Ned Bellavance explores cost-saving techniques in Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) in his LinkedIn Pulse article, emphasizing that managing expenses is just the beginning of harnessing its full potential. He delves into strategic practices for optimizing resources and improving efficiency within EKS environments. This article was written following Platform9’s presentation at Cloud Field Day in January.
SoftIron’s Breakthrough in Private Cloud Technology Was on Display at Cloud Field Day 19
The Chaos Lever podcast takes on Cloud Field Day 19, with a focus on SoftIron, offering custom hardware and software integrations to construct resilient private cloud environments, providing an alternative perspective on the historical progression of IT infrastructure. Their commitment to private clouds is reflected in meticulously developed solutions, tailored for demanding scalability and flexibility, encompassing networking, compute, and storage. Listen in as delegate Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner consider this product and the rest of the Cloud Field Day news!
Cloud to Ground Deployment Magic
Dell Technologies introduced the concept of “Cloud to ground” at Cloud Field Day 19, reflecting the growing interest in cloud repatriation and the desire to bring cloud-like operations to on-premises datacenters. Their APEX Cloud Platform aims to simplify this transition, providing a management solution that integrates with existing tools like Azure console and OpenShift Advanced Cluster Management to automate and manage Cloud OS deployments on Dell hardware. While this innovation aids in the automation and management of on-prem hardware, Ned Bellavance notes that it’s not a full public cloud experience nor a private or multicloud management plane, but rather a significant step towards simplifying hybrid cloud environments for Dell users.
Saving Money in EKS Is a Good Start
Cloud elasticity, allowing for scaling out and in, can lead to cost inefficiency when resources remain underutilized, a situation exacerbated in Kubernetes environments with studies citing overprovisioning as a significant issue. Ned Bellavance discusses Platform9’s Elastic Machine Pool (EMP), which seeks to address excessive resource allocation in EKS by optimizing node placement and memory on AWS EC2 instances, potentially leading to substantial cost savings. However, while EMP is a clever intermediary fix, the underlying challenge of workload right-sizing and application team behavior remains, signifying the need for a more profound, long-term solution.
Accelerating Data Analytics With Neuroblade
NeuroBlade is pushing forward with a novel contribution, the SPU or SQL Processing Unit, which Ned Bellavance learned about at Cloud Field Day. Addressing the data explosion and the limits of current processing hardware, NeuroBlade’s SPU aims to fill a gap neither CPUs nor GPUs can, providing significant performance improvements tailored to SQL queries. Targeting primarily bare-metal deployments, the SPU boasts a 30x performance increase over traditional hardware, potentially offering a transformative advancement in data analytics performance.
Why Build a Storage Array in the Cloud?
In this LinkedIn Pulse article, Ned Bellavance discusses the challenges of multicloud environments and introduces Dell Technologies’ APEX Block Storage, a solution aiming to provide consistent, high-performance storage across various public cloud vendors and private data centers.
SoftIron HyperCloud Is True Private Cloud
Cloud repatriation is a hot topic, as Ned Bellavance discusses in this LinkedIn Pulse article. At Cloud Field Day 19, SoftIron’s HyperCloud offering emerged as a noteworthy solution, promising a cohesive private cloud experience with their own U.S. and Australia-manufactured hardware and tight integration of custom-built software. This ‘true’ private cloud solution differs from the piecemeal approach others take, aiming to provide an alternative pathway for those considering moving off VMware or repatriating workloads back from the public cloud.
Security Field Day With Forward Networks
At Security Field Day 10, Chris Hayner was impressed by Forward Networks and their digital twin technology, which offers comprehensive network visibility and security. The digital twin concept, which is not a new but increasingly essential tool in cybersecurity, is leveraged by Forward Networks to create a highly detailed network model allowing for in-depth analysis and proactive threat mitigation. The platform’s potency lies in its ability to model complex network changes over time, support security compliance efforts, and give IT teams an in-depth look at potential breach points and network vulnerabilities.
NodeWeaver at Edge Field Day 2
In a detailed article about Edge Field Day, Ned Bellavance highlights a presentation from NodeWeaver on their edge solution. NodeWeaver is an operating system designed to sit between hardware and the orchestration layer, which supports a myriad of hardware and operates on a small device footprint. Particularly emphasizing NodeWeaver’s zero-touch deployment method, the article suggests that the solution could be beneficial not only for the emerging edge, but potentially in standard data centers as well.
Thirty-Six GigaToasters
In this episode of Chaos Lever, Chris Hayner and Ned Bellavance cover Security Field Day 9, highlighting presentations by Comvault, Noname Security, Cisco, Cribl, and NetAlly’s Cyberscope. They discuss Comvault’s ThreatWise platform, which focuses on ransomware detection, and the use of fake hosts and lures to trap potential attackers. They also mention Cisco’s new hardware firewalls, the 4200 series, and their multicloud network security model. Chris shares insights on NetAlly’s Cyberscope, a handheld cybersecurity analyzer.
Day Two Cloud 198: Modern Cloud Design Themes From CFD 17
Day Two Cloud’s Ned Bellavance, Ethan Banks, and Michael Levan highlight some key design themes at Cloud Field Day 17, hosted by Tech Field Day. These themes include platform engineering, data protection, disaster recovery, and the co-existence of old and new technologies in modern IT. Kubernetes’ growing status as the default platform choice was mentioned. Backup and disaster recovery solutions by HYCU, Zerto, and others bridge the gap between on-prem and cloud environments. Listen to this episode to learn more!
The Algorithm Made Me Do It: Cloud Field Day 17 Wrap-Up – Chaos Lever [EP61]
Ned Bellavance attended Cloud Field Day 17 in Boston and discussed the event with Chris Hayner on the Chaos Lever podcast. HYCU focuses on cloud backup and recovery and built a cloud-native backend and provide native backup solutions for AWS, Azure, and GCP with a marketplace and a development kit for SAS vendors to create backup solutions. RackN showcased their software platform, Digital Rebar, which simplifies working with on-premises hardware and bare metal servers and automates provisioning and configuration tasks for private clouds. Couchbase, a database-as-a-service company, utilizes native cloud constructs and offers secure private and public connection endpoints for database tenants. The event also emphasized the significance of VMware, the reality of multi-cloud environments, and the emerging trends of platform engineering and internal developer portals.
2022 Year in Review
Field Day delegate Ned Bellavance was up to a lot this past 2022! From Cloud Field Day to the HashiCorp Academy, Ned kept himself busy! Check out the other events and conferences he attended and see what he will be up to this 2023!
Hardware Still Has to Matter
Ned Bellavance took a special interest in Alastair’s Cooke point of view at the most recent Intel Tech Field Day Showcase where he focused on the relevance to hardware today. People tend to think of cloud as an abstracting hardware, but Ned believes quite the opposite. He says that we should embrace the public cloud so the more and varied hardware will now be closer to the consumer to help them transform their application. For more from Ned about the Intel Showcase, visit the Gestalt IT website.
Figuratively Baggels
In this episode of the Chaos Lever podcast, Field Day delegates Chris Hayner and Ned Bellavance discuss our recent participation in the CXL Forum at OCP Summit 2022. Chris joined the rest of the Tech Field Day delegates at this special event and shares what he learned about CXL technology in this episode. And as usual Chris and Ned have lots to say about many other subjects besides!
Supercloud Is Neither Super Nor a Cloud, Discuss.
Is Supercloud a thing now? Ned Bellevance, Field Day delegate, tuned in online to watch the Delegate Roundtable Discussion about Supercloud at September’s Cloud Field Day. Take a look here, or visit Ned’s blog, Ned in the Cloud, for more on his thoughts!
Day Two Cloud 157: Highlights of Cloud Field Day 14
Day Two Clouds host, Ned Bellavance, attended this past Cloud Field Day as a delegate! In his latest podcast, joined by Ethan Banks and Chris Hayner, they talk about presentations from WEKA, Alkira, and Morpheus Data. Check out their thoughts here!
Half an Arsonist
Chris Hayner and Ned Bellavance finish their thoughts about each presentation from this past Security Field Day. Check it out!
Secure Virtual Giraffe
In this latest podcast, Chris Hayner and Ned Bellavance talk about this past Security Field Day where Keeper Security and Microsoft presented. Check out their thoughts here on NFTs and much more!
