John Webster
John Webster is a freelance biz-tech reporter who writes features for several business-technology publications.
Big data deserves IT's attention
Columnist John Webster says big data promises of a style of computing that more closely mimics the functioning of the human mind. For IT, that means moving from provisioning of services to making a big impact on business results.
Opinion: Did VMware sell out to EMC too soon?
With the abrupt replacement of VMware's CEO Diane Greene by EMC, one has to at least consider whether VMware may have made a mistake allowing itself to be purchased by EMC, says John Webster. And with the stock-price drop in the...
Opinion: Solid-state disk: Revolution or flash in the pan?
If SSD is seen by users as Tier Zero in a tiered storage strategy, then the biggest loser is tape because users don't really need another storage tier. They just need more performance.
Opinion: Admit it. You want to be clustered storage
Clustered storage is decidedly in vogue. Even storage that isn't clustered wants to be. And that's the issue. You may think you know what it is, and then you'll see another "clustered storage" product that is decidedly different from...
Opinion: FCoE's 10Gbit/sec. should be in your future
Unlike other FC-to-Ethernet encapsulation methods like FCIP and iFCP, FCoE lives within the same OSI layer as IP, enabling enhanced performance, lossless frame transmission and some other goodies.
Opinion: IGF — IBM's unseen competitive weapon
IBM Global Financing is a competitive threat because Big Blue uses it as a sales tool during the selling process, not just as an after-the-sale financing option.
Opinion: Why Sun bought MySQL
The open-source community will have an increasing effect on commercial IT, writes columnist John Webster. He also asserts that Sun executives want to make customers out of both IT "haves" and "have-nots" -- those who have money to...
Opinion: Can we take the Storage Performance Council seriously?
Recently, the Storage Performance Council posted two benchmarks to its Web site that were run on an EMC Clariion CX3 Model 40. What's a bit unusual in this case is the fact that EMC did not run the benchmark, Network Appliance did.
Opinion: Server virtualization opens door to smart planning
Capacity planners, performance gurus and Computer Measurement Group members, your day may dawn once again as server virtualization turns the practice of throwing hardware at problems into a counterproductive task.
The data center fabric - can you handle it?
The data center fabric will at a minimum bring together network, server, and storage administrators. Are you ready? Can you handle it?
Opinion: IBM snaps up EMC visionary with XIV
IBM's purchase of XIV is rare indeed for a company that hasn't purchased storage IP in recent memory. What adds spice to this deal is the fact that XIV's chairman is the legendary Moshe Yanai -- the man many regard as the father of...