Tech Field Day Podcast

The Premise: Does artificial intelligence do anything for WiFi? Today’s world is driven by software. Applications rule the tech space and they are increasingly relying on machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to make better, faster decisions. But there are some technologies that don’t really take full advantage of AI. Can an algorithm replace a person troubleshooting? Is something...

The Premise: Orchestration is the reason enterprises haven’t adopted containers. Pure Storage Spotlight Orchestration is almost synonymous with containers nowadays. One popular opinion is that maybe the reason enterprises haven’t adopted containers quickly is that people are hungry for a way to orchestrate containers that fits into their overall environment. Is this the reason why containers have...

The Premise: There used to be a time when the Internet was free, wild, and nothing was encrypted. With the advent of things like SSL and TLS, some network analytics and security folks are wondering: is encryption ruining security? The world is encrypted today. Our traffic is being protected from beginning to end so our identities and data are safe. But how safe are we in reality? What about the tr...

The Premise: There are a bunch of new AI/ML startups, and we hear about the latest advances and interesting concepts, but it tends to fall down when it comes to implementation. Is there any good use for AI in the enterprise? Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are extending the capabilities of our technology at a rapid pace. Or so we have been led to believe. But what is ML really giving...

The Premise: With the release of vSphere 7, there are some new storage features and interoperability, but is NVMe-oF ready for prime time? Pure Storage Spotlight Those of us who have been following storage and server architecture are pretty excited about NVMe and various things over fabrics. So far, it’s been a challenge to bring NVMe-oF into the enterprise datacenter. Does the release of vSphere...

The Premise: With the number of computer performance issues reported by consumers each day, one begins to wonder is IT really broken? Computers never work. I can’t check my email. The Internet is always slow. No matter what I’m doing it seems like Information Technology is never the way I want it. Everything is completely broken. Or is it? Join us as we’ll discuss the various ways in which I...

The Premise: Software companies have found a way to offset development costs, but is charging customers for features a good thing? Modern technology has focused on delivering value. The current shift away from hardware to software means that companies need to recognize how they deliver that value. In order to ensure they are responding to their customers’ needs in the best possible way, they need...

The Premise: There is so much talk about artificial intelligence and machine learning from many enterprise IT companies lately, and the general feeling is that a lot of it is just BS.  Enterprise AI seems to be a buzzword we are having trouble escaping. Is it following us, or just getting smart enough to know the paths we tread to shake it? The roundtable faces this pursuer and decides if we shoul...

The Premise: With more people working from home, organizations need to focus on both security and humanity during this COVID-19 pandemic.  Security will always be a bit of a treadmill that organizations need to keep moving on. But that treadmill got kicked into overdrive as a result of COVID-19. Organizations that seemingly had well-implemented security policies in place now have to account for ev...

The Premise: The demands of IT support make physical distancing not practical in all situations.  With many people working from home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, IT is faced with challenges of how it can fulfill its support mission while maintaining a safe physical distance. Certainly the proliferation of cloud services has changed the landscape considerably for a lot of organizations, re...

By now, we’re all familiar with software-defined wide area network or SD-WAN. SD-WAN enables the use of multiple circuit types, including both MPLS and commodity broadband. Everyone knows how reliable MPLS can be. Can broadband reach that level of assurance? Given the history of using the technology with enterprise networks, our panel of experts debates the premise that commodity broadband i...

Backing up data is standard practice and one that both companies and individuals take part in regularly. Having your data at your fingertips to be able to restore any potential loss and keep your forward movement is a must in all of our quick moving industries. How do you make sure that your backup protocols are taking into account proper security measures? How do you know if encryption is taking...

The Premise: Single Pane of Glass is a Myth If you use network monitoring software or SIMS, you’re probably used to having a ton of browser windows open at any given time because there are many aspects to the tools you need to get info from. Looking over your shoulder, a team member might tell you that they have the solution to the “many open browser” issue, and it’s four m...

The Premise: Is Backup Dead?  Data protection used to be pretty straightforward. In recent years, there have been a number of changes in enterprise backup. It’s not necessarily that backup has changed, but systems and people have changed. In fact, many small and medium-sized businesses don’t even have servers anymore. Now, we have different applications and different infrastructure, an...

The Premise: Hadoop is Dead. Big data is on everyone’s mind across IT, and the storage industry is no exception. For a while, Hadoop seemed ready to conquer the world with its promise of reliable, scalable, distributed computing. However the tide has seemingly turned away from the once ubiquitous yellow pachyderm. Big data is very much alive, but the roundtable discusses if the complexities...

The Premise: Working with toxic individuals in unavoidable in IT. In this roundtable, Tom Hollingsworth discusses whether it’s fundamentally unavoidable to work with toxic people in IT. First the panelists define what we mean by toxic in an IT context. Then they dig into why IT seems to have its fair share of people with toxic characteristics, and why the focus should be on the relationship...

The Premise: Wi-Fi monetization is bad, it should be free, frictionless, and fast. In this roundtable, Tom Hollingsworth leads a discussion about the premise that Wi-Fi monetization is bad. Some would argue that it’s evil. If venues and businesses want to offer Wi-Fi, it should be treated the same way other utilities are. These all require a degree of expense to the business, but aren’...

The Premise: IT Certifications are more valuable than a college degree. Odds are that if you’ve been in IT for a while, you’ve been asked how many certifications you have. There’s no doubt that these are valuable. Yet many IT pros still feel that they need a college degree to hang on the wall. The roundtable discusses if this is a legacy of times gone by, or if a college degree s...

The Premise: The Promise of the Cloud Cannot Be Achieved. We know that The Cloud is a real thing. But of the many things called The Cloud, each of them is remarkably different. Features, capabilities, functions vary wildly between them. Every organization is scrambling to figure out how to use the cloud, but is the promise of the cloud simply unachievable? Does the pursuit of multi-cloud mean that...

The Premise: Digital transformation is a myth. There’s a lot of talk about digital transformation, but are organizations actually achieving that, or are they simply changing IT practices to keep up with changing infrastructure. Should we even view digital transformation into a means in and of itself. And can non-digital companies actually transform, or are industries just going to replace ob...

In this bonus episode, we’re joining Stephen Foskett as he talks with some of the original delegates and inspirations for the Tech Field Day event series. They discuss the event that gave Stephen the initial idea, a fortuitous plane ride, how the first Tech Field Day event went, where the idea for the live stream started and more. It’s a great conversation and we couldn’t think o...

The Premise: Simplification inherently adds risk to an IT system. Simplification may sound great and improve efficiency, but it always with it an increase in risk. This is because by abstracting away the complexity, you’re also hiding potential faults in the system. The roundtable discusses if this is true, and if there’s a way to lose some of the geek knobs without creating a risky en...

The Premise: The biggest hurdle to IPv6 adoption is administrative. IPv6 is the next big thing in networking, it’s going to solve all of our network addressing issues. At least, that’s what it’s been promising for the last two decades. So why hasn’t it lived up to the hype? The roundtable discusses the idea that administration is the biggest holdup to overall IPv6 adoption. Be sure to listen to fi...

The Premise: You should never put primary and secondary storage on the same system. It’s almost canonical wisdom is storage that you shouldn’t put primary and secondary storage on the same storage system. Doing otherwise is just asking or trouble. But given the rapidly changing IT landscape and the emergence of the cloud, is that really true anymore? The roundtable breaks it down in th...

The Premise: With the advent of managed services, learning Kubernetes is a waste of time. On this episode, our roundtable discusses the premise that learning Kubernetes is a waste of time. With so many managed Kubernetes service available, actually learning the ins and outs of the obtuse orchestrator isn’t necessary for the vast majority of organizations. They discuss the actual business val...