Data Center Therapy

You!  Yes, you!  Running vSphere 6.5 or 6.7?  We understand, you’re busy! 

For many, many reasons, you couldn’t get around to upgrading your systems to 7.0 when VMware deprecated support for 6.7 and 6.5 on October 15th, 2022.  

So now you’re at a cross roads.  vSphere 8 is out, but fairly new, and comes with its own set of new hardware requirements.  Assuming your existing hardware meets them, do you upgrade to vSphere 7 or vSphere 8?  If instead you get new hosts, should you run ESXi 7 or 8 on them?  And what if you’re already running vSphere 7?  Should you upgrade to 8?

It’s a been a little while, but your favorite, most empathetic, most wise and most entertaining IT therapists are back in the office to look at all things vSphere 8.  In this episode of Data Center Therapy, your intrepid hosts Matt ‘Pi before Pi was cool’ Yette and Matt ‘Distributed Everything Si-fu’ Cozzolino teach you with their technology equivalents of the martial art of Wing Chun on what’s new with vSphere 8.  

In this episode, you, our treasured watchers (DCT is now on YouTube!) and our listeners, will get to learn about:

• How mature ESXi 7.0 is, when it came out, and how relatively rare PSODs are now
• What some of the implications of the new hardware requirements are for ESXi 8, and how boot media and types have changed since ESXi 7 appeared
• What new concepts and hardware support exists in ESXi 8, what Distributed Processing Units (DPUs) do and how AI/ML and hardware consumption models are managed inside vCenter
• What changes have taken place in the Lifecycle Manager of vCenter to make things easier to update and upgrade (both on the ESXi front, as well as the firmware of the systems ESXi is deployed on!)
• How regions and availability zone concepts, once solely in cloud hosting providers, has trickled down into the vSphere command-and-control paradigms as well as Tanzu’s current state of integration

As the Matts state in this episode, it’s not too late to join “Professor” Cozzolino in his Introduction to vSphere 8 class March 21st through 24th, and his Advanced vSphere 8 class April 18th through 21st.  If you need to know “how” to operate your systems, the Intro class is likely the best choice for you.  If you’d like to know the “why” of best practices in vSphere, then the Advanced class is the best choice for you.  To get registered ASAP, talk to your IVOXY Account Manager and we’ll be happy to assist right away.

As always, be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you found this episode of Data Center Therapy.   If you need assistance planning or executing your own organization’s vSphere upgrades, please reach out to your IVOXY Account Manager.

In the meantime, stay up to date, stay supported, stay stable and optimized (as we like our ESXi hosts to be), and stay informed, DCT friends!  Talk to you on our next fresh episode!

The Matts are back, baby!

Your intrepid Data Center Therapy hosts, Mr. Matt ‘He sings the bass’ Yette, and Mr. Matt ‘He sings the tenor’ Cozzolino have returned!  The Matts welcome IVOXY’s own End-User Compute specialist Mr. Hoppy Shaw back to the DCT virtual studios.  Hoppy once again regales you, our audience, with stories of his time in Operations and the evolution of Microsoft products we’ve come to all know and (somewhat) love.  

Among the many topics they review are:

• The beginnings of ActiveSync and Exchange.
• The evolution of relevant software suites from Microsoft, including Systems Management Server, System Center Configuration Manager and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager.
• How things like networks, infrastructure, and security must all be considered at the same time when integrating Azure cloud-based services into an Enterprise.
• The difference between Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktops.

Hoppy and the Matts also cover whether GPU-enabled virtual desktops are an option for folks thinking about Desktop-as-a-Service.  If your own organization needs help evolving its networks, infrastructure, or security practices so that you can leverage cost-effective virtual or cloud desktop infrastructure, please be sure to reach out to your IVOXY Account Manager so that we can help!  If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you get your quality podcasts.  Thanks for listening as always and we hope to catch up with you on our next exciting episode.  Stay safe, stay secure, and stay well (endpoint) managed, DCT friends!  Ciao.

Scene: a dimly lit but warm lobby, looking a little like a doctor’s office in a log cabin but more comfortable.  You’re patiently waiting to hear from some I.T. podcast microphone jockeys who’ve haven’t peeked out of their door in some time.

You’ve been in that waiting room for a bit, but thankfully your Data Center Therapists, Mr. Matt “Email shields up” Yette and Mr. Matt “Attack vector identified” Cozzolino are back and ready to see you now!

As Yette says, if you could spend only a dollar on security, it should be spent on email security so give this episode a good listen to find out exactly why he says that.  You’ll likely end up agreeing.

Inside the virtual studios of DCT on this episode, our intrepid hosts welcome Darla Teeter, Global Solutions Architect from ProofPoint to talk about email security in a depth and breadth that you might not have thought possible.  Along the precarious, dangerous, do-not-click-here dark alleys of their email security discussion, the Matts and Darla discuss:

• What kinds of email, be it malicious or SPAM, can be filtered through email security solutions and how that filtering is accomplished
• What threats exist to businesses through email, and how social engineering and targeted campaigns are becoming more prevalent and attacking specific people in your organization
• How “browser isolation” can reduce or remove the threat of hackers leveraging “highly attacked people” for their privileges and access
• How machine learning, AI, threat analytics and rich data play a role in improving filtering solutions and security overall
• Why “default security” from a cloud provider may not be sufficient to protect an organization

In addition to the above, Darla also explains how ProofPoint goes way beyond the cliched and often boring, hour-long typical “security awareness trainings” when it comes to educating workers on email security.  The detection and remediation of knowledge gaps (via “mock attacks”) makes their solution a very interesting one.

Listen to this episode and you’ll find out how to win a Yeti cooler (no relating to our intrepid host, Mr. Matt Yette, of course) and be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts are found. 

As always, thanks for listening, stay warm this winter, practice safe email and stay informed with our next episode of Data Center Therapy!

Howdy Data Center Therapy regulars and new “Therapy Clients” alike!

On this episode, your hosts Matt “Release and Report” Yette and Matt “Reverse Lookup” Cozzolino break down email security for you, our listeners, with a little history, a little humor, and a little education around all those three, five and six letter acronyms.  The Matts share their deep technical knowledge and experiences so that you can understand what those acronyms add, protocol-wise, to enhancing the integrity of the email system as a whole. 

During the course of this podcast, you’ll get to hear about:

• The relationship of email to the ever growing threat of ransomware (“i.e. the malicious clicks”.)
• Technical protocols like DNSSEC, TXT, BIMI, DMARC, SPF and DKIM, and how those contribute to strengthening email security (while not breaking compatibility with the forty (40!)-year-old email protocol)
• How solutions like ProofPoint can easily add a strong layer of security to your own Office365 implementations

After you’ve listened to the episode, if you’re interested in the free IVOXY Email Integrity Assessment to check your own incoming and outgoing email security postures, please reach out to your local IVOXY representative, and if you don’t have one, hit us up at [email protected].  If you’re an Office365 customer, the Consultants assisting you will include a Rapid Risk Report as stated earlier.  

We hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts like DCT are found.  We appreciate it!

Guard that front door (of email activity!), stay safe, and stay as secure as you can, listeners.  Catch you on the next informative episode of Data Center Therapy!

Howdy Data Center Therapy listeners - are you all ready to go on a trip?  What if we told you this trip would take you back to the beginnings of Graphics Processing Units?

Are you ready to time-travel to the start of 3D-enabled gaming, the beginnings of fancy operating system user interfaces with visual effects, and the early artificial intelligence and machine learning efforts?

Strap on those headphones and press play to go on our GPU Journey, with your hosts Matt “3DFX” Yette and Matt “Literal Duct Tape” Cozzolino as they welcome IVOXY’s own Virtual Desktop and End User Computing Specialist Mr. Ryan Grelck back to the virtual Data Center Therapy studios.  The Matts and Ryan talk about:

• What GPUs actually do, what the early use cases for them were, and how they changed PCs and gaming, with a focus on the mid and late 90’s (while mentioning some blast-from-the-past games!)
• The current players in the GPU market, what kinds of applications GPUs can be used for, and the barriers of entry into the GPU business that keep choices limited.
• The fiscally unattractive elements of using GPUs in the Corporate and Enterprise space - licensing, and what may change soon with the entry of new GPU players.

If hearing the phrases “Quake”, “Counterstrike”, “Halo 3”, “Call of Duty” and “Destiny 2” pique your interest, you’ll no doubt enjoy this episode.  That said, even if you’re not a gamer, and you’re here to discern new developments in the GPU market, you’ll definitely want to tune into this one to learn more about Intel’s plans with “Arctic Sound M.”

As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts can be found.  If you’re looking for the documentary on “Unreal Tournament” Ryan mentioned, it may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKDvqLNk7CQ 

Stay low-latency, stay fragging, stay sharp and catch you on the next shiny episode, DCT friends!

Who doesn’t love a good trilogy?  

Cue the John Williams music!

Mr. Shane Bradley, IVOXY’s resident VMware Master, returns for his third appearance on Data Center Therapy.  Your intrepid hosts, Matt “No!  I want Performant, Scalable AND Value-Conscious!” Yette joins his co-host Matt “Have I shown you this Docker setup?” Cozzolino to collectively welcome Shane back to the DCT virtual studios, and talk about the new Advanced vSphere class he’s been working studiously on for the past few months.  Along the way, the Matts and Shane discuss:

• What folks would learn in a more advanced class covering VMware and how it can help shops with just two hosts all the way up to monster Enterprise organizations.
• How VMware vVols converged on some of the same instrumentation and monitoring that Tintri brought to the market with their VMstore appliance.
• How Host Profiles can be used to reset root passwords when your hosts get locked out.

If you’re a fan of Letterkenny, the Red Green show, or Schitt’s Creek, you’ll appreciate the alternative North American velvety tones of our favorite Albertan DCT guest and VMware expert, Shane.  We look forward to seeing many of you at Shane’s next Advanced vSphere class, debuting sometime in June 2022.  If you enjoy the episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts like Data Center Therapy may be found.  We wish our customers and new-to-IVOXY students the best in their VMware journeys (and are here to help!) and appreciate all the IVOXY learning and technology partnerships we’ve made through the years.  Thanks for listening!

What’s better than having a Security-minded Consultant guest on Data Center Therapy, sharing their tips on how to manage endpoints and access in your network?

Why, having TWO of them, of course! 

 Matt “Tech Debt Crusher” Yette and Matt “Magnificent Bastion” Cozzolino welcome back to the virtual studios one Mr. Quinton Barber, Security Consultant for IVOXY as well as one Mr. Hoppy Shaw, End-User Technology Consultant for IVOXY, as they discuss the challenges of remote work and zero trust.

Some of the concepts, you, our loyal listeners will hear on this episode include multi-factor authentication, identity management, device compliance and control, mobile device management solutions, Active Directory to Azure migrations, and much, much more.  BYOD for iPhones and Android phones?  Yep, we’ve got that too.

Please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts are found.  Do you have challenges with securing some of your endpoints?  Reach out to your local IVOXY Account Manager and we’ll be able to help secure the devices that you previously didn’t have the time or willpower to tackle on your own.  Thanks for listening!  Stay secure, stay (Windows Server) updated, stay (Microsoft) InTune-d in, and stay informed DCT fans!  Catch you again on our next topical episode.  Ciao for now.

Cliched though it may be, it’s true: It’s not if you’re going to experience a ransomware attack, it’s just a matter of when.

What can you do to prepare for it?

Matt “It’s 2022 but Backup is still Sexy” Yette  and Matt “Trip this Wire” Cozzolino welcome back to the virtual studios for the second time in a row IVOXY’s own Mr. Quinton Barber, Security Consultant, who counts acting as an Anti-Ransomware Specialist as one of his many responsibilities.  Quinton and the Matts waste no time and begin to prescribe steps you can take to harden your environment, instrument your infrastructure, and shorten the time to restore when something happens to your data.

In this episode you, our loyal and proactive but ransomware-prone listeners will get to hear about:

• What aggregation of logs and the use of a SIEM means to your business, and how it can inform your decision makers of when to restore from (known good backup points) in a Business Continuity event.
• How long to set your log retention for both compliance for your business and for forensics purposes for your infrastructure.  
• What the costs of business are, so to speak, when it comes to running the adjunct compute, storage, and networking you need to effectively monitor and alert on events.
• How cutting-edge technologies like suspicious-activity snapshots from storage vendors is changing the way ransomware events are handled

If phrases like event correlation, firewalls, IDS/IPS, and MDR garner your interest, this episode’s going to be a great one for you.  On the other hand, Quinton and your DCT hosts do their best to keep things very understandable and relatable if your ransomware concerns are there, but your own knowledge of all those anti-ransomware tools needs augmentation.  If you’d like to attend one of IVOXY’s Security Roundtables, please reach out to your Account Manager and we’d be happy to help.  If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you found our quality podcast.  Lock it down and stay tuned for another exciting episode of Data Center Therapy!  Thanks for listening!

Using a Garmin?  Maybe a TomTom?  It’s OK if you’re not, because it’s 2022 and your phone has a maps application, right?

If you thought you knew everything about what you can do with your phone and a mapping app, think again!

We welcome our Data Center Therapy guests to a gadget- and application-filled episode as your hosts Matt “Major Release Blues” Yette and Matt “Offroad Antenna” Cozzolino chat about mapping and then circle around to the state of Macintosh hardware and software.  Whether you’re a diehard camper, an off-road enthusiast, a powder hound, or you just want to know how deep the rabbit hole goes on mapping applications, the Matts have you covered with this podcast.  In this episode you’ll get to learn about:

• How cars have evolved subscription models for some services, and how those are still far behind modern mobile apps and the modern PC browser experience.
• Mapping players such as CalTopo and Gaia, and what their (premium) subscriptions enable.
• What kinds of data satellite feeds can provide and how to integrate those up-to-date feeds into certain mapping apps.

The Matts also share their historic experiences with Macintosh, the current state of Macintosh hardware and Apple’s own CPU platform, and their thoughts on the modern development and evolution of the MacOS operating system.  If you enjoyed your listening experience, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you found this podcast.  Always know where you are, share that with your travel buddies, and stay tuned loyal listeners for the next fun episode of DCT!  Thanks for listening!

What are you going to print?

Head straight downtown to the 3D statue-filled intersection of “Fun Street” and “Technology Avenue” with this Data Center Therapy podcast!  Your hosts Mr. Matt “What can’t you do with a Pi?” Yette and Mr. Matt “Printable Log Cabin” Cozzolino welcome you, our loyal listeners, into their virtual garages for an entertaining introduction to 3D printing, sans the resin fumes.  If you’re wondering what the heck a “PEI magnetic build plate” is, give this episode a listen!

In this quick but enjoyable 30-minute dash, you’ll get a handle on:

• Which 3D printers are the “Ford F-150s” of the market; trustable industry standards to get started with and to modify when you’re ready.
• The difference between Filament-based and Resin-based 3D printers, how they function, and which ones are more hazardous and need special consideration.
• And tips and tricks that the Matts share to keep your 3D prints extruding well, staying sharp and functionally strong (and the reason why Yette owns a grow tent!).

You’ll get a little background on the common things some of the gaming-minded folks print (hint: Final Fantasy VII, Warhammer, and Day of the Tentacle come into the discussion) and you’ll also find out where things like ESP32 and Arduinos (nifty pieces of technology in their own right) mesh with 3D printing.  

If you loved this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you quality podcasts are found.  Be sure keep those printer beds warm, keep those filament spools spooling, and tune in again for another fun episode of Data Center Therapy.  Thanks everybody!