What Differentiates Servers in a Commodity x86 World?

Dell and servers have been on Stephen Foskett’s mind after visiting Dell’s Austin headquarters with Tech Field Day 16 and Dell EMC in Hopkinton for Storage Field Day 16. The newest generation of Dell servers have just about every feature you could ask for, but after testing out a PowerEdge R7415, Stephen says what really differentiates them from the competition is the management platform. Dell EMC’s Quick Sync 2 technology as the integrated iDRAC management platform is a huge upgrade from previous versions and easily beats out the competition.


Is Software Defined Networking Like Yoga?

How does software defined networking resemble yoga? Both give you flexibility. Luigi Danakos makes the case that VMware NSX offers the flexibility needed to meet the needs of distributed modern networks.


IBM Spectrum Protect and Modern Data Protection

IBM is no stranger to data protection, but many don’t consider them a viable company in the space. Paul Stringfellow looks at what the company showed at Storage Field Day in March and looks at how it stacks up against insurgent competitors.


Getting Out From Under the Policy Boulder with Juniper’s Contrail Policy Framework

Rich Stroffolino looks at Juniper Networks Contrail and how it can be used to scale policy management across hybrid networks. He first saw this at their Networking Field Day presentation earlier this year.


Accessing Security Insights with SolarWinds Network Insight For Cisco ASA

Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at SolarWinds Network Insight For Cisco ASA, which he saw at length at Tech Field Day earlier this year. He looks at how this enables admins to analyze complicated access lists and determine exactly what they are doing, without a bunch of manual configuration.


VMware Virtual Cloud Network: Networking Glue for Hybrid Clouds

In this post, Jon Klaus looks at how VMware’s newly announced Virtual Cloud Network can help overcome many of the challenges of managing a hybrid cloud deployment. He particularly focuses on VMware’s NSX SD-WAN by Velocloud as the backbone that can connect remote sites while maintaining security.


Looking at the Internet with ThousandEyes

Rich Stroffolino wrote up an overview of ThousandEyes, based on their presentation at Networking Field Day earlier this year. The company provides an innovative approach for monitoring SaaS app performance. Instead of limiting monitoring to traffic within an organization, they provide a framework to monitor the Internet itself as a network.


Extending Policy Control with NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud

Denise Donohue shared her look at the policy control features of VMware’s NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud. This allows admins to synchronize policy enforcement points with a single coordinated platform.


VMWare’s Virtual Cloud Network: Managing networks like magic

Sonia Cuff shares how VMware’s Virtual Cloud Network can help solve the challenges of a modern distributed workforce. This uses NSX SD-WAN to securely connect and monitor a network, while keeping management simple. For Sonia, invoking Arthur C Clarke, this approaches networking magic.


Unlocking VXLAN with Mellanox

After seeing Mellanox present at Networking Field Day earlier this year, Tom Hollingsworth looks at how their hardware support for VXLAN could make the dream of fast, extensible and inexpensive ethernet a reality.


Change Doesn’t Have To Be a Four Letter Word

Change to a network inherently exposes an organization to some risk of something going wrong. John Herbert looks at Cisco’s Network Assurance Engine, and how it helps admins do testing of a change state and extensive validation to help reduce that risk, and make change much more manageable.


Pure Storage – You’ve Come A Long Way

With Pure Accelerate coming up next week, Dan Frith takes a look back at how Pure Storage has evolved, but stayed true to their core focus since debuting their first products in 2011. He’s looking forward to seeing what they have in store for this year’s event.


VMware’s Virtual Cloud Network Fulfills the SDN Promise

At Networking Field Day Exclusive with VMware, Jordan Martin saw how the company’s Virtual Cloud Network integrates different domains into a coherent orchestration and policy engine. For him, it delivers on the initial promises made by software-defined networking.


VMware’s Virtual Cloud Network: Riding the Wave of Digital Transformation

Eyvonne Sharp takes a look at Virtual Cloud Network, which she saw at length during Networking Field Day Exclusive with VMware last week. For her, this represents the first glimpse into how the company will integrate their VeloCloud acquisition into their already robust software stack.


Verify, Or Die Trying: Observations on Change Management

John Herbert takes a look at the challenges of change management in a network, and how Cisco’s Network Assurance Engine can make the process much more reliable and consistent.


Security Assurance in the Data Center with Cisco Candid

In this piece, Gian Paolo Boarina takes a look at Cisco’s Network Assurance Engine, which debuted at Cisco Live Europe earlier this year. He shows how this can provide configuration and state validation as well as security compliance testing for an ACI fabric.


Droplet Computing: Living La Vida Legacy

Many organizations can’t shed mission critical legacy apps that require obsolete OS’s and hardware. Rich Stroffolino outlines how Droplet Computing’s application containerization could make that problem a thing of the past. Their company launch at Cloud Field Day definitely left an impression.


Traditional is the New Legacy

After hearing from Droplet Computing at Cloud Field Day, Rich Stroffolino asks the question: Are traditional apps the new legacy? He sees the term legacy falling out of usage for being too deterministic, and sees traditional gaining traction because it’s more descriptive.


Extreme Networks SLX Platform – Extremely Easy Analytics

Tom Hollingsworth heard from Extreme Networks at Networking Field Day earlier this year. This piece takes a look at their SLX Platform, which simplifies the process of getting analytic data out of switches.


Cape Networks Acquired by HPE

Rich Stroffolino breaks down the implications of HPE acquiring Cape Networks. Make sure to watch their recent Mobility Field Day presentation to get a handle on the tech HPE is acquiring. Adding some robust client-side sensors to their portfolio makes for an interesting addition to Aruba.