Data Center Therapy

Welcome back Data Center Therapy fans!  We have a special treat on this podcast as IVOXY’s own Kris Lamet returns to the virtual DCT studios, this time employed at NetApp as their Technical Partner Manager for the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada.

Kris and your two intrepid hosts, Matt “2.4 Gigahertz?  Sure Does!” Yette and Matt “Deadbolt This!” Cozzolino crack a couple of frosty ones and muse about the amazing longevity and adaptability of NetApp, the challenges of using the cloud either for DR or for hybrid datacenter scaling, and the newest home automation projects they’re all working on.

You’ll also learn in this episode:

• Which technologies NetApp themselves pioneered that are still in widespread use by all storage vendors to this day.
• How many unique products NetApp have in their portfolio, and which new acquisitions they’ve made have been relevant to the cloud-first adopters.
• What challenges in home automation arise with WiFi versus Z-Wave devices and why RoomAssistant and HomeAssistant have tortured Matt Yette most recently.

When listening, you’re in for some storage and cloud talk for sure, but you’ll also be a party to some good old-fashioned IVOXY Squad camaraderie and home gadget talk, so there’s something for everybody.  Please be sure to like, share and subscribe as always, and stay connected, stay secure, stay cloud-enabled, and stay tuned for the next great episode of Data Center Therapy!  Thanks for listening!

Join us on this special episode of Data Center Therapy where Matt “M.C. MFA” Yette and Matt “So Many Rules” Cozzolino welcome the newest member of the IVOXY family, Security Consultant Quinton Barber. Quinton joins the team with over 25 years of experience in Information Technology and has specialized in producing Assessments and Gap Analysis for all his customers, from the improbably small to the stupendously large F500s.

In this episode, you’ll get talk that includes conceptual basics such as Defense-in-depth, zero-trust, and edge and endpoint protection layers. You’ll hear discussion around policies, firewalls, anti-virus and mobile device management solutions.  You’ll find out why an Identity Access Management solution can be critical to securing your systems. You’ll also learn information on how to get out of the tactical, fix-it-now practices and evolve your own processes and procedures into those which can adapt and change in time to respond to the threats that modern enterprise systems and businesses face.

As always be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you’ve found our quality podcast.  Security couldn’t be any more important, especially given all that’s happening right now. Stay safe, stay informed, watch those any-any firewall rules, and stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Data Center Therapy!

Away crew, prepare to set your phasers to ‘fun’!   

On this episode of Data Center Therapy, your fabulous hosts, Mr. Matt “SCUMM For Life” Yette and Mr. Matt “Bring up your Inventory Screen!” Cozzolino drive the DeLorean Time Machine and drop you, our loyal listeners, off at the Pizza Hut with a huge stack of quarters for the Pac-Man, Galaga, and pinball machines.  Come on a retro journey with the IVOXY gang as they share their thoughts on their favorite games of years past, including:

• Beloved Nintendo64 and PlayStation classics such as GoldenEye and Final Fantasy VII.
• The finest Nintendo classics like Track & Field and Zelda, and must-play-back-in-the-day arcade games (with special respects paid to NBA Jam!).
• And the best adventure games from Sierra Online (King’s Quest, Leisure Suit Larry) and LucasArts (Sam & Max, The Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Maniac Mansion, and Day of the Tentacle).

You’ll feel a nostalgic thrill as you hear Cozzolino recalling him and a friend staying up all night to play Resident Evil (and scaring the heck out of themselves while doing so!).  You’ll learn how Cozz took a fancy to EverQuest and World of Warcraft, but not older titles and games (and why!).  You’ll also get to hear about the latest advances in retro gaming, including Field Programmable Gate Arrays that let newer hardware become the awesome custom hardware that powered the games of old.  

Finally, the boys also open the podcast with their take on VMware (suddenly and without much warning) deprecating the use of inexpensive USB and SD card boot devices for the ESXi Hypervisor, and what you can do about it.  Though the Matts mention Boot-from-SAN and Netbooting, you’ll want to listen in so you can stay informed and knowledgeable as you, our loyal listeners, embark on your own quest to remediate that challenge!

As always, if you enjoy this podcast, wherever you found it, please be sure to like, share, and subscribe, and do reach out to IVOXY should you need assistance transitioning your hosts to supported boot mediums in your ESXi 7.0 journeys.  Be safe, be in the know, have some (retro gaming) fun, and catch you on our next episode, DCT friends!

It’s the near future.  You’re on a road trip across the country.  At some point, you realize you’re tired and lower your seat for a nap.  You go ahead and take one.  In the meanwhile, your car nearly silently glides onward, ever attentive to the road.

On this quick bite of an episode, your Data Center Therapy hosts Matt “You think that’s air you’re breathing?” Yette and Matt “We Hope You Enjoy the Ride!” Cozzolino talk about Artificial Intelligence, the Metaverse, 3D movies and Washington state drivers.

You, our dear listeners, will also get the Matts’ takes on:

• How the world might look without Facebook, and how Google and Apple develop similar technologies (but ostensibly implement them way differently!)
• How things like voice recognition and augmented reality have evolved over the years from initial attempts to now
• When (or if!) Tesla and other auto manufacturers will ever achieve fully autonomous self-driving and why it’s valuable

Join us on this forward-looking chat and challenge yourself to see into the future as the Matts have here.  For those folks clamoring for more enterprise best practices and technically focused content, get ready friends, for an exciting interview with IVOXY’s new Security Consultant, Mr. Quinton Barber.  As always, be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you find your quality podcasts.  Thanks for listening and see you (virtually?) on the next episode of Data Center Therapy!

You already work from home, and you’re in IT, so there’s probably not much you can do to improve your setup, right?

Maybe not!

In this episode of Data Center Therapy, your hosts Matt “Faster than Gigabit” Yette and Matt “Layer 2 Plus” Cozzolino welcome IVOXY’s own Systems and Storage Consultant Neil Kassal into the virtual studios.  Neil shares his tips on optimizing your work from home setup, from your seating all the way up to network segmentation and home backups.

Along the way, the dynamic trio discuss:

• “Layer 8 issues” - how to deal with the distractions of pets, roommates, family and your own physical spaces
• How to decide what to optimize for in your home network and how to make sure you choose the right gear for those goals
• Why it makes sense to exercise “best practices” not just in your business and enterprise networks, but also in your home

As a bonus, Yette, Cozz and Neil also talk about the newest exploit that affects much of the enterprise information technology world at the moment: the log4j JNDI vulnerability.  Whether you’re into system security or just want some tips for working from home, there should be something to make you laugh or think on this episode.

As always, if you enjoyed listening to Data Center Therapy, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts may be found.  If you need help dealing with the implications and remediation of the log4j vulnerability in your software, systems and storage infrastructure, please reach out to your trusted IVOXY Account Manager or Consultants, and as ever, stay healthy, stay warm in the Pacific Northwest this winter, and stay informed DCT friends.  Catch you on the next fun episode!

You ever envision updating the firmware of a weapons system on your fighter jet while you’re flying it?

No?  That makes sense.  But for the people trying to evolve our military’s ossified bureaucracies and systems, that vision is indeed a reality.

Your hosts of this Data Center Therapy episode, Matt ‘I’ve got a lock on the target’ Yette and Alec ‘It's a UNIX system! I know this!’ Taylor welcome the United States of America’s very first Chief Software Officer, Nicolas M. Chaillan to the DCT virtual studios.  Nicolas shares his background, how his career at the DoD evolved, and what he sees in the future of cyber-warfare and security for both the military and American enterprise.  It’s a fascinating look inside the inner workings of some quite large organizations, our own U.S. Air Force and Space Force branches.

During this show, you’ll also gain some understanding of:

• How agility differs in the private sector versus the military, and how Nicolas attempted the impossible by both steering his organizations and by letting his contributors grow and explore their own technology skills and practices.
• How politics plays a role in the development of software systems, and how challenges with egos and inertia clash with evolving the processes in that development.
• Nicolas’ thoughts on Hypersonic weapons systems, Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and how some of those have already impacted us and caused great concern in the Air Force and Space Force.

You, our business and enterprise-oriented listeners will also get a great overview of the practices (some of them simple or less difficult to implement than you might think!) that you could be doing today to secure your critical data and systems, like implementing Single Sign On, Zero Trust, and Endpoint Protection solutions.  As always, if you enjoy this episode, please like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts like Data Center Therapy can be found.  Thanks for listening, stay safe and soar high, DCT friends! 

When you need to talk about the supply chain issues that affect IVOXY, our customers and really everyone and everything, who’d be the logical guest to bring on an episode of Data Center Therapy?  Maybe…somebody who’s seen it all, and been there from the very start?

This week on DCT, our intrepid hosts, the newly returned Matt “Logistical Challenge Accepted!” Yette and Matt “Holdin’ up the Fort” Cozzolino welcome IVOXY’s founder, Mr. Eric Watson, to the virtual studios to share his unique, broad perspective on the supply chain conundrum.  Eric knows finance and the IVOXY customer base quite well, but also the happenings across the globe as they pertain to our collective business, and as such shares the very time-sensitive and complicated causes that got us to where we are right now.

You, our loyal listeners, will also get to hear about:

• How China’s fixed utility/electrical rates impacted the global supply chain through simple microeconomic consequences.
• What IVOXY is currently doing to help our customers when availability and lead times affects the solutions we design and implement.
• And how ransomware protection and increased security-focused activities have changed how IVOXY plan and educate our customers on their own infrastructure, especially in terms of how to remediate incidents quickly.

This episode is a quick but fascinating look at the global, large-scale factors that led us to this point in history, and having Eric on DCT is a rare treat – you’ll want to give this one a listen.  If you enjoy this episode, as always, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts are found.  If you don’t have a plan on what to do if your organization gets hit with ransomware, and you’d like to, please do reach out to your IVOXY Account Manager so we can help ASAP.  Stay safe, skate ahead of the technology puck and the supply chain woes, listen to DCT again soon and we hope you have quick shipments and some happy holidays in your future!

Space out. 

No, really, go ahead and think of your favorite space themed games, movies, and books, because on this episode of Data Center Therapy, your host Matt “PlexMan” Cozzolino welcomes Ryan Grelck into the virtual studios to talk about 2022 and what fun things are right around the corner.  Don’t be fooled, however, as the duo also talk about Linux as a desktop operating system, ransomware, and transparent network virtualization technologies all in the same episode! 

While taking you, our dear listeners, on an intergalactic journey through the greatly anticipated entertainment releases of late 2021 and 2022, Ryan and Matt also discuss:

• Why manning a Security Operations Center typically requires more people than you’d initially estimate.
• If Linux gaming is ready for prime-time, and the performance price you might pay to play on it.
• And why NSX-T’s most nifty feature is not the much-vaunted microsegmentation and VM firewalling it’s known for.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         This episode is a whirlwind of topics so there’s something for just about everybody.  If you’re into Dune, Star Wars, Fallout, or the Half-Life series, there’s definitely something here for you.    Please be sure to like, share and subscribe the Data Center Therapy show wherever finer podcasts are found, and be safe, stretch your Layer 2 network (across the country) if you feel like it (with NSX-T!), be entertained, get excited and we’ll catch you on the next episode of Data Center Therapy!

IOS. 
Android.
MacOS.
Windows. 

No, this isn’t an episode about which is better or what Apple just released.  It’s all about managing those mobile and desktop platforms because, face it, the world is complicated, and the stronger businesses know how to play nice with all the different platforms.  Keep the users happy, but also keep the critical enterprise data protected while allowing those platform choices.  This isn’t an easy thing to do for most companies.  The software is complicated.  There are many competing vendors.  Experts are few and far between.

IVOXY recognize that your problems are also our problems.  We are, after all, a consultancy that looks for specific, curated solutions to our customers technology challenges.  For us, making sure we have the staff with those ever-so-rare magical skills is a priority.  To that end, we had to grow our family to keep up.

In this episode of Data Center Therapy, Matt ‘Let Me Un-pretzel your Network’ Cozzolino welcomes to the virtual studios one Mr. Hoppy Shaw, our newest IVOXY Consultant and End User Compute Specialist Extraordinaire.  Hoppy shares his background, his experiences with Endpoint Configuration Manager and Workspace One, as well as an impeccable knowledge of the whole desktop, laptop, and mobile device management landscape.  Your get to hear about MDM tools like JAMF, MobileIron and Nomad.  You’ll get an understanding of Windows Virtual Desktops, including the difference between Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktops.  You’ll also get to hear great stories about playing old Nintendo games with his family (and some gaming nostalgia thrown in by Cozzolino as well!)  Hoppy is as charming as a summer breeze, but knows his way around the endpoint game like LeBron knows basketball – give it a listen.

If you have questions about your own virtual desktop initiatives or endpoint management, be sure to reach out to IVOXY so you can speak with Hoppy or Ryan (our endpoint specialty team.)  If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever finer podcasts are found.  As always, be informed, go virtual, protect and manage those endpoints and tune in soon to another exciting new episode of Data Center Therapy!

Time flows strangely in the era of the pandemic.  Sometimes you go out on what seems like a four hour walk, and barely two hours have passed.  Or you might sit down on the couch in what you thought was the morning and suddenly it’s 4PM and you have no idea how that’s even possible.  Here on this podcast episode is a rare change up for Data Center Therapy; there’s almost no mention of the datacenter!  Instead, Matt “Bonjour” Yette and Matt “You have a Rendezvous with a uPnP problem?” Cozzolino melt away thirty-five minutes into what feels like a quick ten minute catch-up with a friend about their home automation adventures.  The Matts talk about Home Assistant and HomeKit here, but this time, it comes loaded with stories about compromises (for the sake of home automation) and the “buyer beware!” security implications of the technologies they’ve played with.  We promise: it’s still a fun one.

You, our curious listeners, also get to hear:

• Which robotic vacuums and mops have the Matts looked at (and bought?)
• How automating things can truly just shift around tasks that you do instead of eliminating them.
• What happened at a bank inside of a grocery store that made Cozzolino rethink what duties workers have nowadays?

For the network propeller heads, you’ll get to hear about some of the backend technologies and protocols (like mDNS, or the Avahi daemon on Linux) powering some of the newer devices and applications emerging.  Gadget-loving listeners who love a good debate can rest soundly knowing the Z-wave versus Wi-fi tech battle continues unabated.  Listen in for the latest on cutting-edge home tech with the Matts, and as always, be sure to like, share, and subscribe wherever finer podcasts are found.  Stay safe, get automated (but stay secure!) and keep a lookout for our all-new episodes, DCT friends!