Can you build a modern SD-WAN network without using tunnels? 128 Technology thinks that you can and they have the services to prove it. Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at their presentation from Networking Field Day 20 and how they’re building tunnel-free networks.
Meraki’s Eye in the Sky
Meraki may be the last name you think of when it comes to security cameras. But the engineering effort put into their line of on-premises security devices is very impressive. Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at a couple of their new offerings that they showed at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live US 2019 and gives his perspective on how Meraki sees the world.
Intelligence in the Mist
How can cloud and artificial intelligence combine to make your wireless network more resilient to faults? Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at how Mist Systems, now a Juniper Networks, is using brand new ideas to solve age-old reliability issues. They presented at Cloud Field Day recently, so Tom got a deep dive at the event. We’re looking forward to seeing them at Mobility Field Day later this year as well!
The Good, the Bad, and the Questionable: Acquisition Activities
There have been a number of notable acquisitions in IT recently, and Tom Hollingsworth breaks them down into the good, the bad, and the…questionable in this post. One of our upcoming presenters for Security Field Day, Palo Alto Networks, made what Tom thinks is a good move in acquiring Twistlock. This should provide them the talent and IP to offer container visibility solutions, which is needed to stay relevant in infrastructure security.
Avoiding Automation Archipelagos With Extreme Networks
When it’s your turn to build the automation strategy for your environment, make sure you don’t fall into the trap of building a series of automation islands with no integration. Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at some recent announcements that Extreme Networks made at Networking Field Day and how they can help you connect your automation archipelago.
Yellow Capes and Safe Escapes – The Journey of Zoë Rose
Learning about the journey of Zoë Rose from her past to the bright future ahead of her has been enlightening for Tom Hollingsworth. He covers some highlights of the presentations she’s shared at Security Field Day and Aruba HER over the past few months and how we can learn about the path she’s taken to get where she is today.
All-In With SD-WAN and Fortinet
Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at the Fortinet presentation from Networking Field Day and discusses how ASICs may be the key to Foritinet finding their ante in the SD-WAN market. Can SD-WAN innovate through software alone? Or can custom hardware ASICs make the difference in performance? Tom discusses.
Security Field Day – The Non-Conference
The Tech Field Day team started the Security Field Day event because they recognized that security is just as vital to IT operations as storage, networking, or virtualization. In this post, Tom Hollingsworth talks about how it distinguishes itself in the world of security event, by being the non-conference. That means no crowds, in-depth technical discussions, and live streamed for all to see.
Layered Security Isn’t About Devices
Tom Hollingsworth got to hear an excellent Ignite Talk at Security Field Day from Wolfgang Goerlich, looking at what it really means to have defense in depth on a network. For Wolfgang, this is less about putting more appliances and services on the network. Instead, he suggests looking at it like a tower defense game, where the resources you have are only useful if you deploy them strategically.
Defeating DDoS in the Network With Nokia
Denial-of-Service attacks are growing in size and number, especially as IoT devices become more commonplace. Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at a new solution from Nokia using Deepfield and analytics to stop this malicious traffic in transit, which they discussed at Networking Field Day earlier this year.
Keeping the Network OS Contained With SnapRoute
The monolithic network operating system isn’t the most exciting. For Tom Hollingsworth, the category had a “been there, done that” feel to it. That’s why what SnapRoute presented at Networking Field Day was so exciting. They showed a rethought approach to the NOS. Instead of making everything a process running on the kernel, they break things up into a Kubernetes container. Tom reviews the performance and monitoring implication in this piece.
NSX-T Is Transformative for the Future of VMware
At their recent Networking Field Day presentation, VMware went into detail about their recent NSX 2.4 release. For Tom Hollingsworth, the release adds a lot of notable features and signals where the company is going in the future. Going forward, all NSX development will be on NSX-T for modern infrastructure, rather than the traditional NSX-V. Tom notes this effectively marks the end of the vSphere-centric data center. Don’t let the version number fool you, this is VMware being aggressive to remain vital to modern IT.
Who Do You Trust in Your Community?
At Security Field Day, Ethan Banks led an Ignite Talk about building community. It’s something he has a lot of experience with as a co-founder of Packet Pushers. For Ethan, the journey to changing fans and viewers into a larger community must be built on a foundation of trust.
OpenConfig and Wi-Fi – the Winning Combo
Tom Hollingsworth moderated a panel during Mobility Field Day Exclusive at Aruba Atmosphere 2019, where the delegates talked about OpenConfig. Tom had some thoughts on the topic that he didn’t get to share during the event, so this blog post goes into a little more detail. For Tom, OpenConfig’s use of common YANG data models is a huge win for organizations and wireless professionals. Be sure to check out the full post to understand why.
Gestalt IT Live Blog – Aruba HER Keynote Address
Mobility Field Day Exclusive delegate Zoë Rose presented the keynote at the excellent Aruba HER at Atmosphere 2019. Our own Tom Hollingsworth and Kori Younger live blogged the entire event, be sure to check it out for a truly thoughtful and personal journey. She discusses surviving abuse, how professional and personal progress can differ, and more.
Fast Friday – Aruba Atmosphere 2019
Tom Hollingsworth is definitely excited for Aruba Atmosphere 2019. First, there will be a great Mobility Field Day Exclusive at the event. But he’s also interested to hear about how Aruba is innovating around IoT networking, discussions with the OpenConfig community, and seeing Security Field Day delegate Zoë Rose keynote the Aruba HER session.
Device Validation Security in Service Provider Networks
At Networking Field Day Exclusive with Cisco’s Service Provider, Cisco went into some detail about their approach to Service Provider Security. A lot of what they presented on comes from the company’s recent acquisition of Skyport Systems, another former Tech Field Day presenter. For Tom Hollingsworth, this brings in sophisticated tools around device validation and trust. This gives Cisco better tooling for SPs, where the network itself is the target, rather than just the data on it.
Drive Your Own Demo With Riverbed
As the organizer of Networking Field Day, and a former delegate himself, Tom Hollingsworth has seen his fair share of demos at our events. At last month’s event, Riverbed really stood out with how they presented their demo section. They opted for a “hands-on” demo, discussing with the delegates as they interacted with the product in real time. For Tom, it can be a risk proposition, but he thinks the benefits of seeing how people learn and build muscle memory in the application far out weights the potential pitfalls.
Making Way for the New With Cisco
Planning to maintain code can be tricky. Tom Hollingsworth points out in this piece, sometimes code is quickly made irrelevant with bygone platforms while others, like COBOL, seemingly stick around forever. Maintaining your own code is challenging enough, but companies like Cisco have to deal with code from numerous acquisitions over time. After maintaining AireOS code for some time, Cisco is now finding ways to migrate to a more modern approach with modular IOS WLC code. Tom is impressed with this approach and think its a model of dealing with similar issues in the future.
