perhaps the most striking feature of today’s business environment is its dynamic nature. While change is often unexpected and disruptive, companies that adapt quickly can gain a competitive advantage. I’ve said this many times in the past, and it still rings true …

VMware's Hybrid Cloud Is Spanning the Globe

As we hear more about VMware, AWS, and IBM, a new story emerges. VMware is talking about cross-cloud management. VMware is also talking about cloud-native applications. VMware is also talking about how you go from the data center to the cloud. VMware is talking about how to transform into a hybrid cloud. It appears there is an …