Conversations with Dez

Dez Blanchfield gets up close & personal with Janet Giesen, Vice President of Operations and Programs for Metallic, a Commvault venture, to talk about SaaS Data Protection and considerations for remote workers.

This conversation begins with a quick 30,000 foot point of view introduction to Metallic, what it is, where it fits with data protection & what drove the decision for Commvault to develop & launch Metallic.

Also covered are the three key market focused offerings Metallic was launched with, and insights into why those three initial service offerings in particular, which included:

1 - Metallic Office 365 Backup & Recovery, to protect SaaS office automation tools & data

2 - Metallic Core Backup & Recovery, focused on Virtual Machines & their data

3 - Metallic Endpoint Backup & Recovery, focused on laptop & desktop backups

Janet outlines their strategy regarding the global roll out, from Metallic initially being launched within the American market in the USA, and which regions will follow with great insights into the challenges of deploying any SaaS offering, esp. one where data protection is the key offering, and how data privacy, encryption etc play into this.

Another key highlight from this conversation is a walk through what the first six months so far has been like, since Metallic.io was first launched at the Commvault GO event in Denver in the USA late 2019, and some of the key highlights and learnings from those exciting first six months.

An interesting key insight also discussed is that as with the ever important issue of Endpoint Protection, the current COVID19 global pandemic, and the huge increase in remote work and "work from home", the trend of mission critical data moving to the edge has become even more critical now that we have seen people, our human resource, literally "moving to the edge" as it were - in effect tipping the traditional Enterprise data protection model on its head.

Janet talks about how she and the team at Metallic have seen the Business & IT community react to the dramatic changes brought about by the COVID19 global pandemic, and whether or not organisations were fully prepared to handle the broad challenge of remote data protection for laptops, and what organisations should they be thinking about as they continue to address this challenge, and how Metallic is supporting organisations in meeting this critical business & technology challenge.

Also discussed is the topic of security, which is always front and centre in any conversation around Data Protection - Janet shares how and why this has been a key consideration from day #1 for Metallic, and how security is built into Metallic across the portfolio - from encryption, security certificates, access controls & data policies, to anomaly detection and more.

Another key insight discussed is a remarkable finding that more than two thirds ( 66% )of I.T. security professionals say their company experienced one or more endpoint attacks which compromised their critical data assets or IT infrastructure in 2019. Janet shares insights into what Metallic is doing to support companies to avoid this happening to them.

Janet also highlights that when Metallic was launched they offered a free trial period, and that now, as part of their response to supporting organisations through the COVID19 global pandemic, they have extended the Endpoint Protection offer, and shares details of how organisations can now take up this amazing free offer.

The conversation wraps up with views on what the next 12 to 18 months might look like regarding key challenges around data & endpoint protection, in particular the next big challenge we’re about to face - the transition from a global pandemic “lockdown” WFH model, back to “normal”, and what that new “normal” might look like.

For more information visit => http://j.mp/metallic-io

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Dez Blanchfield gets up close & personal with Ulf Jönsson, Head of NFVI Portfolio Strategy Management at Ericsson, to talk about Network Function Virtualisation ( NFV ).

In particular, what NFV is, why it is needed, where it fits in the grand scheme of the future of modern software defined infrastructure & software defined networks in the telco & carrier service provider world.

Ulf Jönsson is responsible for the NFV Infrastructure solution & product portfolio strategy at Ericsson.

He has had several leadership positions in Ericsson with business and strategic product management responsibility in areas such as NFV infrastructure, Telco Cloud, SDN, and IP & Broadband.

He is currently driving the next generation Cloud Native infrastructure optimized for 5G telecom applications and Edge computing.

Ulf holds a master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Ulf shares insights into what the most important topics he and his team are discussing with customers currently and what their key concerns are at the moment.

Also discussed is the broad topic of Edge computing, and why Edge has become a term we have become familiar with, why edge computing is needed, and Ulf elaborates on the relation it has with NFVI.

Ulf also shares insights as to how much interest they are seeing from Communication Service Provider customers currently to discuss NFVI in an edge context.

He also gives us an introduction to Ericsson's new Cloud Native Infrastructure Solution which is based on a bare metal architecture - a very exciting new initiative to gain maximum performance from compute infrastructure at the edge.

We also discuss various key benefits CSPs can expect to see from deploying Ericsson's new Cloud Native Infrastructure Solution at the edge.

Ulf also offers his views of what is ahead of us, as we look forward 12 to 18 months, and where he thinks we will be by then with cloud native, bare metal and so on, and much much more..

Dez Blanchfield gets up close & personal with with Nic Charrington, founder & creator of Bio Blast, a fundraising mobile phone game app, created in the record time of just two weeks, as a fund raising effort to raise much needed funding for the National Health Service coping with the COVID19 global pandemic.

Nick is an entrepreneur from Bristol, what some might call a serial entrepreneur which in startup circles is a badge of honour earned by those go “get stuff done” - in response to COVID19, Nic created a novel approach to the COVID19 novel Coronavirus! I came to know about him and his latest project Bio Blast through social media myself, and instantly felt compelled to get onboard and support Nic and the Bio Blast project.

As soon as he learned about the project Dez instantly tweeted about it to help promote it, and almost immediately Nic commented saying "Hi Dez thanks for the tweet. I am the founder, would love to speak to you more about it if you have a min ;-)"

After a quick call the plan was to schedule a recording session the very next day to get Nic on the show as time is of the essence with this project so we wanted to get the show on air as quickly as possible.

Through this wonderful conversation Nic introduces us to Bio Blast the game, what lead him to decide to design & develop the game, the journey and key steps or the process from the initial idea to launching it on app stores, from screen designs, level layouts, to finding a developer on UpWork, the exciting two weeks from ideation to a working Minimum Viable Product, to getting it through the Apple & Google app store review process and approved and published for download.

Nic also shares details on how to get involved and what’s ahead from here, how can individuals, the media, organisations etc. can get involved and where do you want to see it go from here.

He also shares his thoughts around what the next few months might hold, as the world eases out of the COVID19 global pandemic, and in particular how the future of fundraising with Bio Blast might play out ( pun intended ).

Nic is such a charming individual and an inspiring fellow, a bona fide change agent, and there is no doubt he is well on his way to do great things and we look forward to watching his success in the near term with the awesome Bio Blast project, his Photography startup, and what will surely be many more amazing projects.

Please get involved right now, grab your phone, download the game from http://BioBlast.me and get involved!

All support through playing the game, sharing it on social media, posting your high score screen shots, tag 3x friends and challenge them to download Bio Blast and try to beat your best high score by posting the screen shot and high score on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn for Facebook etc and @tag a few friends and give them an Ice Bucket style "challenge" to "beat my high score".

Any media support or enquiries would be welcomed by Nic to help share this amazing story, and get the message out - every single download and player helps raise much needed funding for social good.

Nic can be contacted via the project's website at:

http://BioBlast.me

Nic Charrington can also be reached via LinkedIn here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nic-charrington-61230a142/

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Dez Blanchfield gets up close & personal with Lauren Valenti, Senior Manager, Customer Advocacy & Mainframe Education in the Mainframe Division of Broadcom, to talk about her academic & career path, her role at Broadcom within their Mainframe division, current business & technology trends, and the very real need Broadcom have see and addressed, to open up education to "close the Mainframe skills gap".

Also discussed are the challenges around building and enhancing mainframe skills and how Lauren and her team have addressed this through Broadcom's Mainframe Academy, Associate Software Engineer Program and Vitality Residency Program.

Also discussed is the broad range of successful outcomes and work Lauren and her team and Broadcom's Mainframe division as a whole are doing around Customer Advocacy and how they are creating and maintaining meaningful relationships with their customers, and much more.

For more information please visit: http://j.mp/BroadcomMainframe

Dez Blanchfield gets up close & personal with Anne Chow, Chief Executive Officer at AT&T Business, to talk about AT&T's response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, both with their own challenges throughout AT&T and AT&T Business, as well as their customers and challenges being faced by their customers organisations.

This amazing discussion covers the broad range of challenges organisations of all sizes are faced with throughout the COVID19 pandemic, from core Business Continuity ( BCP ) to Disaster Recovery ( DR ), to supporting their staff, their own organisations from the core need "keep the lights on" to continuing to operating and support their own customers as well.

Also covered are the depth and breadth of the challenges AT&T Business and their partners, resellers & integrators, and in turn their end line customers face, from fundamental core mission critical network services such as Fixed-line, Wide Area Networking, Mobile, Broadband and Virtual Private Networks, through to Security services, Cybersecurity, Data Protection, Capacity, to in-field Emergency Services & First Responders and the world leading AT&T "FirstNet" initiative.

We also delve into the issues individuals and families face while dealing with their own challenges to make the shift to Work From Home, challenges faced by the Education Industry while schools are in shutdown mode and students need to pivot to a learn from home model, as well as the challenges faced by families with young children now dealing with the need to juggle of Work From Home whilst also managing young children at home due to Child Care centres being shut down.

For key insights and advice from Anne Chow, tune in and hear what the CEO of AT&T Business has to share, from her personal challenge of making the transition to work from home, to the 24x7 challenges of leading a global team and business, to working with her peers across AT&T Business to CEO's to CIO's / CTO's et al throughout their global customer base, at what can only be described as one of the most unique moments in time in human history.

For more information on AT&T Business and their products & services please visit: http://j.mp/attbusiness

Dez Blanchfield gets up close & personal with both Folke Anger, Head of Solution line Packet Core, and Thomas Kinnman, Head of Solution line OSS, for Ericsson Digital, to talk about recent 5G launches, who is leading the way in the race to get us 5G ready and 5G Core, what the 5G core is, why it is important, Network Slicing, Security, Data Analytics, End User Experience, Software Probes, actionable data, Ericsson Export Analytics ( EEA ) and what it brings to the table, how AI and ML support data collection & analytics, key industry trends, opportunities & challenges, how Telco CSP partnership and enterprise offerings beyond mobile broadband are going to play out in the future, and much more..

For more information visit the Ericsson Digital web portal:

http://bit.ly/edwebportal

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Dez Blanchfield gets up close & personal with Mo Katibeh, Chief Marketing Officer for AT&T Business, to talk about his academic & career path, his role at AT&T Business, the latest updates around AT&T's rollout and deployment of 5G, the state of 5G & the Edge, how enterprise & service providers can leverage 5G, insights into how AR / VR and Mixed Reality are being deployed in industries from Manufacturing through to Healthcare, the many direct & indirect benefits 5G is bringing throughout our lives, the broad range of key business & technology / telecommunications differentiators AT&T Business brings to the marketplace for business and organisations of all shapes and sizes. Mo also shares amazing insights, examples and anecdotes from the world of AT&T Business from full immersion sports & entertainment, to emergency services capabilities through the American FirstNet project, rebuilding an Air Force base after a hurricane, to the use of Virtual Reality to alleviate pain & distress for Healthcare patients in hospice care with virtual tours of remote locations from modern day Paris to the 15th century Inca citadel Machu Picchu - tune in for all of this and much much more, and for more information on AT&T Business and their products & services visit http://j.mp/attbusiness

Dez Blanchfield gets up close & personal with Peter Shen, VP Business Development, Digital Health, Siemens Healthineers, to talk about his academic & career path, his role at Siemens Healthineers, the background of Siemens Healthineers, the brand name, the organisation, their focus on innovation in healthcare, who their customers are across healthcare providers and patient care, what the key customer challenges include, the work Siemens Healthineers are doing to enable a healthcare ecosystem, their Siemens Healthineers Digital Ecosystem (E2E-Solutions) connecting hospitals worldwide, making sure hospitals & doctors can communicate. Also discussed is their partnership with Intel, to leverage Intel's world's leading technology from Intel from Hardware through to Systems, Software, Design & Innovation, the work Siemens Healthineers is doing to greatly improve patient experience, and the broad positive impact their work has had for both their customers and associated patients, and Peter's take on what's over the horizon for the next 3 to 5 years and beyond.

For more information please visit:

Siemens Healthineers: http://j.mp/siemenshealthineersdigitalhealth

Intel OpenVINO Toolkit: http://j.mp/intelopenvinotoolkitinfo

Intel IoT Solutions: http://j.mp/inteliotsolutions

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Dez Blanchfield gets up close & personal with Raj Talluri, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Micron Technology's Mobile Business Unit, to talk about his academic & career path, his role at Micron, the latest tech, trends, and innovation in the smartphone market, the exciting new emerging industry around 5G, Micron's focus on data to drive & enable technology, the furious pace of change around smartphone Digital Cameras, Sensors, Imagery, AI, ML, Gaming, the IoT, Power consumption & Device Management, the exciting newly announced deal with Xiaomi's where their Mi 10 will be the first phone to use Micron's Low-Power Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory ( LPDDR5 RAM ) - also discussed were Micron's new Brand Promise “intelligence execrated” and what it means in practice, what Micron is doing around the future direction beyond hardware ( i.e. moving into data, analytics, ai, key industry sectors like Health, Education, Transport & Logistics etc. ), what the “next killer app” might be, and much more. For more info visit http://j.mp/microntechnology

Dez Blanchfield gets up close & personal with Jan Karlsson is Senior Vice President and Head of Business Area Digital Services, now his second appearance on the show, to talk about his transition from heading up a business unit called Business Support Solutions in Ericsson to now heading up Ericsson Digital Services, one of the most innovative business units in the company, the latest trends in technology, business & the telco industry, esp. the emergence of 5G, IoT, Cloud and more. Also discussed were Ericsson Digital's focus on delivering Smarter Networks so their customers can generate Smarter Business’, Jan's recent blogpost titled "How to serve the 5G powered business" on LinkedIn talking about the release of their latest report titled "Serving the 5G-powered business", the state of 5G awareness amongst business users and consumers, how Digitalisation waits for no one ( in Jan's words ), and Jan's view on what's coming over the horizon over the next 12 to 18 months. For more info visit the Ericsson Digital web portal here http://bit.ly/edwebportal