John Katsaros

What's in a Word?

Here is an interesting factoid that Sungard's Don Norbeck pointed out to us.  When you use Google Trends to do a comparison of search queries for the words "virtualization" and "cloud computing," you'll find that 2009 is the crossover year when cloud computing consistently beats virtualization.  That's one reason why we love the infrastructure industry so much — there's always "the next big thing" that, no matter how good or bad the economy is, gives us all something to look to the future for.

Licensing Matters

If you aren't already confused by the Cloud Computing rhetoric, try figuring out the software licensing conundrum.  Most software licenses were written around client/server frameworks and scale upwards based on the number and speed of server CPUs and/or the number of users.  But with cloud computing, users may surge up to the cloud.  Does that mean that their cloud provider has to inform their customers as to what the performance characteristics were or that the customer must tell their cloud providers which processors to use in order to be consistent with software licensing?  That doesn't sound easy and seems inconsistent with the long term goals of cloud computing.   So how is this going to work anyway?  Surely the software guys want their slice of the pie.

Is it Safe?

Last year we wrote a research report about VMware's introduction of its VMsafe APIs to enable selected partners to develop security products for VMware environments.  We interviewed most of the 20 VMsafe announced partners at the time and found that there was a lot of confusion about what VMsafe would actually be and when it would be available. We concluded that this was something that virtualization security start-ups should avoid getting intimately involved with VMsafe until there was a clearer roadmap with the possibilities of third party adoption and monetization.  Since then, several of these partners either had disappointing results and/or dropped out of the business completely.  So now that VMware has included its VMsafe APIs in its newest vSPhere 4 release, it's time to re-consider the situation.  As adoption of VMsafe 4 occurs, so will the ability to use VMsafe security partner products which, in turn, means that this may (finally) be the beginning of the market for security add-ons to VMware.

Mars Sighting

The team that brought us Mars (the product line Cisco acquired when it bought SEM vendor Protigo) has reformed as Santa Clara based AccelOps a data center management company "for the rest of us."  Having released its first products earlier this year, AccelOps plans to specialize in "All in One" data center IT Service Management (automating discovery, mapping, analytics, monitoring and reporting functions).

Completely Off the Subject

Who said nepotism is dead?   In news unrelated to IT infrastructure, John's son, Matthew, just released his first iPhone application — JETMAN JACK — into the Apple iTunes store.  It is an 8-bit remake of a popular online video game that is reminiscent of the early era video games.  It's up for free downloads now but soon will be 99 cents.  Give it a try and help support John's struggling college student son; if you get it and don't like it we'll send you his e-mail address and you can ask him for a refund!  Get it here on the iTunes store or visit the Jetman Jack Website for demo video, screenshots, reviews, and more.

Cisco Joins Dow

This week GM was removed from the Dow Jones industrial index and replaced by Cisco.  GM was the last automaker on the index.  Now there are five high tech companies in the Dow including HP, Intel, IBM, and Microsoft.  I guess the only surprise here is why it took so long.  Cisco has been a bellwether of high tech spending for years.

Citrix Ups their Game

Citrix went all out at their Synergy user conference last month in Las Vegas with a fistful of announcements centered around virtualization and cloud computing - 1) Enhancing its C3 Cloud Computing Platform for apps and desktops to be delivered as a cloud service, 2) The C3 Lab built on Amazon Web Services, 3) Citrix Essentials (virtualization management) upgrades to its XenServer and Hyper-V product lines and 4) Changes to streamline licensing to make it easier for the Citrix installed base to migrate to the new platform.  These are big steps in its campaign to unseat VMware as the virtualization incumbent.  Either Citrix has been having difficulties gaining ground and they've had to up their game or Citrix sees good growth opportunities with its Cloud strategy and focus on virtualization management — or perhaps both?

VMware's Latest Pitch

When Paul Maritz took over as CEO of VMware last year, he set out three clear goals, one of which was to focus on Cloud Computing.   Toward that end, the company recently announced its VMware vSphere4 product, positioning it as an operating system for building internal clouds and once again fueling the battle of operating systems versus Microsoft.  We've seen these battles before and the endings haven't been pretty.  Who knows, maybe VMware has had an early enough lead to do better than others that have fought in this war.  Considering that Maritz once worked there, he's at least aware of what he's up against.

Amazing Grace

Judy Collins turned 70 on May 1st. For those of us who are closet hippies it's hard to believe — 70? (And still keeping a busy concert schedule.) In honor of her birthday we thought we'd do "Judy Collins Headline Dedications."

Someday Soon — Learning from RSA

One thing that stood out at this year's RSA conference was how sophisticated the bad guys have become — in the 20 years that bad stuff has been happening to computers the bad guys have gone from being disgruntled individuals cobbling together a new virus at night to today where the threats are coming from first class development shops interconnected through complex value chains with specialists at every stage of the process. Today's bad guys are well endowed both financially (able to afford world class development environments) and intellectually. At the rate of technical improvement they'll soon be ahead of the vendors that we rely on to protect this stuff. Consequently, defending against these threats isn't easy, either for enterprises protecting corporate assets or for vendors building security products. A few years ago we were skeptical when in his keynote address RSA's president Art Coviello predicted a decline in the number of small security startups due to structural consolidation in the security business. Well that decline might just come to pass for an entirely different set of reasons — as the bad guys have become incredibly sophisticated building security products has become incredibly complex and expensive. Small players can't afford to keep up with the bad guys. It's going to take more than a few million dollars to finance "the next big thing" in the security business. Keeping up with the bad guys will require significant engineering expenses and top talent — lots of time and money.