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.
Kentik and the Negative Roadmap
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.