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.
Why Innovation, Risk, and Curves make for the best careers
In this post, Justin Paul considers the fact that the rapid change of technology means that virtually no one in IT is going to be doing the same job for their entire careers. To that effect, he looks at how markets change from early adopters and innovators, and uses that to show when it might be time to look to change your career to catch the next way. Keeping up on new technology can be daunting, and he suggested Tech Field Day presentation videos as a great way to stay informed. We agree!
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Why Innovation, Risk, and Curves make for the best careers
2018 was a good and busy year ! Things I have done during the last year
Year in review posts are always a good time to take stock of accomplishments. Orhan Ergun took a look at 2018 and found he had a really busy year. For starters, he made the decision to open a company in Turkey. Other highlights included seeing students and friends pass their CCDE practical exam. In October, we were lucky to have Orhan attend Networking Field Day, where he got to hear from a variety of companies in the industry. We hope his 2019 is just as eventful!
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2018 was a good and busy year ! Things I have done during the last year
Packets Never Lie…
Al Rasheed heard from Riverbed during Networking Field Day late last year. The company had a wide ranging presentation showing what they now offer in their WAN optimization and SD-WAN portfolio. This included an extensive SD-WAN Q&A session, demos from Brandon Carroll, and a look at SteelCentral Aternity and Steelhead SD. It was a lot of information, so be sure to check out the video from the presentation.
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Stuck in Traffic – Micro-segmentation
It stinks that J Wolfgang Goerlich gets stuck in traffic so much, but the silver lining is that he creates more great IT videos. In this one, he’s discussing micro-segmentation, which is crucial for organizations that need more and more granular security controls. This effectively segments and firewalling around an individual hosts. At Security Field Day, he got to hear from VMware is approaching this with NSX.
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Stuck in Traffic - Micro-segmentation
Apstra in a whiteboard
Marina Ferreira got to hear from Apstra at Networking Field Day late last year. But what impressed her the most wasn’t what she heard, but what she saw, specifically the excellent whiteboard session by Carly Stoughton. She outlined how Apstra went from their reference AOS architecture and have expanded it to provide intent-based networking, analytics and more. Check out the whiteboard and the full presentation video to catch up yourself.
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Stuck in Traffic – Doug Engelbart
Even though J Wolfgang Goerlich is stuck in traffic, that doesn’t mean he can’t put together some great security content. In this video, he considers the influence of Doug Engelbart, and how we can use collective intelligence to augment cyber security practices, particularly with automation. At Security Field Day, he saw Cisco take this approach with Cisco Threat Response.
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Stuck in Traffic - Doug Engelbart
Operating your Network with Intent-Based Networking
Apstra has done a series of blog posts following up on their recent Networking Field Day presentation, digging in a little deeper and providing some further context. In this post, Raghavendra Rachamadugu focuses on the importance of intent-based analytics that Apstra offers through AOS. While getting shiny charts of your network are nice, as the sheer amount of data grows, having a general analytic view will often obscure small but critical problems. Raghavendra gives a very precise definition of intent-based analytics, and explains how Apstra implements it.
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Operating your Network with Intent-Based Networking
Tech Field Day: Day 1
Paul Snyder was one of the delegates invited to the inaugural Security Field Day earlier this month. This was his first time at a Field Day event, he found it to be one of the best professional experiences he’s ever had. He found the event separates itself from others in the industry, because the delegates have total candor and freedom to express how they truly feel about the presenting companies. Maintaining this independence is critical for maintaining constructive dialogues.
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INFINIDAT Neutrix Cloud 2.0
Andrea Mauro gives an overview of Neutrix Cloud, a sovereign public cloud storage service offered by Infinidat. While this can be integrated with Infinidat’s Infinibox on-premises storage, it fundamentally provides file systems and block volumes across all the major public clouds, using a unified set of APIs across them all. Since seeing the solution at Storage Field Day earlier this year, Infinidat has added a number of features, including a web GUI, cross-regional replication, and integration with Amazon Voice Services.
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Some Random Thoughts From Security Field Day
Tom Hollingsworth just finished up the inaugural Security Field Day. As the organizer, Tom has some unique perspective, getting an inside look at both the presenting companies and delegates. I’m sure we’ll see a lot of takeaways from the event, but these initial thoughts by Tom are an interesting look at security from a more IT generalist perspective. The big thing here is that security isn’t about tools, it’s about embracing a way of thinking, and realizing that failure is a likely outcome over time.
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Some Random Thoughts From Security Field Day
Voices in Data Storage – Episode 3: A Conversation with Leo Leung of Oracle
In this episode of Voices in Data Storage, Enrico Signoretti spoke with Leo Leung, Oracle’s Senior Director of Product & Strategy for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. They discussed how Oracle’s cloud offerings have really impressed, specifically their presentation at Tech Field Day earlier this year. This isn’t simply a play to have traditional Oracle legacy apps in the cloud, but a play to offer high performance instances for cloud native applications.
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Voices in Data Storage – Episode 3: A Conversation with Leo Leung of Oracle
Hopeful with a Dash of Skepticism: Cisco 9800 Wireless Controllers
Phil Gervasi is still haunted by memories of the Cisco 5760 Wireless LAN Controller. So it was with that in mind that he looks at Cisco’s new WLCs they presented at Networking Field Day, the 9300 and 9800 series. Phil thinks these can be successful due to their IOS-XE programmability and their ability to be deployed in racks or in the cloud as virtual appliances. Phil doesn’t think Cisco is repeating the issues of the 5760, and wants to start building them out in a lab soon.
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Hopeful with a Dash of Skepticism: Cisco 9800 Wireless Controllers
Apstra’s NFD19 Experience: Part 2
Carly Stoughton reviews what she presented on for Apstra at Networking Field Day last month. This presentation started with a architectural overview of Apstra Operating System. She then went on to show how AOS Server provides pre-built building blocks, allowing you to build out a data center is AOS in under six minutes. All of this can be customized and configured to fit an organizations needs.
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Apstra’s NFD19 Experience: Part 2
Elastifile Cloud File Service Now Available on Google Cloud
Chris Evans looks at the significance of Elastifile now offering a managed scale-out file service for Google Cloud, calling it nothing less than a coup for the company. He goes into the background on Elastifile’s Cloud File Service, which he first saw at Storage Field Day in 2017. By being a native first-party service with GCP, Elastifile gets the benefits of using native APIs, have billing done through Google, and have Google manage their scaling. Having native integration on GCP makes Elastifile “a winner” for Chris.
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Elastifile Cloud File Service Now Available on Google Cloud
Kentik Adds Value, Gets Cloudy
Kentik is no stranger to Networking Field Day, and recently did a presentation at our event last month. Pete Welcher was a delegate at the event and shares his thoughts on what he saw from them in this post. They showed off their cloud-based big data approach to analyzing flow data from internal sources and the cloud. Kentik is now able to ingest AWS and GCP flow records, with support for Azure coming in 2019. Pete was impressed by the amount of data this agentless approach can obtain.
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Kentik Adds Value, Gets Cloudy
Cisco Catalyst Wifi, Take Two
In this post, notable Canadian and Networking Field Day delegate Rob Coote digs into the Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controller from Cisco, positioned as their next-generation wireless platform. At Networking Field Day, Cisco highlighted three key improvements from previous Aironet products: Always-on, security, and the ability to deploy anywhere. Rob think the overall popularity of Catalyst 9k switches should provide a good basis for the success of the wireless platform.
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Meet the Security Field Day Delegates: Jeff Wilson
Aruba has been getting ready for Security Field Day by introducing the delegates in a series of interviews. In this post, Jamie Easley spoke with delegate Jeff Wilson. They discussed how the iMac G3 got him into IT, the importance of code integrity, and overlooked security risk. Be sure to look out for Jeff during Security Field Day’s live stream this week.
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Meet the Security Field Day Delegates: Jeff Wilson
Meet the Security Field Day Delegates: Kori Younger
Jamie Easley with Aruba is doing profile posts about the delegates for Security Field Day. This time around, he’s talking with Kori Younger. They discussed how she got interested in technology, advocating for women in the industry, and how to raise better awareness of cybersecurity.
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Meet the Security Field Day Delegates: Kori Younger
Meet the Security Field Day Delegates: Christopher Kusek
Jamie Easley with Aruba has been writing a series of posts introducing many of the Security Field Day delegates. This time, he’s talking with Christopher Kusek. They discuss how he got his start in security, his best tips for business and personal security, and his favorite security memes.
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Meet the Security Field Day Delegates: Christopher Kusek
What is Cisco ACI?
Gian Paolo Boarina heard a lot about Cisco ACI at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe this year. This has come in handy since he’s been migrating traditional switches to Cisco ACI fabric. In this post, he looks at what exactly is ACI from the perspective of a different roles, including networking, security, and DevOps. Overall in working with Cisco ACI, Gian has found he’s needed less time configuring switches, and more time focusing on business intent.
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