App Think Tank: Cloud vs. hyperscale

May 7, 2014

This is the final video clip from the Dell Services Application think tank held earlier this year.  Today’s clip features the always enlightening and entertaining Jimmy Pike.  Jimmy, who is a Senior Fellow at Dell and was once called the Willy Wonka of servers, was one of the 10 panelists at the Think Tank where we discussed the challenges of the new app-centric world.

In this clip, Jimmy talks about the fundamental differences between “purpose-built hyperscale” and the cloud environments that most organizations use.

As Jimmy points out, when moving to the cloud it is important to first understand your business requirements and what your SLAs need to be.

If you’re interested in hearing what else Jimmy has to say, check out this other clip from the think tank,  The persistently, ubiquitously connected to the network era.

The Think Tank, Sessions one and two

  • Think Tank Session 1– Welcome to the application-centric world – best practices in the ‘greenfield’
  • Think tank Session 2– Nexus of forces – CIOs under pressure and the rise of the enterprise developer

Extra-credit reading (previous videos)

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

App Think Tank: Intel IT turns apps into services

May 1, 2014

Today, Das Kamhout,  IT Principal Engineer at Intel and their lead cloud architect talks about Intel IT’s program to make all of their traditional applications into services.  (This video was taken from the  Application think tank that Dell Services held back in January.)

The world is turning to services.  As Das points out, after you rationalize your application portfolio you want put together a strategy to start modifying at least some of your traditional applications to be services based.

Stay tuned

Tomorrow is the last entry on the topic of software and application strategy.  Safe’s CIO will discuss legacy applications and which you want to modify and which you want to leave alone.

The Think Tank, Sessions one and two

  • Think Tank Session 1– Welcome to the application-centric world – best practices in the ‘greenfield’
  • Think tank Session 2– Nexus of forces – CIOs under pressure and the rise of the enterprise developer

Extra-credit reading (previous videos)

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

App Think Tank: Key application policies at Intel and American Cancer Society

April 29, 2014

This week’s theme is applications and software strategy and yesterday’s post dealt with the value of  going “open source”all the way” from start-ups to large enterprises.  Today we’re taking a look at the major guidelines that two large organizations have put in place for all applications being developed.

Take a listen to Das Kamhout,  IT Principal Engineer at Intel and Jay Ferro the CIO of the American Cancer Society as they talk about what their organizations are  requiring.  (This video was taken from the  Application think tank that Dell Services held back in January.)

Consumerization has raised the bar and set new standards for what employees and customers expect from applications both internal and external.   In a nutshell they need to be intuitive and available everywhere.  Intel and the American Cancer Society understand this and I would agree 🙂

Stay tuned

Starting tomorrow, the next three entries this week will center around dealing with the applications that already exist within your organization and how you modify them or know which ones to get rid of.

The Think Tank, Sessions one and two

  • Think Tank Session 1– Welcome to the application-centric world – best practices in the ‘greenfield’
  • Think tank Session 2– Nexus of forces – CIOs under pressure and the rise of the enterprise developer

Extra-credit reading (previous videos)

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

App Think Tank: Open Source all the way

April 28, 2014

This week I’m continuing with the video series from our Application think tank earlier this year.  The videos this week are centered around the topic of applications and software strategy: what should your foundation be, what should your strategy be going forward and how do you deal with what you have.

To kick this topic off, here is a video featuring Barry Libenson, SVP and CIO at Safeway.  The question posed was what role does Open Source play in your software strategy.  Barry says what he never thought he would say, “Open source all the way.”  Take a listen as he explains one man’s conversion.

As Barry explains, open source isn’t just for the bleeding edge anymore, its for mainstream enterprises.  It features a robust ecosystem and is where the talent is.  Whether you’re a start-up or Fortune 50 company, as Barry says, Open Source all the way.

Stay tuned

Tomorrow we’ll look how the American Cancer Society and Intel have set up their guidelines for new applications being created.

The Think Tank, Sessions one and two

  • Think Tank Session 1– Welcome to the application-centric world – best practices in the ‘greenfield’
  • Think tank Session 2– Nexus of forces – CIOs under pressure and the rise of the enterprise developer

Extra-credit reading (previous videos)

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

App Think Tank: The skills and people IT needs most

April 22, 2014

Yesterday I featured the first of three videos that tackle the topic — the skills CIOs and IT need for success.  Today’s video features Ranga Jayaraman, Associate Dean and CIO of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford.

Ranga responds to the question, how would you set up your IT environment today if you had the luxury of starting completely afresh.  With regards to the people and skills he would assemble, Ranga talks about the importance of IT people who understand the business and can act quickly.  He also discusses the difference between developers in an IT shop and those in a product shop and how open source and reusable frameworks have served to make the IT developer much more powerful.  Take a listen.

Ranga’s right

I would say whether your starting from a greenfield environment or improving on your current set up that Ranga is right, you need IT people who understand the business and not just the technology.   Its no longer ok to simply be a tech expert, its about what’s most important for the customer and business and being able to move and adapt quickly.  These messages will continue to crop up as we go through the rest of videos.

These videos were taken from a think tank Dell Services held back in January in Silicon Valley which featured a panel representative of old school and new school companies, big and small.

Still to come

Later this week, I will have the last video on this initial topic, What the CIO of the future must do.  Next weeks’ series will focus on the topic Applications and software strategy and the week after that I will conclude with Cloud and Infrastructure thoughts.

The Think Tank, Sessions one and two

  • Think Tank Session 1– Welcome to the application-centric world – best practices in the ‘greenfield’
  • Think tank Session 2– Nexus of forces – CIOs under pressure and the rise of the enterprise developer

Extra-credit reading (previous videos)

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

App Think Tank: What a CIO must do

April 21, 2014

A couple months ago Dell Services held a think tank out in Silicon Valley at the venture firm, NEA.  We had 10 panelists representing both old school and new school organizations, both big and small:  Intel, Safeway, American Cancer Society, Puppet Labs, NGINX, Stormpath, Stanford Business School, 451 Research and TechCrunch (check out the complete list of participants and session questions).

A cross-section of voices

The idea was to use this cross-section of the tech industry to really learn what was happening in IT today and where it will be tomorrow.  As a group we discussed the challenges of the new app-centric world as well as how to leverage both the four mega trends: Cloud, Mobile, Social and Big Data, and the “three enablers”: Open Source, DevOps and APIs.

We have a series of 10 videos from the event, grouped into three, sections that I will be posting over the next few weeks:

  • CIO and IT skills needed for success
  • Applications and software strategy
  • Cloud and Infrastructure thoughts

Today’s Topic

This week’s topic is, CIO and IT skills needed for success and this first video features Jay Ferro, CIO, American Cancer Society and Barry Libenson, SVP and CIO,  Safeway.

As Barry points out, the role of the CIO is completely different from how it was five years ago and the ability to be agile and nimble are no longer nice-to-haves but rather, essential for success.  Additionally, as Jay states, it is imperative for the CIO of today to simplify their architecture and virtually become an app shop themselves.

Dell would agree with both Barry and Jay.  IT is in a big period of transition and you can learn a lot from the these gentleman and the rest of the think tank :-).

Coming up this week:

  • What skills and types of people does IT need today
  • What skills does the CIO of  the future need

Watch the entire Think Tank

Here are the two sessions that made up the think tank.  Each are about 90 minutes:

New Age of Apps and the Delivery Gaps

  • Session 1– Welcome to the application-centric world – best practices in the ‘greenfield’
  • Session 2– Nexus of forces – CIOs under pressure and the rise of the enterprise developer

Extra-credit reading (previous videos)

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

App Think Tank: The Web Of C-Level Relationships

February 6, 2014

Here is the last in a series of videos from the Dell Services Think Tank.

During the event’s first session I posed the question —  given the chance, how would you set up it for the CIO, CMO, business and developers to work together?

NGINX tech evangelist, Sarah Novotny jumped right in, having had a chance to do just this previously at a start up.  The model which she proposed, which many of the room liked, was one where IT would act as a consultancy to the business and provide an ecosystem of services.

Take a listen:

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

App Think Tank: The persistently, ubiquitously connected to the network era

February 5, 2014

The third short video from the Dell Services Think Tank features the always enlightening and entertaining Jimmy Pike.  Jimmy, who is a Senior Fellow at Dell and was once called the Willy Wonka of servers, was one of the 10 panelists at the Think Tank where we discussed the challenges of the new app-centric world.

In this clip Jimmy talks about what he terms the “persistently, ubiquitously connected to the network era” and what this means for applications going forward.

One more video still to come

  •  The web of C level relationships

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

App Think Tank: What do customers expect

February 4, 2014

The week before last, Dell Services held a think tank in Silicon Valley with 10 panelists representing both old school and new school organizations.   The group discussed the challenges of the new app-centric world as well as how to leverage both the “Four horsemen of IT du jour”: Cloud, Mobile, Social and Big Data, and the “three enablers”: Open Source, DevOps and APIs.

The idea of the Think Tank was not to look at technology for technology sake but from the view point of how it could meet customer and business needs.

Given the above, we started with question, “What do customers expect in an application today?”  In the short clip below, Luke Kanies, CEO of Puppet Labs, Barry Libenson, CIO of Safeway and Jay Ferro, CIO of the American Cancer Society give their thoughts.

Videos still to come

  •  IT is facing competition for the first time ever
  •  The persistently, ubiquitously connected to the network era
  •  The web of C level relationships

Extra-Credit reading

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

App Think Tank – Some take aways

February 3, 2014

The week before last Dell Services held a think tank out in Silicon Valley at the venture firm, NEA.  We had 10 panelists representing both old school and new school organizations:  Intel, Safeway, American Cancer Society, Puppet Labs, NGINX, Stormpath, Stanford Business School, 451 Research and TechCrunch (see complete list of participants below).  I had the honor of moderating the panel.

The group discussed the challenges of the new app-centric world as well as how to leverage both the “Four horsemen of IT du jour”: Cloud, Mobile, Social and Big Data, and the “three enablers”: Open Source, DevOps and APIs.

You can see more pictures from the event as well as watch the entire think tank, which ran a bit under three and half hours, here.  Additionally, over the next few days I will be posting blogs around four short video snippets from the event.

  • Video 1:  What do customers expect
  • Video 2:  IT is facing competition for the first time ever
  • Video 3:  The persistently, ubiquitously connected to the network era
  • Video 4:  The web of C level relationships

Some Take-aways

I was really impressed how well the participants gelled as a group, with just the right amount of tension :).  Below are a few of the interesting tidbits I took away (I was surprised how much of the conversation came back to culture)  You can also check out SDNCentral’s summary of the event .

Q: What are the customer expectations of services today?

  • They are personalized and immediate (friction is a killer)
  • They are agile and rapidly improve
  • Available from any device, anywhere and are always on

Q: What big bets are you making?

  • “Open Source all the way” — Barry Libenson, CIO,  Safeway
  • Mobile first, platform agnostic – Jay Ferro – CIO American Cancer Society
  • Hire learners, not vertical experts, we want entrepreneurial problem solvers – Ranga Jayaraman – CIO,  Stanford Business School
  • Everything must be services – Das Kamhout – IT Principal Engineer, Intel
  • Set up a learning culture, that is tolerant of failure – Luke Kanies, Puppet CEO
  • Clean APIs and modularity – Alex Salazar –  CEO, Stormpath

Q: If your son or daughter wanted to be a CIO, what advice would you give them?

  • Be really choosey about the company you work for
  • Learn to entertain opposing ideas and paths
  • Agility, flexibility, adaptability
  • Learn to let go
  • Learn to be a hacker
  • Learn mindfulness

Watch the whole event here.

Participants

  • Barry Libenson-SVP and CIO,  Safeway
  • Jay Ferro – CIO, American Cancer Society
  • Ranga Jayaraman- Associate Dean & CIO,  Stanford GSB
  • Luke Kanies – Founder & CEO, Puppet Labs
  • Alex Salazar – Co-Founder & CEO, Stormpath
  • Alex Williams – Blogger & Journalist, TechCrunch
  • Michael Cote – Research Director, Infrastructure Software at 451 Research
  • Sarah Novotny- Tech Evangelist, NGINX
  • Das Kamhout – IT Principal Engineer, Intel
  • Jimmy Pike – Sr. Fellow and Chief Architect, Dell

Extra-credit reading

  • IT can’t thrive unless CIO’s can change the culture – SDNcentral
  • New Age of Apps” Think Tank to be streamed live –  Barton’s blog

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

“New Age of Apps” Think Tank to be streamed Live

January 21, 2014

On Thursday, January 23 Dell services will be hosting a think tank in Silicon Valley at the venture capital firm NEA.  While hosted in the Bay Area, the event will be streamed live for viewing around the world.

The title of the Think Tank is “The new age of apps and delivery gaps” and we have put together a group of 10 panelist that we feel represents a cross-section of technology and IT today:

  • Barry Libenson-SVP and CIO,  Safeway
  • Jay Ferro – CIO, American Cancer Society
  • Ranga Jayaraman- Associate Dean & CIO,  Stanford GSB
  • Luke Kanies – Founder & CEO, Puppet Labs
  • Alex Salazar – Co-Founder & CEO, Stormpath
  • Alex Williams – Blogger & Journalist, TechCrunch
  • Michael Cote – Research Director, Infrastructure Software at 451 Research
  • Sarah Novotny- Tech Evangelist, NGINX
  • Das Kamhout – IT Principal Engineer, Intel
  • Jimmy Pike – Sr. Fellow and Chief Architect, Dell

I will be acting as the moderator of the panel.

Join in

The event will begin at 9AM Pacific Time, and last for three and a half hours. The event will be divided into two main sessions and we’ll discuss such topics as the influence of application developers, the changing role of the CIO and why firms need to build API strategies  (see the session outlines below for more details)  You can follow and contribute questions and comments via Twitter at #TheAppGap.   Hope you can make it!

Session Outlines

Session 1- Welcome to the application-centric world – best practices in the ‘greenfield’    

The rise of cloud applications force companies to reevaluate their business architectures.  Leveraging new platforms, organizations can operate more efficiently, better engage with customers, and introduce innovative products and services faster than ever before.  In this session we’ll discuss and debate how to effectively leverage the best of today’s advanced (digital) technologies and capitalize on the opportunity for a ‘greenfield’ approach.

*Questions

  1. What would you do different to be ready for the digital age?  Entrepreneurs starting a company today, what are the architecture and design choices you’d recommend?
  2. What plans would you put in place to leverage cloud, big data, mobile and social media?  What would your API strategy be?
  3. How would you plan for growth over a 3-5 year horizon?

Session 2: Nexus of forces – CIOs under pressure and the rise of the enterprise developer

While CIOs are under pressure to reduce costs and improve efficiency, enterprise developers have become the new ‘kingmakers’ leading product development and customer applications.  Our experts will share experiences in managing these complex stakeholder relationships, brainstorm the way out from technical debt and examine the possibilities within existing applications.

*Questions:

  1. How do organizations evolve legacy existing environments to take advantage of emerging trends – what are the breakthrough processes and technologies?
  2. What does the CIO needs to do to re-connect with business leaders and organizational strategies? What roles do CIOs, CTOs, business and developers play?
  3. How do established companies take advantage of the changes that are happening today?   i.e. private/public cloud strategies, apps modernization, leveraging new architectures, API strategies.

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George