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.
Coming Together During COVID-19, With Stephen Foskett of Gestalt IT
Tech Field Day founder and organizer Stephen Foskett appeared on Live Now to discuss how technology companies and events are adapting to the current COVID-19 self-isolating landscape. He finds the industry is dividing into two camps: those that are scaling back on events and other efforts as they get up to speed, and other that are already used to working remotely and operating at full speed. It’s an interesting discussion in how IT as a whole is reacting to this unprecedented situation.
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Coming Together During COVID-19, with Stephen Foskett of Gestalt IT
What Is Data Resilience?
At Tech Field Day, Zerto gave the delegates on overview of their data resilience platform, before updating them on the latest and greatest with their Zerto 8.0 release. For Rich Stroffolino, this idea of data resilience is the key to Zerto’s success. Instead of keeping things like disaster recovery and data protection as separate teams, Zerto made a compelling case why it’s all part of the same resilience story for any organization. They showed how their solution is certainly capable of dealing with disaster recovery events, but also designed to handle operational recovery, for the every day disasters that can still have a big impact. This approach is wrapped around an elegantly simple approach based around their continuously updated journal to power all their services.
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A Measure of Automation With Juniper Networks
You may be automating all the things, but are you verifying and measuring the outcomes of your automation? You need to be sure before you move forward on your journey. Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at Juniper Networks Contrail Insights and how it can help you make sure you’re automating the right things. Juniper did a deep dive on Contrail Insights at Networking Field Day, showing how a journey to automation is a matter steps. For Tom, Contrail Insights might not be the most exciting step in that journey, but arguably one of the most important.
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A Measure of Automation with Juniper Networks
Disaggregated Routing Software With DriveNets
In this piece, Rowell Dionicio considers the state of whitebox networking. While being around for about six years, it’s not something that he’s personally seen really gaining a lot of traction. But after seeing DriveNets present at Networking Field Day, he thinks the age of whitebox networking might be now for Service Providers. DriveNets wants to bring a disaggregated network approach to Service Providers, using their software-based Network Cloud to scale whiteboxes and software. Rowell digs into how this disaggregation can work financially for SPs, and how DriveNets is up to the technical challenge as well.
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Disaggregated Routing Software with DriveNets
Cloud Field Day 7: Delivering Cloud Migration, Modernization and Business Continuity With VMware Cloud on AWS
VMware is a familiar presenter at Field Day events, and we’re thrilled to have them return to Cloud Field Day this year. This year, their presentation will focus on how VMware helps customers migrate, extend, protect and modernize their applications and how to help them continue their business operations without any disruptions. Much of this will be presented through the lens of VMware Cloud on AWS with technical deep-dive content how organizations can accelerate their migration and modernization journey. We can’t wait to see the session, so be sure to mark your calendar.
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Cloud Rich Updates in Zerto 8.0
Is the cloud a part of your data protection strategy? Or are you hoping that your box of backup tapes can swim? Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at the latest updates from Zerto in their 8.0 software release, especially those that focus on the cloud. He got to hear about them from our Tech Field Day coverage, where Zerto did a deep dive on their platform and latest release. Protecting data with the cloud isn’t an emerging use case anymore, it needs to be a vital part of any businesses data resiliency plans. Zerto 8.0 building a lot of features and sophistication to make that possible.
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Cloud Rich Updates in Zerto 8.0
New Features With NSX-T 3.0 – Federation and Kubernetes on vSphere
Mariusz Kaczorek heard a lot from VMware at the most recent Tech Field Day event. In this post, he breaks down the latest features and updates for NSX-T 3.0. This includes a number of important updates, with networking support for vSphere with Kubernetes and cloud-scale networking with NSX-T Federation. With Mariusz, with NSX-v set to end support in 2022, NSX-T 3.0 offers a promising replacement with better load balancing, multi-site networking and security across various platforms.
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New features with NSX-T 3.0 - Federation and Kubernetes on vSphere
Meet Field Day Delegate – Glenda Canfield
For Tech Field Day events, we pride ourselves on trying to include new voices into our delegate pool. This is vital to not only bring in the latest technical expertise to ask incisive questions of our presenting companies, but also to provide new perspectives around the delegate table, virtual or otherwise. Our latest Tech Field Day event saw Glenda Canfield join us for the first time. Be sure to check out her recent interview with Gestalt IT. They dig into how she got her start in IT, what she does in her spare time, and what she’d be working on if she wasn’t in IT. We can’t wait to hear from Glenda at more events in the future.
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Meet Field Day Delegate - Glenda Canfield
Dell EMC SmartFabric Director- Weaving a Tapestry of Green
Are you ready to build your digital transformation project? Need a new network to make it work? Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at Dell EMC SmartFabric Director and how it can help you building out your next new project. He got to hear about SmartFabric Director at Networking Field Day, and thinks that it shows Dell EMC is on the right track for large existing infrastructures that are looking to make leaps toward digital transformation initiatives to get a handle on how to make that happen.
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Dell EMC SmartFabric Director- Weaving a Tapestry of Green
vSphere 7 and Kubernetes – Should Customers Wait?
On this video from Keith Townsend, he talks with CTO Dose co-host Joep Piscaer about vSphere 7 and his impressions of the Kubernetes integration. Project Tanzu Grid is the updated branding for Project Pacific. They break down if VMware’s initial release lived up to the not inconsiderable hype. They also discuss if customers should be quick to latch onto Tanzu, or wait for further development. Watch as Keith and Joep recap their impressions from VMware’s Tech Field Day presentation.
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vSphere 7 and Kubernetes - Should Customers Wait?
Meet Field Day Delegate – Jason Beshara
Jason Beshara is joining us for Tech Field Day Roundtable with Aruba! He is a Solution Architect with a demonstrated history of working with and designing advanced RF solutions. Jason is skilled in wireless LAN design and troubleshooting within enterprise, healthcare, education, LPV and heavy industrial verticals. Be sure to check out this interview with Gestalt IT to see how Jason got started in IT, where he sees the industry going in the near future, what he does outside of IT, and more. It’s great to get a well rounded understanding of new delegates to our events. It makes seeing them around the table and hearing their questions all the more illuminating.
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Meet Field Day Delegate - Jason Beshara
What’s New in Zerto 8.0
At Tech Field Day Mariusz Kaczorek got to hear the latest updates from Zerto. The company showed off the latest features of Zerto 8.0, their latest release of their Zerto IT Resilience Platform. This adds a number of key features to the platform. On the cloud side, Zerto 8.0 adds Continuous Data Protection to Google Cloud as well as cloud backup with AWS Storage Gateway. On the storage side, the release now supports VMware vVols. Combined with many other feature enhancements, Mariusz sees Zerto as offering a compelling platform-agonostic platform to protect your data across hybrid and multi cloud environments.
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vSphere 7 and Kubernetes – CTO Advisor Episode 118
In this CTO Dose Keith Townsend is joined by co-host Joep Piscaer to discuss vSphere 7 and his impressions of the Kubernetes integration, something Keith got to hear about in depth at Tech Field day . They discussed Project Tanzu Grid as the updated branding for Project Pacific, VMware’s effort to integrate Kubernetes into vSphere. They look at if VMware’s initial release lived up to the hype, and whether customers should adopt it right away, or wait for further development.
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vSphere 7 and Kubernetes - CTO Advisor Episode 118
Broadcom Processors Are Blazingly Fast
Evan Mintzer attended Networking Field Day earlier this year and got to hear from Broadcom. As one of the most prominent merchant silicon companies across the networking stack, it’s not surprising that Evan was interested in what they had to say. Their presentation focused on their network processor silicon, and was complex enough that Evan had to rewatch it to make sure it understood it all. They did a deep dive on their processor architecture, which allows for truly impressive speeds, supporting a switch at up to 25.6Tbps using a Tomahawk4 processor. Be sure to check out the videos to get up to speed on their latest and greatest.
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Broadcom Processors are Blazingly Fast
SD-WAN and Technical Debt
At a recent discussion with delegates at Networking Field Day, Tom Hollingsworth wondered why SD-WAN startups have been able to be so aggressive with innovating in the space, while established networking companies have struggled to keep up. This is endemic of the technical debt a lot of larger organizations carry. He considers something like Cisco’s IWAN, in many ways a precursor to modern SD-WAN. This ended up being complicated and hard to deploy because of many of the technology decisions that Cisco made years ago, resulting in both a software and hardware supply chain constraints on IWAN. Compare this to a startup, like the recent Networking Field Day presenter CloudGenix, who could design a solution around a desired functionality, rather than with a set of constraints inherited as technical debt. This SD-WAN example is just one way of looking at the role of technical debt in product development for large organizations.
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Cloud Field Day 7 – Who Will Be Presenting?
Alastair Cooke will be joining us virtually for Cloud Field Day later in April. Instead of the jetlag that comes from crossing an ocean to usually be at an event, he’ll instead be up early to join the other delegates for the presentations. Though a virtual event, he’s looking forward to the same in-depth technical presentations, the opportunity to ask direct questions to the presenters, and the great conversations with the other delegates. In this post, he runs down what he’s looking forward to from each of the presenters. This includes a mix of Field Day stalwarts like Aruba, VMware, and Solarwinds, with newer companies to the event series, like Stellus and Pensando. Be sure to mark your calendar to join the live stream to watch the event along with Alastair.
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Cloud Field Day 7 – Who will be presenting?
For Big Switch, Cloud Isn’t a Location – It’s a Design Principle
For organizations that have begun to transition to the cloud, it has become apparent how straightforward it is to consume compute and storage services. Things that used to take days to provision are now accomplished in a number of clicks, or are transparently configured with no interaction required from the user at all. The fact that workloads are able to communicate with each other, or can be restricted from communicating, with equal ease is just as welcome. Tom Hollingsworth looks at how Big Switch Networks is enabling this, based on their presentation from Tech Field Day Extra at Dell Technologies World 2019.
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For Big Switch, Cloud Isn’t a Location – It’s a Design Principle
Cisco’s Service Provider Powerful Trio
At Tech Field Day Extra a Cisco Live Europe, David Penaloza Seijas got to hear details about Cisco’s plans for custom silicon. This came in the form of a new ASIC, focused on meeting the needs of service providers. For David, this seemed like natural focus for the company. He breaks down how this integrates into the Cisco 8000 series routers, what kind of features customers should expect, and how it fits into Cisco’s broader ambitions for IOS XR. Overall David is bullish on the approach, and suggests it’s never been a better time to learn some Linux!
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Cisco’s Service Provider Powerful trio
Hot Take Zerto 8.0 Tech Field Day 21
Keith Townsend recently made a video looking at what Zerto presented at Tech Field Day. In it, he focuses on how Zerto can help solve a common anxiety when testing disaster recovery, contaminating production data with DR and then having to roll back. Their platform introduces a logging feature, which replicates the whole VM state. With the configuration tools built into the feature, it makes it really powerful to keep the application state consistent. This logging feature also allows for the logs to provide extremely granular visibility for data protection. Be sure to check out Keith’s video to get his full hot take, then dive into their presentation video.
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Hot Take Zerto 8.0 Tech Field Day 21
The Definition of Secondary Storage Is Evolving – as Is Cohesity
The challenge of data management is nothing new, and the Enterprise Storage market has responded at both ends of the spectrum by providing mature, high performance solutions for primary datasets, and lower-cost archival solutions for less important bulk data. But many businesses are discovering a capability gap when attempting to store secondary data that falls into the “everything else” category. For this reason, Cohesity has begun to leverage its core capabilities to attack new problems as customer requirements, and the definition of secondary storage, continue to evolve. At Storage Field Day, the company showed off DataPlatform, which solves a set of challenges not addressed by high-end primary storage or low-cost archival storage. This provides a unified approach for storage of secondary data across both on-premises and cloud environments.
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The Definition of Secondary Storage is Evolving – As is Cohesity