The Continuing Evolution of Forward Networks – Networking Field Day 34

Reflecting on Networking Field Day 13, Rob Coote discusses the Forward Networks platform with its groundbreaking digital twin technology, allowing a detailed grasp of network configurations and potential impact of changes. Since then, their continuous evolution was showcased at Networking Field Day 34, where Forward Networks revealed its integration of AI and LLM into their established platform, providing a refined, natural language query experience and heightening network visibility. This trajectory not only illustrates Forward Networks’ commitment to innovation but also exemplifies how AI, when thoughtfully applied, can significantly enhance the utility and sophistication of tech solutions in network management.


She’s a Keeper! Keeper Security Presents at Security Field Day 7.

Rob Coote, a Field Day delegate, was very impressed by Keeper Security’s presentation at this past Security Field Day. In fact, Rob was so impressed that he is highly considering signing up for a trial run and dropping 1Password. Take a look!


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.


Rapid Incident Reponse With PathSolutions Security Operations Manager

At Security Field Day, Rob Coote joined us as a delegate and was able to participate in a fantastic conversation with PathSolutions CTO Tim Titus, as he presented TotalView Security Operations Manager and its capabilities as a SecOps tool that can greatly improve awareness and response time to security events within a network. Investigating alerts can be tedious, and can take up a lot of time, only to find out in many cases that the alert was benign, and doesn’t require intervention. TotalView Security Operations Manager is a security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) product designed to optimize event response, reduce wasted time on false positives, and provide a faster path to quarantine and remediation.


Cisco AI Network Analytics – Filtering Out the Noise With Machine Learning

At Cisco Live 2019 in San Diego, JP Vasseur, PhD and Cisco Fellow, introduced Cisco’s machine learning platform, which will provide insight via DNA Center Assurance, into how a network is expected to be operating as a baseline, and provide relevant alerts based on real network data, leveraging a massive data lake, and Cisco’s proven expertise in networking. Rob Coote got a deep dive on the platform at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live US 2019, and digs into it in this post.


Cisco Catalyst Wifi, Take Two

In this post, notable Canadian and Networking Field Day delegate Rob Coote digs into the Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controller from Cisco, positioned as their next-generation wireless platform. At Networking Field Day, Cisco highlighted three key improvements from previous Aironet products: Always-on, security, and the ability to deploy anywhere. Rob think the overall popularity of Catalyst 9k switches should provide a good basis for the success of the wireless platform.


Forward Thinkers, Forward Networks

Rob Coote shares his impressions from what he saw with Forward Networks at Networking Field Day last month. He really highlights how Forward’s software modeling of network performance could impact, not just the performance of the network, but the worth routines of network engineers. By effectively giving you a network lab to tinker with in software, their solution theoretically eliminates the “wait-and-see” approach to changes in a network. Rob really hopes they are able to move their solution beyond just monitoring to remediation. But he makes a really great point on the very human impact Forward Networks could have.


Hyperscale Networking for the Masses

Hyperscale Networking for the Masses


Rob Coote

20+ year Networking and Virtualization geek, pivoting into Security. Wannabe hacker, but unable to exit Vim since 2014.