This post is a big deal for me personally. It is the first public acknowledgment of a major change in my life. This blog post will be about me announcing this change; but it will also be about why I am doing it and what lessons I feel can be learned. I had a good boss for three years who had a funny saying I think fits here. “The only thing stopping you is fear and atmosphere.” Every time I pitched an idea to him that he was okay with, he would say those words. What they basically mean, is that the only things between you and your goal is your own fear and the air between you and getting started on it.
I feel those words really fit for this change. As of today I am announcing that I have taken a position with the VCE team(vArmy) at EMC as a Senior vSpecialist. It was a decision that was exciting, terrifying, and complex all at the same time. I was already a huge fan of both Chuck Hollis and Chad Sakac. After meeting my local team and getting a taste of the vision and drive to change the way datacenters are designed for the better; it was an easy decision to make. All that really had to be done was figure out how I could muster the courage to leave my home (current employer) where I have spent over 50% of my career.
For those that don’t know me, I have been on the customer-side of things for my entire short career of six years. To move to the provider-side will bring a great number of challenges and opportunities; which for me is the number one reason I have decided to make this change. I am a bit dramatic and sappy at my core. And so I will sum up the real reasons behind the decision through my eyes and hopefully encourage you in some way to continue or regain the passion for what you do.
1. Challenges Develop Passion
From the moment I got my first IT job I knew I what doing what I was meant to do. I enjoy it so much it is ridiculous. Whether I am working a major project or writing a small script, the minute I see it come to fruition I am as happy as a dog with two tails. For me overcoming challenges results in a strong Passion for technology and what it can do. And over the years I realized something; Passion is infectious. When you care about what you are doing either people around you will start to care also, or they will get the heck away from you.
For me, the secret to Passion in what you do, is never being satisfied with the just what you are doing. I have been surrounded by incredible people who have been more skilled that me in every facet. My reaction to this was simple, follow them around and figure out what makes them so awesome and learn how to do it yourself. Be positive, be a sponge, be part of the team. My Wife (who is awesome BTW) can tell stories about me starting a job, realizing that I didn’t know everything I needed to, and then spending 4-6 hours a night reading and studying till I was over-prepared. Those moments of realizing I am lacking start a fire in me to take things to the next level.
By taking this position I am intentionally moving myself from the top man on the totem pole to the lowest man on the rung. With great people like Chad Sakac, Scott Lowe, Stuart Miniman, John Avery, Ed Saipetch, Dave Graham, Chuck Hollis, Christopher Kusek and my incredible local team here in DFW; I am but a small speck in comparison. I will never reach my full potential until I knock myself down and surround myself with wiser and stronger people. For me, taking this position sets me up to really grow as a person and IT professional over the next phase of my career. Even better, this move will encourage my already strong Passion for virtualization and truly agile infrastructure.
2. The World is Changing (or at least the stuff it runs on)
I saw this the moment 4+ years ago when I was first introduced into enterprise datacenter virtualization. It was edgy and a little difficult to grasp but, there was one core thing I came away with - this is going to change everything. I went on to successfully do so many things with virtualization using VMware technologies and defined myself as a professional. The funny thing is that this is still just the beginning. Virtualization of computing resources utilizing a robust hypervisor is just the first step. With the new partnerships like vBlocks and move towards abstraction of layers in storage, networking, and security, information technology is soon to change forever. Not everyone sees or believes that yet but enterprise architecture will be molded by these changes, mark my words. At my core I see this future and more than anything else I want to be a part of helping make that happen. EMC has invested a enormous amount of money and vision and are redefining themselves as a company to be a part of this change. This position is the perfect opportunity to become a part of something great.
3. I Am The Warm Little Center
In my current position I make a huge impact. Across business or technology lines I play a major part in both decisions and accomplishments. My current employer has been incredible to me in so many ways. There have been tough times like: four different CIO’s in three years, losing close friends, and insane workloads. But, I feel nothing but love and gratitude to my current employer.
However, there is one problem I will not escape. At the end of the day I can’t make them one penny. I will never be a part of the profit center in a company that is a consumer lender. I readily admit jealously at seeing product owners or risk analysis folks who make direct contributions to the revenue and growth. While I am an important aspect of the company and make those warm little profit centers successful and on schedule; I am never going to be where I want to be.
This all changes for me at EMC. Not only will I be able to contribute to the revenue of such a great company; but they will have the tools, materials, and career advancement opportunities that I would never have access to otherwise. I get to become a part of a warm center and I would even venture that with this particular team, this is really the hot boiling center of things to come.
Fear & Atmosphere
Even with all these reasons this has been a very difficult choice. I feel at home at my current employer. I know so many amazing people that I have worked with there. My life both personally and professionally has been improved for the better by my experiences there. However, nothing lasts forever. To quote Ecclesiastes(3:1) “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven”. Sometimes when you are in that wonderful, comfortable, happy place (atmosphere) you can be afraid to leave (fear).
I know this decision is the best one for my family and myself. So I will leave my comfortable atmosphere and overcome my fear of change and go forward with all the energy and effort I can muster. I want nothing less than to change the future of information technology and I believe there is no company in a better position than EMC.
Along with all these reasoning one thing is certain. I am a customer-focused person. I have lived life as the person trying to make the miraculous happen with little time or resources. Now I have the opportunity to partner with similar people and help make them successful. I now get the chance to change from the Warrior at the gate to the traveling Warrior Monk coming to turn the tide of battle.
So I will end this post with these questions for you:
What are you passionate about? What fears or atmospheres stand between you and that passion? Are you comfortable? Are you challenged? Inside you know you are capable of great things. Just search yourself and determine if you are heading towards them or waiting for them to head towards you.
Comments, questions, or critique are always welcome and really appreciated.
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Hello Hyper-V : Meet Reality
First off stop reading this and go read Eric Gray’s post on the new Microsoft Virtualization Team post. He does a great job of pointing out the hypocrisy of marketing speak from the MS Virtual Team.
I am writing this blog post to address some specific annoyances in reasoning. While I have made a career in being a Microsoft guy (along with VMware, Cisco, EMC, and Nissan sportscars) I have some serious problems with the marketing pitch around Hyper-V.
So let me attack these head on. First off Chris Steffen states:
So let’s be clear. What does Microsoft support in this case? Do they have support staff on hand that will work with the customer on Red Hat or Novell OS configuration? Would you trust Microsoft to touch your device information files on your Linux host? And to be quite honest, since Red Hat and Novell fully supports their enterprise products within the VMware environment. What is the real difference?
So let’s sum this up.
On vSphere if I have a problem I can:
On Hyper-V if I have a problem I can:
So the real benefit Chris Steffen points out is an extra possible step. In the end my support coverage is the same at worst. Although I would be very curious about the actual level of knowledge between Linux support/Hyper-V and Linux support/vSphere. But, I can’t prove that point yet. And outside of these two specific operating systems flavors vSphere is light-years ahead. According to the current checklist, vSphere supports 48 flavors of OS compared to Hyper-V’s paltry 13.
Now to the next item:
So this is pretty simple. The point here is: don’t use open source software. He states that VMware and Microsoft have the same community support so it is just a case of commercial vs. OSS and not a hypervisor argument. I would point out that community support is not only robust for vSphere but also VMware has guides, links, and walkthroughs on their own site (in a very easy to use setup) for how to implement multiple flavors. I wonder how easy it is with the Hyper-V side of things. Since OSS is not the argument here feel free to post OSS success stories in the comments.
Now for the fun part:
Oh no! I did not know this. Well I hope he is going to explain why at least.
Wait a second, the argument is “something for nothing”? So efficiency is zero sum result? So I guess there goes thin provisioning, thin-client computing, or any other “thin” (read: effecient) technology. I better go shutdown my Windows Terminal Services farm too because I must be not really gaining anything.
So without the sarcasm, this is utter nonsense. He does not actually attack the technology or approach. He does not talk about direct risk or that fact that all efficiency models require management. Just like you have to manage the amount of users on a Terminal Services server you have to manage use on a vSphere cluster (notice I said cluster, not host. DRS much?). There is always inherent risk in higher utilization rates. That risk is managed by proper operational abilities. With vSphere these are clustering with DRS which allows automated movement of VM’s across hosts based on utilization and vCenter alarms which set low water marks against memory utilization. So with vSphere I have the option to take on operational responsibility for risk in exchange for higher efficiency (see $$$). The reason this is not zero-sum is obvious. I manage out the risk with a mature hypervisor (vSphere) gaining benefit I can never get with Hyper-V. With VDI and newer deployment models using virtualization, this can be a huge cost savings.
Burden. Got to love that word. Puts an emotional spin on it. You can picture it right? The poor ESX host crawling across the data center will all the VM’s on it’s poor weary back.
Efficiency = lower total cost of ownership. The “burden” is your host doing more work for less money. I wonder if trucking companies talk about weight loads as “burdens” upon their poor MAC trucks.
Ok, one more:
Nice of him to explain throughput constraints for a kindergarten class. I would like to show a comparison of VMotion vs. Live Migration speeds (especially on my 10GE FCoE stuff) but instead I will keep it simple.
Why? Why can’t I do this with Hyper-V? Isn’t it because they don’t trust me? Or it is because they can’t make it work without sacrificing stability?
vSphere lets you not only do more but, also lets you do less. In other words, the mechanism is stable enough that throughput is the limitation (the water pipe) and not the stability of the mechanism (Hyper-V Live migration). Microsoft’s limitation on this points out a possible stability flaw and not a risky endeavor. What is also fascinating is the focus on making it “quicker“. Why does it have to be so quick? Are they afraid the VM’s won’t get there on Hyper-V if it takes to long?
There is a lot more to point out but, instead I will let someone else have the fun. I am not an anti-Hyper-V guy. I am an anti-F.U.D. guy. I would much rather Microsoft focus on providing a cheap product for small shop markets. In my mind that is what they designed with their product in both cost and feature-set. Even though VMware has some nice offerings also – see here & here
Also, I claim originality rights to the term: “DRS much?”. Feel free to tweet it like crazy
Comments and criticisms are welcome and appreciated.
.nick