Welcome to Random Short Take #55. A few players have worn 55 in the NBA. I wore some Mutombo sneakers in high school, and I enjoy watching Duncan Robinson light it up for the Heat. My favourite ever to wear 55 was “White Chocolate” Jason Williams. Let’s get random.

• This article from my friend Max around Intel Optane and VMware Cloud Foundation provided some excellent insights.
• Speaking of friends writing about VMware Cloud Foundation, this first part of a 4-part series from Vaughn makes a compelling case for VCF on FlashStack. Sure, he gets paid to say nice things about the company he works for, but there is plenty of info in here that makes a lot of sense if you’re evaluating which hardware platform pairs well with VCF.
• Speaking of VMware, if you’re a VCD shop using NSX-V, it’s time to move on to NSX-T. This article from VMware has the skinny.
• You want an open source version of BMC? Fine, you got it. Who would have thought securing BMC would be a thing? (Yes, I know it should be)
• Stuff happens, hard drives fail. Backblaze recently published its drive stats report for Q1. You can read about that here.
• Speaking of drives, check out this article from Netflix on its Netflix Drive product. I find it amusing that I get more value from Netflix’s tech blog than I do its streaming service, particularly when one is free.
• The people in my office laugh nervously when I say I hate being in meetings where people feel the need to whiteboard. It’s not that I think whiteboard sessions can’t be valuable, but oftentimes the information on those whiteboards should be documented somewhere and easy to bring up on a screen. But if you find yourself in a lot of meetings and need to start drawing pictures about new concepts or whatever, this article might be of some use.
• Speaking of office things not directly related to tech, this article from Preston de Guise on interruptions was typically insightful. I loved the “Got a minute?” reference too.