Back in May of this year, CA introduced Mainframe Software Manager (MSM) to its mainframe customers and in a way, to the world of mainframe computing. MSM is for CA's mainframe administrators what a software install wizard is for the rest of us. It greatly simplifies the process of installing and updating CA's one hundred and sixty-odd IBM mainframe software titles. And, like install wizards that come with shrink-wrapped software, it's free.
A free install wizard, and for the mainframe of all things. What a concept.
So now that MSM has been out there in big iron shops for a bit, I decided recently to call a CA customer with hands-on MSM experience to see if it in fact delivered the wizard experience. Indeed it did he said. Installs that once could take days were reduced to minutes. There was once a time when mainframers referred to UNIX and Windows as third-world operating systems. I doubt that any UNIX IT pro ever burned 72 hours installing a mere upgrade.
Complexity has always been an issue with the frame. Yes, it runs the big bet-your-business apps with time-honored aplomb, but it is generally thought that mainframe administrative staff members need years of experience to become proficient. That's a big problem these days. First, that additional administrative time and experience translates to additional operating expense when operational budgets are now severely stressed. Second, seasoned mainframers are retiring in greater numbers than their replacements can be found or grown internally. The expertise pool is shrinking. Mainframes will gradually disappear if the people who run them get harder and harder to find.
That's why, as simple as it might seem to third worlders, an install wizard for the mainframe is a big deal. Granted, it's a bit more complex than your standard Windows wizard, but hey, the mainframe has to hang on to at least some of its nerdy mystique.
CA ran some tests with two IT administrative groups and MSM. One group consisted of z/OS "experts," the other was made up of z/OS "novices." Novices in this case were experienced open-systems administrators and recent college graduates. One point of the exercise was to see how much time on average MSM saved both groups during a software installation. The time saved was indeed significant. But the other point, perhaps even more important, was to see if the novices could install CA mainframe software in roughly the same time period as the experts. The novices, as expected, took far longer without MSM help, but came in only minutes behind the experts using MSM.
Hats off to CA for proving that the mainframe doesn't have to be a difficult place to do computing. The process of manually building tapes to install software upgrades has to find its proper place in the annals of computing history. CA offers an MSM API for other mainframe ISV's to leverage, if they so desire. Who knows where this trend can wind up? Maybe someday mainframe management will be so easy, even a Microsoft certified professional can do it.
Recently I heard the chief information officer of a large technology company observe that the consolidation and convergence of IT infrastructure is forcing a consolidation and convergence within his own department. He observed that because platforms are converging around server virtualization projects and a future rollout of virtual desktops, narrowly focused IT administrative groups must also converge. In the future, IT competency will be in systems and services delivery rather than in stove-piped areas of expertise like servers, networks, and storage. Furthermore he believes that the IT jobs market will value "converged' administrators.
As a final point, he observed that the role of the storage administrator within IT operations was disappearing--this from the CIO of a large storage vendor.
For the last few years, enterprise IT operational departments have been segregated by technological boundaries--separate server, networking, and storage groups managing IT infrastructure, each focused on their own areas of expertise. While the groups communicated with one another, the relationships could sometimes get testy to say the least. Some years ago I attended a Network World show and observed people wearing buttons proclaiming "The Problem Is Not The Network!" Later that year I heard a CIO from a large university lament that his operations groups had turned into armed camps.
Now virtualization and the convergence of Fibre Channel and Ethernet within the data center come along and change the nature of the relationships between enterprise IT operational groups as well as the traditional roles of server, networking, and storage groups. For storage professionals, the change may well be career threatening as observed earlier.
As the virtual operating systems (VMware, MS Hyper-V, etc.) progress, we will see an increased tendency to offer administrators the option of doing both storage and data management at the server rather than the storage level. Backups and data migrations can be done by a VMware administrator for example. Storage capacity can be managed from the virtualized OS management console.
Today's enterprise IT storage professional (storage administrator, storage architect, etc.) should now be broadening his or her technical horizons. I recently asked one how server virtualization was changing his life. His (ironic) answer: I'm learning more about networks. But don't stop at the network. Know what characteristics of a storage system enhance the performance and manageability of virtual server environments, how to architect a storage infrastructure in a world where everything is a virtual machine, and under what circumstances is it better to manage data and storage from within the storage layer. In short, become a converged storage pro.
There's been a general outcry lately about how vendor marketing organizations are abusing the cloud by force-fitting many new and existing products into the cloud computing mold.
Still, some cloud-like things actually do fit without the aid of a crow bar. A case in point is IBM's Smart Analytics Cloud.
The Smart Analytics Cloud is a solution set and reference model based on an IBM-internal Business Intelligence (BI) project code-named Blue Insight, which IBM claims to be the largest private cloud built to date. Blue insight has allowed IBM to eliminate multiple BI systems that were all performing essentially the same extract-transform-load (ETL) processes for different user groups.
It combines the resources of 100-plus separate systems within IBM such that 200,000 or so consumers of IBM's BI data now have a private cloud that acts as a centralized repository. Even better, Blue Insight does in fact fit the NIST definition of a private cloud. All Blue Insight users can, given the right permissions, get access to all data within the cloud.
What IBM wants you to know is that you too can build your own private information analytics cloud--the IBM Smart Analytics Cloud. But here's where you may stop and ponder. The solution set consists of a set of BI cloud services, and Cognos 8 BI software running on an IBM z/OS mainframe. You like the concept you say, but it's the mainframe part that may have you rubbing your chin.
So let's take a step back for a minute and put what you may see as a venerable, old beast into the cloud perspective. Please read my recent post on the VMware/Cisco/EMC consortium. I chided myself for suggesting that Vblock was in fact an open systems mainframe. OK, now I'm going to come right out and say it. A Vblock is an open systems mainframe. And, while it may be the first, it won't be the only one. Hewlett-Packard says you can build one with almost all of its parts and guidance, and OracleSun will likely announce one of its own once the EU relents. So put the z/OS in that mainframe in that perspective. It already supports thousands of Linux VMs.
What IBM has done is come up with a perfect application for a private cloud. Many large company IT departments, like IBM's, have multiple BI systems all essentially performing the same ETL function for different internal BI consumer groups. What Blue Insight does for these redundant and often expensive systems is very much like what a hypervisor does for redundant application servers--it blows them away. And because these systems can run into the hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars, the savings can be more than substantial. The question for the mainframe skeptic: is the cost savings enough to justify learning, or perhaps re-learning z/OS?
You may take some comfort from this observation: the number of new z/OS users is on the rise. Why? They run virtual machines and have been doing so for decades. The systems integration work is done. The management applications are there. And security is miles ahead of the cloud alternatives now available. No waiting for maturity to come along, all in good time. You can get it all now.
This is not a shill piece for the z/OS mainframe even if it feels like one. I'm arguing that, if you're looking seriously at consolidated private cloud platforms, due diligence says you should not dismiss one out-of-hand that has stood up over time longer than any other single IT platform.
Client/server computing was supposed to have been the the mainframe killer. It wasn't. Now those redundant servers are stacking up on the loading docks of the recyclers. Just sayin'.
I ended my last blog post with "Integrate and prosper." Little did I know that Cisco, EMC, and VMware were about to unveil a Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) early the following week, the biggest cross-vendor integration project yet seen in the world of computing. Yes there were rumors about a Cisco/EMC joint venture that would sell Cisco servers packaged with EMC storage, but none that I heard captured the boldness and scope of VCE.
The core VCE compute platform is called a "Vblock," an integrated, pre-packaged IT solution consisting of server and networking resources from Cisco; storage, security, and software-based management tools from EMC; and an OS platform (vSphere) from VMware. To market and support Vblocks, the coalition has created two separate entities: a Solution Support Team staffed and funded by the coalition partners that will do presales and provide other marketing resources, and Acadia chartered to build and, if needed, operate Vblocks on premises for a customer. Who will you buy Vblocks from? Just about everyone except HP, IBM, and OracleSun.
Not to be outdone, the day following the VCE announcement, HP announced Converged Infrastructure (CI). CI is integrated server, networking, and storage resources too, but doesn't need a coalition. It takes most of what it needs from HP's own product lines. I say most because HP doesn't own a server virtualization platform--a key ingredient. Not to worry. Despite the fact that VMware is invested in Vblocks and Acadia, it likes CI too. And then of course there's the HyperV alternative out there...somewhere...
Its decidedly unclear at this point how successful these integrated compute stacks will be in an IT marketplace that's undergoing multiple transitions--from physical to virtual, from stove pipe to cloud, from decentralized to consolidated. The purveyors of integrated compute stacks are driven by a central belief: that your CIO wants to make the transition to virtual/cloud/consolidated simpler by wrapping up servers, switches, and storage arrays into one neat, pre-integrated package.
As storage pro, you may find that ironic. You may be old enough to remember when many of these same vendors were selling decentralized client server computing as the better, simpler way. Now the Three Musketeers--consolidation, centralization, and virtualization--are here to vanquish the complexity created by the-network-is-the-computer computing. Please shoot me if I even suggest that integrated compute stacks are the new mainframe.
So, as a storage professional slaving away within the bowels of corporate IT infrastructure, is the integrated compute stack about to change your life? I'd say yes if the powers that be like the Vblock concept. And if they like Vblocks then your choice of storage is EMC's. If CI wins, you get HP's flavor of the month array. Simple, right? And life could get simpler still when the IT operations group reorganizes around Vblocks. You may get to know the people in the server and network administration groups much better than you know them now as they start doing some of the things you do.
On the other hand, Vblocks and CIs may well be a tough sell in your organization. Cisco has yet to make its mark in the server world and buying a million-dollar anything from a coalition of vendors that want to run your critical applications on their collaborative platform is untried to say the least. But the biggest hurdle standing in the way of the integrated compute stack as it approaches your IT operations group may well be the following retort: "We just don't do things that way here."
Given that the phrase "our current economy" has such a negative connotation, EMC's third-quarter earnings report last week was downright upbeat.
EMC surpassed its own optimistic guidance for the fiscal quarter just ended by 4 percent. Wow. Other phrases like "increasing confidence among customer in spending their IT budgets" and "very weak first quarter progressing to more normal third and fourth quarters (of 2009)" were heard on the conference call with analysts. Cool. Happy days are here again for the storage industry, right? Well, it depends.
EMC is still regarded as a bellwether for the rest of the storage industry. Indeed, Information Storage as a line item in EMC's third-quarter 2009 financial report accounted for 65 percent of EMC's Information Infrastructure revenues. Upbeat forecasts are often extrapolated to other publicly and privately held storage companies. But EMC is changing. While it's still "where information lives," strategic initiatives include cloud computing, security, broader IT services, and of course, virtualization. It's a very different storage company than the rest of the pack in that all of these initiatives now contribute directly and indirectly to the growth of its Information Storage division. No other storage company operates under EMC's model.
Additionally, there are forces currently at work in the marketplace that tend to mitigate against either raw storage growth or profit margins. Data deduplication technologies are now in the mainstream of IT operational processes. Reducing physical storage requirements by a factor of 20:1 for a growing number of data types is increasingly commonplace, reducing the demand for raw physical storage. And while cloud storage is the latest craze, it's a tough place to generate profit dollars. Cloud storage buyers like commodity hardware, open-source software, and a DIY attitude.
I agree with EMC's executives, who are predicting that the storage industry can expect to see purchasing activity returning to somewhat normal levels in the coming quarter and extending into 2010. But I don't think we'll see a rising tide that automatically floats all boats. Rather, positioning and an ability to integrate with other things--platforms, applications, processes--will be key predictors of success.
Again, let's look at EMC. No doubt, VMware is now an indirect growth contributor to EMC's Information Storage division. The same is true for 3Par, Dell/EqualLogic, HP/LeftHand, and NetApp. It should by now be clear that integration with server virtualization is goodness if you're a storage vendor.
Positioning in the storage cloud is chic but risky at the moment. Nevertheless, if you as a storage vendor can survive the harsh profit environment, your reward will come in due course. Cloud service providers are getting away with the data center equivalent of murder right now. Security is all but nonexistent and incidents of data loss are increasing. Yet providers are still able to sign-up customers who ignore the fine print in the service agreement that absolves them of all liability. That will change. And when it does, the demand for infrastructure that supports a higher quality of service will rise.
Then there are the "stack" vendors--those who are now pursuing an end-to-end, application-to-disk and everything-in-between product integration strategy. These include IBM, HP, Oracle/Sun (yes the deal gets done), and Cisco/EMC. The move by enterprise IT to virtualization and by inference, the cloud, drives this integration. And one interesting and perhaps intended consequence is this: In the world of the integrated processing stack, all becomes visible. A vendor like Cisco supplying new data center network infrastructure to a customer (Data Center Ethernet for example) can also see and respond to needs for upgraded storage (from partner EMC), new server connection devices like NICs and HBAs, upgraded management software (again from partner EMC). Virtualization gives stack vendors a sales opportunity vantage point that plays directly to the integrated stack strategy. Should smaller point-product vendors be pursuing an integration strategy with them? You bet.
There once was a point in time when the storage industry stood proud, broad-shouldered, and fiercely independent. Remember when storage mavens scoffed at Scott McNealy's "storage is a mere feature of the server" pronouncement? Sorry, but those days are gone. Integrate and prosper.
At Storage Networking World in Phoenix this week, there was a buzz in the hallways and over breakfast tables about the T-Mobile Sidekick outage that was due, according to Microsoft, to "a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up." And why not? There are about 800 enterprise-level storage administrators here. The backup process is squarely in their space as is data recovery and data integrity. Some of their colleagues and some vendors represented on the show floor were at Sidekick ground zero pulling data from the wreckage.
SNW attendees knew that there were many fingers pointing in many different directions over this and my finger shan't be one. However I will go out on a limb and say that my understanding of the situation is that it was not a result of sabotage as was once rumored. Rather it was due to failure of two coincidental processes, in this case a data migration failure that was preceded by a backup failure.
Microsoft now says that little if any data was actually lost. T-Mobile Sidekicks are being restored and all or almost all will be made right again. Life will go on normally as if nothing really happened.
Really? Put yourself in the shoes of a Sidekick user for a minute or two. Do you know where your data is and I mean all of it? And, to borrow a line from an old Dustin Hoffman movie: is it safe?
Take an inventory. You have data on your desktop, laptop, Palm device, smartphone, entertainment center, home network...Then ask yourself: how much of this data could you lose without caring whether you ever used it again? Certainly some, perhaps a lot of it, will fall into the data dumpster category. But the T-Mobile scare is yet another reminder that each of us owns data that has become critical to our daily activities. Could you function if someone grabbed your smartphone and ran away? For an increasing number of us, the answer is yes, but with ever greater difficulty. Some other data about us, our medical records for example, are life-critical.
Next, try to figure out how much of that critical data you actually have control over and then back it up. Immediately. Don't trust others to do it for you. Take control and make copies locally and/or using one of the many online backup services.
As one of my Twitter compatriots SEPATONjay observed over breakfast this week, if the service level agreement between T-Mobile and Microsoft couldn't prevent this failure, how good are the SLAs between any of the rest of us consumers and our services providers. Take an inventory of the services providers that hold your data, then read their contracts, (assuming you can find them). I'll bet all of them indemnify the vendor against the loss of your data. If you can't protect that data, don't assume they will. Use a service that offers you a way to protect the data you deem critical.
Think your patient record is beyond your control? News item: you own your patient record no matter what your health care provider might say to the contrary. Get a copy and keep that copy up to date. I'm even going to go so far as to suggest that sometime in the next five years you have your genome sequenced. Store a copy of that in a safe place as well.
We are the mistresses and masters of our data domains. We can cry foul when someone else loses our data. We can even sue. But when data is destroyed--as in gone forever--no outcry no matter how loud will get it back. Protect it and win applause from the storage administrators who assembled here in Phoenix this week.
For the last two decades, RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) controllers have ruled the storage world. RAID has been required for data protection in disk arrays. RAID schemes (RAID 0,1,6 10, etc.) reside on RAID controllers baked into disk arrays with many billions sold to date. But perhaps more important from the standpoint of making money, the RAID controller has also delivered differentiated value for storage vendors. Data copy and migration, snap shot, deduplication, and the list of controller-based functions goes on--all have been loaded on to the RAID controller.
It's becoming increasingly clear that the traditional RAID controller is coming to the end of its life cycle, at least within the enterprise data center. Types of applications now common to the Web 2.0 community are now populating the enterprise data center--applications that require scalability into the petabyte range. Traditional RAID controllers start to show their shortcomings at this scale level. Drive rebuild times elongate to the point where RAID data protection is no longer protection.
We can argue (and I have) over how much longer the RAID controller will survive. For sure, it's nowhere near dead and will continue on as the workhorse of the storage industry for some time. But its shortcomings are becoming increasingly obvious and are driving the creation of the next generation of storage devices. Indeed one of those devices is no "device" at all. Rather, it's software running on a collection of commodity servers and server-attached disk, both traditional and solid state disk. Think of this new "device" as software-defined storage where all of the functionality is defined and delivered in software. So as a user, when you buy a software-defined storage device, you're simply buying code. What you run it on is up to you.
MaxiScale is an interesting example of software-defined storage. MaxiScale's FLEX storage platform runs on standard servers with SATA disk, and uses standard Ethernet interconnections. It is implemented as clustered nodes--servers plus disk. I/O performance and capacity scales linearly as processing nodes and disk drives are added to the cluster.
So the storage value-delivery model is decidedly different here. You as the user buy software and essentially roll you own array. But what else is different here? First, while the RAID controller is gone, the absolute requirement to preserve data is not. Data protection is also implemented in software.
Second, the system assumes that individual nodes within the cluster will go off line or fail for one reason or another. That's OK. The FLEX storage cluster continues to function, perhaps at some degraded state for some period of time until the full cluster is restored. But the point is that once you power up the cluster, you can keep it running for years--decades if you want. Hardware is added and replaced without disruption. Software is upgraded without disruption. It's perpetual storage.
Third, FLEX is an expression of the state of the art in single or global namespace file system technology. It's this core technology that delivers the value-added storage services rather than the RAID controller.
MaxiScale is not alone in this emerging space. Other software-defined storage solutions include ParaScale's cloud storage software and Symantec's FileStore. Other traditional hardware and software players will follow with software-defined storage offerings in the coming months. Include database vendors in this space as well. Some will position their solutions as cloud storage, others as data protection and archival storage.
Will software defined storage replace traditional RAID storage? Not immediately. Not dramatically. But to me a new model is emerging. Scalability, hardware independence, and system longevity are the more compelling features when compared to traditional RAID-based storage arrays. But perhaps the most compelling feature will be an ability to buy big array performance and scalability at a fraction of the cost of big array RAID.
Earlier this week, EMC revealed that it has attracted longtime Intel executive Pat Gelsinger to run its storage business.
Gelsinger is set to become president and chief operating officer of EMC's Information Infrastructure Products (virtually all in EMC's product group except VMware), including the Enterprise Storage Division, RSA Information Security, Content Management and Archiving, and Ionix IT Management. His direct reports will be Frank Hauck, who now leads ESD, Mark Lewis of CMA, Art Coviello of RSA, and Jay Mastaj of Ionix.
A Wall Street Journal blog post quotes Gelsinger as ultimately wanting to be Intel's president, but that wasn't something that was going to happen anytime soon. In that the move is effective immediately, Gelsinger will likely not be a keynote speaker at the Intel Developer Forum, as originally planned.
Pat Gelsinger
(Credit: Intel)Gelsinger is an interesting acquisition for EMC, as it diversifies its way toward encompassing more and more traditional IT infrastructure products and services, as well as IT virtualization and emerging cloud-computing models. His chip geek credentials are solid. He wrote the book on programming the 80386, and he designed the original 486 processor. At EMC, he will move to bring to market products based on a tighter integration between existing product lines, as well as those from VMware and some key partners (read Cisco Systems).
While Gelsinger is a hard-driving executive, he reveals an actively spiritual side of himself in his book "The Juggling Act: Bringing Balance to your Faith, Family, and Work."
While the Gelsinger move seems to have attracted the most media attention, there's way more to this story. As part of the executive personnel announcement, Howard Elias was promoted to president and chief operating officer of information infrastructure and cloud services at EMC.
Previously, Elias was president of EMC Global Services and EMC's Ionix IT management group. He will now be responsible for all of EMC's service groups, including those attached to the products groups. Elias also gets to champion EMC's moves into cloud services.
For me, the hidden word here is "services." IBM spawned IGS. HP bought EDS. There's a void here that I think Elias has to fill. Can Elias give EMC a services powerhouse? Can he successfully blend the more traditional IT services with the newly emerging cloud-computing models? As I see it, those are Elias' challenges.
What's going on at the top? First, Tucci believes that the current executive management structure needs to be enhanced and expended, as it progresses from $14 billion in annual revenue to a $20 billion to $25 billion IT infrastructure company capable of competing with the likes of IBM and Hewlett-Packard. Hence the division of responsibility along the line of products vs. services.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Tucci has, with this new management structure, set up something of a three-way, three-year competition to become his successor, as Tucci also announced that he plans to remain president and CEO through 2012. Now in the running, according to the Journal report, are Gelsinger, Elias, and David Goulden, EMC's current executive vice president and chief financial officer.
Tucci is certainly laying his cards on the table for Wall Street to see, and Wall Street appears to like the move, pushing EMC shares upward over the last week. His latest moves help discourage rumors that EMC is in play as a takeover candidate.
For a storage guy, last week's VMworld 2009 in San Francisco was a great show. All the familiar storage vendors were there and then some. Walking the show floor, I found them to be uniformly positive about traffic and the response they were getting from attendees.
Digging a bit deeper I found that storage vendors were getting attention from a broad range of IT specialists including server, network, architecture, and of course, storage administrators.
Wait a minute. VMworld isn't supposed to be a storage show. And yet storage vendors were, in general, more positively impressed with VMworld 2009 than many of the previously attended storage-focused shows they have been to in the recent past.
Server virtualization is now reordering the IT landscape, and the ground storage vendors have stood on for years is moving under their feet.
At varying levels, storage vendors feel the motion. They know the server virtualization thing is huge opportunity. Said another way, they fear that they could eventually disappear if they don't position themselves properly in the eyes of IT buyers now driving toward near complete if not total virtualization of the enterprise IT function.
Decades ago, storage was a mere peripheral, a feature of the server as Scott McNealy once famously quipped. But as he made that pronouncement, storage was getting connected to its own network and creeping out from behind the shadow of the server into a limelight all its own. EMC perhaps said it best: Storage--Where Information Lives.
Now that networked storage is mature, the ground is moving once again. Data and storage management is heading back toward the server running VMware. Data replication and storage provisioning functions are now features of the VMware server with more to come.
Beyond IT architecture, the architecture of the virtualized IT operations department is undergoing perhaps an even more profound change. The boundaries that once defined operational "silos"--server, network, and storage administration--are breaking down as vCenter becomes the focal point for VMware-managed IT. Hence, storage vendors here at VMworld 2009 get visitors from all walks of VMware operational life.
What am I taking away from VMworld 2009?
- VMware needs to resist playing favorites with storage vendors, especially the one that owns them. To VMware's credit, I saw much evidence that they get this imperative. VMware is democratically exposing APIs and vCenter plug-in opportunities to any storage vendor that wants to use them.
- VMware administrators will be increasingly challenged to choose between data and storage management functions that reside on the VMware platform or live within the storage environment. Larger IT environments will likely settle on a combination of both. Smaller shops may well opt to manage data and storage from the vantage point of the VMware platform.
- Storage-focused shows may no longer be able to support themselves. The nature of the storage buyer is changing. The nature of the storage environment is changing. Both are becoming more diverse and less narrowly focused on issues that only pertain to storage.
VMworld 2010 will likely be another great storage show.
NetApp's new CEO is Tom Georgens. Georgens steps in as Dan Warmenhoven, NetApp's CEO since 1994, moves on to the position of chairman of the board and a partnership development role under the direction of Georgens.
Warmenhoven's accomplishments were many, but he may be remembered most for turning the small niche-market opportunity that NAS once was as a dedicated file server attached to a LAN into the major networked storage platform NAS has become. Along the way, he built NetApp up to a 3.4 billion dollar company with 8,000-plus employees focused on storage.
Tom Georgens
(Credit: NetApp)NetApp co-founder Dave Hitz tells us that one of Warmenhoven's personal goals has been to retire at age 60. He's one year away from that milestone. Rather than continue to lead NetApp into a new phase that will be focused on scalable NAS, virtualization, and cloud computing, Warmenhoven has decided that Georgens' time has come.
Georgens' storage roots go back to the early to mid-1990s at EMC, where he was tapped to develop a midrange storage product to complement the Symmetrix line and exploit the growing Windows storage opportunity. That project was torpedoed internally, and Georgens went on to take on the storage business at LSI. EMC subsequently bought Data General, jettisoned DG's server business, but propelled Clariion to its current position of dominance in the midrange.
At LSI, Georgens surrounded himself with some very able executives who helped him establish the Engenio storage brand as the dominant OEM storage play, selling to the likes of IBM, STK, and Sun. He attempted to take Engenio public, but pulled back when both he and the executives at LSI decided that they couldn't get what they believed to be the true value of Engenio via an IPO. Not long thereafter, NetApp came calling. Georgens stepped in and later took on the position of COO, a move many analysts interpreted as one that placed him next in line for the CEO spot.
Now is a pivotal time in NetApp's history. NetApp has successfully transitioned from NAS-only to a broader range of storage and data management software products. And it is the only major independent and publicly held storage company left standing. STK was acquired by Sun. EMC has diversified to the point where it now calls itself an IT infrastructure player. That singular position in the eyes of some makes NetApp a takeover target. Here's why I think a takeover of NetApp is now less likely.
Georgens hates to lose. Selling-out now would be tantamount to losing.
How do I know? This may sound a bit odd but Georgens and I both participate in a not well-known activity called radiosport. Radiosport is practiced by ham radio operators worldwide. On certain weekends during the year, ham radio contestants try to make as many contacts with other hams in as many countries as they can during a 48-hour period. I do it because I've been a ham since my teen years and it's still fun to copy Morse code at something like 35 words per minute. Georgens probably enjoys this, too, but he's in radiosport to take all the marbles. Unlike me, Georgens is a world-class competitor. He has won numerous worldwide competitions, often from a station on the island of Barbados, and holds several North American records. In addition, he has represented the United States in the World Radiosport Team Championships.
So what, you say? Try to send and receive high-speed code for 48 hours with only occasional short breaks and maybe an hour of sleep in between. It takes dedication and an absolute desire to win to match Georgens' achievements.
Georgens didn't go to NetApp to sell the company. He went, I believe, because he wanted continue on NetApp's growth trajectory established years ago by Warmenhoven, Tom Mendoza, and Hitz. Selling would be letting someone else win. That's not in character for Georgens.
