Recent Dispatches: It’s turtles all the way down for OpenStack. TechReckoning Dispatch v4n3Hi friends, It turns out I had some thoughts on OpenStack after talking with a lot of interesting people at the latest summit in Boston as a co-host of theCUBE a few weeks back. My tl;dr on OpenStack: It’s still hard to set up and manage. If the project improves in these areas, then the economics of… Read MoreDocker and the Blue Fairy. TechReckoning Dispatch Vol. 4, №2. Docker and the Blue Fairy TechReckoning Dispatch Vol. 4, №2. Hi friends, I told you it was going to get worse before it gets better. I had no idea how much the current political situation was in part caused by, and continues to be influenced by, social media. (Recent: 48M Twitter accounts may be bots.) I got… Read MoreIt’s going to get worse before it gets better. TechReckoning Dispatch v4n1 Hi Friends, Unfortunately I’m thinking things are going to get worse before they get better. You might think I’m talking about politics, and I am, but let’s also talk about social media and cloud. Social media Anecdotally, I’m seeing more people opt out of social. Twitter and Facebook really only became widely available 6–7… Read MoreAWS is not Microsoft, it’s Salesforce. TechReckoning Dispatch v3n18Hi friends, Hope you’re sliding into an easy end of the year, but if you’re like me, December is always a little frantic with holiday obligations, scant daylight, end-of-year work stuff, and this year we add post-election apocalyptic worries and the political clown car show. My wife Kat tells the story of an early gig… Read MoreTold you so. TechReckoning Dispatch v3n17Hi friends, There was a lot of “I told you so” going around this week. I hope you enjoyed your Internet snow day Friday as waves of DDoS brought down the DNS provider Dyn across the US. The culprit? Compromised IoT devices like DVRs and webcams. The finger was pointed at Chinese company Hangzhou Xiongmai, who… Read MoreI want a hole, not a drill. TechReckoning Dispatch v3n16 Hi friends, Hey we missed a week because I wrote this long thing on how messed up everything is, including security, IoT security, and women in tech; all consciously or unconsciously inspired by our current political season. It depressed even me, so instead of sending it, I shredded it for sprinkling atop future emails.… Read MoreData Center Prawn. TechReckoning Dispatch v3n15Hi friends, We are living in a time when the Data Center has been declared Dead. Oddly enough, this week was full of Data Center Prawn. Prawnography is a funny thing. By definition, it appeals to our fantasy lives in a way that’s not real. In this modern era, we have developed many kinds of… Read MoreEmpathy for The Big Red O. TechReckoning Dispatch v3n14 Hi friends, I’ve built my whole career on empathy. Putting yourself in other people’s shoes goes a long why towards understanding why somebody does something. Inexplicable villains exist mostly in the movies. I’ve had a lot of meetings over my career explaining to product teams, “Here’s why that blogger just said bad things about… Read MoreThe pendulum swings towards ops. TechReckoning Dispatch v3n13 If you read nothing else this week, check out The Briefing List announcement below. Thanks! Hi friends, I caught IBM’s Open Cloud Summit in SF this week. Lightning talks FTW! Recommended if it comes to your town. The speakers gave a tour through this new IT place we’re headed, and they called it DevOps,… Read MoreThe impermanence of all things. TechReckoning Dispatch v3n12 Hi friends, This is the inside of our leaky washing machine. Cameron the repair guy has come all the way out to our beach town three times and hasn’t had the patience to find the leak which is literally the dripping shiny water in this picture I just took. Take from that lessons on… Read MoreDid VMware do what it had to do? TR Dispatch v3n11Hi friends, Check out those whales. We’ve been seeing a lot of them right off the beaches in Half Moon Bay. It’s either a wonderful gift from nature of a sign of incipient ecosystem collapse. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Last week was VMworld and I trekked there for the yearly infrastructure homecoming and bacchanal. I laid off the steak… Read MoreMove serverless for great justice – TechReckoning Dispatch v3n10The TechReckoning Dispatch, Vol. 3, No. 10. Boston, Minneapolis, and El Granada. Friday, June 3, 2016. VMworld Opening Acts & vBrownbag Tech Talks VMworld Opening Acts are coming to VMworld again this year. This independent, community-organized event happens on the Sunday afternoon before VMworld kicks off. There’s still time to give your input on the… Read MoreAll The Feels, #smh edition – TechReckoning Dispatch v3n9The TechReckoning Dispatch, Vol. 3, No. 9. El Granada, Calif. Friday, May 13, 2016. New podcast – listen to John interview Zerto’s Shannon Snowden about The New Realities of IT. And then join TechReckoning at ZertoCON May 23-25 in Boston with our mini-track on DevOps and Careers. Use code TECHRECKONING15 for 15% off! Register today. Normally we… Read MoreI’ve got 99 problems, but OpenStack ain’t one – TechReckoning Dispatch v3n8In this issue: OpenStack is not your problem, comments on speaking at VMUG and VMworld, ZertoCON discounts… Read MoreHow do you solve a problem like VMUG? – TechReckoning Dispatch v3n7n this issue: How do you solve a problem like VMworld? How do you solve a problem like VMUG? A flibbertigibbet, a will-o-the-wisp, a cloud? Mesosphere goes all in on open source. TechReckoning Live at ZertoCON. No, you didn't blink; we skipped a week.… Read MoreSuits are from Mars, Hoodies are from Venus – TechReckoning Dispatch v3n6In this issue: Intel Cloud Day, Microsoft Build and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat, hybrid IT, object storage, losing 1.7PB of data, and diversity is not just a pipeline issue.… Read MoreHardware is the new Software – TechReckoning Dispatch v3n5The TechReckoning Dispatch, Vol. 3, No.. 5. Sunday, March 27, 2016. Hardware is the new software “Software is eating the world” is the famous quote from Marc Andreessen, a man that my generation of techies treated both as our exemplar and our measure by which we are found wanting. He’s our Mark Zuckerberg. (He Did What By What Age?) He’s now… Read MoreThe Hyperconvergence Wars Cometh – TechReckoning Dispatch v3n3The TechReckoning Dispatch, Vol. 3, No. 3. Sunday, March 13, 2016. The Hyperconvergence Wars; Thanks, Obama!; Toxic Data; Security only for the 1%; 10 Years of AWS; No Labels. Mommy, Daddy, What Did You Do During The Hyperconvergence Wars? This, the year of Our Lord 2016, may in fact be the year of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI).… Read MoreMagic Keys – TechReckoning Dispatch v3n2The TechReckoning Dispatch, Vol. 3, No. 2. Sunday, March 6, 2016. In this issue: The FBI and the Slippery Slope, Cloud-based Control Planes, VMware Brain Drain?, Docker Data Center, Container Orchestration, Open Source Is Eating IT, Not Your Father’s Disk Drive. We had a big winter storm last night here in the San Francisco Bay… Read MoreWe’re Back! TR Dispatch v3n1The TechReckoning Dispatch, Vol. 3, No. 1. Sunday, February 28, 2016. In this issue: We’re back! Why You Should Ignore VR in 2016, SSD Reliability, Correcting the Podcasts about Ravello, RSA, Help Wanted! Sunset over Mavericks Long time no see! I’ve been great, thanks. I hope you’ve been well. We took a bit of a… Read MoreOld School, New School – TR Dispatch v2n16VMUGs vs Meetups, vExperts and similar programs, Diane Greene is back and Google Is Serious This Time, CloudPhysics, DevOps as #hugops, Self-indulgent Podcasts, Firehose of Links, and our yearly question: What Are You Grateful For? … Read MoreGather round the campfire and have a smoothie – TR Dispatch v2n15In this issue: Come say something on the new website! New Podcast! EMC-Dell, Peak AWeSome, Failure is always an option, Internet of Flärdfull Things. Just hit reply: Headlines from the future.… Read MoreAlways Be Conferencing. TR Dispatch v2n14The TechReckoning Dispatch. Vol. 2. No. 14. September 24, 2015. In this issue: The Reckoning 2015, new podcast: Chat with Champions, and VMworld vs the World [View in Browser] The Reckoning 2015 was an amazing experience. Thanks to all who came, and thanks to our sponsors Cisco, Zerto, SimpliVity, Ravello Systems, and Nutanix who made the… Read MoreSo this is happening: #thereckoning15 – TR Dispatch v2n13The TechReckoning Dispatch, Vol. 2, No. 13. Sept 14, 2015. In this issue: We’re having a conference! I think that’s quite enough. It’s The Reckoning 2015! Oh, sure, I have the normal stuff like bookmarks I’ve been saving about VMworld and TSA master keys and Internet Commenting and Oracle shenanigans, but there will be plenty… Read MoreGame over, man. Game over. TR Dispatch v2n12The TechReckoning Dispatch. Vol. 2. No. 12. August 24, 2015. In this issue: I don’t shut up about The Reckoning; Security, Game Over edition; Amazon eats its own; Post-AWS World; Web Ads Still F’d; Apple Watch; Why Windows? QotW: VMworld vs something else? Good news, everybody: this newsletter contains only a homeopathic amount of Docker. [View in Browser] The… Read MoreOf Two Minds – TR Dispatch v2n10The TechReckoning Dispatch. Vol. 2, No. 10. July 20, 2015. In this issue: Being comfortable with ambiguity, Big Flowering Deal, The Reckoning Dammit, Amazon, Hacking Team, Reddit, OpenStack, Microsoft, Server SANs, Vacation, and our question: Home Backup? [View in Browser] A necessary part of being an adult is the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts in your… Read MoreGoodnight, Moon – TR Dispatch v2n11The TechReckoning Dispatch. Vol 2, No. 11. August 4, 2015. In this issue: XYZ is Dead is Dead. Government Service. Goodbye, Docker. Goodbye, OpenStack. Goodbye, Android. HP Dress Code. Women in Tech. #LookLikeAnEngineer. Windows 10. Comments on Backup Strategies. And our question: Would you ever write a Windows app? [View in Browser] Early bird prices for The Reckoning 2015 end… Read More