Tech Interviews

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 o

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driven, then the inevitable also has to happen, systems that support our day to day processes start to become outdated, inefficient and ineffective for a world that needs to move more quickly and in different ways.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

Sharing our data is an important part of our day to day activities, be that for analysis, collaboration or system development, we need to be able to share data sets. However, this need to share has to be balanced with our needs to maintain the security of our data assets. How do we address the problem and maintain that balance? One answer is data anonymization and that is the subject of this week's show, as I'm joined by Harry Keen, CEO and founder of anon.ai. In our wide-ranging discussion, we explore the part anonymization plays in compliance and protection and why the difficulty of current techniques means that we often poorly anonymize data, or we are not even bothering. We explore why anonymization is so difficult and how solutions that can automate and simplify the process will make this important addition to our data security toolkit, more accessible to us all. Harry provides some great insights into the challenge and some of the ways to address it. Next week I'm joined by Ian Moore as we take a

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 sys

Over the last couple of episodes, we've had some interesting round-ups from the recent VMWorld conference, reviewing the announcements from the show, as well as how VMware are evolving to maintain relevance to their many customers in an ever more software defined, data-centric and of course cloud and as-a-service based world. Part of the VMware response to these changes ( I hasten to add, not the only technological evolutions they are making) is a smart one, rather than fight the tide King Canute style, VMware is not only embracing that change, but looking to empower it and make businesses ability to embrace a cloud-based world a more straightforward transition. Embracing this change comes in the form of VMware Cloud on AWS, That is the topic we explore on this week's show as I'm joined by Ben Meadowcroft, a Product Line Manager at VMware with a focus on VMware Cloud on AWS. I catch up with Ben to understand more about the solution, why it exists, the challenges business face when building a hybrid solutio

VMware, along with Microsoft, is perhaps the most influential enterprise software company in the industry. VMware and their virtualisation technology has revolutionised the way we deliver IT infrastructure into businesses of all types. Today, however, the infrastructure revolution they helped create presents challenges to them, as the broad adoption of cloud and new ways of managing and deploying our infrastructure has led to the question "how do VMware remain relevant in a post virtualisation world?" In last week's show we discussed with 4 attendees their views, this week, we wrap up our VMworld coverage with two more insightful discussions. I hear from Joel Kaufman, who has worked with VMware over the last 18 years in his role at NetApp, we discuss the changing face of VMware as well as the evolution that NetApp is currently going through as both companies continue to deliver innovation in the technology industry. To wrap up, I wanted a VMware view of their event and I'm joined by a returning guest to t

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

This week is the third and last of our panel discussions looking at the major challenges facing business IT. We pick up again with our panel from last week to discuss a range of new topics. We look at how a business vision, without assessment and understanding of the current environment, may well mean you never achieve your end goal. We look at how our increasingly digitally native workforce may leave us without the skill sets needed to architect our future solutions. The changing role of the consultant also comes under scrutiny and even though the overall goal remains the same, the way of helping business to get there is certainly changing. We wrap up looking at the future challenges the panel see and how for one of them, decoupling data from infrastructure is living the tech dream! Our panel is; Ed Morgan - Sales Engineer at Rubrik Mick Kehoe - Chief Technologist at Logicalis Ruairi McBride - Technical Account Manager at Arrow ECS Jason Benedicic - Principal Consultant at ANS Lots of great insight a

The IT Avengers are assembling again this week, but this time I'm joined by a whole new team, as four more experts from the IT community share their view on the current state of IT within business, the day to day issues and how to overcome them. This weeks panel is; Ed Morgan - Sales Engineer at Rubrik Mick Kehoe - Chief Technologist at Logicalis Ruairi McBride - Technical Account Manager at Arrow ECS Jason Benedicic - Principal Consultant at ANS This weeks show is so action packed that it's been split into two, with part two next week. This week the team talk about how many of us have a "cloud first" strategy, without really knowing what that means. We also discuss why "lifting and shifting it" to AWS is hardly ever the right answer! and why a good foundation is critical to your future success. Hopefully plenty of valuable information and something to help you tackle your current business IT challenges. Look out for part two next week. For show notes visit - http://wp.me/p4IvtA-1oS

This weeks Tech Interviews is the first in a short series, where I bring together a selection of people from the IT community to try to gauge the current state of business IT and to gain some insight into the key day-to-day issues affecting those delivering technology to their organisations. For this first episode i'm joined by three returning guests to the show. Michael Cade - Technical Evangelist at Veeam. Mike Andrews - Technical Solutions Architect at NetApp Mark Carlton - Group Technical Manager for Concorde IT Group. The panel discuss a range of issues, from availability to cloud migration, the importance of getting the basics right and how understanding the why, rather than the how is a crucial part of getting your technology strategy right. The team provide some excellent insights into a whole range of business IT challenges and I'm sure there's some useful advice for everyone. Enjoy the show. Show notes are here... http://wp.me/p4IvtA-1nt

The podcast is back from its summer holidays, a week earlier than expected, with this special episode looking at a problem that is often overlooked. There is no argument that increasingly we are taking more of our business IT solutions as services, be that building platforms and infrastructure or whether it's consuming specific software as a service (SaaS)solutions like Salesforce or of course the almost omnipotent Microsoft Office 365. However, many people operate their SaaS solution under the assumption that their service provider is protecting all of their data by inherently providing backup and recovery facilities and it's a real shock to them when they find out that in reality their service provider does not. It is this that is the focus of this episode as I caught up with Robert Cox of NetApp before he headed off to AWS summit, to talk about NetApp's new SaaS data protection solution Cloud Control for Office 365. We discuss the move to SaaS, the risks that come with it and why people abdicate respon

There has no doubt been a change in the way we look at protecting and securing our key data, with robust data protection, enhanced data security plans and increased governance to ensure compliance with ever-increasing regulatory requirements. However, much of this is concentrated in our datacentre and our central data sets, which although critical, is not all of our data. Today critical data no longer lives behind corporate firewalls and security, it lives out on a wide range of mobile devices, laptops, tablets and smartphones, often 1000's of miles away from our datacentre. When our data is so dispersed, how do we ensure we are protecting it on a wide range of different devices, how do we know where it is and what it contains? That is the focus of this weeks podcast, as I'm joined by Yadin Porter De Leon of Druva to discuss the challenge of data that lives right on the edge of our network. We look at the complexity of the problem and why it has too be much more than "backup" and why it's critical we ha

There is no doubt that our organisations are becoming ever more data centric, wanting to know how we can gain insight into our day to day operations and continue to be competitive and relevant to our customers, while delivering a wide range of new experiences for them. These changes do mean we need to reconsider how we design and deliver technology. Which has led to the idea of "The Next Generation Datacenter", but what does that mean? What is a Next Generation Datacentre? That is the subject of this week's podcast, as I'm joined by Martin Cooper, Senior Director of the Next Generation Datacentre Group (NGDC), at NetApp. In this episode, we look at a wide range of topics, starting with trying to define what we mean by Next Generation Datacentre. We touch on how a modern business needs flexibility in its operations and how a focus on applications and data, not infrastructure, require IT teams to respond in an application and data focused way. We also provide a word of caution on how not all our current a

This weeks episode is a little different, rather than chatting with someone from the tech community about technology trends and IT business issues, we talk to an actual user! In the final part of our brief series looking at moving to the cloud, we look at a real use case, someone who has embraced cloud technology to bring innovation to an industry as I'm joined by Lee Clark of Givepenny UK. Lee describes how a 100-mile charity bike ride, that he never got to do, made him think about a whole new way of fundraising and by using the data that we all track and store about our everyday activities he could bring some real innovation to charities in the UK. We discuss a range of issues that come with attempting to deliver innovation, including how we can often be crippled by our own behavior restricting our ability to embrace change. Lee shares how important it is to understand how trends are affecting your industry and how those trends can revolutionise the way we operate. We discuss how cloud has given acces

This week is the second of three looking at the challenges associated with moving to the cloud as we discuss the area of picking the right cloud service provider partners. I'm joined by Jon Green, Technical Solutions Director at Navisite Europe Ltd. We look at a range of issues and potential "gotchas" that can impact our attempts at taking advantage of the flexibility, scale and commercial attractiveness that cloud can bring. We look at the risk of assuming cloud is simple, the importance of understanding the underlying cloud platform as well as the importance of designing your system availability properly. We sum up by looking at where an experienced cloud partner can bring real benefits to your cloud adoption. Jon shares plenty of great information that will help you as you plan you own cloud migration. Enjoy the show. Show notes are here - http://wp.me/p4IvtA-1fS

We're all heading to the cloud, data is the new gold, all of our competition is putting its data in the cloud and getting massive competitive advantage, if we don't know how to use our data and take advantage of the cloud we'll be obsolete. But, if that is all true, why isn't everyone charging headlong into cloud services and finding more and more valuable information from their data and making the rest of us a thing of the past? Over the next few Tech Interviews episodes we are going to explore that subject and look at how we can take advantage of cloud. First we take on the data challenge, how do we make it accessible to the cloud? how do we move it there? do we move it there? and if we do how do we keep it under control? To help me explore that topic, I'm joined by Kirk Ryan, a Cloud Solutions Architect for storage vendor NetApp. We discuss the challenges companies keen to embrace the cloud need to consider and overcome, the importance of building bridges between on-prem, cloud and hybrid platforms.

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 "clou

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

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 insigh

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