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.
Through the Mist; Predictable, Reliable, and Measurable Wifi from Mist Systems
When hear about a company for the first time, it can sometimes be frustrating to deal with the morass of buzzwords thrown about. More often then not, these are the noise that must be dealt with before the actual company message can be understood. Recently, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have been conspicuous culprits. But the reason these terms are so conspicuous is because if they are properly utilized, they can revolutionize a product category. According to Mitch Dickey, Mist Systems is actually applying the technologies to improve Wi-Fi and location services. They’re doing this with intelligent packet capture, which automatically starts when their services detect a problem. Mitch thinks this proactive approach is game changing for mobility.
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Through the Mist; Predictable, Reliable, and Measurable Wifi from Mist Systems
Flash Diversity: High Capacity Drives from Nimbus and Micron
Chris Evans runs down some new high capacity drives from both Micron and Nimbus Data. Chris first got a look at some very different drives from Nimbus all the way back at the first Storage Field Day. The difference is rather stark, back then he saw some 800GB drives developed by Nimbus themselves. Today, Chris is looking at something more in the 50TB range. Micron’s 9200 series is no slouch either, topping off at 11TB in capacity and offering 270,000 random write IOPS.
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Flash Diversity: High Capacity Drives from Nimbus and Micron
ServiceNow and the challenge of going broad
After Cloud Field Day, Ben Kepes reviews ServiceNow, a company that has come along way from its San Diego Roots. Traditionally, ServiceNow has been seen as an IT helpdesk system vendor, but now, ServiceNow has begun pursuing its aims to become a vendor that offers tools to enable organizations to digitize their more general enterprise workflows. Ben believes that ServiceNow is in a position where they are large enough to invest resources in this project, but small enough to remain agile, a combination that sets them up for a bright future.
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ServiceNow and the challenge of going broad
What the heck is tail latency?
Mark May elaborates on the problem of tail latency, as presented on by SNIA at Storage Field Day. According to SNIA, these spikes in latency can be up to ten times as bad as average latency. Mark says that this problem could be fixed by building smarter software that can tag an IO with a retry policy hint, allowing it to favor response time over data recovery. According to SNIA, over 2% of IO may be suffering due to tail latency. Mark knows this is a real problem and hopes it can be fixed in the near future.
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What the heck is tail latency?
CTS 087: AirCheck G2 w/ Netscout at MFD2
In this episode of the Wireless Network Engineering Podcast, Rowell Dionicio discusses the many features of NETSCOUT’s AirCheck G2, which he saw presented at Mobility Field Day. This includes the auto test, channel utilization, and profiles features. He also mentions NETSCOUT’s Link-Live, a cloud service that stores all your tests from various NETSCOUT devices, something Rowell found very useful.
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CTS 087: AirCheck G2 w/ Netscout at MFD2
Accelerite’s Rovius Readies Your Hybrid Cloud
Writing about Accelerite’s Cloud Field Day presentation on their product, Rovius, Ethan Banks has very mixed feelings. He is a huge fan of how easy to use Rovius is and how easy Rovius makes it to consume a variety of clouds, but he is worried how it will function in complex failure scenarios. Ethan knows these issues are on Accelerite’s minds and hopes that they will prove themselves in the near future.
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Accelerite's Rovius Readies Your Hybrid Cloud
Architecting IT | Scale Computing Moves Deeper Into the Enterprise With All-Flash HCI
Chris Evans looks back on Scale Computing, who he saw present at Storage Field Day in 2014, as they introduce their first all-flash system. Chris begins by stating that Scale Computing, “is one such company that has continued to demonstrate technical innovation and a continuing evolution in their platform,” and then goes on to discuss Scale’s all-flash system as well as their new software.
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Architecting IT | Scale Computing Moves Deeper Into the Enterprise With All-Flash HCI
Catching Up With Netscout on Their Flagship WLAN Support Tool
Lee Badman reviews NETSCOUT’s Mobility Field Day presentation focussed on their new AirCheck G2. Lee is a fan of the AirCheck’s versatility and portability and considers it one of the best tools for any WLAN pro. This time around, he was impressed by Chris Hinsz presentation and the NETSCOUT offices, as well as the tips and tricks that Chris Hinsz showed for the AirCheck.
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Catching Up With Netscout on Their Flagship WLAN Support Tool
NetApp and Rubrik, a David and Goliath situation? Part Two
As part of his series comparing and contrasting NetApp and Rubrik, Ben Kepes talks about Rubrik’s meteoric rise to fame from backup vendor startup to data management powerhouse. Ben believes that Rubrik “has amassed cash, a stellar crew and, perhaps most importantly, a unique point in time when change is ramping up.” This has led Rubrik to a position where they can build something of real substance, and Ben looks forward to what they have in store.
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NetApp and Rubrik, a David and Goliath situation? Part Two
Nirmata’s Cloudy Control-Plane Is The Catalyst For Container Calm
Ethan Banks saw a presentation from Nirmata recently at Cloud Field Day. Here, he recaps Nirmata’s product, customer base, and everything else you would like to know about the company. Ethan also says that Nirmata “is in the right place at the right time” with their orchestrator of orchestrator product, especially as ease of use and speed of application deployment become critical to businesses.
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Nirmata’s Cloudy Control-Plane Is The Catalyst For Container Calm
Personal Transformation
Inspired by his time at Cloud Field Day, Ethan Banks compares the journey of companies like Gigamon re-tooling themselves and their products for the cloud to the transition that individuals will have to make as well as cloud becomes more pervasive. He says that people need to learn the public cloud environment and start to swap out their hardware revenue for revenue made with the cloud instead.
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Cloud Field Day 2– DevOps agility with Nirmata
Lino Telera discusses Nirmata’s Cloud Field Day presentation as well as his own tests of their product. Lino, as others have, calls Nirmata an “orchestrator of orchestrators” and mentions that Nirmata’s integration with Kubernetes is great for devops. He sees Nirmata’s product as easy to use with excellent support and is interested in where they will go in the future.
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Cloud Field Day 2– DevOps agility with Nirmata
Cloud Field Day 2: Event Summary
Bryan Krausen recaps Cloud Field Day, giving a quick review of each company’s presentation and relaying his thoughts on the event as a whole. He enjoyed most of the presentations, but found that each of the three days of the event had a different theme, from startups to industry giants. Bryan is thankful to have had the opportunity to attend Cloud Field Day and looks forward to more Field Day events in the future.
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Cloud Field Day 2: Event Summary
Ubuiquiti is On Fire, I Tellya
Lee Badman tells the story of Ubuiquiti, a company he believes is progressing consistently in both technology and market share without being bogged down by one-up competition with other vendors and buzzword filled campaigns. The lure of Ubiquiti, as Lee states, is that “they seem to sell a respectable balance performance and reliability (an area where not all vendors shine) at ridiculously low prices.” Lee knows that Ubiquiti is a networking company worth watching and looks forward to what they have in store for the future.
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Ubuiquiti is On Fire, I Tellya
ServiceNow at Cloud Field Day – Not just for IT Anymore
After Cloud Field Day, Theresa Miller sees ServiceNow moving beyond just the helpdesk and into platforms that “simplify and automate business processes in a way that empowers the business user.” She sees this as a good step for ServiceNow in opening themselves up to be more business centric and not just limiting themselves to a helpdesk focused platform. Theresa believes that ServiceNow’s toolset could be a great addition to any organization that would see value from business automation of their many tasks.
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ServiceNow at Cloud Field Day - Not just for IT Anymore
NetApp Still Figuring Out How To Cloud
Justin Warren reflects on NetApp’s Cloud Field Day presentation, writing that they are looking to reinvent themselves as the industry moves towards the cloud. NetApp acknowledges that their old business ventures are just not where growth is and are moving towards a more service oriented business with higher margins. What worries Justin, however, is that NetApp’s products are just not compelling anymore.
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NetApp Still Figuring Out How To Cloud
It’s Probably Not The Wi-Fi
After Mobility Field Day, Tom Hollingsworth has one important takeaway, “it’s Not The Wi-Fi.” So often problems are blamed on the wireless network or firewall, etc. when that actually was not the case. Tom argues that the solution to this issue is accelerating the time to diagnose and resolve by involving professionals that manage systems that are actually down and telling users to make sure it is actually a wireless issue before proclaiming that its the wireless.
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Understanding HPE Nimble Storage’s Cloud Volumes
Ethan Banks writes about HPE Nimble Storage’s Cloud Volumes, which they presented about at Cloud Field Day. Cloud Volumes are a cloud storage product focused on helping enterprises move their business applications to the cloud. Ethan sees the idea behind Cloud Volumes, but worries that it is a short-term product filling a gap that enterprises will eventually be able to bridge themselves, and therefore will not be particularly profitable for HPE.
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Understanding HPE Nimble Storage's Cloud Volumes
NetApp and Rubrik, a David and Goliath situation? Part One
Ben Kepes writes about the differences he saw between NetApp and Rubrik at Cloud Field Day. Ben notes that NetApp has long had financial pressure not to innovate, even if that innovation helps NetApp ensure its long term survival. Now, however, with their acquisition of SolidFire and their appointment of Mark Bregman as CTO, Ben sees NetApp as moving towards a focus on innovation. This is a move in the right direction, but NetApp still might be falling behind its innovative competitors.
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NetApp and Rubrik, a David and Goliath situation? Part One
NetApp at Cloud Field Day
Theresa Miller was thoroughly impressed by the NetApp team and their passion for technology at Cloud Field Day. She points out that NetApp has long been a storage giant, but this passion for technology makes it clear that they plan to be a player in the growing cloud market. They already manage over 240 petabytes of cloud data today, along with offering tools like AltaVault, NetApp CloudSync, and ONTAP, so Theresa is anticipating good things to come in NetApp’s future.
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