AWS Speaks a Different Language

I spent the last couple of weeks preparing for the Amazon Web Services Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam. Coming from a long history of on-premises data centers, I find the messaging and training from AWS to be totally different. In VMware training, we spent a lot of time looking at designing and setting up networking and …

The Godfather of NSX Leaves His Baby in Good Hands to Help Other Embryos

In a shock announcement on Wednesday, Martin Casado announced that he was leaving VMware’s Networking and Security business unit, the group that owns the NSX product, to join the venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz as a general partner. Casado was co-founder and CTO of Nicira, the network company that VMware brought for $1.2 billion in 2012. This closes the …

Docker: Where Does It Leave the Network Admin?

It’s the end of the year, and a good time for thinking back. I’m thinking back to a dark past long ago, when physical servers ran server operating systems, and ran applications—when those servers plugged into a switch, and each endpoint was a single server. The network team could see every device, endpoint, or switch, …

Another Missile Fired in the Cisco vs. VMware SDN War

Yesterday I was reading about Cisco’s fourth quarter earnings results, as you do when you are bored and waiting for the next episode of EastEnders to start—well, we all have to take a rest from SDN goodness every now and then. Now, this was interesting for two reasons. It was the last quarter under the …

IT Transformation: No Changes to Management

In previous articles, we discussed IT transformation in general, IT transformation and security, and the top-down and migration approaches to IT transformation. Now, it is time to discuss a method of IT transformation I call “no changes to management.” With this method, IT transformation happens by natural, existing means within the data center, by adding …