Avatar

Joann Starke

No Longer with Cisco

As a long standing advocate and voice of cloud management at Cisco, Joann’s domain knowledge and technical expertise have contributed significantly to the strategy, development and adoption of Cisco’s cloud management and data center automation software solutions. She is currently the marketing leader and voice for Cisco’s latest and broadest enterprise software offering in the category. During a distinguished career spanning two decades Joann has held major product management and product marketing positions at BlueArc/Hitachi, Netapp, Parallels, and HP, successfully launching and establishing many technologies that are industry standards today. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing and computer science, having graduated with honors in the field.

Articles

November 19, 2015

DATA CENTER

Shadow IT: You Can’t Manage What You Can’t See

2 min read

Shadow IT is nothing new as employees and lines of business bypass IT departments to get the cloud services they need to complete their jobs.   Rogue IT has resulted in a conversation around the unintended and potentially dangerous consequences of increased security risks, compliance concerns and hidden costs. We all know that private and public […]

October 19, 2015

DATA CENTER

Application Ready Stacks at Will

2 min read

Application architects and developers are the life blood of your business. They are responsible for analyzing, designing and developing commercially viable solutions to drive revenue for your business. These teams keep up-to-date on the latest technology, drive development activities and are responsible for the design and day-to-day functioning of non-production environments. What they are not […]

September 11, 2015

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Director: Your Data Center Conductor

1 min read

Customers frequently comment that IT simply isn’t keeping pace with their needs.  Provisioning new data center resources can take weeks.  To be fair, IT professionals are doing the best they can but manual processes and organizational silos can make the process equivalent to trying to play a symphony without a conductor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc7U3VQIsk Cisco UCS Director’s […]

August 26, 2015

DATA CENTER

Better Management for Private Clouds

2 min read

Whether you call it digital disruption or the age of the empowered customer, business models are being disrupted; and at the center are our customers.  Customers are driving new consumption models that focus and align the way they want to consume technology:  faster, cheaper and with a higher degree of service.  Accommodating our customers requires […]

August 3, 2015

DATA CENTER

Accelerate Private and Public Clouds

2 min read

The pace of business is accelerating.  As consumers, the internet has changed our expectations for how to order products, services or information as well as how fast it is delivered.  Think about it.   We access a web page, order what we want and complete the transaction.  In some cases, our orders are delivered within hours. […]

July 8, 2015

DATA CENTER

Simpler IT Management Increases the Effectiveness of Advanced Technologies

2 min read

Advanced technology assists your business on its journey to becoming more efficient and agile so it can keep serving the rising expectations of customers.  But, how can you help these advanced technologies serve your business well? Technology headlines focus on the individual tools to help you support advanced technologies; but the pivotal reality is that […]

June 2, 2015

DATA CENTER

Empower Your Application Teams

1 min read

Application teams are the backbone of the revenue generating capabilities of all companies.  These creative people spend their off-hours working with the latest tools to keep their skills sharp.  Increasingly, these teams are going into the public cloud to develop their applications.  Why?  Developers need resources in days.  Procurement and IT quote resource delivery in […]

May 27, 2015

DATA CENTER

Deliver Infrastructure at the Speed of Need

2 min read

Smart devices give us access to information and services at the speed of need. But they have conditioned us to expect anything and everything faster — and that includes IT services. This expectation for speed coupled with modern technology is driving IT innovation.  Yet, in most organizations, delivery of consistent infrastructure to application or business […]

May 26, 2015

DATA CENTER

Cisco ONE Software Makes it Easy to Start Automating

1 min read

Companies’ expectations of IT keep increasing as the pace of business intensifies, creating greater demand for new services and faster access to resources and data.  If you have been reading my blogs, you know that THE way for IT to keep pace with the speed of business is automation. But buyers beware. IT automation solutions […]

May 19, 2015

DATA CENTER

TechWiseTV: Cloud Agility through Smarter Automation

1 min read

Agility is highly sought after in today’s business environment.   It allows your business to rapidly adapt to market changes or competitive pressures.  It enables your business to capture new opportunities and customers without expanding your staff or increasing costs.  To accomplish these objectives you need one thing:  automation.  Automation delivers the key element for business […]

March 24, 2015

DATA CENTER

Deliver Services at Internet Speed

2 min read

How quickly can your organization stand-up a new application or deploy new services?  Most customers tell me, “not fast enough!”   I am clearly hearing from them that the new standard expectation across the organization is to receive precise data center resources in “internet time,” easily and definitely on-demand. But customers are not the only […]

February 10, 2015

DATA CENTER

A Better Way to Private Cloud

1 min read

Organizations are realizing that without a formal comprehensive cloud strategy, line of business and application architects will continue to sidestep their internal IT organizations and procure solutions on their own – an industry phenomenon known as “rogue IT” which happens out of necessity.  While it helps solve the immediate problem, it brings with it a […]

January 30, 2015

DATA CENTER

Automation is Unavoidable – But Painful Shift Isn’t

1 min read

Private cloud – you hear it everywhere.  Industry analysts tell us that private cloud has become a core data center strategy  well on its way to becoming a core element in the formal IT portfolio. Forrester research indicates that CIOs and IT departments are strongly drawn to private cloud as the on-ramp for their cloud […]

January 28, 2015

DATA CENTER

Introducing Cisco ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite

2 min read

Forrester research indicates that private cloud has entered into the formal IT portfolio by becoming a core part of data center strategy.   I have been writing about the sea change underway in private cloud.  This sea change means that automating the provisioning of virtual machines and their infrastructure is inadequate in a world where your […]

January 5, 2015

DATA CENTER

Capture New Business Opportunity with Effective Automation

2 min read

The connections between your business success and data center efficiency have never been clearer or stronger. Delivering data center resources quickly to capitalize on new business opportunities or projects is a major factor for business success. The only way to expedite resource delivery is by replacing manual processes with repeatable, best-practice-based automated service consumption and […]

January 6, 2015

DATA CENTER

IT Automation Eases the Cost of Doing Business

2 min read

The increasing pace of business is creating high demand for IT efficiency and speed. IT directly affects your ability to respond correctly and quickly to new opportunities.  Slow IT equates to slow business. The latest release of Cisco UCS Director allows IT to automate the deployment of infrastructure delivering the speed and efficiency IT needs […]

December 2, 2014

DATA CENTER

Is IT Automation the Key to Operational Excellence? Industry Analysts Think So

1 min read

Businesses move quickly until they have to cross rough roads paved with technical challenges. That’s because even though data centers are sophisticated, the components that support most businesses still include far too many 20th century manual processes, silo based resources and administrators pressured to keep up. Although automation can speed up IT, and your business, […]

October 21, 2014

DATA CENTER

Meaningful IT Automation Is The Goal

2 min read

Automation was a major theme at VMWorld 2014 in Barcelona this month and it was clear that IT professionals are discovering that they can’t keep pace with business using manual provisioning and de-provisioning processes. The problem is that with the physical boundaries of time and space, there simply isn’t enough staff to meet the need. […]

August 7, 2014

DATA CENTER

Punch the Data Center Accelerator and Maintain Full Control

2 min read

Every organization needs more from their data centers, such as faster services and data analysis for real-time decision making.  The unprecedented expansion of data is a major driver of rapid data center transformation.  Consider these statistics: 90% of all data in the world was created in the last three years Data centers handled 214 exabytes […]

August 5, 2014

DATA CENTER

IT Services Faster!

1 min read

Most of us expect immediate delivery both as consumers and as employees. As employees, we are no longer willing to wait weeks for IT to deliver what we need. IT departments feel the pain that ensues from our urgency in the form of shadow IT.  Shadow IT results in the double trouble of higher risk […]

June 4, 2014

DATA CENTER

Measurable Efficiencies with FlexPod and Cisco UCS Director

2 min read

Data center strategy is a critical part of business strategy. In fact, the ways and means of IT deployment make all the difference between an efficient, successful organization and an ineffective one. Therefore, to align and adapt quickly to the needs of business, IT is changing the delivery mechanisms of infrastructure resources. Part of the […]

May 19, 2014

DATA CENTER

Improve the Ways and Means of Application Delivery

2 min read

Organizations are rethinking their data centers and nothing is off limits for discussion – everything from infrastructure to software to processes, and even more fundamentally, the very ways in which a data center serves the business. One element that is empowering this phenomenal shift is IT automation. It is vital. No automation, no effective IT. […]

April 9, 2014

DATA CENTER

Open Source Acceleration for Applications

3 min read

In previous blogs I have described how organizations are maturing beyond provisioning of individual servers to provisioning of richer cloud-based application stacks.  Known as platform-as-a-service (PaaS), this capability takes cloud technology beyond infrastructure to automate the application life cycle.  PaaS allows developers and IT operations to collaborate and ensure that application stacks are consistent and […]

March 27, 2014

DATA CENTER

Let Cisco Cloud Work for Your Business

2 min read

At a recent event I saw a T-shirt that said “Remember when cloud only meant rain?”  In the days before cloud computing, asking someone what they thought about cloud usually invoked a response about an animal-shaped formation or looking at cumulonimbus and predicting precipitation. One thing that today’s IT clouds have in common with their […]

March 12, 2014

DATA CENTER

With Cisco Cloud Management, FASTWEB Delivers New Value-Added Cloud Services

2 min read

Imagine that you head the leading telecommunications provider in Italy and you are watching traditional service and revenue streams struggle under intense competitive pressure. Customer retention is a major issue because the types of services required by your residential and business clients are changing. Clearly, you need to retain customers and do so by offering […]

March 4, 2014

DATA CENTER

Move Past Survival and Thrive

2 min read

Every area of your business has a stake in the way IT delivers services. Each one needs speed, agility, efficiency, and a clear definition of its relationship with all of the other areas and the business as a whole. In order to get there and create an agile and efficient organization that flows, you need […]

February 10, 2014

DATA CENTER

Join the Conversation: Cisco and Forrester Webcast

1 min read

Cloud is changing the way businesses deploy and manage IT and business services. Industry analysts estimate that by the end of 2014, four out of 10 companies will have deployed a private cloud. But where do you start? Join Cisco and Forrester on February 18th, for this live webcast entitled: Cloud Management: It’s More than […]

February 12, 2014

DATA CENTER

Automated Provisioning of Application Stacks

2 min read

Whether working with bare-metal servers or virtual machines; provisioning applications and infrastructure traditionally are independent tasks that are completed by different data center teams. Infrastructure is usually provisioned manually. Applications are customarily provisioned via golden templates. As customers look to move automation beyond infrastructure to include applications, the maintenance complexity and manual “last mile” configuration […]

February 5, 2014

DATA CENTER

Use Cloud to Execute Your Business Vision

2 min read

Major change and growth is happening in the way data centers are functioning. This change is being led by cloud technology. IT’s role is changing from an infrastructure provider to strategic business partner. The new role for IT is to align you with the services you need, when you need them, from a portfolio of […]

January 24, 2014

DATA CENTER

New! Cisco UCS Director 4.1 – When You Don’t Have Time to Wait on IT

2 min read

Congratulations on your hot new project! It is critical to your organization expanding its revenue base; it’s top of mind for your manager and the CIO. What’s that? You did all the planning, but you can’t start for four weeks? Oh, right—that’s how long IT needs to get you the necessary infrastructure resources. Let’s change the perspective. […]

December 12, 2013

DATA CENTER

Speak With Our Experts

1 min read

Delivering unified management for converged infrastructure solutions, Cisco UCS Director is an award-winning choice for managing your vBlock, FlexPod or other converged infrastructure solution.  In previous blogs, I have mentioned the benefits of Cisco UCS Director: How it abstracts the virtualization, compute, network and storage layers into a single pane of glass that reduces the […]

December 3, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco: Your Strategic Cloud Partner

2 min read

Cisco’s cloud software is a hot topic.  First Cisco UCS Director was voted the SVC award winner for best virtualization management software.  Then Forrester released a new Private Cloud Wave and both Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud (IAC) and UCS Director combined garnered Cisco the highest ranking for cloud vision and strategy as well as […]

November 22, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Director Wins a “Storage, Virtualization, and Cloud (SVC)” Product of the Year Award!

1 min read

Last night we received the news that Cisco UCS Director (formerly Cloupia) won the product of the year award in the category of virtualization management by the SVC Awards. Each year SVC rewards the top products, projects, companies and teams operating in the cloud, virtualization and storage sectors.  This SVC award provides validation of the […]

November 7, 2013

DATA CENTER

Automation and Application-Centric Infrastructure

1 min read

If you have been following the news, I'm sure you saw that Cisco just introduced Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI). Combine ACI with Cisco UCS Director and you can...

October 29, 2013

DATA CENTER

Big Picture Thinking Makes Tactics Easier

1 min read

In order to provide important services and innovations that better align to business, data centers must deploy advancecd IT architectures. Who says? IDC. In fact, this month they reported that adoption of integrated systems has moved from evaluation to mainstream. And yet IT remains besieged. What is the essence of the problem? Traditional management tools. […]

October 14, 2013

DATA CENTER

Why Risk Organizational Concussion?

2 min read

We have to propel new use cases for cloud because customers want more than IaaS. And they don’t want to be tied to vendors’ annual product release cycles to get it. But, as they extend cloud-based service delivery beyond IaaS and aim higher in the sky, their heads smack into the ceiling of cloud management. […]

August 12, 2013

DATA CENTER

The Golden Key to Any Cloud

2 min read

As cloud technology and organizations mature, customers are shifting their focus from the provisioning of individual servers to richer cloud-based application platform stacks. Why? Servers usually do not exist as standalone entities but are designed to run something tangible for the business. For example, multi-tier application platform stacks have in their design multi-server elements such […]

August 7, 2013

DATA CENTER

Bookends That Prevent Your Cloud from Getting Away From You

2 min read

Cloud platforms are an increasingly viable option for a growing set of enterprise and service provider workloads. A recent IDC report estimated that private cloud software, including hosted private cloud, represented 62% of IT spending in 2012. Cisco is a unique cloud provider because it delivers solutions for the two critical management bookends for your […]

July 26, 2013

DATA CENTER

Would You Like to Reduce Costs by $264,000?

2 min read

Of course you would. In a recent Forrester report on the economic impact of FlexPod, that is exactly the cost savings estimated by utilizing centralized automation and orchestration. So I ask, what new projects or services could your IT organization deliver with cost savings of $264,000? To get a copy of the Forrester report, go […]

June 23, 2013

DATA CENTER

The Next-Gen Data Center: Warp Speed Potential?

3 min read

Have you caught the new “Star Trek” summer blockbuster yet? If you’re a Trekkie, you know that one of the spin-offs of the original series was “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and the Star Trek universe just continues to evolve. This puts me in mind of where our industry is heading today with the next-gen […]

May 9, 2013

DATA CENTER

Swisscom Deploys Cisco Cloud Management

1 min read

Two years ago Swisscom AG switched to cloud-based service deployment for their customers, but unfortunately, the switch ran into a hitch … As more customers move from landlines to mobile devices, the mobile market continues to increase in size and complexity and become more competitive. To create new revenue streams, many telcos are finding it […]

April 16, 2013

DATA CENTER

Increase Profits by Making it Easy to Follow the Money

3 min read

Increase Profits by Making it Easy to Follow the Money Hundreds of cloud service providers around the world are seeing businesses connect into their clouds in increasing numbers. You might think this goes into the category of a “good problem to have.” So growth that should be great news for the bottom line, isn’t yet […]

March 27, 2013

DATA CENTER

Unlock Your Converged Infrastructure’s Potential

2 min read

Successful IT managers today and in the future need to quickly adapt to changing business strategies. But how does IT increase efficiency, support more applications and provide additional services with flat or decreasing IT budgets? In my previous blog, I discussed how Cisco, EMC, NetApp, and VCE introduced converged infrastructures to increase IT efficiency and […]

March 21, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco Management to Make Your Data Center More Efficient

3 min read

There is a lot of buzz in the market about Cisco Cloupia and how it is positioned relative to other Cisco solutions such as Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud.   The term cloud is often used interchangeably for automated infrastructure provisioning as well as for true clouds, as mentioned in my previous blog.  To better understand […]

February 8, 2013

DATA CENTER

Virtualization Everywhere, but not a Cloud in Sight!

Customers have often said to me, “Joann, we have virtualization all over the place. That’s cloud isn’t it?”   My response is, “Well not really, that is not a cloud, but you can get to cloud!”  Then there is a brief uncomfortable silence, which I resolve with an action provoking explanation that I will now share […]