Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Another company to watch - Infinio



I haven’t had a chance to talk about a lot of the cool companies I've run across lately. I've seen a few, Ziften, Cloudbyte and this one, Infinio. I actually got to go meet the Infinio team in Cambridge yesterday which was great. I always forget how cool Kendall Square is until I get to spend time there. 

So here’s my notes in Infinio. Standard disclaimer… I don’t work for them and I’m not speaking for them, but if you are interested in them I’d be glad to introduce you…

You know how when you are designing storage you have to think about not just capacity, but the number of drives too. I remember we needed around 500GB of storage for our SAP instance but we ended up having to get 8 times that amount of drives to reach the number of iops we needed for the application to perform well. That seemed crazy to me.

Now it’s a bit better now, if you are buying new storage you can have them add in SSD drives and most of the storage companies now do auto-tiering so that “hot data” goes on the faster SSD drives and the rest goes on the spinning disks. But SSD is still really expensive and if you already have your storage environment, it’s a project to add SSD to it.

Enter Infinio. They claim, and I say claim only because my team hasn't done it, that you can download their software, install it, and have a much better performing ESX environment in 30 minutes with no downtime. I went through the install and it took less than 10 minutes, but that was in a lab in ideal conditions, point is 30 minutes is definitely believable. And yes you read that last paragraph correctly, it’s just software and you don’t need to reboot…

The way it works is it allocates a VM on each ESX host and essentially uses memory on the box (currently 8GB) and a single vcpu, as part of a distributed cache. There is also an additional VM for a management console that needs 2 vcpu's. 

The metrics were impressive, though I have to admit I don’t remember the details. It seemed like it showed at least double the performance but did a really nice job smoothing out the disk loading too. Don't take my word for it, or even their word for it, take an hour and test it in your environment. 

In theory this would also reduce the amount of network traffic to the storage too so it could help you stretch your 1Gb data center a little longer and avoid having to upgrade to 10Gb. Of course my company, Extreme Networks, sells network switches so I probably shouldn't point that out…

Now there are a few gotchas... It supports ESX with NFS datastores, if you use block level datastores like iscsi it won’t help. Now I don’t think they said this, but I can imagine that they are going to work on a version that works with iscsi too. Right now it only works with VMware as well. If you are using HyperV or something else, you’re out of luck for now, again I wouldn't be surprised if they are thinking about future releases adding support for other vendors but they definitely didn't say that.

So if you are running ESX against NFS datastores, check it out. You literally can install it at lunch, test it and uninstall it with no downtime. You might be surprised at how well it works.

A few other folks have looked at this. One is Jonathan Frappier,  who you definitely want to follow. He has a blog called Virtxpert and covers a lot of super cool virtualization stuff. The Infinio specific posts are here

Another person that talked about Infinio is Steve Duplessie from ESG. Again definitely someone good to follow, ESG has great research and Steve is an awesome speaker and definitely knows what he is talking about. He discusses Infinio in this video.


Thursday, February 13, 2014

What is IT+?

Many CIO's I talk to are 100% confident that they have an awesome IT department. Sometimes though when you talk to their users you get a different story. I don't think CIO's are wrong to think they have a really good team, I mean we all like to think we are the cream of the crop but here is a hypothetical scenario I want you to think about.

Imagine, if you will, that your company just re-branded and now you have all these new templates you want to get people to start using. A user calls into the service desk (or emails if that's more believable for you) and asks where to get it.

A good IT department will have a service desk that says "You can get the updated templates from the marketing site at http://marketingsite/, obviously substituting the URL for the right one.

A really good IT department will then follow up the next day and ask if they got it OK, needed any help installing it or using it, and maybe even offer training if the user seems confused.

An IT+ department will do all of that, but then go to the administrators and see if there is a way to automatically install these templates globally to everyone so that users everywhere can automatically see them when they chose to create a new template.

Often times, and what the gold star service is, would be an IT department that is so in tune with the business that the marketing team and IT already thought about this and had the new material lined up and ready to go because IT thinks about what they business needs and the business knows IT will help and brings the into the loop early. Ideally this conversation happens at all levels of the business, not just the CIO and CMO level.

Take a minute and think about how your service desk would respond. Would they even respond? If not you need to address that pretty soon. Build a metrics report showing SLA's around response time and make sure you, the CIO, review them every day and get rid of people who don't get it.

Would they ask "What's powerpoint?" If so I'd suggest training. A lot of training actually. Your service desk is the fact of IT and you need them to be on top of their game all the time. Make them the early adopters (at least some of them). Show them it's OK to learn new things and get them to be innovators. Just because they are helpdesk not architects doesn't mean they don't have great ideas.

Are they good? Congratulations. Do you want them to be great? Then let them know it's OK to suggest solutions to the real problem. Closing the ticket is not the same as fixing the problem. Let them know that you expect them to do both, and then make sure your admins understand that message too. You want to encourage them to work together to solve issues.

And if you want the gold star, make sure you encourage your team to talk to their peers in the business. It's OK to sit in the caf and have a cup of coffee with the marketing team. I mean clearly if the network is done that's not the right time, but let them know part of their job is relationships.

My previous CIO gave me the goal that 30% of my time should be spent internal networking. It was probably the best advice I've gotten. Once you meet people on a personal level and become friends, you become more than IT, you become "Rich who works in IT' and it's much harder to blame or dislike a person than a department or title. Plus you get rid of business alignment problems that plague most of our industry.

That's my suggestion for a cold, snowy Maine day. I'd love any feedback or comments.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

When it comes to your job, LOCK it in

As we start a new year, I thought I'd share a tip whether you are looking for a new job, or wanting to be the best at what you do know. I know New Years is not for a few days, I'm early. Here are my 4 tips to LOCK it in.

Likable. We all spend a lot of time at work, don't we want to like the people we are with? It's a safe bet they your co-workers would rather work with someone they like, rather than an arrogant jack ass. Probably the same with your boss. While you may never have a beer with him, or spend a weekend fishing he or she probably wants employees that are easy to get along with. As a manager I can tell you, a team that gets along well is much easier to manage.

Open: Throughout the years I've made my share of mistakes, in fact some have said probably more than my share. One thing I've always tried to do was t be open about them and learn from them. By being open, others can learn from my mistakes, and on the occasions that it caused downtime or other issues, by being open and honest about what I had done, the entire team could help me fix it, reducing what could be a catastrophe to an inconvenience.

Collaborative: When you share information and techniques and work as a team, the entire team works better. Many times people try to hoard information thinking if no one else knows how to do their job, they can't get fired. If that's your approach to job security, I hate to break it to you, but that rarely works.If instead you work well with others, cross train so others can cover for you, you are more likely to get promoted and learn new skills.

Knowledgeable: Look even if everyone likes you and you are honest and hardworking, you do still have to know something. I mean a good bedside manner and a shiny stethoscope is nice, but I still want the surgeon working on me to have a degree from a credible medical school. I also expect him to keep up to date on the latest techniques. It's the same thing with IT people. I mean it's cool that you took Fortran back in the 70's, but if you haven't learned anything new since then, you are probably due for a refresher...

Well those are my tips for job security. I think they are even in the right order, Likable, Open, Collaborative and Knowledgeable. You can't get away without all 4 and there are no guarantees, but I think these are a good start.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

What gets measured gets improved

We recently started tracking "missed SLA's" in our IT service desk and, well we weren't that good at it. Many times we would go days or weeks with a case without contacting the users to let them know we were actually working on the case. Because of this the perception was, not surprisingly that we weren't taking the case seriously.

Now with a very few exceptions we were actively working the case but we just weren't communicating well. Our SLA required updates every 4 hours to every 2 weeks depending on the case. It was one of those things we knew we needed to improve on but it never seemed to make it high enough to get more than a passing comment in a meeting.

Last month we decided to fix it. We implemented a dashboard that tracked who had the most missed SLA's and a daily email went out to alert people that they needed to update their cases. 

We even went so far as requiring a 4-5 daily onsite meeting for anyone that had cases that were not meeting our stated SLA's. We are pretty "work life balanced" any many people would leave a bot early to avoid traffic and then work later in the night when their children were asleep. 

When people said that they could not make the meeting,  I replied with, "Well if your tickets are up to date you won't have to be there.". 

Someone went so far as to call the meetings "detention". They were not wrong. That was not an accident either.

We went from over 160 missed SLA's, down to 0 in less than a week. If you want to improve in an area measure it, and make it so that people want to meet it. Just be careful to measure and track what is important.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Want to be an innovative CIO? My tips.

I've been thinking lately and it is apparent that there are two sides of IT. The Innovation side and the traditional Information side. Innovation is the "fun stuff". It's new technology. It's new processes and culture and the stuff that gets called "Value add".

The Information, or some call in the Infrastructure side is the more traditional side of IT. Things like keeping the infrastructure running, updating reports and to some extent integrating existing systems or automating existing processes.

Most CIO's really want to spend more time on innovation but keep getting dragged back into the traditional side. I thought I'd share my thoughts on how you can fix that. At the end of the day it comes down to the usual, "if you want to be a great CIO, you need a great team".

But more specifically I think you need to be good at the following areas.

1. Remember the basics. At the end of the day if every conversation with the other executives turns into "Why is this slow or broken" you will never get to be innovative. You simply can't move forward when you are watching your back.

2. Social. Your team needs to be social and likable. While it is possible to fix many issues with remote support tools, there is a huge benefit to simply walking to someone's desk and helping them. You will become a "person" rather than a department and it's much harder to dislike a person than a title.

3. Visionary. Your entire team needs to be able to see the bigger picture. We once had a ticket for a broken fax machine that uncovered a completely broken process involving multiple faxing, printing and saving of documents. While the technician could have fixed the fax and closed the ticket, but understanding the bigger picture we were able to streamline and entire process. And yes we did fix the fax too..

4. Don't say no. Now this doesn't mean saying yes, but rather listening to the problem and coming up with a way to solve the users issues. If you say no, then it's going to happen anyway and the next time they are likely to just not bother asking you at all. If you come up with a solution and implement it well, you become a real partner. Saying no makes you a roadblock, solving a problem makes you a partner.

5. Be the expert. As an IT leader you need to know what is going on. The last thing you want is your CEO learning about the latest social network application from his 12 year old daughter. Or reading about this great new CRM from a magazine on the plane. You may not always be a step ahead, but you should never be a mile behind either.

6. Embrace our differences. Not everyone is in IT or even likes technology. Just because it seems easy to you, doesn't mean all your users will immediately understand it. Training and evangelizing why is important


Thursday, September 19, 2013

When you go cloud, remember Perception is Reality

I had the chance to present on a pane on cloud last week at the local 7x24 Exchange conference in Framingham. It was a great event and my fellow panelists, Brad Loomis and Frank DeGilio, were excellent and had a wealth of knowledge. As importantly they kept the conversation flowing and the audience enagaged. I've been on other panels where I'm having all I can do to stay awake and feel bad for the people in the audience doing the same.

But this post actually isn't about that.. well not directly. One of the items we discussed was the changing role of IT in a cloud world, which got me thinking on the ride home. A previous manager used to say "Perception is Reality" and I think it is worth repeating that.

Perception is Reality...

Why is this so important to cloud? Well imagine if you are using a cloud based system to run your company. It could be Google Apps, Microsoft 360, Salesforce, Sugar CRM, or any other application.  Now imagine it is down. Not working. The entire company can't do their jobs....

What would you do? Now the reality is you can't do much. I mean it's not your issue to fix really. You can't go reboot a server. You can't reconfigure a network switch. You can't even tell if it is a database server issue, network or hardware.

You may be tempted to sit in your office with your feet on the desk. The reality is that would be as useful as anything else you can do. Don't do that.

Instead do something useful. Walk around and talk to all the affected people and let them know you and you team are working on it. If you have an operations center bring up the "health dashboard" of the cloud application, or the vendors twitter stream for updates. Get someone on the phone with their support getting updates and communicate them to everyone at your company.

The technical difference is minimal but the perception of IT during this time will be drastically different.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Never give up!

The Ironman is arguably one of the most grueling races imaginable. For those that haven't hear of it, the Ironman is a 2.4 mile swim, followed by an 112 mile bicycle race then topped with a 26.2 mile marathon. Commonly referred to as a 140.6 which represents the total amount of miles you race.

In the US in 2009, 1.2M people competed in Triathhlon's, of those only 17% even attempt an Ironman. So doing that math (disclaimer my sister is the math teacher, not me) that means less than 0.4% of the US can do a triathlon and only .0006% attempt an Ironman. Clearly this is an elite group....

I'm proud to say my sister is competing in her second Ironman in a few weeks. For practice she did a half marathon this weekend. That by the way, is 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and 13.1 mile run. Below is her race recap post.

Not only is Diane competing in her second ironman but she is raising money for my cousins wife who was just diagnosed with ALS. The money Diane is raising will hopefully be enough to pay for an elevator to be installed in the house since insurance does not cover that. More info is available http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130824/GJNEWS_01/130829605/0/SEARCH and if you want to donate, you cna do so at here  http://www.gofundme.com/2prrzc.

Before you read it though a few things about Diane. Diane was not a track star in high school. Growing up sh could swim, mostly. I remember her riding a bike but no further than I ever did. She didn't grow up as a super jock. In fact when she took up running, she had a hard time catching her breath and went to the Dr. 

The Dr. ran some tests and said "You have the lungs of a 60 year old sedentary woman". She was not yet 30. "Your body is just not made to run".

Diane was determined though and in spite of her reduced lungs completed her first ironman 140.6. 

Whenever I hear someone say "It's can't be done, I smile and say, let me tell you a story..." Never give up. If it's important to you, you can find a way....

In August of 2007, after having my second tumultuous swim at Ellacoya, I vowed never to return again. I can’t even drive by that place without having a panic attack! But after what happened at IMLP last year, I knew I had to go back, and defeat this demon. This time, I upped my game, and signed up for the half iron distance. This course has a reputation for being very difficult, not only because Lake Winni is known for being quite choppy, but because of the 2200 feet of vertical climb in the bike, another huge weakness of mine.

Fast forward to August 18, 2013. I got up at 3 am and rode up with the Toracintas. Chanel has been my training partner and huge inspiration, as we are both doing Ironman triathlons a day apart. Having her there calmed me down, and seeing the serene water, was priceless! Then I realized I had forgotten a few very important items: my prescription sunglasses (without these, I can clearly see for about 5 feet), my chip, and my Garmin. Oops! Luckily Kelly lent me a pair of sunglasses, which protected my eyes. I was able to get a replacement chip, and the Garmin, well, more on that later…

They set up the swim waves so that the slowest groups would start first, after the pros. Sounds like a great idea, right? Except when you’re a slow swimmer like me. I had 8 minutes of pure bliss, then WHAM! The next group of swimmers come on me like a shark stalking its prey. The water starts getting rough. Do I go left or right? It doesn’t matter, there are people all around. I try desperately to get out of the way, then another group comes up. I’m in the middle of a mosh pit, being kicked and poked, and scared to death. Finally I manage to swim out of this mess and grab a kayak to get myself together. I quickly compose myself and devise a plan, to swim far left, avoiding other swimmers at all costs. I get into a groove, then come to the first turn. WTF was that! I got pummeled by a giant tidal wave! I kept hearing Chanel’s voice “Whatever we swim in cannot be as bad as Wallis Sands.” She was right. It wasn’t pretty, but I got through the swim at Ellacoya in 56 minutes.

Time to bike, and it starts off with a nice size hill right out of the gate. My plan was to use this race as a training day and to take it easy because I only have 5 weeks until Chessie. Then several hundred cyclists passed me, I got caught up in the moment, and once I saw the Crayola pack of body condoms, it was time to MOVE IT! After the first 12 miles, it was relatively flat, so I was averaging close to 19 mph. Felt strong, perfect temp, and went with it. I made a quick pit stop and continued the second part of the course. Time on the bike was about 3:30, which was a 16 mph average. I was very happy with this since I had biked part of the course before (the hilly part), and averaged like 13.3 mph, though it might have had something to do with it being the day after a 90 mile ride in extreme temps.

When I hit the run, it was cloudy and getting cooler, which was ideal! The first 3 miles took FOREVER! But without my Garmin, I had no idea how to gage it. The course is a double loop out and back, so you get to see everyone, several times. About half through, I was nicknamed “the porn star” due to my heavy breathing. True story, you can hear me coming from a mile away! At about mile 10 my ITB started acting up. There was a severe camber on the road, and not being able to switch sides of the road, I had to do some power walking. But no worries, I still finished under a 12-minute mile and was able to “chick” a few guys.

Overall, happy with my time, and looking to bike about the same pace at Chessie next month, but that will be a flat course. Best part of my day, hmm, either Chanel’s daughter Fran giving me a big hug before the start and saying “Good luck other mom!” Or Andy Potts putting the medal around my neck.