The IT landscape is changing extremely quickly as we embrace new ways of working, new technologies, adopt the cloud and have ever more distributed workforces, all demanding increased access to our services and data. These changes are being embraced by modern business as they see technology as a way of driving improved outcomes and new opportunities. However, one thing that often does not change in our business is networking, not only the technology behind it but more importantly the processes we have in place to operationally support our enterprises rapidly changing demands.

What then, do we need to change, why and how? That’s what I chat about with this week’s guest Andrew Wertkin, Andrew is the Chief Strategy Officer at BlueCat a company specialising in the management, control and automation of DNS, DHCP and IP address management or DDI (an acronym of acronyms), join us as we look at how the network has changed, how not changing our operational approach is inhibiting us and how to plan for better network management.

It’s a fascinating chat as we discuss.
•	What is DDI
•	DNS, DHCP, IP Management modern critical services
•	Without control and governance, you can’t enable change
•	IT cannot be a blocker 
•	That’s not transforming it’s just upgrading
•	If you don’t expect your IT to change you’re not paying attention
•	If you’re not planning you will have problems
•	Getting your DDI right

Andrew offers a range of great insight that I trust you found as useful as I did.  For more information and links to some of the things we spoke about visit https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1Qd for show notes.

If you have an idea for a show or would like to join me as a guest email podcast@techstringy.com. To catch the next episode then subscribe in any of the usual ways.

Thanks for listening.

Tech Interviews

Why Why DDI? – Andrew Wertkin - Ep155

Data is everywhere and part of every strategic business conversation how do we use it better? How do get more value from it? How do we truly make it a business asset? The answers to those questions are driving a whole new way of thinking in the way we deliver IT services to a business. New workflows, new development architectures and exploiting technology shifts to try to break the shackles that traditional infrastructure often enforces on how we can use data to meet our business needs. This has led to a steady evolution, virtualisation, cloud and architectures such as serverless which allows us to run our code and services independent of any underlying platform.

What if we could achieve that same flexibility for our data?

If your business could use its data without restriction what would that allow you to do? That was the thesis of a blog post that I read recently from David Flynn the CEO of my guest Doug Fallstrom’s company Hammerspace and is the topic for this weeks show.

Join us as we discuss.

•	Why we need to be data-centric.
•	Getting additional value from our data.
•	Users don’t care where the data is and why should they?
•	Talk to the non-storage people in your business to know how they use data.
•	Tips for shifting to a data focussed approach.
•	The Hammerspace Tech.
•	The power of the “as a service” model.

For today’s enterprise taking a data-centric approach to the way, we build our IT platforms is critical if you want to be a data-driven business. Approaches such as those discussed by Doug, coupled with technical innovations to enable your data strategy is going to be central to your success.

For full show notes visit here https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1Qx

Finally, If you have an idea for a show or would like to be a guest, then email podcast@techstringy.com.

Until next time, thanks for listening.

Storageless data, really? - Doug Fallstrom - Ep156

"Transformation" is a phrase we hear a lot, in fact, it almost feels like everyone in the world has some kind of transformation project going on. In reality, over the last 12 months or so, we all have, we have changed the way we operate as businesses and as people.

But what does it mean to go through a transformation as a business? What is transformation? How do we do it well?

That's the question I ask this week with my guest Chris Gherardini.

Chris is  founder of Turnkey Technologies a US-based consultancy business, focussed on helping companies deliver business transformation projects. Chris started Turnkey 27 years ago after cutting his technology teeth in an accountancy practice, so comes to this conversation with a lot of experience.

Join us as we discuss.

The four pillars of transformation.
What drives change?
Seeing transformation as an opportunity.
Things to avoid in your approach.
The importance of vision.
It is a cultural thing.
Top tips for getting transformation right.

We are all constantly facing change and any tips on how to do it well are always welcomed, so I hope you found as much useful information in what Chris said as I did.

If you have an idea for a show or would like to appear email podcast@techstringy.com and to catch the next episode, please subscribe.

Until next time thanks for listening.

For full show notes https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1QH

The Art of Transformation - Chris Gherardini Ep157

The last 12 months or so have seen the biggest shift in working practices in many generations, the restrictions imposed around the world because of COVID has forced us all to look at the way we operate as both businesses and people.

A key part of our ability to survive the last 12 months was, of course, technology, collaboration tools particularly have had a significant role to play, allowing us to easily communicate with each other and our customers, to share information and data, to meet up in daily online meetings to ensure we still had some level of “face to face” communications. Without those tools, the challenges of day-to-day operations would have been much harder.

Collaboration technology of course is not something that businesses just consume, there are vendors who build the tools that have allowed so many of us to adapt during this time of massive change. What has the last 12 months looked like for them? What have they learned? What does that mean for us and the future of work moving forward? 

Joining me this week is Michael Peachey is Vice President, User Experience, at collaboration giants RingCentral and I get the chance to find out from him what the global collaboration picture has looked like over the last 12 months, the changes they’ve seen and what they envision for the future of work.

We discuss.

•	The 12-month experiment.
•	What RingCentral have learned as a business.
•	Accelerating change.
•	Surprises!
•	Online fatigue.
•	Cultural changes.
•	Replicating the “human experience”.
•	What happens when half the world goes back to the office and the other doesn’t?
•	Check out RingCentral.

I enjoyed this chat with Michael, the future of work is not set in stone for either businesses or those building the tools we are going to rely on, but what is clear, is there is real enthusiasm and innovation not just about how the technology should work, but how the human experience should be improved and that can only be a good thing.

If you have an idea for a show or would like to appear as a guest drop a line to podcast@techstringy.com. To catch the next episode then subscribe on all good homes of podcasts or YouTube.

Until next time, thanks for listening.

For full show notes visit https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1QM

The changing world of work – Michael Peachey – Ep158

When you talk to any business today and ask them about their top strategic IT goals using artificial intelligence and machine learning to help the business be “better” is often right at the top.  It is not a surprise, is it?

But not all in the AI garden is necessarily rosy, there are still many, including some high-profile, incidents of major AI/ML projects going bad, with millions of $’s spent for little or no return. Why is that? What does it mean for AI in the enterprise now and in the future?

That is what we explore on this week’s podcast as I am joined by Slater Victoroff CTO at indico. He shares thoughts on the current state of intelligence in the enterprise, sharing thoughts on how to avoid project failure, the importance of quality data, how to avoid the data “charlatan” as well as providing some top tips on getting your AI investment right.

Join us as we chat about.

•	AI is not the answer to everything, but it is great at some things.
•	AI adoption is immature.
•	Not an android more a bionic arm.
•	The embarrassing failures.
•	Get the basics right.
•	You cannot solve problems you cannot scope.
•	Clever Hans.
•	Tips to getting your AI investment right.
•	Avoid data charlatans.
•	What do indico do?
•	Empowering the right people with the right tools.

Data analytics, intelligence and machine learning are a core part of most businesses short, medium and long term plans and used right it is a powerful technology that can deliver huge value. However, doing it right takes thought, planning, time and effort. Hopefully, Slater has provided you with some great tips.

If you have an idea for a show or would like to appear as a guest, then please email me at podcast@techstringy.com  and to catch the next episode then please subscribe.

Until next time thanks for listening.

Full show notes are here https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1QT

AI is not the genie in your data bottle – Slater Victoroff – Ep159

The demands on business IT continue to evolve rapidly, we need our technology to respond to change, to be deployed quickly, provide scale and flexibility. This is changing the way applications are developing with approaches such as low/no-code and serverless becoming increasingly common.

On this week's Tech Interviews we look at these new development approaches and ask what does low-code and serverless mean for you and your enterprise? Joining me to discuss this is Mike Williams, founder, and CTO at BuildLab.

We discuss.

Trends driving change.
What is low code and serverless?
Don't get hung up on how, focus on the what
It isn't for everyone
How do you define the right route for you?
What makes a good project?
This is not a silver bullet
BuildLab, building more with less.

I found this a really useful introduction to a technology and approach that is becoming more commonplace. I like Mike's approach, using these technologies to allow the focus to be on outcomes while appreciating that this doesn't work for everyone.

I hope you enjoyed that, if you have an idea for a show or would like to be a guest email me at podcast@techstringy.com.

Until next time, thanks for listening.

Full show notes  with links can be found here: https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1R6

What does low-code and serverless mean to you? – Mike Williams – Ep 160

Tech Interviews has come out of semi-retirement for a short series of shows looking at another range of Enterprise IT topics.

First up, is an old familiar subject of the evolving world of storage, specifically object storage. 

Why is object storage increasingly becoming part of the everyday enterprise data platform conversation? Is it better suited to modern ways of working, that need data portability at scale? Does it fit better with our modern application development processes, such as containers? To find out I am joined on this episode by field CTO and co-founder of Scality Brad King.

Join us as we discuss
•	What is object Storage
•	Why object and not just block and file?
•	Is it time for more object in the enterprise?
•	The value of metadata
•	The object use cases
•	About Scality
•	Artesca bringing object to the smaller use case

The case for object storage as a primary platform for your data continues to grow and there are some use cases it meets extremely well. Although it may not be right every time If you are looking at new approaches to data in your business, it may well be time to explore what object storage can bring.

For full show notes https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1RY

Thanks for listening.

Is it time for object storage in the enterprise? – Brad King, Scality – Ep161

Cyber Security continues to be top of the list of IT challenges most enterprises face. While our businesses continue to evolve in how we use technology, how we work, and how we consume data, so the threat continues to evolve. 

In the face of this challenge we need to think carefully about how we deliver our security strategy, these modern threats need a modern approach. Earlier this year, I was asked to present at an event hosted by Acronis, this event focussed on taking a new approach to security. The contents of that day stuck with me and I wanted to share with you some of the information from that event. To help me to do that is one of my co-presenters Acronis’s Candid Wuest.

Join us as we discuss.

•	What is Cyber Fit and Cyber Protection?
•	No single technology will protect you from everything
•	The holistic approach 
•	Enjoy the SAPAS 
•	Security is complex, but its management shouldn’t be
•	Having a security business continuity plan
•	Some tips for getting cyber fit
•	A little more about the Acronis approach
•	The value of learning from vendors

This is such a crucial topic in the enterprise and as we mentioned in summary, taking the opportunity to learn from leading vendors, can be extremely useful as you help build your cyber defences. 

More details and follow up information can be found in the show notes : https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1S7

Until next time, thanks for listening.

Get cyber fit get cyber protected - Candid Wuest - Ep162

In our last show, we talked about the idea of cyber fit and cyber protection and how, as our demands and the threats to our data change, so must our approach to security and protection. We continue that theme this week as we look at the changing world in which we operate and how that is driving the need to think not only about protection but also resilience, digital resilience.

Joining me this week is Edwin Weijdema a global technologist at Veeam. This idea of resilience is key when it comes to security, while much of the security discussion is focussed on prevention, and rightly so, it is important to realise that even the best-laid plans cannot always stop a cyber security incident. When that happens, what is the plan? 

The way we operate as businesses, our reliance on technology in all walks of life, as well as the ever-evolving cyber threat, have all changed the way we need to look at our security plans and it's crucial that we also know not only how to protect ourselves, but handle it when the worst happens. Join us as Edwin shares with us his experiences and ideas around.

•	The evolving world
•	How the cyber threat has grown
•	Cyber Security Still an IT problem
•	Building digital resilience
•	The security triangle People, Process, Technology
•	Protection without recovery is nothing
•	Veeam the Risk Management Company

I always enjoy discussing this stuff with Edwin, he has great enthusiasm and experience for the topic and a passion for helping others to develop cyber resilience. You can find more from Edwin by following him on Twitter @Viperian or LinkedIn. 

I hope you found that as useful as I always do when I chat with Edwin. To make sure you catch the next show, why not subscribe.

But for now, thanks for joining me.

For full show notes including links : https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1Sc

Building your digital resilience – Edwin Weijdema – Ep163

Data is the lifeblood of today's enterprise. Making sure we secure it properly is critical to modern business. We cannot afford data to leave our control in any way that puts our sensitive and important information at risk. In a world of increased data focussed regulations where data, privacy and trust are so critical in our business relationships, the impact of a data breach can be significant.

How do we address this challenge?   How do we empower our use of data and keep it secure and under our control? 

That is the subject of this Tech Interviews Episode with my guest Justin Bortnick of Digital Guardian. Justin is a long-time data security practitioner and uses that experience to help simplify the often-complex issues that come with data security. I take this opportunity to learn from Justin’s experience and build an understanding of modern data loss prevention techniques and how technology from industry leaders like Digital Guardian can help you to effectively enable your data security strategy.

Join us in this fascinating discussion as we bust some DLP myths by covering.

•	Learn the basics
•	Get buy-in
•	Your first goal – know where your data is
•	Context is crucial to accurate DLP
•	Crawl before you run
•	What are your data loss drivers?
•	This is not just a technical problem
•	The Digital Guardian approach
•	The one thing you should be doing

Data loss prevention is a priority for any business serious about its data and Justin’s enthusiasm for the subject and the level of insight he provided was hugely valuable for me and I trust there were for you too.

If you have any questions, then please email podacast@techstringy.com and to catch the next episode then please subscribe.

For now, thanks for joining me.

Full show notes are here : https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1Sq

Busting DLP Myths - Justin Bortnick - Ep 164

Data, it's the new oil, new gold, your Crown Jewels. We've all heard these phrases, but it is hard to deny that data is a fantastic asset.

However, it's fair to say that data also comes with its challenges, we must store it all, make sure we protect it all and of course we need to make sure it's secure.

This week is the first in a short series of shows looking at the challenges of data privacy.

This week is part one of a two part chart with global data privacy attorney Sheila Fitzpatrick, with nearly 35 years experience in the field, she is the ideal guest too provide us with some initial context around the current data privacy landscape, the challenges we have and the challenges we are going to see in the future, including the upcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR.

Sheila has lots of great information to share, so settle back, there's plenty to learn.. enjoy the show.

Full show notes are here.. http://wp.me/p4IvtA-Ld

Best Take Care Of Those Crown Jewels - Sheila Fitzpatrick - Ep 17

Losing USB sticks, leaving laptops on trains, installing malware, clicking phishing links. From maliciousness to stupidity, our people are a constant problem. In fact people are our biggest data security issue aren't they?

Aren't they?

We have to ask ourselves, are we doing all we can to help our people? Rather than seeing them as a security problem, have we thought about how we can make them an asset as we continually look to take on the threats to our critical data?

Our people can be a huge benefit in our data security and privacy plans. In this episode, I chat with Dom Saunders of NETconsent, as we look at how we can start to help our people become that asset. 

We discuss why many IT policies fail, the risks that poor procedures introduce, why education is so critical and how to make sure our people are getting access to the best help they can.

enjoy the show.

Show notes here - http://wp.me/p4IvtA-Ol

Making People Our Best Data Security Asset

Making People Our Best Data Security Asset - Dom Saunders - Ep 19

Data it's one of a modern organisations most crucial assets.

With that in mind, how do we build a strategy that meets todays data challenges, how do we make sure we have a strategy not only ensures we can store our data on a resilient and secure platform, but also that we can take advantage of new data trends, like analytics, IoT and public cloud storage.

In this weeks episode I discuss this with NetApp A-Team member Mark Carlton, we look at how NetApp's data fabric strategy can help you to plan, develop and deploy a solution suitable for a modern organisations data needs.

We not only discuss NetApp's implementation but also how the fabric has grown beyond a NetApp centric view and how 3rd party tools from the likes of Varonis, Veritas and Veeam are integrated, making your data management solution more insightful, more complete.

Enjoy the episode.

Accompanying Blog is here... http://wp.me/p4IvtA-RG

Weaving a Data Fabric - Mark Carlton - Ep 23

Weaving a Data Fabric - Mark Carlton - Ep23

One of the biggest challenges we face in technology is constant change. Change is not bad of course, but it presents challenges, from upgrading operating systems and applications, to integrating the latest technology advancements, to responding to new business problems and opportunities.

The IT industry is full of stories of companies who had great technologies but have then been blindsided by a shift in the needs of their customer base, or a technology trend that they failed to anticipate.

It was with this in mind that I visited Veeam's, VeeamON conference.

Veeam are a technology success story, a vendor who arrived into the already established data protection market and shifted how people looked at it. They recognised the impact virtualisation was having on how organisations of all types where deploying their infrastructures and how traditional protection technologies where failing to evolve to meet these new needs.

But now Veeam's market is changing, how are they going to react to that?

For this week's podcast, I look at that very question and discuss Veeam's future with Rick Vanover, Director of Technical Product Marketing & Evangelism.

We discuss their repositioning as an availability company, look at how Veeam are developing a range of solutions to give them an availability platform and how this platform will allow their customers to build a strategy, to not only protect their critical data assets, in a range of different data repositories, but will also allow them to move their data seamlessly between them.

Do Veeam have a good strategy to remain relevant? - I Think so, but, as ever, their success will be dependent on their ability to execute that strategy.

I hope you enjoy the show and of course the new theme tune!

For show notes check out techstringy.com - http://wp.me/p4IvtA-115

Remaining relevant in a changing world – Rick Vanover – Ep28

Remaining relevant in a changing world - Rick Vanover - Ep28

Now honestly, this episode has not gone out today sponsored by British Airways, or in any way taking advantage of the situation that affected 1000's of BA customers over the weekend, the timing is purely coincidental.

However, those incidents have made this episode quite timely as they again highlight just how crucial to our day to day activities as individuals and businesses technology is.

As part of my time at the recent VeeamON event, I took the opportunity to chat with the wider IT community who attended, not just those charged with delivering availability and data protection, but also those who looked at the industry through a broader lens.

So over the next couple of weeks, I've put together a collection of those chats to give you a wider view of the availability market.

First up, I speak with Justin Warren and Jeff Leeds.

Justin, is a well-known industry analyst and consultant as well as the host of the fantastic Eigencast podcast, Justin is often outspoken, but always provides a fascinating insight into the wider industry.

Jeff was part of a large NetApp contingent at the event and shared how partnerships and complimentary technologies are critical in building an appropriate data strategy, helping us all ensure our businesses remain on.

So hope you enjoy the show.

Pop over to techstringy.com for show notes and please subscribe to catch next weeks episode as we dig further into data availability.

Show notes are here... http://wp.me/p4IvtA-151

Analysing the data availability market - part one - Justin Warren & Jeff Leeds - Ep29

This weeks episode is part two of our view at the wider data availability market as I'm joined by three more guests from the recent VeeamON event to continue our discussion. This week we look at how our data availability strategy is not and can not just be a discussion for the technical department and must be elevated into our overall business strategy.

We also look how technology trends are affecting our views of backup, recovery and availability.

First I'm joined by Dave Stevens of Data Gravity as we chat about how backup data can be a source of valuable information, as well as a crucial part in helping us to be more secure, as well as compliant with ever more stringent data governance rules.

Next I chat with Mike Beevor of HCI vendor Pivot3 about how simplifying our approach to system availability can be a huge benefit. Mike also makes a great point about how, although focussing on application and data availability is right, we must consider the impact on our wider infrastructure, because if we don't we run the risk of doing more "harm than good".

Last but my no means least I speak with Senior Research Analyst at IDC, Andrew Smith, we chat about availability as part of the wider storage market and how over time, as vendors gain feature parity, their goal has to become to add additional value, particularly in areas such as security and analytics.

It's another information packed show, I hope you enjoy it.

For full show notes - http://wp.me/p4IvtA-18k

Analysing the data availability market - part two - Dave Stevens, Mike Beevor, Andrew Smith - Ep30

Analysing the data availability market - part two - Dave Stevens, Mike Beevor & Andrew Smith - Ep30

Over the last 15 years or so, there has been major shifts in the way we deliver technology in the enterprise, cloud, mobility and of course virtualisation. You can't look at the virtualisation industry without looking at the company who has defined the industry more than any other, VMware. 

However, they are not immune to change and the world is certainly changing as we become more application and data centric and with this our expectations of how we consume our IT services has also changed.

How are VMware changing in response? 

On this weeks show I managed to catch up with the hosts of the excellent VMware Virtually Speaking podcast, Pete Flecha and John Nicholson, to ask this question and find out how VMware are changing, how they see the needs of their customers evolving and what future trends they see as the next important areas for focus.

We discuss how technology not only needs to be resilient but also smart. We look at how organisations want their IT to be able to easily consume and integrate "cloud" into their on-prem solutions.

The guys also talk about VMware's shift toward simplifying the technology stack allowing us to focus on our applications and data and not the complexity of the infrastructure below it.

Pete and John provide a fantastic insight into how our organisations technology requirements are changing and how VMware are changing to remain a relevant and important part of our IT stack.

John also introduces me to my all time favourite analogy that involves cavemen and jetpacks.

Enjoy the show.

Full show notes are here... http://wp.me/p4IvtA-1aM

Giving jetpacks to cavemen - Pete Flecha, John Nicholson - Ep31

This time of the year is a busy one for the technology industry as we move into conference season. But are these events worth your while, or are they just an excuse for a few days off and a good time?

Over the next two shows, I get the views from this years VMworld 2017 conference and ask the question "was it good for you?".

In this first episode, I'm joined by 4 guests;
Becky Elliot - Sr. Systems Administrator for a US government contractor
Michael Cade - Veeam
Mark Carlton - Concorde IT
Barry Coombs - Computerworld Group

We discuss what they gained from the event, what did VMware cover, how relevant was their strategic message and the key things they took from the event.

If you want a snapshot of the key points from this years VMworld, then these attendees give you a great view of what was covered, as well as been great examples of the significant benefits you can get by investing in you or your team attending vendor conferences

Enjoy the show.

Full show notes are here - http://wp.me/p4IvtA-1qc

Was It Good For You? - A Look Back At VMworld 2017 - Ep41

It's not news to anyone listening to this show that the challenge around the security of our data and systems is a substantial one. Our technology seems to be under constant threat, from external hackers, to insiders, from targeted attacks to malware finding its way randomly onto our systems and causing havoc and all of this before we look at increased regulation and compliance demands.

The ever-increasing threat has led to us looking to technology to help protect our systems, however this has now led to its own problems, with many of us investing in numerous platforms and tools which has created a huge sprawl of solutions, that do not interact, all have their own consoles and all are presenting us with alerts and notifications that we then expect our already stretched IT function to understand and act upon.

It is this problem that has inspired this series of Tech Interviews episodes looking at the security challenge.

In this first show, I'm joined by Valory Batchellor of IBM as we discuss their immune system approach.

We explore the current and evolving threat, the challenges presented by multiple, disjointed security tools and we also discuss the future and how machine learning and artificial intelligence could give us an infinite amount of security analysts, working on an infinite amount of security problems, with unlimited resources!

Valory provides some fantastic insight with a real enthusiasm and obvious expertise for her subject, so enjoy the show as we look to "secure all of the things".

Next week I'm joined by Harry Keen from anon.ai as we look at data anonymization and the part it plays in data security.

To catch that show, why not subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud or Stitcher.

Thanks for listening

Full show notes are here... http://wp.me/p4IvtA-1si

Securing all of the things - Val Batchellor - Ep44

As the world continues to "transform" and be more digitally driven, then the inevitable also has to happen, systems that support our day to day processes start to become outdated, inefficient and ineffective for a world that needs to move more quickly and in different ways.

One such innovation that is gathering momentum is the use of blockchain and it is starting to have a major disruptive impact on the way many traditional transactions are done.

If you are like me and interested in the technology and would like to know more, then maybe this week's podcast episode is for you as I'm joined by Ian Moore to provide a beginners guide to blockchain, a blockchain 101 no less.

During our conversation, he introduces us to the importance of ledgers, how the four key blockchain tenants of consensus, provenance, immutability and finality are allowing blockchain transactions to be quick, secure and trusted.

We also discuss how the speed of digital transformation is demanding improvement in speed and efficiency and how transactions that used to take weeks are no longer acceptable as blockchain takes those long slow processes and does them almost instantly.

Ian also shares some great use cases, as well as outlining the basic requirements needed for a blockchain, we wrap up by discussing possible futures uses for this technology approach and how blockchain will do for transactions what the Internet has done for communications.

Ian provides a great introduction to blockchain and you can follow him on twitter @Ian_DMoore.

I hope you enjoyed the show.

Full show notes are here - http://wp.me/p4IvtA-1ty

Chaining the Blocks a Blockchain 101 - Ian Moore - Ep46

As part of my role as a Technical Director, one of my tasks is to attend events and hear from the community about the challenges they have and to hear from tech vendors about how they are fixing them.

However, every now and again one of the things that happens is someone presents something that introduces me to a whole new challenge that I'd never considered.

That happened at a recent User group event, where Francesco Giarletta of Avanite to discussed the mysterious world of the webcache and the vast array of web data that lives within it!

He shared how this cache, alongside the amount of web tracking data that is dropped down onto your systems via web browsing (regardless of browser), can have significant and unexpected consequences.

So it seemed only fair to ask Francesco to come onto the show and introduce you all to this often unconsidered world.

In this episode, we look at the problem of webdata, the kind of information that websites collect about us, the unknown amount of data that they drop onto our machines, from cookies to the tracking information that Windows keeps about our web whereabouts.

We look at the impact of this tracking on both system performance and maybe more importantly security.

Francesco shares some of the security impacts and how they can potentially expose us to the risk of breach, from the storing of unencrypted user credentials, to how this data that we don't fully understand can expose us to regulatory infringement.

Finally, we share some ideas on how you can start to deal with the problem and how Avanite maybe able to help.

Enjoy the show.

Full show notes can be found here https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1tI

Webcache webcache what on earth is a webcache - Francesco Giarletta - Ep 47

One of the main components of any tech conference is the keynote sessions, these are the sessions that share the vision, set the context for the show and a good keynote is a vital part of creating the right atmosphere for those attending.

What I wanted to do with these special shows was to try and grab some of the immediate reaction from those attending the events and the keynote presentations that come with them.

Our first set of keynote reviews come from NetApp Insight 2017 in Berlin, getting the very latest in the data management field.

As we come toward the end of the conference, day three provided us with the final general sessions including a fascinating insight into rocket science as Adam Steltzner, part of the Mars Rover landing team, shared the part data played in their work.

Joining me in this final review from Insight is Jon Woan (@jonwoan) and Mick Kehoe (@mickehoe) providing their views on this session and as it was the final day, they also share their thoughts on what they'd heard throughout the conference, how it met their expectations and where NetApp covering the kind of things that they felt relevant.

Enjoy this last review from NetApp Insight and look out for upcoming reviews from other tech conferences in the future, as well as new episodes of Tech Interviews.

Tech Interviews the Keynote Round Up - NetApp Insight 2017 Day Three

There is no doubt that the amount of data we have, manage, control and analyse continues to grow ever more rapidly and increasingly this is unstructured data, documents, images, engineering drawings, data that often needs to be stored in one place and be easily accessible.

However, this presents problems, how do you get all of this data in one place when it's not just TB's it 100's of TB's and made up of billions of files that need to be accessed quickly, how on earth do you build that kind of capacity and deliver the performance you need?

Well, scale-out NAS may be the answer, in a world where we have these ever growing massive unstructured data repositories scaling out our NAS services makes perfect sense, delivering not only massive capacity but also taking advantage of scaled-out compute to give us the ability to process the billions of transactions that come with a huge repository.

So for Episode 50 of the Tech Interviews podcast, it seemed apt to celebrate the big five-oh talking about big data storage.

To discuss this evolution of NAS storage I'm joined by a returning guest, Justin Parisi to discuss NetApp's approach to this challenge, FlexGroups.

We discuss what a FlexGroup is and why you may want to use them and how  it's about more than just capacity, as we discuss the performance benefits of spreading our single storage volume across multiple controllers.

We explore the importance of simplification, and how NetApp has made sure that the complexity of scale-out NAS is hidden away from the user by presenting a simple, intuitive and quick to deploy technology that allows users to have the capacity without the need to rearchitect or relearn their existing solutions.

FlexGroups is a really smart technology designed to simply address this ever-growing capacity and performance problem encountered by our traditional approach to file services and if you are looking at scale-out NAS and file services, it's a technology well worth reviewing.

Next week It's the last show of the year as I'm joined by Jason Benedicic and Ruairi Mcbride to discuss the future of datacentre architecture as we talk next gen technologies.

To catch that show why not subscribe in any of the usual podcast places.

Hope you enjoyed Episode 50 – here's to the next 50!

Thanks for listening.

For full show notes - https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1wP

Scale that NAS - Justin Parisi - Ep50

Wanting to get the very best from your data and "extracting value" from it seems to be a constant conversation with technology and business leaders in pretty much any organisation, but what does getting value from it mean and how do we go about it?

A couple of weeks ago I read a very interesting article from this weeks guest where he introduced the concept of Data Amplification Ratio, the basic premise of this article was that one of the key ways to get more from your data is to ensure that the datasets you have can be presented to multiple different systems and services all of which can add their own particular value and extract their own unique information from the data presented to them.

I thought this article presented a really good insight in to the practicalities of getting the most from our data and wanted to get the author to share that insight for the Tech Interviews listeners.

That's exactly what we do as I'm joined this week by Matt Watts, Director Technology and Strategy at data management company NetApp.

On the show we explore Matt's article in more detail, we look at what we mean by data amplification, why it can be useful and how you go about "amping" your data.

We also discuss the importance of data mobility as well as what the future holds for "data amplification"

We even throw in some controversy by picking apart a tech industry favourite "data is the new oil" and discussing why maybe that's not as true as you think!

Fascinating insight, enjoy the show.

For full show notes visit :- https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1xB

Thanks for listening.

Tech Interviews Podcast

Turning up the Amp on your data – Matt Watts – Ep56

GDPR has been a constant business conversation over the last 18 months or so, it's discussed in the press, on the news and social media, as well as a handful of episodes of this podcast. However, much of the conversation has focussed on what you should be considering and doing to take on the GDPR challenge, while very little has come from those who have already made great strides on their compliance journey.

With that in mind, a few weeks ago I read a fascinating series of blogs from software company Veeam, this series discussed the 5 principles they followed to build their compliance program.

As many of us are currently on our own compliance journey, I thought the opportunity to chat with someone who is already well down this path would be of real interest, so in this week's podcast I'm joined by Mike Resseler, Mike is a Director of Product Management but is also a key member of Veeam's global compliance team and has played a significant part in the way they have dealt with the challenges posed by GDPR.

In this week's show Mike shares with us Veeam's experience. We start at the beginning with the initial advice they took and research they did into what GDPR meant to them.  We look at the importance of picking the right team, seeing compliance as a positive and how they dealt with those who felt GDPR didn't effect them.

We also look at the practicalities of building a compliance program as Mike shares the 5 principles Veeam developed to help them. We wrap up looking at the future, discussing continual improvement, training and the way that Veeam are making compliance integral to everything they do across their business.

I hope you enjoy the fantastic insight that Mike provides into the way a company builds a compliance programme and tackles regulation such as GDPR.

Full Show Notes are here :- https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1yK

Taking a GDPR journey - Mike Resseler - Ep63

A couple of weeks ago Veeam had their annual technical conference VeeamON at that event they shared among other things their new strategic messaging. 

That message is an interesting one and their shift from "backup" company to one focused on intelligent data management across multiple repositories is, in my opinion, exactly the right move to be making. 

With that in mind, I wanted to take a look at some of those messages as well as some of the other interesting announcements from the show and that is exactly what we do on this week's podcast, as I'm joined by recurring Tech Interviews guest, Michael Cade, Global Technologist at Veeam.

We start by taking a look at Veeam's last 12 months and how they've started to deliver a wider range of capabilities around more traditional enterprise platforms.

Michael shares some of the thinking behind Veeam's goal to deliver an availability platform to meet the demands of modern business data infrastructures and the importance of doing more than the ability to "back stuff up"

We discuss the development of Veeam's 5 pillars of intelligent data management, a key strategic announcement from the show. We discuss the importance of automation in our future data strategies.

We finish up by investigating the value of data labs and how crucial the ability to get more value from your backup data is becoming. Finally, we take a look at some of the things we can expect from Veeam in the upcoming months.

Enjoy the show.

Full show notes are here :-

Wrapping up VeeamON - Michael Cade - Ep66

In the last couple of weeks the world has shown us how the only predictable thing for many of us who deliver technology is the unpredictability of what we have to deal with, from the massive data breach at British Airways to the catastrophic impacts of hurricanes on both the western and eastern sides of the globe, these are incidents that we should to be prepared for, the question is, are we?

If you don’t have a plan, or not sure if your plan has value? Then this episode of the podcast is for you as we look at business continuity planning, with my guest continuity planning consultant Steve Lambert of Biscon Planning.

I chat with Steve on a range of topics, why do we need a plan at all? And how continuity planning goes beyond IT. We discuss the types of incidents you need to plan for and compare the differences between operational and enterprise risks.

Steve takes us through some of the steps you need to consider when building a plan, from understanding risk appetite, to impact assessment. We also look at the importance of testing plans and crucially how it’s not only your plans, but those of your suppliers.

The importance of incident planning cannot be underestimated, and Steve provides some great tips on how to build and test your plans.

Enjoy the show.

Full show notes are here :- https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1AR

Don’t get caught out by the unexpected – Steve Lambert – Ep 75

Don't Get Caught Out By The Unexpected - Steve Lambert - Ep 75

The adoption of public cloud continues to grow and remains high on the list of priorities of those tasked with delivering technology solutions to their business, be you someone making strategic decisions or the IT pro tasked with delivery of services, the move to public cloud brings with it a whole set of new challenges.

How do I design my cloud infrastructure? How do I integrate it with what I have? How do I get my crucial on-prem assets into the public cloud? Are just some of the questions we ask and need answers to so we can ensure we successfully take advantage of public cloud to deliver better services and outcomes to our organisations, how then do we find those answers and how should we approach our cloud transition?

Over the next three Tech Interviews episodes, in conversation with Cloud Architects and transition specialists we are going to explore just that. In this first episode we look at Cloud transition, as I’m joined by Eric Kraieski, Vice President of the Software Business Unit at Transitional Data Services (TDS), Eric has 10 years of experience in the area of Cloud transition making him a great guest to kick off this series of shows.

During this show we discuss;
* The challenges of transition to cloud
* The importance of aligning your project with business goals
* The impact of not properly planning
* Tips on avoiding common mistakes 
* Advice on building a successful migration strategy

Eric provides some fantastic insight and gets our short series off to a great start. Next time we'll be looking at the world of Microsoft Azure.

Until then, thanks for listening.

Full Show Notes : https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1E6

The Cloud Transition Conundrum – Eric Kraieski - Ep89

Cybersecurity is at the top of the list of priorities for organisations of all types, as our systems and data become ever more critical to how we operate on a daily basis, the risk posed by security threats, such as malware, data leakage and targeted attacks continues to grow and be even more complex.

The challenge in improving our security posture and ensuring we limit the vulnerabilities of our IT systems is a big one and not solved easily by one technology solution or the pressing of the big red security button. It is complex and like all complex problems often the hardest step in addressing it is knowing where to start? Like most challenges in IT, the starting point is to understand where you are right now, what systems you have and where they are vulnerable.

That is the focus of this week’s podcast as we discuss penetration testing. Pen tests are designed to identify your system vulnerabilities and help to mitigate the risks they pose to your organisation. To help me explore this topic I’m joined by Phil Graham, Phil is a Director at security specialists Secora Consulting and has spent the last 8 years developing his pen testing skills.

In this week's show we discuss;
*What is a pen test
*What scope does a test have
*The Business impact of vulnerabilities 
*Why pen test?
*Pen tests are not just for external testing
*Tips on getting a pen test and how to remediate your vulnerabilities

Phil shares some great info and I certainly learned a lot and I'm sure you will too.

Thanks for listening.

Full show notes are here: https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1F4

Pen tests doing more than you think - Phil Graham - Ep91

Data, data everywhere, that seems to be the standard refrain in most businesses, we are collecting more data from more sources than ever, yet in many cases we don’t have a clear and bespoke strategy for dealing with it, how we use, store and secure data tends to be embedded in other strategies and policies. Many enterprises talk about the importance of their data and how they see it as a crucial asset, so is now the time to have a bespoke and specific data strategy?

If it is, why is it? What should it include? How do we go about building one? that is the focus of this weeks show as I’m joined by returning guest Matt Watts, CTO EMEA at NetApp. Matt has been at NetApp for 15 years and during that time he has always had a great enthusiasm for understanding technology trends and that is exactly the same here as we discuss the importance of a data strategy and why now is the time for enterprises to develop theirs.

In this episode we discuss.
•	Are we still too fixated on “boxes”?
•	Before we talk tech, what is the strategy?
•	What is driving the change in how we view data and its use?
•	Closing the void between business decision makers and IT
•	DataOPS
•	Stop having our data strategy dictated by the storage we have bought!
•	Data platforms not storage
•	The importance of communication
•	Tips for building a plan
•	If you are going to disrupt anyway take a step back and think

As always Matt provides some fascinating insight into the development of a data strategy, why in his view it is important and why its crucial that we are taking all angles of our enterprise needs into consideration when making decisions around our data platform.

If you have an idea for a show or would like to appear as a guest then contact me at podcast@techstringy.com Until next time, thanks for listening.

Full show notes are here :- https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1KJ

It's time for a data strategy - Matt Watts - Ep126

There is no doubt the world has changed in many ways in the last 3 months, the COVID-19 pandemic and the global response to it has been something we have not witnessed before. From a technology point of view, it has presented many challenges, delivering remote IT at scale, stretched VPN's, flexibility, support, security, the list is long. However as things start to change we are starting to turn our attention to returning to some kind of "normal", but this also presents an opportunity to us, the chance to take what we have learned over this period and take that knowledge and experience to help plan what we do next, so that next time we need to react quickly to change we can do it better.

To help with that I've put together a short series of shows and in this third part we pick up on something we discussed in the initial episode the "journey to cloud" and how do we make that easier?

On this week's episode, I'm joined by Microsoft Cloud Advocate Sarah Lean to discuss Microsoft's Cloud Adoption Framework, a hugely valuable set of resources that you can take advantage of regardless of where you are in your cloud project.

We discuss.

What the framework is and why it exists. 
How it can help educate users and dispel some of the myths of the public cloud. 
The importance of knowing where you currently are before you start deploying more cloud. 
You don't know what you don't know. 
Where people slip up! 
Don't get lost in the tech remember the business case. 
Nuggets of wisdom. 
Other types of Microsoft help.

As Sarah discusses in the show, the Cloud Adoption Framework is not the only way to move to the cloud, but what it does provide is a good set of reference documents that you can use to help you with your cloud projects regardless of whether you want to follow the document closely or just use it to see if there is something you've forgotten it doesn't matter it's just another useful tool in your cloud project "armoury".

If you have an idea for the show or would like to appear as a guest you can contact me via podcast@techstringy.com and to catch futures episodes please subscribe.

Until next time, thanks for listening. 

For show notes with links :- https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1Mg

Where do we go next? Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework, making cloud moves easier – Sarah Lean – Ep 133

Where do we go next? Microsoft CAF making cloud moves easier – Sarah Lean – Ep 133

It is 2021 and Tech Interviews is back with new shows looking at all aspects of enterprise IT. For this first show of the year, we do what all good podcasts like to do and take a look ahead to 2021 and what we expect to see in the technology space. The topic of our look ahead this week is the storage industry, as I catch up with some of my fellow delegates from a recent industry event we attended, Storage Field Day 21. 

What of Storage Field Day 21? What did it have to offer? What were the key themes? And what did it tell us about current storage industry trends? That is the topic of this first show of the year as I join up with three of my fellow delegates to hear what they thought and their key “takeaways” from the event.

I am joined by Barry Coombs, Jason Collier and Max Mortillaro to discuss the key moments from another excellent Storage Field Day Event and hopefully apply some context to what we heard.

Thanks for listening.

Full show notes are here :- https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1Pt

Looking ahead with Storage Field Day 21 – Barry Coombs, Jason Collier, Max Mortillaro – Ep149

Welcome to the Tech Interviews podcast. 
For the very latest in business focussed tech. We chat with tech community leaders on wide range of topics from containers to cloud, from data to DevOps, you can find them all here! Enjoy the show and if you do, tell your friends!

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