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.
The #vCommunity
We were thrilled to invite Al Rasheed to be a delegate at Tech Field Day Extra at VMworld this year. In this post, he writes about how he came to decide to sign up to be a delegate, leaning on the experiences of two recent Field Day invitees, Ken Nalbone and Nick Nick Janetakis for reference. We’re glad he found the event well organized and managed. If you ever wondered about becoming a Field Day delegate, be sure to start by signing up on our site.
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Intro into Fortinet WLAN configuration
After seeing Fortinet present at Mobility Field Day, Amy Arnold found herself impressed by how in a few simple steps, the company could provide setup for WLAN SSID, applying security policies, and even automation for quarantining an infected machine. In this post, she reviews how to use their GUI to achieve all of these tasks, and what she learned along the way.
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Intro into Fortinet WLAN configuration
The Rise of Computational Storage
At Storage Field Day last month, Max Mortillaro got a deep dive into one of the emergent companies in the computational storage space, NGD Systems. They seek to move away from traditional Von Neumann architecture and process data directly on the storage layer. Each NGD System drive is equipped with an ARM processor, RAM, and an ASIC for processing specific data sets. In their testing, NGD was able to reduce the number of servers needed for a given workload to 25% when using their computational storage solution. Make sure you check out Max’s TECHunplugged Industry Insights research paper on computational storage for a more comprehensive deep dive.
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The Rise of Computational Storage
Starwind NVMe Over Fabrics for SMB and ROBO at SFD17
Jeffrey Powers heard from StarWinds at Storage Field Day last month, and got up to speed with what the company is doing with NVMe-oF. The presented on their new NVMe process on Windows Server, and the company’s Storage Performance Development Kit driver for Windows. Make sure to check out the full video of their presentation for more details.
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Starwind NVMe Over Fabrics for SMB and ROBO at SFD17
Tech Stand Up Episode 9 – SFD17 – Initial thoughts NGD Systems Podcast
Luigi Danakos discusses his thoughts on the computational storage shown by NGD Systems at Storage Field Day on the most recent episode of the Tech Stand Up Podcast. Joining him are Joe Houghes and Howard Marks. They discuss how the devices network, scale, and what use cases can best use the tech.
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Tech Stand Up Episode 9 - SFD17 - Initial thoughts NGD Systems Podcast
Meeting the Challenges of Managing Microservices-based Applications
LightStep’s [x]PM was a highlight of their Cloud Field Day presentation from earlier this year. Keith Ward was a delegate at the event, and was impressed by how LightStep could monitor complex microservices while maintaining full visibility in real time without overhead. LightStep [x]PM might not be a great fit for smaller organizations without complex applications, but many modern apps would benefit from this type of performance monitoring.
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Meeting the Challenges of Managing Microservices-based Applications
StorageCraft and The Sub-Second Recovery
Ather Beg attended a recent Tech Field Day Extra presentation from StorageCraft at VMworld US 2018. They highlighted their OneXafe hyperconverged data protection platform. This comes in 1U or 2U configurations, and is aimed at SMB and Mid-Market organisations.
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StorageCraft and The Sub-Second Recovery
Komprise Transforming Data Management with Disruption at SFD17
Jeff Powers shares his thoughts on Komprise’s presentation at Storage Field Day last week. They provide a seamless way for organizations to deal with the flood of unstructured data, by providing policy-based controls to sort cold data quickly, using an architecture that provides a way to quickly move this data across tiers when needed.
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Komprise Transforming Data Management with Disruption at SFD17
I Need Something Like Komprise For My Garage
At Storage Field Day, Dan Frith heard from Komprise, and how they are helping organizations manage the deluge of unstructured data. Using advanced policy-based management, Komprise is able to identify cold data and redirect it before it hit advanced data workflows or data protection schemes best used for hot data. Dan just wishes now he had something similar to deal with his storage problems in his garage at home.
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I Need Something Like Komprise For My Garage
Screaming IOP performance with StarWind’s new NVMeoF software & Optane SSDs
It’s pretty impressive when a Storage Field Day presentation can get Ray Lucchesi thinking about building a super computer. But that’s just what happened after seeing the impressive performance from StarWind NVMeoF initiator on CentOS and Windows Server. Using just 2-core in a Hyper-V environment, StarWind was able to achieve bare metal storage performance on Optane, getting ~551K 4K random write IOP performance at the 0.6msec RT and 2.26 GB/sec level. Not surprising that Ray called StarWind an “amazing company.”
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Screaming IOP performance with StarWind's new NVMeoF software & Optane SSDs
The Possibilities of Commvault GO
Rich Stroffolino gives a preview of what to expect from Commvault GO. The conference invites attendees to “Picture the Possibilities.” For Rich, what makes these kind of customer conferences important are the dozens of training sessions during the events, to turn those possibilities into reality.
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The Possibilities of Commvault GO
The era of composable storage infrastructures is coming
After seeing StarWind present on their NVMe-oF solutions, Enrico Signoretti thinks that it’s time to declare the SAN officially dead. The ability of NVMe-oF to access remote storage the same way as local storage opens the door to borrowing storage resources from other servers across the datacenter and building your virtual storage array. For Enrico, what StarWind presented is the start of the age of Composable Storage Infrastructure.
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The era of composable storage infrastructures is coming
Meraki’s LittleTable Isn’t So Little Anymore
Jennifer Huber heard from Cisco’s Meraki team at Mobility Field Day earlier this month. She was impressed with the responsiveness of their Wireless Heath dashboard. This allows her to view the massive LittleTable database and evaluate which client devices are behaving badly.
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Meraki's LittleTable Isn't So Little Anymore
If Cisco Could Lower Their Marketing Hype, We Might Actually Be Able to Get to the Substance
Lee Badman wrote up about one of the major benefits of a Mobility Field Day presentation, cutting through marketing hype, and learning about the tech that matters to him as a potential customer. Lee recently had a bad experience watching recent Cisco ads, but seeing them present at Mobility Field Day earlier this year, he found their Cisco Analytics and Assurance presentation “mind-opening.”
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If Cisco Could Lower Their Marketing Hype, We Might Actually Be Able to Get to the Substance
Moms Love Mist
Mist Systems returned to Mobility Field Day earlier this month, and definitely impressed Mitch Dickey. But what really stood out to him was how relatable what they were presenting was to a non-tech audience. Mitch thinks this will be a major boon as they approach customers.
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Komprise Systems Overview from #SFD17
At Storage Field Day last week, Aaron Strong and the other delegates got a deep dive from Komprise. In this piece, he gives an overview of what he saw. For Aaron, Komprise’s solution reminded him of Windows Quota “on steroids.” It allows you to get a handle on your unstructured data, and move it safely and economically.
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Komprise Systems Overview from #SFD17
Watch Mobility Field Day On-Demand!
If you missed any of Aruba’s presentation from Mobility Field Day earlier this month, never fear! We’ve got the full presentation video posted for your enjoyment. They touched upon their latest advances with 802.11ax, a sneak peak at the AP287, and their role in the new WPA3 standard.
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Watch Mobility Field Day On-Demand!
Nyansa; A Clearer Picture From a Data Gathering Powerhouse
Mitch Dickey looks at what Nyansa presented at Mobility Field Day earlier this month. The company provides an analytics platform that “delivers a crazy amount of data and insight into your network.” Mitch looks into how the company presents and makes sense of all the data they collect, how they approach putting agents on client devices, and how they handle IoT devices. Overall, Mitch thinks they can be a player in the analytics market, provided the company molds how they present the data collected to their clients, and not overwhelm them with noise.
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Nyansa; A Clearer Picture From a Data Gathering Powerhouse
Secondary storage is the new primary
Enrico Signoretti sees IT as a whole suddenly recognizing the importance of secondary storage in their environment. As primary storage, centered around structured data, has largely become commidified, having high capacity but low quality object stores for secondary storage is becoming inadequate. This is especially true given the growth rate of unstructured data, which become even more of a problem as regulatory requirements increase. Enrico things a company like Komprise, which he saw at Storage Field Day last week, is the result of recognizing the importance of secondary storage. Komprise uses both analytics and user generated policy to do stretegic data planning, manage migration, move data to cheaper storage tiers when appropriate, and more.
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Secondary storage is the new primary
Mist Unveils AI-Driven Wi-Fi
In this post, Rowell Dionicio looks at the WiFI advances shown by Mist Systems at Mobility Field Day earlier this month. The company offers a cloud-managed WiFI service with a constant stream of updates, bug fixes, and new features through their dashboard at scale via microservices. He also got to see Marvis, Mist’s AI-driven Virtual Network Assistant. This can be used with troubleshooting, including being smart enough to open tickets with Mist automatically.
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