Reyes - Part III

I'm about to get to give a big fat "told you so" shortly, it looks like.  On December 07, 2007 Judge Charles R. Breyer of San Francisco (and brother of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer) unsealed a November order which effectively bitch slapped (legal term, stems from England, I believe) the prosecution in the Reyes case.  The judge said the government effectively failed to prove that anyone "lost" anything attributable to Reyes, and as such he now is looking at a possible sentence ranging from 15-21 months in an Armani federal penitentiary and mens club - a tad less than the government's recommendation of 292-365 months.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to go to any prison, regardless of the fine china, and I'm pretty sure Reyes doesn't either - but this ruling had to make him feel like he just won the lottery (again).  20 years to 20 months is a serious victory.

Now, where I'm about to be right in all of this is as follows - Reyes filed a subsequent appeal for dismissal or a new trial based on the fact that the ONLY witness from the Brocade finance department called by the prosecution - and who is ALL over the government's major arguments in the transcripts - has come forward and recanted her testimony.  There is a much better running version of the story in the LegalPad blog in Fortune Magazine that will quickly summarize the issues.

The government is to be held to the highest possible standard or our system simply doesn't work.  The Duke lacross case was a nasty blemish but appears to be the overzealous acts of a single state prosecutor.  This case is different.  This is a federal case with huge global repercussions and it looks to me like this was a case of justice gone very wrong.  I am on the record saying let Reyes fry, that if he cheated, stole, and prospered then he deserves what he gets - but as the facts come to light, and they are coming, it is now clear to anyone with a stitch of common sense that this was a railroading from day one.

Reyes was unfairly persecuted in what appears to be not only unethical, but probably also an illegal way.  He was the poster boy for arrogance and greed and became the silicon valley symbol of excess in the post Bernie Ebbers-Ken Lay dirt bag times that turned every CEO into a criminal in the publics eye.  Greg was too good looking, too rich, and too stinking charismatic for the government to let slide.  So instead of fighting the good fight, it looks to me (and now others) that they cheated.

I don't care if you like the guy, hate the guy, or don't care either way - the fact is the government was absolutely ready to send a 40 something father of two little kids to prison for 20 years for a crime that wasn't a crime, who didn't profit from the act, and who's only real possible victim - the stockholders - had zero negative impact.  (Jason Gold managed the fund that owned more Brocade stock than anyone else and he testified that no one cared about option accounting practices).  I'm all for upholding the law and setting a standard that must be met, but this is the kind of garbage you'd expect from a bitter x-girlfriend or from the geek who got his butt kicked by the dumb jocks in high school, suddenly in a position of power and getting even with everyone who ever gave him a wedgie by focusing all his blind rage on Reyes, as if that would make the nightmares stop.

I'll bet you a buck he gets a new trial or the judge tosses the whole charade IF and when the prosecutor grants the witness immunity from perjury.  Which makes one wonder, why hasn't the prosecutor responded to this news?  Not a peep.  Your star witness recants, and you don't even comment?  Come on now......

Far Out, Far East – China Part II

Thanks for all the notes of encouragement on completing this blog. I just woke up, so bear with me. This is long, so you might want to wait until you are good and comfortable – or at least get a fresh cocktail first.

My luggage somehow did arrive. I got into Beijing roughly on time, pretty much skated through the security and customs process which surprised me for some reason, though I was fairly incoherent. Their customs folks were happy, smiling people. I went to baggage claim and there it was; my new garment bag. I exited – and should note, every sign was as clear as day in English as well as several other languages. This was fantastic considering I can't read or understand 85% of the signs at Logan or in Boston in general, and they are in English.

I exited to see 8000 Chinese people awaiting me at the door, one of which held a sign with my name on it. She actually looked more excited than I felt, which also seemed odd. Susan was her name, or so I was told. She appeared to be 11 years old, but at that point, so did everyone else to me. Susan is the daughter of Chinese English teachers, and has excellent English skills, though like everyone I met in China, was embarrassed by how poorly she thought she spoke. The Chinese seem to get totally bummed out when they can't properly conjugate an English verb perfectly – as if I could. I just don't sweat it, as I don't take as much care as they do. I make up words – as if English isn't hard enough without an idiot like me inventing new words on the fly.

There are 18 million people who live and work in Beijing, and every one of them has a car. Therefore, my 5 mile ride to the hotel took approximately 17 hours, with Susan next to me in the back seat attempting to facilitate conversation. I tried to be polite, but after 289 hours on a plane I would have been annoyed by the Pope, Buddha, or Mother Theresa. The reason my original flight got cancelled turned out to be because it snowed in Beijing, which doesn't happen often I guess. I got to my hotel (Crowne Plaza Beijing, right next to the Birds Nest Olympic stadium) having to run up and shower, then go to dinner and entertain 20 members of the Chinese media.

Pre-China: United sucks. Couldn't have been any more first class, but their high tech system was superbly annoying – so in my little "pod", I had no idea where to put my already inappropriate shoes, so I put them where they fit. That worked great until I used the "lay flat" feature so much desired, only to find 8 hours later that the hydraulic system completely crushed my already bad shoes. They were packed into little black leather shoe balls. The food was good, I must admit. I watched the Office – perhaps the best ever English to American humor show (I say this as a devout Monty Python fanatic, so stop you incessant snickering you English sods). Michael bought a woman's suit (no back pockets) – that's just funny, regardless of your country.

Back to our story: Beijing is cold. Boston seemed balmy by comparison. The Chinese are the nicest people ever. It's almost unnerving. If you go into a bathroom, there is a guy smiling handing you a towel – and not just at those less than "family" oriented establishments. If you go to the elevator, there is someone to push the button. If you go to a restaurant, there are 148 people specifically assigned to your table. You really can't tip anyone either, as people may get upset.

Everyone speaks better English than I do, and everyone apologizes for not speaking as well as they should. Everyone was concerned with my well being at all times, to the point where I believe some people never slept while I was in the country.

The Chinese are the hardest working people I've ever met. They are the exact opposite of the Italians (whom I love – make no mistake). Everyone in the country appears ready to work 24 hours a day and actually be happy that they have the opportunity. I had 199 media interviews, and each of the reporters was not only incredibly smart and well informed, they all clearly loved their jobs.

In short, the population was highly educated, extremely diligent, tremendous workers, and overly nice. I felt like I was on another planet.

I ate weird stuff. I understand that there are 1.4 billion people in China, most driving their own Volkswagen's in downtown Beijing (which makes L.A. look like Milford, MA), but these folks actually enjoy some of the parts of an animal that most of us never see. One of the highest honor foods a guest at your table can receive is "Fish Lip Soup", and yes, it is literal. Fish lips. I kid you not. I ate half a bowl prior to hearing the literal translation and then had to hold it all together. Fish lips. How many times in my pathetic life have I insulted someone by calling them fish lips? A lot. God gets even.

There is a striking amount of young entrepreneurs in China. I met several, and all impressed me. There is no venture capital system per se, so they just go for it on their own. Of course you can employ people for less money (one guy who looked like he was 7 had a great business doing research at about $3 million a year, employed 120 people – and was profitable. You do the math.) but it was still surprising to meet so many young capitalists in China.

My hotel room was as nice as any I've stayed in, anywhere. It took a bit to remember you can't drink or use the tap water as Americans have zero ability to digest the Chinese bacteria that exists there, and spending all that time on a plane is bad enough without spending it in a flying porta-potty. Brushing your teeth with Evian is weird until you get used to it.

The next morning I arrived at the international trade hall next to my hotel and found the conference I was to speak at. The room was beautiful, with a full balcony and a sea of red seats. The stage was about 100 meters long with giant video screens on each side – and even better – they had electronically controlled stage based spot lights that flashed all over the place on demand, as if Siegfried and Roy were going to open up the show. I had two questions – 1. Where is my microphone, and 2. Will I be translated simultaneously or do I need to pause between slides? The answer to the microphone wasn't good, I had to stand at the podium (which ended up actually being good as I tend to wander and flail about, which is probably hard to interpret effectively). Second, they were going to translate me real-time – meaning everyone would be wearing headsets like at the U.N. and a translator would be losing their mind trying to make sense of the liberties I tend to take with the English language.

1500 people politely came in and sat down, and they sat me and my fellow American dignitary, Jim Wagstaff of HP front and center. The master of ceremonies got up while a rock concert level video blasted for a few minutes then began his opening remarks. A minute into his remarks, I hear "Steve Duplessie" and stood up to make my way to the stage. Thankfully, Jim speaks a bunch of Chinese (nothing like a 6'6" American yapping in Chinese to make you feel inferior), and suggested I sit back down. 8 minutes later, I heard my name again, and this time the applause let me know it was time. There were no stairs in the middle of the stage, which required me to make a 50 yard walk in a spotlight all the way to the end of the stage, up the stairs, and 50 yards back to the middle. I was sweating by the time I arrived, and the poor people felt compelled to clap the entire journey, as if it were the Oscars. I began my speech brilliantly – I boldly began by saying "Ni Hao"(Hello), to which a raucous applause followed. Unfortunately, that was the extent of my arsenal, so I went right into my frightening rendition of the King's English (which is really more of the "goalies'" English, as my French Canadian heritage would dictate). Not wanting to let the crowd focus on the fact that they couldn't understand anything I was going to say, I instead opted to go for the cheesy move, and let them know how Beijing and China held a special place in my heart, as in 2004 I was here and came home with my baby Lily, followed up by the "now I can do no wrong" modern picture of the happiest, cutest kid on the planet. I'm pretty sure no one cared what I said after that.

 

 

 

Here's the link to a story on my presentation, complete with a nice photo of me looking good, where the first highlighted box talks about Lily more than me. Say what you will, but I do know how to play to the crowd. The rest of the two day trip was filled with interviews and meetings with more intelligent, nice folks. So many that I didn't make it past 8pm either night there (which meant I was up at 4AM, but thankfully the hotel had a superb global breakfast buffet designed for people on 13 hour time differences).

48 hours after arriving I was back at the Beijing Airport. This time my Air Canada flight to Toronto was on time. It was a brand spanking new Boeing 777, which is an almost comical site it is so big. I get the intellectual idea of flying, but not for something bigger than an apartment complex. Anyway, the Canadians are very proud of their individual "pods" as well, and this one didn't crush footwear. It was, however, designed for people with really long arms, as the cool touch screen monitor required me to put the chair forward every time I wanted to change a channel or (annoyingly) skip over the same commercials at the beginning of each show. Otherwise, things went without a hitch, and the flight was easy. We landed in Toronto on time, at approximately 2pm EST.

As I left the plane, I noticed some snowy conditions outside, but heck, it's Toronto. It snows in June in Toronto. I called my wife to excitedly let her know I was back on the continent, to which she let me know that Boston was completely snowed in, and there was no hope of my making it home. I made it 8 million miles, and now was going to get stuck only a one hour flight from home. After 3-4 long delays, and even more Grey Goose cocktails, 28 of us boarded the little plane. 5 hours late, but we took off, only to find out in mid air that Logan had closed down so we circled over Boston for an hour or so. Eventually we landed, as I believe our only alternative was to plummet into the ground. Conditions were not good. My bags showed up again, albeit this time the box of Beijing Olympic stuffed dolls folks insisted on me taking back to Lily were showing some wear. People in China really like to give non-Chinese people gifts. I had to argue vehemently against accepting a 5 foot tall, 95 pound stuffed Olympic mascot. I called the limo company, to find that "Big Al" was there and going to take myself and another stranded traveler home – they hoped I was ok with sharing the car. At that point I would have welcomed a ride squished between Osama Bin Laden and Paris Hilton, so what did I care? Hours later I appeared in my snow filled driveway, surprisingly no worse for the wear. Maybe I've lowered my standards.

So the good news is the 48 hours I was in the country were great, and I will be back in short order. I don't think people really understand either the opportunities or the challenges with doing business in China. The market is moving so fast that even thinking what you did last year is current is bad thinking. The good news is the Chinese economy is growing faster than any other in history; the bad news is the established way of transacting business is getting thrown out the window. Where there is confusion you will find me – wearing my "I'm Lily's Dad" shirt, which really would funny to see someone else wearing when I return in a few months……

China or Bust

I'm currently in transit to China, roughly above the North Pole, on my way to give a speech at China Storage Forum 2007 in Beijing. I'm told 2000 of my closest Chinese friends will be anxiously awaiting my arrival and pearls of wisdom. I'm a tad concerned how I'll translate, but have not left my popularity to chance – I've got a secret weapon. In 2004 I was in Beijing to pick up some take-out – my baby Lily. Lily today is about as Americanized as Apple Pie, but she sure is adorable, so slide 2 will be the photo of the first time I held her (she was 10 months old) and slide 3 is the money shot – her absolutely electric smile beaming out at the unexpecting crowd. Cheap, but effective. Lily, now 4, asked me on the phone this morning if I showed China "her picture" yet. She is apparently as anxious as I am to see how that plays.

Like many ideas I have, travelling to Beijing by getting on a flight to Toronto from Boston at 6:15AM seemed like a good one at the time. After attending the Patriots game in the evening, enjoying the thrill of smooshing the Steelers with a wee bit too much wine, 3:30AM smacked me right in the head. I dressed, kissed my wife (or the dog, I was delirious and do remember her looking at me funny), grabbed my bags and headed out into the cold, black night, only to step onto the porch steps to find them covered with an inch of sheer, smooth ice. How I didn't end up in the neighbor's pool is still a mystery, but somehow survived and plopped myself in the back of the waiting town car. Thank god for waiting town cars. I promptly passed out in the back seat.

You never know how long it is going to take to get to Logan airport, and people who run town car services really don't like it when you cut it too close and they have to drag you back to where you started, so they tend to suggest a good buffer. Even having to drive on a virtual skating rink the entire way, my driver somehow got me to the airport by 4:30AM. Lucky me. I don't even like Vegas at 4:30AM, let alone an airport. I dragged my sorry self up to the Air Canada ticket counter and handed over my passport.

You know it's not going to be your day when at 4:30AM you hear, "nobody called you?" as the first words from the mouth of the airline, followed of course with, "that flight is cancelled due to weather." Of course no one called me. Why would you? The excessively chipper lady then let me know the airline had already rebooked me – for a flight that evening at 9:10PM, which is almost precisely when I was due to step off of the stage to raucous applause. I let her know that wasn't going to cut the mustard. She found a flight at 9:45AM to DC that connects to a direct flight to Beijing at 12:20. It would get me in only 2 hours after my original arrival. She did that airline person mad typing thing for a while, then tried calling United – a fellow Star Alliance member, who wouldn't answer the phone, because it was 4:30 in the morning. She booked me a business seat, hand wrote some kind of transfer voucher thing, and sent me to United. Now it was roughly 5AM. United, of course, is nowhere near Air Canada at Logan. Worse, one must physically exit the terminal and go outside to get to it. It was approximately 8 degrees (Fahrenheit – that's like -87 Celsius) and there was even more ice everywhere. I dragged my tired, really irritated self outside and in to the next terminal. Then I walked, roughly 8 miles I figure. I walked past the American ticket counter, where even at 5AM there were clear signs for allowing the free market system to do its Darwinist thing. There were 11,000 people crammed into endless lines trying to get a boarding pass or check a bag. There were 3 American employees that I could see, two furiously typing airline type, and one literally yelling at a passenger who was apparently told to get into the wrong line by one of the other crack American employees and now he was about to miss his flight. She had zero sympathy for Mr. Executive Platinum. I felt for him.

After eventually arriving at United, where I discovered a similar frenzied situation and that I had worn inappropriate shoes, I got myself in line. When I got to an agent just to make sure that my friend at Air Canada dotted her I's, I found out that she hadn't. Of course. It seems I need 2 vouchers, not one. She spoke with Air Canada, who unlike United was nice enough to answer the phone, to receive confirmation that it was "ok" to allow me to get on the plane. The United lady told the Air Canada lady that she had to follow my previous expedition and bring the other voucher pronto. Apparently I was the only one who thought it odd that both agents could see "me" in their respective computers, but still relied on crack efficiencies such as making a 58 year old Canadian woman in heels walk through cold and ice on an 8 mile trek to deliver the much required piece of paper. To add insult to injury, my United friend refused to book me in business class without that magical Canadian paper, thus making my ticket the most expensive coach/steerage passage in modern history. She checked my garment bag to Beijing.

My Air Canada friend showed up a while later and was able to straighten out the ordeal. Had she not been 58 and a dead ringer for "Flo" from the show "Alice" in 1978, I might have kissed her. Instead I yelled thanks and went on my way to the next adventure. The good news is all that activity killed time; it was now 6:15AM, only 3 ½ hours from my flight. I headed for security, and the Red Carpet club where I intended on passing out.

Being a professional traveler, I am no longer even remotely fazed by the lunacy of airline security. I get to the belt and have my laptop out, my shoes off, my belt, wallet, glasses, phone, gum, watch in a bin, my jacket off with my passport and boarding pass in my hand, ready to go. I'd spit my fillings out if I could. The 260 pound woman in front of me, however, is not only a tad less "seasoned" in the art of airline screening, she still has not learned that fighting is futile. She proceeds to set off the metal detector 7 times, each time removing one chunk of metal. She does this after having to go back and remove her shoes and jacket. She does this after my life has already gone through the X-ray machine, just sitting there waiting for random folks to help themselves to some holiday goodies at my expense. Finally, she is dragged off to the corner of shame, and I zip right through without even a chirp. "Boarding pass please" is said, and before she can finish, I have proudly displayed my credentials, making the "can you believe these amateurs?" kind of face that us travel professionals make to those in the "trade". "Please step over here sir" is not what I expected to here next. I am ushered three feet to the secure ribbon "box" to face my next indignity – the random mega-screening lottery.

Standing in the "box" while waiting on a "male security check", I could almost hear the comments of my fellow passengers as they passed by me. "Loser", "idiot", "amateur" thoughts were directed my way. Me, standing practically naked, feeling like they made me wear the "dunce" cap, still no closer to stop the pilfering of my stuff. How ironic. Eventually, a very nice young man took everything I had packed and placed in on public display (thankfully this wasn't a trip to or from Vegas, as its anybody's guess as to what might end up in my bag for all to enjoy), to be swabbed, scanned, and violated. Eventually I made it through; still feeling like everyone was keeping an extra close eye on me.

Have you ever noticed that airline clubs act like they are the most important places on the planet? God forbid the poor slob who tries to sneak past those two sweet looking ladies, as they clearly have been through advanced Mossad training and will take a would be Premier member down hard lest he forget his credentials. Who do they think is hanging out in these places, royalty? Airline clubs are slightly fancier uncomfortable places to sit and wait for your flight to be postponed, not the U.N. A free Coke and two inch slice of cheese is nice, but do we need the Studio 54 doorman mentality? Anyway, it sure beats sleeping on the floor of the terminal, so I found the one couch and patiently waited for the it's occupant to leave – and by patiently I mean I sat right next to him, bypassing dozens of open individual seats. It took him 3 minutes to run away. I was unconscious in 5. I woke to the sound of my own snoring, which thankfully appeared to offend no one but myself, although it is quite possible that the noise scared off others. I headed for the gate.

United flight 897 is listed as Boston to DC (Dulles) continuing to Beijing, so I was feeling pretty good that no matter what happened, as long as I got on this plane, I would end up in Beijing. I boarded, only to notice that it was a 757, which means A: if that plane were going to Beijing, it wasn't going to make it without stopping somewhere, and B: First/Business class consisted of 12 seats that if you had to sit in for 15 hours you would go mad. I hate to fly, my butt kills me within 20 minutes, and these seats didn't even recline close to flat, which means there would be zero sleeping. Not good. The pilot informed us that our short one hour flight would be commencing anytime now, but first we need a little de-icing. I'm a fan of de-icing, so no issue. We leave 45 minutes late, now set to arrive at 11:50AM. The Beijing flight is listed at 12:19PM. The good news is this is the plane so I won't miss the flight; the bad news is this is the plane. Prior to landing, the flight attendant reads the connecting gate information. We are landing at gate D7. She lists "Peking" at gate C3. Due to my vast international experience and unapologetic love of Chinese food, I know that Peking is really Beijing. So, even though the flight is a continuation, and I hold a "re-boarding" pass instead of a standard boarding pass, I realize that I shall be flying on a real plane, presumably with real seats. I also realize that I will again be running in inappropriate shoes, but can only hope it's not far. Silly hope. Gate C3 is the furthest gate possible. I'm not sure it is even still in Virginia. I get halfway there when the PA system announces the final and immediate boarding call for Beijing. There is no customer service kiosk between where I am and where I am going – I am on my own. I am sweating. I'm fairly confident my small toe is bleeding on my right foot. I am committed.

I somehow made the plane. I was the last person on it. I am in the very first seat of a giant 747, in my "pod". I slept for the first four hours, and now I have awakened to share this with you. I haven't done anything yet I've been awake for days it seems. I now realize that the odds of my bag being on this plane are not good, unless by pure luck it was sent out of Boston on an earlier flight. I am not enjoying my own scent. My toiletries are in my bag. I have a dinner this evening I am hosting for 20 members of the Chinese media, about 2 hours after I land. I am to be on stage early in the morning, perhaps having many of my new media friends on hand. I may be wearing the same clothing. More to follow…..

Closing the Gap between IT and the Business by Virtualizing Data

The Issue: Business units are making decisions outside of IT in regards to Information Access applications and tools – and then expecting IT to quickly provision and support those applications. Information Access applications include every business facing application – from Word to a trading system to CRM to e-Discovery. Priority one mandates – such as regulatory compliance and legal, are especially "hot" currently. Business critical applications – those designed to extract incremental value from existing information, are taking a backseat.

The Result: IT is becoming further marginalized in the eyes of the business. IT is forced to say "no" to business requests, as it simply cannot bring new applications online in any short term window due to legacy issues. As "hot" applications are brought on-line, they further stress IT resources as they tend to be implemented in a stovepipe fashion – where the business unit only cares about that application but not in context to the impact it may have on other back-end IT operations. The Business Unit is therefore acquiring these tools/services, and handing them off to IT to support AFTER the decisions have been made.

The situation today is becoming flammable. The business wants to be able to react to requirements quickly, without having to be overly concerned for IT and their ability to deliver. The BU wants known costs for known services in a known timeframe – and the ability to add or delete service levels based on costs and requirements. The BU believes it is mandated to act, so as IT pushes back, the BU moves ahead regardless.

IT wants to be able to fulfill all the requirements of the BU, but must attempt to do so within the encumbrances IT has – from people to power and cooling to space. IT has been addressing the independence of the business unit in one of a few basic ways;

1. IT attempts to support the timeline demands of the business by creating yet another stovepipe operation – intentionally keeping the infrastructure, data, and operations separate from the mainstream. While all recognize this is the most expensive, least efficient, and worst case scenario from the ability to create common data value, protection, usage, and management, it is more often than not the solution IT is getting "jammed" with from the business unit.
2. IT attempts to support the demands of the business but requires the new Information Access application adhere to existing IT standards operationally, and preferably with better utilized, shared infrastructure assets and people. This will always take longer, require greater planning, testing, and implementation, and require downstream regression testing on what cause and effects the new application will have on existing processes, people, and infrastructure. This takes much greater time, resources, planning, and money typically.
3. The business bypasses IT altogether and either sets up the application as an external service offering, or worse, brings the solution in house with no IT involvement at all.

EXAMPLE:

Archive/E-Discovery: According to ESG Research (E-Discovery Requirements Escalate, November 2007), only 7% of the time does IT make the decision to use funds to build out infrastructure, tools, applications and processes to support E-Discovery mandates, whereas 37% of the time the Legal Department makes those decisions by themselves – with no involvement up front from IT at all.

Examples such as this are becoming more common as unknown business unit requirements continue to appear – causing an increased rift between an already tenuous relationship involving the core business and internal IT.

The True Result:

Situations as described previously are bad for business – but in order to facilitate change we must acknowledge and understand the realities within the cycle. There is a common flow that tends to occur regardless of when IT is brought into the loop.

1. The business unit has a requirement.
2. The business makes a decision on E-Discovery tools and policies.
3. IT is handed a mandate from the business to implement and support the decision.
4. Even if the implementation if flawless, a new stovepipe has been created.
   1. That application only looks for data that it ingests – requiring decisions to be made as to what that data is and how to get it into the system.
   2. Applications such as this may crawl existing data sources to ingest, but must be directed as to what specific data types to look for.
   3. Applications such as this normally only support one or two different data types – email for example, but not database/transaction records, or unstructured data living outside the core data center.
5. A discovery request from the new application "archive" is only successful if the request contains all of the relevant data – which rarely (if ever) exists entirely within that archive.
6. IT tends to attempt to evolve the new application stack into existing processes for backup/recovery, disaster recovery, etc. stressing existing systems and processes. It is easier for already taxed IT personnel to add to existing operating processes versus creating new ones – regardless of the applicability.

Summary Result: IT is already operating above capacity. The business unit views IT's inflexibility and time to service delays as unacceptable, and as such begins to make decisions independently of IT. The businesses may gain accelerated time to deployment of the new application, but has little knowledge of the fact that they may be causing more damage than good overall. IT becomes further stressed and the cycle continues until something breaks.

I worry about the inevitable long term effects of this cycle, but recognize that most will not have the time or luxury to concern themselves with such things. In the short term, IT is being further removed from the decision making process for business unit information access decisions. The result is that IT ends up having to support the goals of the business unit but has no (or limited) control over the decision processes and the effects of those decisions on IT's overall ability to deliver services.

The Solution:

The fundamental problem of running IT as a service bureau is rigidity - that is because infrastructure is stove-piped, complex, requires hyper-specialization at every element, and has incalculable points of interdependencies. The concept of "fluidity" is abstract at best. In an ideal world the data center would simply be a collection of infrastructural resources capable of morphing into virtual stovepipes in turn capable of delivering on the immediate and long term needs of the business – and to be malleable in semi-real time in order to deal with unknown new requirements or unforeseen events.

In short, data center virtualization is required such that the business no longer needs to be concerned with IT and its idiosyncrasies and IT no longer needs to say "no". If the data center were "liquid", IT could say yes first, bring up the application, and pick up the pieces as a background task.

Server virtualization technologies are the first infrastructure layer that begins to enable this reality. By creating a server infrastructure that provides for virtual machines, server fluidity is enabled. Virtual machines can move between physical machines at will and even automatically in the event of failure, new performance criteria, or any other new event or issue. Server virtualization means that at least from the perspective of "always having a machine ready for the unknown", we can appear fluid.

Being able to provide a virtual server to a business unit on a moment's notice is nice, but limited. It doesn't address all the other issues downstream. It is a good start to begin to alter the perception of IT and to close the gap by providing a "can do" answer up front, but it will only slow the problem.

What is really required is to stop the primary focus on infrastructure and begin to focus on data. The business application doesn't care about infrastructure – it assumes infrastructure can support its requirements. The business unit cares about the data associated with that application – while the overall corporation needs to care about the data from a holistic perspective. Nobody outside of IT cares about infrastructure. IT needs to focus on how the data can be best managed – since housing, manipulating, finding, and protecting data is the baseline reason for IT's being.

Data Virtualization is the next next thing. Applications connect to information via infrastructure. Infrastructure change interrupts that connection. By creating a virtual connection between the application and data, we can solve most of today's primary IT problems and re-establish a tighter bond between IT and the business.

The business owns the application – it should decide which requirements it needs to perform its stated objective – and not IT. IT should own the data (note: not information, but data – the individual applications create and manipulate that data which when utilized becomes information.). When the business unit executes on their own without IT, IT ends up controlling nothing and reacting constantly in a no-win situation.

As long as IT can say "yes, we can provide you a way to execute your application and provide you access to your data based on your requirements", the business will gladly change its perception and hand off infrastructure and data control to IT.

Here's how I see it working in the real world. In the previous example, Legal chose an E-Discovery application (glorified search) and created corporate governance policies that got shoved into IT. Everything in the solution ended up stovepipes, which means it is invariably riddled with holes. In the new world of data virtualization combined with infrastructure virtualization, IT starts with one simple rule to the business: Your application must house its data "here".

"Here "is a virtual data abstraction interface that accepts any and all types of data, from any and all types of applications – in one common virtual place. Want to have your E-discovery tool query against our email data? Point it here. Want to search across email and structured transactional data? Point it to the same place. Want to write new data generated by a new application or an old Word file? Yes, click "save" and here is where it will be.

If there is only one virtual place to put all data, then there is only one virtual place to find all data. Behind that data abstraction IT still has to do all the hard things it's always done – decide what data is going to reside where, for how long, how to protect it, etc. – but if it can be done "fluidly" then change suddenly isn't paramount. If you can react to changing infrastructural requirements without the business unit calling, did it even happen? I suggest that if the phone isn't ringing, things are good.

Server virtualization enables fluidity of virtual machines executing application stacks – so that if a failure occurs or if new powerful machine technologies come out they can be integrated dynamically, and based on priorities we might move a virtual machine to a whole new environment – without the business unit knowing or caring. Server migration, high availability, disaster recovery, performance optimization, and asset utilization/optimization are all functions within change states that normally cause disruption – or at the very least they cause the phone to ring. Virtualization enables the automation and fluidity beneath that abstraction layer to be invisible.

Fluidity now exists between the business unit/application and the server layer. By adding the same construct to the data layer, we further the overall fluidity goal – and now create an abstracted path between the business unit/application and the data itself. By implementing the data abstraction layer, we can now (manually or automated) create fluidity for tactical functions that today cause disruption and phone calls – such as data migrations, failure scenarios, data protection (recovery operations), capacity addition, capacity reductions, etc.

Data virtualization is not storage virtualization. Storage sits at the bottom of the data layer, and like the rest of infrastructure, should also be virtualized. By creating basic data abstractions, logically all data can exist in one place – making it easier to perform any application or data operational function. Data layer services – such as database management, logical provisioning, file system management, performance optimization, protection, etc. are functions that can be more easily addressed simply because all data exists in one virtual location. IT managers would continue to have to operate and optimize the physical storage layer beneath, but by creating a fluid data abstraction layer, they are able to mitigate the physical effects of change, which results in less negative visibility and less phone calls.

One of the reasons storage virtualization has been slow to move upstream is that specialized skills and knowledge about devices and functions within this layer are lost when the abstraction moves above those devices. For example, if your storage administrators are guru's at managing and operating EMC Clariions, giving them the ability to see those Clariions as generic disk storage has not been enough overall benefit versus the losing the ability to utilize the specific tools and skills acquired in order to manage those devices. It has been a losing proposition for industry to take non-commoditized functional infrastructure and say "now you can treat these expensive devices as disposable – all you have to do if forget all the skills and tools you know and learned and instead do everything my way". By creating a data virtualization approach, you don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater – you can simply buy time to do it the right way.

What's required? In simple terms, a global virtual data access layer that encapsulates and centralizes data management functionality in one place. Ideally, this virtual data "portal" will present itself as whatever the application wants it to be – regardless of the type of data it spits out. It would ingest the data and route it to whatever appropriate underlying infrastructure meets the business unit requirements. As a central data management engine, it would be able to apply universal and object specific policies (retention, protection, security, categorization, performance/lifecycle management/HSM, etc.) based on a "menu" of options the business unit chooses (each with a known cost).

Consider data as either "dynamic" or "fixed" (non-changing digital asset). I'd suggest that every single data object lives in this layer once it becomes fixed – or persistent. In this way, all the data within the organization is "alive". It may be physically relegated to offsite, offline media – but to the application or the business, it is alive – until a policy states that it must be destroyed. In that way, when legal wants to bring a new e-discovery search tool online in the future, it can point at ALL of the living corporate data – not just portions. When the marketing department wants to mine data for business intelligence and new value creation – it points its gun at the one place where everything lives. Imagine how much easier this could make it to garner new value from old data – and destroy the "chasm" that exists between the business and IT at the same time.

This approach provides for IT to re-evaluate and completely alter faulty processes, and enable consistency and speed in our ability to deliver services to the business. From media management to regulatory compliance, all the tactical and difficult IT functions which cause us to say "no" so often could now be centrally managed and controlled, enabling IT to say "yes" first, and dynamically make the necessary changes happen without being a drag on the progress of the business – and that will one happy day for a lot of people.

Now, somebody go figure out how to package this idea up.