Tom Hollingsworth is the organizer of Networking Field Day, but he’s always a delegate at heart. In this post, he digs into what Kentik presented at the event last month. He was impressed with what Kentik had planned on their roadmap. But even more impressive was the company explicitly stating what they were not going to be getting into. This helps alleviate some of the concerns of feature creep that seem to happen with any solution over time. For Tom, this open perspective into their thought process can only spell good things going forward for Kentik.
The Future of Sports Wi-Fi Is Intelligent With Extreme Networks
In this post, Tom Hollingsworth looks at what Extreme Networks is doing with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning on their platform to improve wi-fi. Tom has some healthy skepticism about these buzzwords, but was impressed with what Extreme has been able to do in real world use cases, like providing improved wi-fi at stadiums. Extreme will be presenting at Networking Field Day this week, be sure to watch their presentation on our live stream for more details.
Using Identity To Secure Workloads with Aporeto
Security issues with digital identity are only going to increase with time. At Security Field Day, Aporeto presented on how they help organizations manage this in a scalable way. Tom Hollingsworth looks how they offer digitally sign containers. This allows organizations to trust a workload, from which you can build robust policy automation around that foundation of trust.
Aruba and the Need for WPA3 with OWE
At Security Field Day, Aruba did a deep dive into a key feature of WPA3. Aruba had a lot of input into the successor to the long in the tooth WPA2, and detailed the optional Opportunistic Wireless encryption in the standard. This provides encryption for open wireless networks for information passed in the clear outside of the application payload. Tom Hollingsworth makes the argument that this should be a mandatory part of the standard, providing true defense in depth for traffic that falls outside SSL/TLS.
Visual Networking At It’s Finest with Apstra
Apstra is no stranger to Networking Field Day, and it was great to see the company present at our most recent event in November. Tom Hollingsworth organized the event, and got a first hand look at the latest from this innovative company. What stood out for Tom this time was the key work Apstra is doing in network visualization. The advent of intent-based networking means that operators now have direct visibility into all devices in their control zones. Apstra not only innovates in their area of intent, but finding ways to visualize and break down this information into meaningful insights.
The Power of a Great Demo with Illumio
It’s one thing to have a great Tech Field Day presentation, filled with technical overviews, architectural deep dives, and a killer slide deck. But putting together a great demo is a different beast. Tom Hollingsworth got to see a demo from Illumio at Networking Field Day last year that definitely left an impression. They showed off their new PCE Supercluster, and simulated a truly impressive amount of real workloads to truly show off its capabilities.
Building More Factors For Security with Cisco Duo
Cisco was one of the companies that presented at our inaugural Security Field Day event in December. Tom Hollingsworth breaks down what he saw at the event from Cisco Duo, their authentication platform. This provides intelligent multifactor authentication. It does this by not assuming endpoints are secure, enforcing the latest firmware, and supporting geofencing and time zone awareness. This allows you to build policy enforcement into your 2FA from the ground up.
Some Random Thoughts From Security Field Day
Tom Hollingsworth just finished up the inaugural Security Field Day. As the organizer, Tom has some unique perspective, getting an inside look at both the presenting companies and delegates. I’m sure we’ll see a lot of takeaways from the event, but these initial thoughts by Tom are an interesting look at security from a more IT generalist perspective. The big thing here is that security isn’t about tools, it’s about embracing a way of thinking, and realizing that failure is a likely outcome over time.
Automating the Mundane with Silver Peak
Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at what Silver Peak presented at Networking Field Day. The SD-WAN company doesn’t just stop at basic SDN automation. SDN has long been used for automatic VLAN provisioning for ports, but Silver Peak showed how their automation can handle even more mundane tasks, like an RMA process. This takes it off the plate of admin busy work, and frees up productivity.
When Is It Not Always DNS?
During their recent Networking Field Day presentation, BlueCat Networks posited that DNS is unreliable because it was never designed to actually be reliable. Tom Hollingsworth looks at the security implications of this, and the merits of BlueCat’s unified DNS, DHCP and IPAM platform.
The Need for Security Field Day
The Tech Field Day event series has always tried to present a comprehensive view of enterprise IT. Our more specialized Field Day events were created to provider a deeper dive into the most important areas. We started with IT mainstays like storage and networking, but in recent years have added cloud and mobility-focused events to the calendar as those have become vital to modern IT. In 2018, we’re launching Security Field Day. Tom Hollingsworth makes the case why this has never been more vital in this post.
Presenting To The D-Suite
As an event lead with Tech Field Day, Tom Hollingsworth has a lot of experience hearing presenters talk to IT professionals, the “do-ers” in IT. He looks at the problem of treating these presentations the same as C-level audiences, who are more concerned with problems then technical details. The post provides a lot of great tips for speaking to this very specific audience.
Jack Daniel and Tom Hollingsworth Discuss Community and Security
Be sure to checkout this conversation between security researcher Jack Daniel and our own Tom Hollingsworth. They discussed the importance and challenges of building communities within the security field. They also discussed the inaugural Security Field Day event coming up this December.
Ookla Acquires Ekahau – The Future of Wi-Fi Design is Speedy!
Tom Hollingsworth examines the recent acquisition of Ekahau by Ookla. We last heard from Ekahau at Wireless Field Day 2, and Tom outlines how the companies platform and solutions have remained focused on helping wireless professionals do their job. From there, he looks at how Ookla can make use of the assets from the acquisition.
ARM Servers and End Times | Gestalt IT Rundown: September 19, 2018
Rich Stroffolino and Tom Hollingsworth discuss the news coming out of Mobility Field Day last week on the latest Gestalt IT Rundown. This includes a look at what Arista Networks is doing with the assets from Mojo Networks, as well as NETSCOUT’s business divestment of their monitoring tools portfolio.
A Matter of Perspective
Tom Hollingsworth considers the importance of perspective, and how the delegates around a table can shape a Tech Field Day presentation. This first came to mind seeing Aviatrix present their Cloud Routing solutions, first at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live US, then at Cloud Field Day. For the networking focused audience at the first event, Aviatrix was interesting, but seemed to largely align how they expected networking to work when moved from the data center to the cloud. For the Cloud Field Day delegates, the networking Aviatrix showed was met with acclaim. Tom further saw this in action from Arista Networks, who presented at Mobility Field Day for the first time, discussing how they were integrating the recently acquired Mojo Networks.
The Cargo Cult of Google Tools
Tom Hollingsworth was inspired by LightStep’s presentation at Cloud Field Day this month, specifically CEO Ben Sigelman. Tom builds off of his point that most companies shouldn’t try to emulate the process of Google. His argument is that their processes aren’t better, just more scalable. Most organizations would be better server with more feature rich architectures.
Arista Is Finding Their Mojo In Wireless
Tom Hollingsworth writes about Arista Networks’ acquisition of Mojo Networks, a presenting sponsor at Mobility Field Day in 2017. Tom sees this acquisition as mutually beneficial as Mojo Networks gains the muscle they need to compete against Cisco and Aruba and Arista gains the wireless piece they needed to be super competitive in the campus connectivity market.
Becoming a Wi-Fi Superhero with Cape Networks
Tom Hollingsworth discusses Cape Networks, a presenting sponsor for Mobility Field Day in 2017, and their recent acquisition by Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. Cape Networks manufactures and provides web-based services for client connection monitoring and in user experience giving you the ability to look at your network not from just the top down infrastructure view, but from the bottom up client perspective as well. Tom sees this acquisition as a step in the right direction for Aruba, and looks forward to what they have to offer in the future.
Arista Is Finding Their Mojo In Wireless
Tom Hollingsworth reports on the Arista Network’s acquisition of Mojo Networks. Mojo presented at Mobility Field Day 2 in July of 2017 about their products and innovating around security and software defined access points. This acquisition is looking to benefit both parties as well, as Mojo gains the muscle they need to compete against Cisco and Aruba and Arista gain the wireless piece they need to be competitive in the campus connectivity market.
