Why I chose to go work for VMware
TLDR – I’m headed to VMware as a Solutions Architect for the Midwest region.
Read MoreIs Nutanix a Cloud Company?
One of the most popular videos on the portal describes how Nutanix isn't a cloud company. After hosting theCube for Nutanix .NEXT 2018, I thought it time to ask and answer the question again.
What value does Nutanix bring environments looking to adopt enterprise cloud technologies? What were the key announcements from .NEXT that point to a coherent cloud strategy and where are the gaps?
This Analyst Note discusses the big takeaways from the conference.
Configuration Management - Four steps to getting it under control
Configuration management is about controlling the state of all of the systems and applications in your environment. I call it the metadata of your IT operations. While data replication helps to protect from data loss, configuration management remains as essential as data replication.
Read MoreMoving SAP and other legacy apps to the cloud
Moving legacy application architectures to the public cloud bring with it many challenges. In many cases, it’s a question of finding a problem for the solution public cloud offers. On the surface, the architecture of legacy applications doesn’t appear complementary to public cloud design and consumption. However, there are use cases where legacy applications fit natively into the public cloud.
Read MoreRubrik - A metadata company in backup company's clothing
I’ve poked and prodded the team at Rubrik since first briefed on their data protection product. The spokespeople remain careful in the description of the product suite. It is a data protection product with additional benefits powered by a powerful metadata engine. Make no mistake Rubrik’s product is a robust metadata driven foundation that has data protection features. The company marketing remains careful not to compete with primary storage companies directly or claim primary storage functionality.
Read MoreWebinar - Disaster recovery in the era of Public Cloud
Disaster recovery is hard enough. People and process are equally important as the technology. Our presenter, Keith Townsend led the effort for the disaster recovery design and operations for a Fortune 200's SAP implementation.
Keith will share learnings from that experience beyond SAP and how Public Cloud brings the similar technical capability to smaller organizations.
An update on Oracle's Cloud
There's Oracle's CEO telling the world that they will compete with AWS for Public Cloud dominance. And then there are the engineers and product managers building a respectable cloud platform. It's the later I and 28 other influencers spent time discussing technology and use cases during Oracle Ravello Blogger Day 2 (RBD2). So, what's going on with Oracles cloud?
Read MoreHCI/Not HCI - It doesn't matter
In theory, streamlined IT operations follow the technology. If the technology packaging is simplified, then IT operations are simplified. If a storage administrator no longer needs to keep a spreadsheet that maps LUNS to virtual volumes and virtual volumes to datastores, then the role is collapsed into the virtualization administrator role.
Read MoreThe what, who and when of BlockChain - Webinar
Bitcoin has taken both mobile payments and Fintech by storm. While it's garnered much of the attention, Bitcoin is powered by Blockchain. Blockchain is a distributed and immutable ledger. It enables multiple organizations to validate entries into a ledger. With a consortium, a Blockchain could enable new ways to do business and provide services.
Read MoreWhy are box sellers at AWS re:Invent with Cohesity
The CTO Advisor was recently at AWS re:Invent. With 43,000 attendees, AWS is making the case that their event is the premier Cloud event of the year. KubeCon followed the very next week in Austin. While I was off getting braces, some of the 4,000 attendees were making the case that KubeCon is the future of cloud conferences.
Read MoreBackup is Dead! [Webinar]
There are no longer any major backup software or storage hardware companies. Everyone one of these companies has repositioned their messaging to serving or protecting data assets. What does this mean for the enterprise? It's a reaction to the change of focus. Big Data is a buzzword.
Read MoreRe-play of Severless Webinar
So, you missed the webinar on serverless? Or you participated and you wanted to review the content. I created a 23-min version of the 45-min webinar.
Read MoreUnderstanding Serverless Computing
First off, there are servers in serverless computing. However, the construct of servers is a throwback to a time when the only way to develop distributed applications was to focus on the server as the base component of the infrastructure. In the server-centric model of distributed systems, developers needed to understand their CPU, Memory and OS requirements.
Read MoreCurrent state of TLS encryption and data loss protection
I’ve worked enterprise IT for far too long to fall into the “privacy at work is king” camp. If you use your organization's resources, then you may give up the right to privacy at work. I’ve implemented data loss protection (DLP) software for a 12,000-user U.S. Federal agency. Users don’t like it. It impacts system performance, and automatic encryption of removable devices makes data sharing more difficult. However, the worse scenario is having an Equifax like headline hit the news. Such breaches are why encryption breaking technology for snooping on employees remains interesting.
Read MoreInefficiencies of large systems
is a business upon itself. The larger the team, the larger the effort to coordinate the efforts within and between organizational units. When an organization talks about flattening the org chart, it's a result of out of control overhead. Computers systems are not immune from this impact.
Read MoreCTO Advisor 063: Can enterprise IT adapt? w/Kelsey Hightower
Google's Kelsey Hightower joins the podcast for a reality check for enterprise IT. Keith and Mark ask the question, "Can enterprises adapt" to the quickly changing technology landscape? Do organizations have the budget and aptitude for navigating the disruption. Kelsey gives a pretty blunt assessment. Kelsey claims debates around issues such as CI/CD are now over. Kelsey shares his vision of the relation containers, the cloud, and business value.
Tech Field Day 15 Preview: Ixia
The Equifax hack raised a basic question. Don’t most Fortune 500 companies have some type of data loss protection (DLP) system in place to prevent such breaches. Or at least identify the breach before too much damage is done? You’d think that is the case after high-profile consumer data hacks such as Target occurred. The technologies to identify these intrusions remains ample. The operations discipline to utilize them remains immature. Next up on our Tech Field Day 15 previews is network virtualization and security company Ixia.
Read MoreTechfield Day 15 Preview: DataCore
The Tech Field Day (TFD) presenter up next in my series of TFD 15 previews is DataCore. DataCore is a virtual SAN or hyperconverged solution. You may ask, why do we need yet another software-defined storage solution. VMware has come out with VSAN, aren’t we done? The simple fact is that there’s going to be opportunities for virtual SAN companies as long as there’s performance to be eked out of the underlying storage infrastructure. Or there are cost savings.
Read MoreTech Field Day 15 Preview: Skyport Systems
We’ve heard the term zero-trust before. VMware has used it to describe the micro-segmentation that’s done using NSX. The idea in network micro-segmentation assumes no trust between systems based on location within the physical or logical network. Skyport Systems takes the concept to the extreme. In Skyports architecture, the network, application, computing, and user have no shared level of trust, other than zero-trust.
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