Tech Prediction for 2014: IT’s Ability to Evolve Quickly

By Vic Bhagat — Chief Information Officer

The era of instant gratification is upon us with the proliferation of cloud computing and software-as-a-service, Big Data and the latest analytical tools, and anywhere, anytime access to information on our mobile devices.

Our true test as IT professionals will be our ability to evolve quickly to create contemporary and innovative solutions and apps that enable our users to be more productive, to analyze Big Data for real-time information, and to make decisions that unlock value for the business.

Don’t Fear Big Data: Leverage the Right People and Take It Easy

By KK Krishnakumar — Vice President and Chief IT Architect

For many companies, the Big Data frontier, while promising, is fraught with pitfalls.

Like any other new and powerful business tool, Big Data analytics can be dangerous if it isn’t managed properly. On the other hand, not using the growing information at your business’ disposal could prove even more dangerous to your market success in a fast-moving, data-driven world.

I’d like to reassure you that there is plenty of room for middle ground. Your organization can safely gain great insights from Big Data by leveraging the right combination of people and skills—some of which are likely already part of your operation—and by tapping Data-Science-as-a-Service resources as you need them.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Professor John Jordan warned of the Risks of Big Data for Companies. Faced with access to more information than organizations ever dreamed of, he said, “There’s a greater potential for privacy invasion, greater financial exposure in fast-moving markets, greater potential for mistaking noise for true insight, and a greater risk of spending lots of money and time chasing poorly defined problems or opportunities.”

The Art of Possible: Embracing the Third Platform

By Vic Bhagat — Chief Information Officer

As IT professionals, we have never been strangers to change.  New technologies have come and gone…some minor, some quite disruptive.  However, the Third Platform is upon us and has opened the door to new opportunities to drive performance, agility and value for our businesses.

While I’ve been a part of each platform throughout my 30+ years in the industry, this is the first time that so many trends – cloud, Big Data, analytics, mobile, social, digital and security – have converged simultaneously.  This presents some challenges for CIOs and IT professionals.

For instance, a recent Economist Intelligence Unit Survey cited that while 92% of those surveyed are familiar with these emerging technologies and trends, only 50% know how to integrate them into their business.

The EMC Durham Cloud Data Center Migration: A Long Night of Lessons Learned

Fifth in a series on EMC’s Durham Data Center.

By Steve Doherty — Consultant IT Project Manager

With the migration plan completed (click here to read part 4) for EMC’s Durham Data Center, we began the daunting task of the migration. We weren’t going to use trucks or airplanes to move the gear. We were going to migrate all the applications and data over the wire. The fact that it really hadn’t been done before was a technical challenge that we would just have to overcome.

In late Q4 2010, as we were completing the Durham Data Center infrastructure build (click here to read part 2) our migration team began experimenting.

The first attempt was a straight virtual to virtual (V2V) migration over the WAN.  We thought how cool would that be?  No downtime, little risk, we were already well over 50 percent virtualized.  It turns out the distance between North Carolina and Massachusetts is too far apart, more than 600 miles, which resulted in 25 milliseconds latency. The V2V experiment failed. It took nearly 30 hours to move one Virtual Machine. V2V migration wouldn’t work at that distance.  It also wasn’t a viable solution for the hundreds of physical servers that we were still running.

EMC CIO Vic Bhagat Talks Emerging IT Trends

While visiting EMC offices in India, Chief Information Officer Vic Bhagat met with Vishal Krishna of BW|BusinessWorld.  During the interview, Vic shared is perspective on emerging trends and opportunities in the IT industry from the growth of mobile to analytics to investments in the cloud. Click here to read the article.