In this follow up episode of the VMblog Expert Interview Series, VMblog again sits down with Rob Hirschfeld, CEO and co-founder of RackN, for a deep dive into what it actually takes to succeed at infrastructure lifecycle management, and why so many VMware migration projects are stalling out.
Key Topics Covered:
The Process Problem Nobody Talks About
Most infrastructure teams focus on their tools — Ansible, Terraform, Cobbler, Foreman — but Rob argues the real issue is the process underneath. The teams that succeed with Digital Rebar aren’t the ones looking for a better provisioning tool; they’re the ones willing to rethink the entire end-to-end process.
Layer 0, Layer 1, Layer 2 — Why It Matters
Rob breaks down a critical distinction: Ansible and Terraform are Layer 2 platform tools, designed for environments where operating systems already exist. They were never built to handle the heterogeneity, firmware drift, BIOS/RAID updates, NIC discovery, and out-of-band communication…
