Mark Vaughn's Weblog

Weblog of Mark Vaughn, and IT professional and vExpert specializing in Enterprise Architecture, virtualization, web architecture and general technology evangelism

Month: June 2010

Opportunity Cost

June 21, 2010 / / 0 Comments

When you are presented with two or more mutually exclusive options, you are going to have to pass up an opportunity. The key to making the right decision not only lies in knowing the value of both options, but in looking for a possible third option and assessing the value of that option as well. The value of the opportunities not taken are the “opportunity cost” of your decision.

A simple way to explain opportunity cost is to consider selling an item at cost. If I buy a widget for $10, and I sell it to you for $10, I have recovered my cost and lost no money…right? That is true in simple financial terms. However, consider that I could have easily sold the widget for $15, that decision had an opportunity cost of $5. I passed up an opportunity to make $5 by selling it to you at cost.

That concept changed the way I approach IT decisions, teaching me to always consider the business value and cost. No matter how good my design, the business may have other opportunities available that would yield a better return. My designs not only have to be good, they have to be valuable.

Another impact of learning this lesson…I no longer ask my friends who own businesses to sell me items at cost 😉

Please read my article on this topic at the SearchServerVirtualization site, then come back here to leave comments.
http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/news/column/0,294698,sid94_gci1514524,00.html

vExpert 2010

June 7, 2010 / / 0 Comments

First, I am humbled and honored to have been a vExpert in 2009. As the year went on, and I got to know more of my fellow vExperts, I was in awe of the people that I was sharing this title with. In fact, it inspired me to work even harder and to put more effort into be an active member of the virtualization community.

That being said, I am amazed to once again receive the vExpert award for 2010. I look forward to learning from my fellow vExperts, as they are a truly talented group of people. I have yet to meet a vExpert that was not both highly talented and eager to assist. In fact, that is why they are vExperts.

Some of you may be asking, what is a vExpert? VMware describes it like this:

The VMware vExpert Award is given to individuals who have significantly contributed to the community of VMware users over the past year.

The criteria for vExpert selection are value to the community, technical merit, effectiveness, professionalism, reach and effort. The group is full of authors, bloggers, technology leaders and a wide range of highly skilled individuals. Again, I am humbled to have been grouped with these people.

Being a vExpert led me to become more involved in sharing my opinions and contributing to discussions via twitter. I also launched this blog site and began writing for Tech Target. In these pursuits I received a lot of input and advice from fellow vExperts like Steve Kaplan, David Davis and Scott Lowe. Those names stand out, but so many others have contributed to helping me grow. John Troyer, the driving force within VMware that launched the vExperts and a number of other programs, worked very hard to add value to this program last year. John is promising even more from the coming year and I cannot wait to see what that will look like.

To all of my fellow 2009 vExperts, thank you so much for your encouragement and assistance, it was an honor to share that title with you. To my fellow 2010 vExperts, congratulations! I am honored to be in your company and I look forward to getting to know you better as the year goes on.

Is virtualization cloud computing?

June 3, 2010 / / 0 Comments

There is a lot of talk about virtualization and cloud computing, and too much effort is spent to link the two. With so many virtualization vendors releasing a flurry of cloud-related technologies, and forming cloud-centric partnerships, the emphasis is understandable. However, it can really muddy the waters and has a tendency to lead people to think the two terms are synonymous. In truth, though complimentary, the two technologies can exist independently. In fact, cloud computing is as much methodology as it is technology.

For more on this topic, please read my article on SearchServerVirtualization at http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/news/column/0,294698,sid94_gci1513869,00.html

Once you read the article, feel free to come back here and leave a comment. This is  conversation that can go in so many directions, but I think it is an important one to have.

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