Getting your racks where you need them is one thing, connecting them to reliable power can be another thing entirely. Tom Hollingsworth writes about the issues of supplying dependable power in all the possible locations that you might want it and how Ventev is working to confront those challenges. Check out Tom’s post as well as Ventev’s Mobility Field Day presentation on “Taking Telecom Closets Outdoors” on the Gestalt IT website!
Redefining Service Protection With VMware Service-Defined Firewall
The world of security is always changing and so are the challenges around it. Writing for Gestalt IT, Tom Hollingsworth (the “Networking Nerd”) writes about the evolving challenges facing the traditional firewall and how VMware is working to combat those challenges with its Service-Defined Firewall. Check out Tom’s post and VMware’s presentation on their new security products at Security Field Day.
Bad Behavior Analysis With Juniper Networks
It can be hard to determine what bad behavior looks like on a network. Signals are crowded and searching through the noise is time consuming. The industry has heard that AI is a possible solution, and it looks like this may be moving from hypothetical to reality very soon. Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at the way Juniper Networks is using AI to find bad actors before they can get what they’re after. He got to hear from Juniper at Security Field Day, be sure to checkout their full video presentation for all the details.
Fast Friday – Mobility Field Day 5 Edition
Tom Hollingswort has been organizing Mobility Field Day since the event started, and it’s great to see the discussions and presentations still get him excited. As he’s seen the mobility industry change over the last few years, there are a few things he keeps in mind. The physical realities of wireless are never magic, and require concrete planning to be successful. Analytics are great, but admins are still needed to deploy, fix, and enhance wireless networks. And don’t expect Wi-Fi 6E to roll out quickly. With all those things in mind, he’s excited to hear what the delegates thought of the event!
What Will HPE Do With Silver Peak? | Gestalt IT Rundown: July 15, 2020
In this episode of the Gestalt IT Rundown, Rich Stroffolino and Tom Hollingsworth breakdown the recent acquisition of Silver Peak by HPE. The SD-WAN company will be integrated into HPE’s Aruba business unit. Tom and Rich have seen Silver Peak at Networking and Cloud Field Day events in the past, and are well versed in their portfolio. They see the acquisition as a further bolstering of HPE’s ambitions with Aruba. We can’t wait to see the first fruits of this exciting acquisition.
Why Did VMware Buy Datrium? | Gestalt IT Rundown: July 8, 2020
In this episode of the Gestalt IT Rundown, Tom Hollingsworth and Rich Stroffolino discussed the recent acquisition of Datrium by VMware. This was positioned as a DRaaS play for VMware’s cloud offerings, helping to refine their overall DR strategy. Rich found it interesting that Datrium had been billing themselves as a HCI vendor, to have them acquired for DR assets.
Cisco SecureX Roundtable
Join the delegates from Gestalt IT’s Tech Field Day Virtual Cisco Live Experience as they look at the newest security platform offering from Cisco, SecureX. They discuss the importance of having a centralized solution to provide at-a-glance information and action capabilities. The delegates also discuss where the future of Cisco security solutions is headed.
Cisco Intent-Based Networking Roundtable
Join the delegates from Gestalt IT’s Tech Field Day Virtual Cisco Live Experience as they dive into the latest intent-based networking announcements from Cisco. Listen in as they discuss the importance of network policy, user-defined networks, location tracking, and SD-WAN. Tom Hollingsworth leads the expert panel of Phil Gervasi, Shala Denise, Jonathan Davis, John Herbert, and Jody Lemoine.
The New Branch With Riverbed SD-WAN
What does your branch office look like? I’m sure the answer to that question is different than it was just six months ago. Tom Hollingsworth takes a look back at Riverbed’s presentation from Networking Field Day and how they have the right tools to make your new branch work just like it should.
A Tale of Scale in Three Parts With Broadcom
Broadcom is one of the biggest suppliers for chips in the networking market? But how do they provide the chips you need to fit the services and operations you’re selling? Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at their lineup and how they can scale in a variety of ways to fit the bill. The company showed off a lot of their solutions at Networking Field Day earlier this year, so be sure to get up to speed on this article before diving into their full video presentation.
Go Time With PathSolutions
How much time does it take before you know you’ve been breached? How much time do you spend figuring out what you need to know so you can respond appropriately? How many precious minutes are wasted gathering info from the four corners of your enterprise? What if you could have what you needed in just one minute? Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at PathSolutions TotalView Security Operations Manager and how it is the perfect rapid response SIEM for the SMB. They went into detail about this at their recent Security Field Day presentation, so be sure to check out Tom’s piece before digging into the videos yourself.
Insightful Fabric Management With Cisco Network Insights
What is your network fabric trying to tell you? Are you missing out on important updates about the status of patches and updates? How can you learn more about what you need to accomplish? Tom Hollingsworth looks at Cisco Network Insights Advisor and how it can help you decipher what you need to be listening to. Cisco showed off NIA at Networking Field Day, and Tom sees it as a support tech dedicated to doing nothing but update you on what the latest issues are that could affect things and how you can mitigate or remove those problems. And for the times when you can do neither, NIA can help you get your ducks in a row when you need to call TAC.
Defeating Configuration Drift With Gluware
No two configurations are the same. Usually because they’ve been modified outside of recommended parameters. If you want to stop this from happening in your network, you need a tool that can detect the drift in your devices. Tom Hollingsworth examines Gluware and their presentation during Networking Field Day to see how they can help network admins keep your configs on track. Their drift tool takes a snapshot of the configuration of a device and allows you to quickly compare it with the state of the device later on. Tom admits to causing some network drift in his time, so he’s glad to see there’s a solution out there to help address it.
Rogue Device Detection Thanks to PathSolutions
How can you track down all the devices in your network that you don’t know about? How can you ensure they aren’t security risks or potential threat vectors? Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at PathSolutions and their new TotalView Security Operations Manager and how it can help you figure out what’s hiding just out of plain sight. He got a deep dive from PathSolutions during Security Field Day, so once you check out Tom’s piece, be sure to check out their full presentation video.
A Week of Unexpected Expectedness With Forward Networks
In this post, Tom Hollingsworth reviews the Forward Networks presentation about a week in the life of a network engineer from a recent Networking Field Day and how their Network Query Engine can help you get a jump on those totally unexpected problems you’re expecting. For Tom, NQE is the resource network admins can talk to in order to find the information they have to have to make the right decisions. It’s like a network encyclopedia. And any resource that can cut down on time to resolve problems or troubleshoot issues means admins can spend less of their week working on unexpected issues and more time keeping things running smoothly so those issues don’t crop up.
Tom’s Virtual Corner at Cisco Live US 2020
Tom’s Corner at Cisco Live US have become an almost legendary part of Cisco Live US lore. If you’re ever met Tom, you know he’s a people person and love making connections, especially with networking folks. Just because in-person conferences are on hold for a while, doesn’t mean that Tom can’t bring it back. That’s why he’s doing Tom’s Virtual Corner at Cisco Live US 2020. Be sure to join Tom on Zoom any time during meeting running from about 8:00am PT through 1:00pm PT. Check out the post for how to get the invite and we’ll see you there!
Leaving Legacy Behind to Build Better Networks With DriveNets
How do you build a network operating system today that has none of the technical baggage from years past? Can we ever really leave behind the technologies of yesteryear? Tom Hollingsworth reviews the DriveNets Network Operating System and how it modernizes a platform that needs to leave the legacy behind. He got a deep dive on it at Networking Field Day, where they did an architectural over, and showed how they built it from the ground up with microservices in mind.
Pensando Places Programmability First
Programming hardware isn’t easy. Unless you start out with the idea that you’re going to use a language that is easy to adapt to your needs. Tom Hollingsworth looks at the decisions made by Pensando to leverage P4 to extend its platform to adapt to the future needs of its customers. After hearing from the company at Cloud Field Day, Tom sees Pensando in the early stages of making something big, and the power of P4 will make the sky the limit. Their platform is currently shipping with NetApp and HPE systems and likely to see wider adoption, especially in cloud providers.
Ensuring Code Quality With Arista
Are you having issues with code quality? Do you feel like things keep getting worse when you install the latest patch? Maybe the process behind the scenes is broken. Perhaps you need to look at what a good example of code development looks like. Tom Hollingsworth reviews the process from Arista after their presentation at Networking Field Day.
Monitoring Application Performance From the Inside Out With Solarwinds AppOptics
Are you relying on old tools to monitor your modern applications? Tom Hollingsworth takes a look at why you should examine the way you keep an eye on your applications and how your users experience them. At Cloud Field Day, he saw that this is where SolarWinds comes into play. They have spent a great deal of time creating the best tool to handle monitoring of your application from the inside out. Their AppOptics solution does more than just monitor the response time of your pages. It digs deep into the services that compose the application to find out what’s actually going on when users run complicated queries or connect to a node that is having some performance issues.