Are network vendors ignoring serverless security?

The move of servers to the cloud has integrated more complexity to network security, as the assumptions of static rules based networking break down. Keith Townsend saw a presentation how network companies are addressing this from Juniper Networks. But this caused him to question if not enough attention is being paid to the emerging serverless market like AWS Lambda.


CTO Advisor 068: Commvault HyperScale

Recorded on the show floor at Commvault GO 2017, the CTO Advisor himself, Keith Townsend, spoke with Scott Lowe, Justin Warren, and Ray Lucchesi about the show. In this episode, they focus specifically on Commvault’s transition from a backup company to data management. Their recently released HyperScale solution is a venture into the secondary storage market.


Why Docker is finally embracing Kubernetes

At DockerCon Europe this year, Docker made a big splash by announcing support for the Kubernetes container orchestrator with Docker Enterprise Edition. Keith Townsend wrote up why the company is finally embracing its Swarm rival, and why it’s big news for the container company.


CTO Advisor 067: Should you worry about GDPR?

On this CTO Advisor podcast episode, Keith Townsend sat down with Justin Warren and CommVault’s Nigel Tazor to discuss GDPR. This new regulation can incur a penalty of up to 4% of organizational revenue for each violation. They discuss why compliance is more important than ever.


Should you worry about GDPR?

Keith Townsend sat down with Justin Warren and Commvault’s Nigel Tazor to discuss GDPR. This new regulation can incur a penalty of up to 4% of organizational revenue for each violation. They discuss why compliance is more important than ever.


Don’t call it back up

Keith Townsend posted his discussion with Justin Warren from Commvault GO 2017. They discuss how Commvault has successfully moved from being a backup company, and embraced data management.


On-premises Serverless with Docker via OpenFaaS

If you like Docker and serverless computing, OpenFaaS may be a project to watch. Keith Townsend got a look at the project at a Tech Field Day Extra presentation at DockerCon EU this year, and was impressed by the power and simplicity of it.


DockerCon 2017 EU – Docker integrates Kubernetes and Swarm

In this CTO Daily Dose video, Keith Townsend takes a look at the the big announcement from DockerCon Europe 2017, Docker Enterprise Edition bundling in Kubernetes. Keith got a deep dive into this while attending Tech Field Day Extra at DockerCon EU


Why Docker is finally embracing Kubernetes

Keith Townsend looks at the implications of one of the biggest announcements from DockerCon Europe 2017, the inclusion of Kubernetes with Docker Enterprise Edition. Since launching, Docker has been developer focused, but often lacked management tools to manage workloads at scale. As the industry has converged on Kubernetes as an orchestrator, Keith looks at how Docker can still differentiate by including in in Docker EE.


Understanding Serverless Computing

Serverless computing doesn’t mean there are no servers involved. Instead, as Keith Townsend explains in this post, it abstracts the infrastructure away from a developer, letting them focus on code not on what it will run on. He further explains how this leads to more efficient consumption of cloud resources, which are only used when a function is called.


Why the hybrid IT control plane is destined for the public cloud

Cloud growth is exploding, but analysts have shown that compared to a traditional data center, it can be much more expensive in the long haul. That’s why Keith Townsend things a hybrid IT approach will allow organizations to leverage the agility of the cloud without the cost associated with a complete migration. Keith takes a look at some SaaS-based data center control planes from Platform9, Skyport Systems, and HPE to compare their strategies for hybrid IT management.


Datacore Tech Field Day 15 Reap

The CTO Advisor, Keith Townsend, put together a full video recap series looking back at Tech Field Day presenters from last month. In his final video, he looks at DataCore Software, who debuted their MaxParallel for SQL Server at the event.


Riverbed Tech Field Day 15 Recap

In his video recaps of last month’s Tech Field Day, Keith Townsend looks at what Riverbed presented. He came away impressed by their solution to project VMs to remote sites.


Actifio Tech Field Day 15 Recap

For Keith Townsend, Actifio was a returning presenter to Tech Field Day, having first seen them in 2014 at Storage Field Day. In his video review, Keith looks at how the company has been successful in their data as a service business model.


Scale Computing Tech Field Day 15 Recap

The Tech Field Day delegates at last month’s event saw the benefits of nested virtualization courtesy of Scale Computing’s announced partnership with Google Cloud. This effectively allows them to offer DRaaS using Google’s backend. Keith Townsend gives his thoughts on it as part of his excellent video review of the event.


Ixia Tech Field Day 15 Session Recap

The latest Tech Field Day saw a return of Ixia, who originally presented at Networking Field Day last November. Keith Townsend reviews what he saw in their presentation, essentially an authorized man-in-the-middle to capture traffic for analysis. Keith reviews how their SSL approach fits into the broader visibility landscape.


Skyport Tech Field Day 15 Recap – YouTube

As part of his video review of Tech Field Day from last month, the CTO Advisor Keith Townsend takes a look at Skyport Systems. Keith found it a very opinionated solution, taking a view that the cloud will be pervasive, leaving only the most mandatory elements in the datacenter. Their approach then is to provide a secure, cloud managed on-site infrastructure.


Cisco Tech Field Day 15 Session Recap

Keith Townsend put together a video series looking at the presenters from Tech Field Day last month. He gives his thoughts on the overall event, and dives into what he saw from Cisco, particularly their ACI solution.


Inefficiencies of large systems

Inspired by DataCore Software’s Tech Field Day presentation, Keith Townsend reflects on the inefficiencies of large organizations, using Microsoft as an example. Microsoft is filled with skilled engineers, but often can’t be responsive to customer requests for giant projects like SQL server. This is where DataCore can come in with their I/O filter, which provides parallel streams to the storage sub-system, ultimately giving applications more I/O bandwidth.


3 things infrastructure pros need to know about nested virtualization on Google Cloud

Keith Townsend reviews Google’s announce support for nested virtualization, which lets you run a hypervisor within a hypervisor. Keith outlines why this would be needed, and uses an example from Scale Computing running HC3 for disaster recovery inside Google Cloud as a use case. Keith saw this from Scale at Tech Field Day last week, be sure to check out the video of the announcement for more details.