When people think of Enterprise IT many think of old fashioned “glass house” data centers, closed off from the outside world.

In May 2011, at the Open Source Business Conference, we participated in the presentation of the results of the “Future of Open Source” survey. For last year's edition, I predicted that the database sector would be the sector recognized as the most susceptible to open source disruption over the next five years.

In light of the 2012 Future of Cloud Computing Survey that North Bridge Venture Partners conducted, I spoke with Kathleen Goolsby of Sandhill.com to discuss five trends that I’ve seen since the survey last year. A significant shift is occurring in the cloud landscape, and by examining these new cloud formations we can understand where the cloud is headed in the future.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Charles Fan in Shanghai in December 2012. Charles is well known in China for having set up R&D facilities for EMC and VMware and for having created a world class integrated team at record speeds. Charles is currently a senior vice president and Chairman, China COE at EMC and is working on the Data Fabric of the future at VMware. During our interview I was struck by his vision and wanted to share his thoughts as I am frequently asked about the future of Big Data and how it relates to cloud.