Tech Field Day Coverage
Our delegate panel includes independent writers and thought leaders, and we collect their coverage of the event, Tech Field Day presentations, and sponsoring companies here.
Reviewed HPE InfoSight Is a Force-Multiplier for IT Operations
Infrastructure complexity is becoming an issue that impedes ongoing operations, and solution vendors have a role to play in addressing this problem. In addition, it’s no longer good enough to just produce infrastructure solutions that do not have awareness of the rest of the stack. This piece looks at Tech Field Exclusive with HPE Storage how HPE is meeting these challenges with InfoSight, which they acquired with Nimble Storage a few years ago.
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Reviewed HPE InfoSight is a Force-Multiplier for IT Operations
Passpoint: The Data Flows
Nick Shoemaker continues his look at Passpoint in this blog post, looking at how data flows and how admins can actually access the carrier network through the Aruba Network wireless LAN. While he wasn’t at the event, Nick found Aruba’s presentation from Mobility Field Day on Passpoint to be invaluable to the piece. What makes Passpoint particularly appealing is that it does not vary that much from standard enterprise wireless other than passing the data along to the carriers for authentication, accounting and services. Be sure to check out the last installment when it comes out, looking at setting up Passpoint on an Aruba wireless network.
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VMware TKG
VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid represents a big shift for VMware and their long history of virtualization. Larry Smith was lucky to be delegate at Cloud Field Day to get to hear an extensive session on it at the event. With Kubernetes becoming increasingly important to IT infrastructure, understanding TKG as the core of core component VMware’s Kubernetes deployments is key. Larry breaks down the architecture of TKG, how organizations can deploy it across a number of personas, and how it integrates into vSphere. Be sure to check out the piece before digging into the presentaiton video
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Leaving Legacy Behind to Build Better Networks With DriveNets
How do you build a network operating system today that has none of the technical baggage from years past? Can we ever really leave behind the technologies of yesteryear? Tom Hollingsworth reviews the DriveNets Network Operating System and how it modernizes a platform that needs to leave the legacy behind. He got a deep dive on it at Networking Field Day, where they did an architectural over, and showed how they built it from the ground up with microservices in mind.
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Leaving Legacy Behind to Build Better Networks with DriveNets
Pensando Expands What SmartNIC Offloads Can Do
For Justin Warren, he found Pensando’s presentation at Cloud Field Day to be impressive on a technical level. They’ve developed an ARM-based chip that is programmable using the P4 network programming language. This is used in a SmartNIC called a Distributed Services Card that you install in your server to offload various network functions from the general-purpose CPU. This has the potential to offer huge performance benefits on network functions, but Justin sees this as limited to larger cloud providers and the infrastructure that supports it. Justin has questions about the actual size of the market for this solution, and how much it will cost, but was definitely impressed by the technology and team behind Persando.
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Pensando Expands What SmartNIC Offloads Can Do
Meet Field Day Delegate – Tony Bradley
Tony Bradley joined us as a new delegate at Security Field Day. Aside from a big family and plenty of pets, Tony has been a CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) since 2002 and was awarded Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award for 11 consecutive years! Be sure to check out this recent interview with Gestalt IT to get to know him better. They talk about how he got started in tech and security, what challenges he’s seeing in security, and how he manages work-life balance.
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Meet Field Day Delegate - Tony Bradley
DR to VMware Cloud on AWS With Site Recovery Manager
In this piece, Justin Warren considers how VMware has really embraced cloud in a big way. After some attempts at building their own cloud, VMware can concentrate on what it does well, which is providing a familiar management environment for enterprises to manage complexity at scale. This approach shows in what Justin saw at Cloud Field Day with VMware Site Recovery, which uses vSphere replication on VMware on AWS to move VMs from one cluster to another.
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DR to VMware Cloud on AWS with Site Recovery Manager
Pensando Places Programmability First
Programming hardware isn’t easy. Unless you start out with the idea that you’re going to use a language that is easy to adapt to your needs. Tom Hollingsworth looks at the decisions made by Pensando to leverage P4 to extend its platform to adapt to the future needs of its customers. After hearing from the company at Cloud Field Day, Tom sees Pensando in the early stages of making something big, and the power of P4 will make the sky the limit. Their platform is currently shipping with NetApp and HPE systems and likely to see wider adoption, especially in cloud providers.
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Pensando Places Programmability First
Aid Complex Troubleshooting With Distributed Tracing – Day Two Cloud Podcast Video
Distributed tracing is the dark art of tracking a transaction that passes through several microservices for troubleshooting purposes. Why was the transaction slow? Hard to say, especially when the failure is intermittent. Ned Bellavance and Ethan Banks explain the problem and how SolarWinds Application Performance Monitoring suite is tackling it with Pingdom, Loggly, and AppOptics. Especially AppOptics, something they heard a lot about during SolarWinds’ Cloud Field Day presentation.
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Aid Complex Troubleshooting With Distributed Tracing - Day Two Cloud Podcast Video
Riverbed Wasn’t Built in a Day
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was Riverbed’s network security posture. At a recent Tech Field Day presentation, the company gave an overview of how they are addressing the increasingly complex world of security, and used the metaphor of the Roman Empire to frame their response. History buff Rich Stroffolino was fascinated by that framing, and breaks down the implication in this piece.
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Riverbed Wasn't Built In a Day
Moving Workloads With VMware HCX – Day Two Cloud Podcast Video
After hearing from VMware at Cloud Field Day, Ethan Banks and Ned Bellavance discuss moving VMware workloads with the VMware HCX. Do admins want this? Don’t they really want to move work between Kubernetes clusters instead? Or is that even the right question? It kind of was, but it kind of wasn’t. Kubernetes & containers are not simple drop-in replacements for VMware & virtual machines. Therefore, HCX has use cases, and they explain what they think they are.
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Moving Workloads With VMware HCX - Day Two Cloud Podcast Video
Day Two Cloud 047: Highlights and Analysis From Cloud Field Day 7
In this episode of the Day Two Cloud podcast, Ethan Banks and Ned Bellavance discuss some of the presentations from Cloud Field Day. They looked at the big presentations from VMware, SolarWinds, and startup Pensando in the episode, specifically focusing on VMware Cloud on AWS, monitoring cloud performance with SolarWinds, and Pensando’s SmartNIC to offload a server’s network processing. Having two great hosts discussing the latest cloud goodness makes for a good podcast.
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Day Two Cloud 047: Highlights And Analysis From Cloud Field Day 7
VMware Makes Kubernetes Even More So With Tanzu
In this post, Justin Warren considers how VMware has gone about integrating Kubernetes into its establishing management platforms, something he heard all about at Cloud Field Day. This is an inherently complex task, if for no other reason than the Kubernetes landscape is still changing and updating rapidly. Any kind of integration would seemingly have to take that on as well. For Justin, a lot of the strength of VMware’s position with virtualization is that it is a known quantity that organizations have a continuing investment with over time. Adding in Kubernetes with Tanzu Kubernetes Grid doesn’t strictly play to that strength. For Justin, the key will be for VMware to simplify the solution over time as it learns how customers actually use Kubernetes.
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VMware Makes Kubernetes Even More So With Tanzu
VMware Embracing Terraform: Infrastructure as Code
Chris Grundemann was a little surprised when he heard VMware’s Narayan Bharadwaj mention Terraform during the opening presentation of Cloud Field Day. In fact, what he said is that VMware is “embracing Terraform in a pretty big way” as part of their focus on Infrastructure as Code. This struck Chris for two reasons. One, you wouldn’t be off-base to think of Terraform as a competitor to several VMware products. And two, because of the things that it makes possible. He digs into more of the specifics in this post.
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VMware Embracing Terraform: Infrastructure as Code
Automating Disaster Recovery Is Risky Business – Day Two Cloud Podcast Video
Ned Bellavance and Ethan Banks think through VMware’s DRaaS offering, pondering the pros and cons of automation disaster recovery & business continuity. Sounds great, but are users testing regularly? What’s the failback process after the disaster is over? VMware went into detail during their Cloud Field Day presentation, and Ethan and Ned break it down in this episode of Day Two Cloud.
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Automating Disaster Recovery Is Risky Business - Day Two Cloud Podcast Video
Broadcom
Jeff Fry definitely found a lot to be excited about from Broadcom’s presentation at Networking Field Day. The company’s components are at the hard of much of the modern networking stack, and at the event, they had numerous engineers and chip designers on hand to give some technical deep dives. The company provided an overview of their three chip classes, designed for service providers, hyperscalers, and enterprises. Be sure to check out their presentation video to get all the technical details.
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Build Your Network Apps on Pensando’s Cloud of SmartNICs – Day Two Cloud Video
Pensando Systems definitely made a big impression at Cloud Field Day. The company is a startup that threatens to be a juggernaut if past performance of the founders is any indicator of future results. Pensando’s made an ARM processor and paired it to a NIC and orchestration platform. Put the NIC in your servers and manage the NIC fleet centrally. Use the platform to create networking applications offloaded from the x86 CPU, all for less than a 30W power draw. Ethan Banks and Ned Bellavance discuss the implications of what they saw at the event, and who will be Pensando’s customers.
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Build Your Network Apps On Pensando's Cloud Of SmartNICs - Day Two Cloud Video
Voices in Data Storage – Episode 39: A Conversation With Russell Reeder
On this episode of Voices in Data Storage, the inimitable Enrico Signoretti spoke with Russell Reeder. They discuss Infrascale’s presentation at Storage Field Day, and the state of the storage industry at large. Be sure to subscribe to his feed, and check out the full video presentation from Storage Field Day!
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Voices in Data Storage – Episode 39: A Conversation with Russell Reeder
Pensando Systems at Cloud Field Day 7
It’s always exciting to get a new presenting company at an event like Cloud Field Day. Pensando Systems joined the Field Day presenter alumni with their recent presentation, and definitely made an impression on the delegates. While the event was virtual for their debut, it actually fostered a lot of great interaction both from the delegates and our wider audience on Twitter. Be sure to check out their full presentation video to find out how they built a Distributed Services Platform that gives cloud providers the ability to build industry-leading cloud services and gives enterprises the unique ability to drive cloud-like agility, security and operational simplicity across their entire infrastructure with unmatched scale and performance.
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Pensando Systems At Cloud Field Day 7
Ensuring Code Quality With Arista
Are you having issues with code quality? Do you feel like things keep getting worse when you install the latest patch? Maybe the process behind the scenes is broken. Perhaps you need to look at what a good example of code development looks like. Tom Hollingsworth reviews the process from Arista after their presentation at Networking Field Day.
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