The software-defined storage company, StorPool, presented at Cloud Field Day in November. Keith Townsend had the opportunity to speak with StorPool CEO Boyan Ivanov in this CTOA Briefing to discover what makes this special company profitable. For the full conversation, watch the video on TheCTOAdvisor.com!
NetApp Data Science Toolkit
NetApp presented at Storage Field Day in January and demonstrated its NetApp Data Science Toolkit. In this CTOA Briefing, Keith Townsend had the opportunity to speak with NetApp to discuss its Data Science Toolkit, which is designed to reduce friction between data science teams and IT infrastructure teams. To watch the full discussion in its raw unedited form, check out The CTO Advisor on YouTube!
Will the DPU Kill the Storage Array?
“Will the DPU kill the Storage Array?” This is what Storage Field Day delegate Keith Townsend is wondering today. Keith had the chance to see Nebulon present at their first Storage Field Day, and as a result says we shouldn’t be abandoning the storage array just yet. Keith thinks that Nebulon has a really unique offering and can help give us another look at distributed storage services. Check out Keith’s blog to hear some of his thoughts on Nebulon and the future of the storage array.
Cloud Application Mobility – The Hard Way
Moving applications from on-premises to the cloud isn’t easy, but at this point the challenges around it are generally understood. But in this post, Keith Townsend looks at the less looked at reverse of that process, moving a cloud application to on-prem. He found that Veeam showed off a perfect solution for this recently at Cloud Field Day. Using their Veeam for AWS solution, Keith was able to pull down an EC2 backup instance image after about 8-hours of work installing the solutions, backing up, and restoring the image, ultimately getting the workload back on-prem. This isn’t end of the process for Keith, but he found Veeam uniquely offered the capability in the first place.
HPE vs Dell Cloud Stories – Who’s Winning?
Keith Townsend knows everyone love a hot take. So in this video, looking at HPE vs Dell Cloud Stories. Keith got to hear from Dell recently at Tech Field Day Presents Dell Technologies: Power Up the Portfolio and found the breadth of the portfolio was definitely impressive. Keith sees them having a lot of interesting possibilities in the cloud as they continue to refine their messaging and roadmap.
Dell EMC PowerStore: TFDx Quick Take
Keith Townsend is reflecting back on what he saw at Tech Field Day Presents Dell Technologies: Power Up the Portfolio in this video. This quick take on the Dell EMC PowerStore considers the hybrid device that converges a Mid-range (SMB) storage array with a VMware Cluster. For Keith, this might be a new category for storage, and a really important move for Dell EMC. Be sure to check out the full videos from the event for all the details.
OpenShift TFDx Hot Take – What’s the Tipping Point for K8s?
To date, Keith Townsend hasn’t felt comfortable recommending OpenShift and Kubernetes to the typical enterprise he consults with. He got to get extensive time with the OpenShift team during our recent Tech Field Day Virtual with Red Hat, and finally got the firm response that he wanted the OpenShift is a PaaS solution in addition to a managed Kubernetes offering. Keith is still a Kubernetes skeptic, he still hasn’t heard the problem that Kubernetes has uniquely solved. But the clarification about OpenShift was well worth it for Keith.
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.
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.
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.
Google Cloud VMware Engine – Hot Take
The former CloudSimple team presented at Tech Field Day 21 on the recently rebranded Google Cloud VMware Engine (GVE). What is it? How is it different than VMware Cloud on AWS? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Keith Townsend got to learn all about it during our recent virtual Tech Field Day event. While not going into competitive solutions specifically, they did outline how GVE differentiates in the landscape. This takes the VMware Cloud Foundation based, which allows any cloud provider to take any VMware components to offer a managed VCS service. Google of course offers their considerable scale on top of this. Keith breaks down how this compares to the other major public clouds.
vSphere Kubernetes Hot Take
Keith Townsend got to hear from VMware at Tech Field Day, where they packed a lot of information into a four hour session. Part of the presentation that surprised him was the Kubernetes integration into vSphere. This didn’t take the approach that Keith had thought when it was originally announced. Instead it comes as an extension of VMware Cloud Foundation, providing the ability to run a SDDC reference design across any environment. His biggest question with this is using VSAN as the management platform for Kubernetes. It’s an intriguing breakdown of the presentation, and Keith can’t wait to get some more focused deep dive sessions from VMware soon.
Dell Technologies PowerOne – Dell’s Private Cloud?
In this sponsored episode of the CTO Advisor podcast, host Keith Townsend talks with Dell EMC’s Conor Duffy, David Iovino, and Justin Jones. In the episode, they discuss the company’s PowerOne converged infrastructure, which was announced late last year. The company recently went into detail on this at Storage Field Day. They discuss where CI approaches fit in an IT landscape dominated by cloud and HCI, and Dell lays out how their investments in automation make PowerOne stand out. Keith wasn’t at the event, but got caught up on it with our comprehensive video coverage. After you listen to the episode, be sure to check out the video for yourself.
Kubernetes and Traffic Lights
It’s no secret that Keith Townsend is skeptical of the IT hype machine that is Kubernetes. In this post, he compares it to upgrading traffic light orchestration systems to help ease congestion. The drivers only care that it helps congestion, not what system is running. That’s why he’s impressed with what he saw from Solo IO at Cloud Field Day. They embrace namespaces in their solution, allowing you to consume infrastructure without worrying about the orchestrator. Read the full piece for all the details.
Talent Is Heavier Than Data
In this piece, Keith Townsend considers the impact of human talent on data gravity. The holy grail is to have data available instantly when you need it. There are literal physical limits to how possible this is, and he recently completed a video at Tech Field Day Exclusive at Commvault GO talking about some of the use cases and the capabilities of their Activate product in regards to metadata. At Cloud Field Day, he heard from Hammerspace, which looks at how to mitigate data gravity issues with a very unique solution.
91: Keith and Ray Show at CommvaultGO 2019
In this podcast, Ray Lucchesi and Keith Townsend give their impressions of Tech Field Day Exclusive at Commvault GO 2019. The event was their first chance to talk to Commvault’s new CEO Sanjay Mirchandani. They also got to hear about Commvault Metallic, get details about what the company will do with the Hedvig acquisition, and more.
Commvault Activate – CommvaultGo 2019
Keith Townsend sits down with Commvault Field CTO Aaron Murphy and Director of Product Management Patrick McGrath during Tech Field Day Exclusive at CommvaultGo 2019. Commvault is known as a data protection company with its Complete product representing the bulk of its revenue. Activate is a product positioned at the data platform market.
Commvault Metallic and AWS RDS on vSphere – The Future of IT
Keith Townsend was a delegate at Tech Field Day Exclusive at Commvault GO 2019, and got to hear all the exciting announcements from the event. In this post, he breaks down the details and implications of Commvault Metallica, their new SaaS offering.
Master’s Lesson in IT Management
If you’re interesting in understand the IT challenges for large shop, Keith Townsend recommends checking out a video from Tech Field Day Exclusive at Commvault GO 2019. In it, the University of Leicester went into detail about migrating infrastructure with 20PB of data. There are a lot of challenges in this, regardless of the organization. We’re glad Keith found it interesting.
CommvaultGo 2019 Hot Take
Commvault announced a SaaS backup solution (Metallic) and went into a little detail about the acquisition of software-defined storage company Hedvig during Tech Field Day Exclusive at Commvault GO 2019. Keith Townsend shares his impressions of the keynote in this video.
