Pictured from left to right - 

Gary Lyng, Senior Director of Product Management, NetApp
Flavio Santoni, CEO, Syncsort Incorporated
Paul Giobbi, President, Zumasys
John Albanese, Senior Director, Syncsort Incorporated

As an entrepreneur, I am often asked this question. I never could have imagined how my answer would change after the market drop of October 2008 and the ensuing 3 years of business. After the crash, it was painful to answer and I found that I would look for anything to talk about beside the business. I just stopped answering the question.

So, I was intrigued on the first day of my vacation last week, when my wife and I befriended a congenial older couple poolside. It turned out they had vacationed at the same Hawaiian resort for the past 20 years and they clearly had their traditions, sitting in the same $300 cabana every day with their kids and grandchildren. Over the course of the week, we ended up running into the “Washington Family,” as my two young boys called them, everywhere we went—at the pool, in the lobby, at the local coffee shop.

As we all enjoyed some much needed down time, I found myself getting comfortable chatting with Mr. Washington–I could tell that he was sympathetic to the cause of this entrepreneur. Yet I remained guarded, just as one of those calloused businesspeople that I swore I would never become.

But as our relaxed dialogue progressed over the next 7 days, I learned that Mr. Washington had enjoyed a successful and interesting career in the mutual fund industry, starting at the ripe age of 26. He enjoyed a magnificent 40-year run and had successfully sold the mutual fund business just 4 years ago, right before the megabank that owned it and whose name was synonymous with the fictitious last name of my friend, promptly tanked. Mr. Washington had played the market and his career perfectly. As his wife put it, he was now living out the last year of his swan song finishing up as a board member for the acquiring company, a $300B NYSE-traded financial services powerhouse.

On our very last afternoon together, the time had come and Mr. Washington leaned over casually from his cabana chair and in his soft voice said, “So Paul, how’s business?”

Immediately I was brought back to that moment on the treadmill in 2008, when I was watching the Dow plummet tragically with the ongoing news of Lehmann Brothers, AIG, TARP, etc. Having just bought a new building for our own business and knowing that our small bank would likely go under (indeed the FDIC did close it in November of 2009), I called my bookkeeper and made one of the most dramatic moves of my career–advancing our entire credit line to cash. Like any good entrepreneur, I was improvising. I was not going to lose the livelihood of my family and 40 others due to circumstances I couldn’t control.

But if I have learned one thing about the crisis, it’s that the economy was not the real story. The financial stresses were just symptoms—the real tragedies were in the challenges and personal conflicts buried in people’s lives. These were all forced to rise to the surface unnaturally and immediately. Employees and friends were suddenly dealing with personal strife, divorces, foreclosures, lost jobs, theft, mental and physical illness and worse. At Zumasys, we lost two of our beloved co-workers during this period and, as I write, my partner remains hospitalized with substantial health issues.

Chaos was and is all around us.

The financial crisis also threatened the healthy cultures of countless small businesses and we were not immune. Many of us had to play defense for a time. Offense is the biggest advantage of the small business but for a time it remained benched in the locker room.

But after I reflected on Mr. Washington’s question for a bit, I had this sense of peace and closure. It was acknowledgment from this man I had grown to respect that our own business had survived the un-survivable. We stared down the financial meltdown and we didn’t back down. We made tough decisions, we hired incredible new people and we layed the groundwork for an even better future.

The reality is that the chaos will continue to stubbornly persist and this may be “the new normal.” But when I look back on my first blog entry on the economy titled The Bad Market (click to see article from 2008), I find myself chuckling at the naiveté of the post.

Not talking about business leaves out one of the most meaningful, stimulating and interesting parts of my life.

Today our people are flourishing once again. There is a sense of camaraderie because together we overcame the most challenging business circumstances of a lifetime, and because of it we have a team that is ready for anything!

It’s time to starting taking about my passion again.

So, “How’s Business?”

It’s better than ever. And thanks for asking.

Highlights

• 2-3x performance over FAS2040
• Mezzanine slot for 10GbE or 2/4/8Gb FC (must choose one, slot cannot be empty)
• Can be converted to a shelf later by swapping controller module with IOM shelf module
• 2040 will replace the 2020
• Comes in either 2U SAS (DS2246 shelf) or 4U SATA (DS4243 shelf)
• 2U can be ordered with 12 or 24 disks (450GB or 600GB)
• 4U can be ordered with 12 or 24 disks (1TB, 2TB, or 3TB)
• Max Aggr size = 60TB
• Existing SAS Shelves cannot be converted into FAS2240
• Hyperthreading CPU
• 2x 6Gb SAS ports (2040 only has 1x 3Gb SAS ports)
• 2x 4Gb FC ports (2040 has 0 FC ports)
• Spindle count increased from 136 to 144
• Controller modules in 2U FAS2240 is side-by-side (instead of top/bottom setup)
• Can MP-HA internal disks using external cables (instead of SP-HA currently on the 2040)
• Single path disk are recommended until 8.1.x when SESv2 is implemented
• Must set FAS2240 shelf ID when using external SAS storage

There’s some disinformation out there about the new VMware licensing. Let’s break through the madness and make some easy sense of the new VMware licensing model. We’ll split it in three categories: What Changed?, Maybe This Matters and Don’t Freak Out.

What Changed?

If you have a virtual server to physical server ratio of less than 10:1 (that’s 10 virtual servers for each host; I.e. if you have 3 physical host servers, but have 30 or less virtual machines) – then you don’t have to care. Nothing changes for you at all. Continue buying VMware licensing just like you always have and enjoy the bliss of leaving the drama to your momma.

Maybe This Matters

If you have a virtual server to physical server ratio between 10:1 and 15:1, call your friendly Zumasys Account Manager so we can crunch some numbers for you. It all depends on how much vRAM you’re allocating to each virtual server. We’ll take a look and help you decide whether it matters…or not.

Don’t Freak Out

So…turns out you’re one of those guys. You know who you are. You’ve got host servers rockin’ 128GB of RAM; you’re killin’ it with 50+ VMs per box. Yeah…this might have an impact on you. VMware took a look at their largest customers, and discovered an amazing thing…that we buy 2 CPU-based licenses and then over-allocate memory like RAM-hungry zombies. So they made the same move any of us would have made if vSphere were our product; they started charging us for the way we’re using it. So if this is you, then yeah…it is a change. But don’t freak out.

Give us a call, we’ll help demystify the madness, identify exactly how it’s going to impact your business…and everything will be just fine.

Don’t sweat…we’re here to help.

Rock on,
Dave McCary
Your Friendly #GeekTranslator

PS – In case this wasn’t quite nerdy enough for you…here’s a matrix outlining the vRAM entitlement limits per license in the new model. Cheers.

Still not nerdy enough? Alight then…don’t get rowdy…here you go.

The VMware vCloud® powered program continues to gain traction allowing service providers a broad array of public clouds compatible with the VMware platform. More than 30 VMware Service Provider Partners, including Zumasys, are now delivering VMware vCloud® Powered services based on VMware vCloud Director and the vCloud API. Read More

As I proxy this against another 500-point drop in the stock market today, I think of the tremendous rally we are seeing in technology spending, specifically on Cloud Computing. When observing our customers who are spread out across North America, you can see a clear renaissance happening around IT initiatives which had been previously postponed or stalled. And if you’ve been in IT for a while, you know that you can defer spending for a period of time, but those problems never go away. It’s time to address the Gartner estimated $500B “IT Debt” and it appears that corporations of all sizes are finally getting the message.

There also seems to be a willingness to look at new solutions to old problems which is exciting for companies like Zumasys. For example, the concept of renting time on an outsourced data center platform (i.e. Cloud Computing) vs. purchasing servers and storage, is in full swing. CFOs and CEOs no longer want to burden their balance sheets with costly IT investments–Cloud Computing is solving this problem (and others) and is fueling tremendous growth for boutique Cloud providers like Zumasys as well as larger players like Amazon.

What lessons can we learn from this? For me, it’s the fact that strong corporate earnings are driving this investment. There are vibrant, growing companies out there — that 25% of the population — you just need to know where to look. When you find those precious relationships – whether it’s with your clients or your vendors – the message is hold on with both hands and forget about the Dow Jones Industrial Average (for now).

Paul Giobbi
President
Zumasys, Inc.

To read more – Click Here

If you haven’t heard yet, VMware has changed how licensing for vSphere products works for the upcoming version 5 release. The differnet editions (Standard, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus) no longer limit CPU core or physical RAM amounts. Instead, each CPU license comes with a certain amount of vRAM entitlement. This entitlement is counted by how much RAM is assigned to the VM guest. The vRAM allocations are globally pooled when using vCenter, meaning the vRAM is not strictly bound to any physical CPU but shared amongst all licensed hosts. The table below shows each edition’s entitlement:

• Standard vRAM Entitlement = 24GB
• Enterprise vRAM Entitlement = 32GB
• Enterprise+ vRAM Entitlement = 48GB

So, using Enterprise as en example, 2 CPU licenses would allow for up to 64GB of virtual RAM (vRAM) to be assigned to guests. It is not required to have hosts built at the same physical RAM (pRAM) counts as you are licensed. Also, this model does not change current 4.x license agreements and capacities current customers already have.

This change means we are shifting our license model from being bound to physical hardware configuration to the virtual guest configuration.

The Essentials packs are still available and come with 24G-vRAM per CPU entitlements.

The free ESXi hypervisor is still available and comes with 8GB of vRAM allocation.

Those interested in how their current allocation might change their license requirements can run an unofficial PowerCLI script from PeetersOnline: http://bit.ly/qCPvoB

All around them, the couple saw negative portrayals of technology in the media – how kids are warned about the dangers of the web, how parents should limit kids’ technology usage, and how mobile phones may damage personal interactions.

Meanwhile, the world felt different in their own “nerd family,” where they used computers, websites, mobile phones and video games to grow closer to one another, spend time together, and build stronger relationships.

Luke and Ginger realized that families need help learning how to use the latest gadgets to grow closer, especially as technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous. They envisioned helping families use technology for good – and creating technologies that serve families better.

This vision became reality after they lost half of their family – Luke and sons Nick, Nate and Noah – to a plane crash in October 2010. During this difficult time, Ginger saw once again how technologies helped draw people together, support her family, and connect her community. The Bucklin Family Foundation (BFF) was born.

As it grows, the BFF will support families by providing online resources, offering grants, and stimulating community dialogue. It will also fund development of tools like family-centric mobile apps.

Together, we can make positive change in the lives of families, using the power that technology offers to grow stronger together.

Learn more at http://www.bucklinfamilyfoundation.org/

Zumasys announced that it is the first provider to achieve both VMware vCloud Power status and the NetApp Gold Service Provider designation. Specializing in migrating custom software applications to the Cloud, Zumasys also announced that it is now live with production workload at the 407,000 sq. ft. SuperNAP Data Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. This latest platform utilizes NetApp Flash Cache to deliver maximum performance and Cisco Nexus Datacenter Switches providing 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity. Built on VMware’s revolutionary vCloud Director™ architecture, Zumasys unveiled a brand new resource pool-based pricing model which is expected to provide a more flexible and affordable path to the Cloud for businesses running custom applications.

Customers are now benefiting from:

• Resource Pool Pricing – Pay a set price for a pool of memory, CPU and disk resources with the ability to spin up as many virtual machines as is required
• Self Provisioning – Deploy virtual machines and operating system images with the click of a button
• Self-Service Portal – Gain access to virtual infrastructure through a user-friendly Web portal

Click here to read the full article