Today on the Datanauts it’s object storage. Object storage is easily accessible, highly scalable, and underpins many cloud and online applications and services. Our guest sailor across the sea of object storage is Enrico Signoretti, head of product strategy at OpenIO and a well-known analyst and blogger at Juku.

Enrico and the Datanauts will talk about the object storage format, how it differs from block and file storage, how it scales in performance and capacity, and use cases where it does (and doesn’t) make sense.

We’ll also talk about OpenIO, an open source project that develops software-defined storage (SDS). OpenIO also offers a commercially supported version of its SDS software.

Last but not least, we discuss Enrico’s work in the technology community, including blogging, open source, and his past work with the TECHUnplugged organization.

Sponsor: Interop ITX

Interop ITX, May 15 – 19 in Las Vegas, is the only independent conference for technology leaders. Get a year’s worth of objective IT education in one week. And don’t miss the Packet Pushers’ Future Of Networking Summit at Interop. Visit interopitx.com and use promo code PacketPushers for a 20% discount.

Show Links:

Juku

The OpenIO Blog

Enrico Signoretti on Twitter

If you’re a technology professional, you likely take pride in your mastery of intricate and complicated systems, software, and hardware. And as you invest time and effort to acquire skills and expertise, your technical savvy becomes part of your identity.

But as your career advances, you may find yourself spending less time on nerd knobs and more time on issues such as strategy, management, or communications. And sometimes your career might take you in interesting, if less technical, directions than you’d anticipated.

On today’s Datanauts episode, we talk about how to cope with moving into less technical roles, how to balance keeping your technical knowledge sharp against the new demands of your role, whether you should continue to pursue certifications, and how to embrace and excel in the different competencies that your new work requires.

Our guest is Tom Hollingsworth, a CCIE and network engineer who’s now an organizer at Tech Field Day, which connects IT vendors and tech bloggers for presentations and discussions. He’ll share his experiences as he’s transitioned from an in-the-weeds engineer to helping build a technology events and media company. You can read his blog at Networking Nerd and follow his Twitter alter-ego CCIE Coffee.

Sponsor: Incapsula

Incapsula is a cloud-based service from Imperva that protects and accelerates your Web sites with services including DDoS and bot protection, traffic inspection, load balancing, and CDN. Incapsula protects over 4 million Web properties, from individual bloggers to the Fortune 50. Datanauts listeners can try Incapsula free! Just go to incapsula.com/packetpushers.

Today on the Datanauts: public clouds. AWS and Azure are two of the most popular public cloud offerings, and we’ll look at how they compare. Our guest is Eric Shanks, a senior solutions architect at Ahead and founder of the blog The IT Hollow.

We’ll look at how organizations decide which cloud service to adopt, the phobias around cloud lock-in, the application architecture decisions that have to be made when embracing the cloud, and myths about cloud savings.

We also explore the differences between AWS and Azure around pricing and capability, and also discuss the importance of understanding the constraints that come with a cloud service regardless of the provider you choose.

Last but not least we drill into workload mobility and the stickiness of storage, and whether orchestration tools may be the driver of true hybrid clouds.

Sponsor: Interop ITX

Interop ITX, May 15 – 19 in Las Vegas, is the only independent conference for technology leaders. Get a year’s worth of objective IT education in one week. And don’t miss the Packet Pushers’ Future Of Networking Summit at Interop. Visit interopitx.com and use promo code PacketPushers for a 20% discount.

Today the Datanauts peer inside AWS. Amazon has created a powerful suite of cloud services and built a online empire by renting compute, storage, and other services to enterprises and startups alike.

But just because everything lives in the cloud doesn’t mean practical design considerations go away. If you’re considering AWS, the Datanauts and guest Alex Galbraith examine the pros and cons of storage, networking, and scaling so you can get the best design for the least amount of money within the capabilities that Amazon provides.

Alex is a solutions architect for a global service provider. He also blogs at Tekhead.it. It was a series of blogs by Alex that spurred this conversation.

They discuss issues such as  IOPS limits in EBS, write and read limitations in S3, how Amazon Direct Connect and VPCs work, and how to make the most of auto-scaling groups.

*Please note that during the storage discussion, Alex mentioned that you had to dismount the  volume when resizing elastic block storage volumes. But after this podcast was recorded, Amazon announced that this isn’t the case anymore.

Sponsor: Incapsula

Incapsula is a cloud-based service from Imperva that protects and accelerates your Web sites with services including DDoS and bot protection, traffic inspection, load balancing, and CDN. Incapsula protects over 4 million Web properties, from individual bloggers to the Fortune 50. Datanauts listeners can try Incapsula free! Just go to incapsula.com/packetpushers.

Show Links:

AWS Tips And Gotchas Series – Alex Galbraith

Elastic Block Store (EBS) – Amazon

Elastic File System (EFS) – Amazon

Amazon EC2 Instances – Amazon

EC2 Spot Instance Termination Notices – Amazon

Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) – Amazon

Placement Groups – Amazon

Request Rate and Performance Considerations – Amazon

Today’s Datanauts episode is all about data and data models, and why they matter. Deciding how to model your data ahead of time can pay off down the road. It helps ensure that the people who are using the data get what they need from it, and can reduce technical debt.

Our guest is data expert Karen Lopez, senior project manager and architect at InfoAdvisors. She and the Datanauts discuss various definitions of data models, CAP Theorem and the pros and cons of various database types, and database architectures.

She also discusses her role in the NASA Datanauts program, a community of data scientists and advocates who work with NASA’s open data and promote data science education.

Sponsor: ITProTV

Enhance your technology aptitude with ITProTV. It’s the resource to keep your I.T. skills up to date, with engaging and informative video tutorials. For a free 7­-day trial and 30% off the life of your account, go to itpro.tv/datanauts ​and use the code DATANAUTS30​.

Show Notes

The Big Data Modeling Question…

What Are Conceptual, Logical and Physical Data Models?

7 Databases in 70 Minutes

Big Data, NoSQL & Data Modeling – 10 Tips for Data Modeling Success on Modern Data Projects

InfoAdvisors

Follow Karen Lopez on Twitter

NASA Datanauts

The Datanauts engage in their on-going mission to break down technical silos with a discussion about software engineering. Their guest is Jeff Meyerson, a software developer and host of the Software Engineering Daily podcast.

They start with a brief discussion about his podcast and Chris recommends a few episodes (see below). They also talk about why having some level of understanding about software is essential for a technology career, especially if you want to control your own destiny.

They also examine the role that software plays across traditional data center silos, and drill into the impact of software on networking. Jeff also shares some essential concepts that network engineers should be familiar with, and key ideas in networking that software developers would be wise to understand.

They also explore the role of APIs, and how APIs may serve as a common ground between different technology disciplines.

Sponsor: Incapsula

Incapsula is a cloud-based service from Imperva that protects and accelerates your Web sites with services including DDoS and bot protection, traffic inspection, load balancing, and CDN. Incapsula protects over 4 million Web properties, from individual bloggers to the Fortune 50. Datanauts listeners can try Incapsula free! Just go to incapsula.com/packetpushers.

Show Notes:

Software Engineering Daily Podcast

Software Engineering Daily Meetup

Software Engineering Daily on Twitter

Jeff Myerson on Twitter

SDN is NOT an Innovation, its Iteration – EtherealMind

Chris Walh’s Recommended Episodes from Software Engineering Daily

* Product Management with Suzie Prince

* Python Data Visualization with Jake VanderPlas

* Architecture of Free Code Camp with Berkeley Martinez

* Email Infrastructure with Chris McFadden

* Cyber Warfare with Jared Smith

Data center automation is sometimes portrayed as a kind of magic that makes the complexity of operating infrastructure (switches, routers, servers, etc.) vanish.

The truth is that complexity never goes away. It can be hidden behind layers of software abstraction, and minimized through good design, but the physical infrastructure is still there. And it still needs people to understand its intricacies and be able to take care of it.

Today’s Datanauts episode explores the boundaries between the infrastructure underlay and the automation and orchestration frameworks that ride on top, including OpenStack and Kubernetes.

Our guest is Rob Hirschfeld, CEO and cofounder of RackN, a startup that specializes in underlay automation for data centers. He also has many years of experience with OpenStack and container networking.

Rob and the Datanauts talk about the state of OpenStack, its operational challenges, and why those challenges aren’t really OpenStack’s fault. Rob contends that there’s still an underlay problem that needs to be solved.

They also look at Kubernetes use cases and limitations, and how Rob’s organization uses it.

They also explore how to bring automation and orchestration into existing environments, and discuss what operations teams need to know about embarking on the orchestration journey.

Sponsor: ITProTV

This episode of Datanauts ​is brought to you by ITProTV. ​Enhance your technology aptitude. ITProTV​is the resource to keep your I.T. skills up to date, with engaging and informative video tutorials. For a free 7­-day trial and 30% off the life of your account, go to itpro.tv/datanauts ​and use the code DATANAUTS30​.

Show Notes:

Please stop the turtles! Underlay is it’s own thing. – Rob Hirschfeld

Rob’s L8ist Sh9y Podcast – SoundCloud

Digital Rebar

Rob Hirschfeld on Twitter

SIG Cluster Ops

Datanauts 058: Kubernetes – A Deep-Dive Introduction – Packet Pushers

The Datanauts talk with HashiCorp co-founder and CTO Mitchell Hashimoto about automation. And while HashiCorp makes automation software, the conversation isn’t just about that company’s products.

The Datanauts engage in a wide-ranging conversation with Hashimoto about how to bring automation to infrastructure, why servers still matter in the age of VMs and containers, and the growing role of APIs and how they’re relevant to more than just applications.

They also talk about how security must be carefully integrated, and why a good scheduler is the linchpin in any automation framework.

Sponsor: Interop ITX

Interop ITX, May 15 – 19 in Las Vegas, is the only independent conference for technology leaders. Get a year’s worth of objective IT education in one week. And don’t miss the Packet Pushers’ Future Of Networking Summit at Interop. Visit interopitx.com and use promo code PacketPushers for a 20% discount.

Sponsor: Incapsula

Incapsula is a cloud-based service from Imperva that protects and accelerates your Web sites with services including DDoS and bot protection, traffic inspection, load balancing, and CDN. Incapsula protects over 4 million Web properties, from individual bloggers to the Fortune 50. Datanauts listeners can try Incapsula free! Just go to incapsula.com/packetpushers.

Show Links:

Mitchell Hashimoto on Twitter

HashiCorp

HashiCorp Open Source Tools

Datanauts 054: Containers Won’t Fix Your Broken Culture w/ Bridget Kromhout

Datanauts 028: Google Infrastructure For Everyone Else (GIFEE) w/ Chris Ciborowski

Datanauts 049: Cracking The Nut On APIs

Datanauts 063: Unikernels Vs. Containers

On technical podcasts we often talk in generalities. Most of the time, X design approach should work. But what if you don’t fall into that “most of the time” scenario? What if your design constraints mean you have different problems than the average compute infrastructure?

Today, we have an outside-the-box design discussion with Julian Firminger, who comes to us from the media and entertainment industry. Scaling out is not a new problem for these folks, and we’re going to dive into their challenges and how they have to think differently.

In particular, we’ll look at challenges Julian faces around CPU, storage, and networking, and the design choices he and his team have made.

If you’re interested in learning more about technical infrastructure for the entertainment industry, check out StudioSysAdmins.com.

Sponsor: Interop ITX

Interop ITX, May 15 – 19 in Las Vegas, is the only independent conference for technology leaders. Get a year’s worth of objective IT education in one week. And don’t miss the Packet Pushers’ Future Of Networking Summit at Interop. Visit interopitx.com and use promo code PacketPushers for a 20% discount.

Show Notes:

Part 1 – CPU Scaling Limitations

* Why is there such demand for CPU in M&E?

* Does multi-core CPU help?

* What about special-purpose CPUs?

* GPUs?

* Hypervisor or no, and why?

Part 2 – Scale-Out Storage For Adults

* Describe M&E requirements for storage

* Ingest/Acquisition

* Post Production and playout

* Archive

* Do you believe scale-out storage means coupling disk with compute and striping across it, or something else?

* What is your storage upgrade strategy?

* For capacity

* For performance

* Do you have a disaster recovery scheme?

* How about a backup scheme?

* How impactful is latency between compute & data on M&E workloads?

* What does this mean for placing workloads in the public cloud?

Part 3 – Network Design

* IP switching

* For traditional scale-out, we normally think of 3, 5, or even 7 layer Clos fabrics (leaf-spine), matched to access-port density requirements.

* For performance, we limit or even eliminate oversubscription between tiers. How does this work out for M&E?

* Leaf-spine relies heavily on ECMP to scale between layers, but evenly loading links is hard. Thoughts?

* You’ve mentioned a toroid as a better fit for M&E than leaf-spine.

* What is a toroid topology?

* Explain the data patterns that make this desirable for M&E?

Microsoft has undergone a startling transformation. It was once the undisputed king of desktops, servers, and business applications. It was also a knives-out competitor that built—and then tried to protect—a monopoly chokehold on the IT and consumer markets.

These days, thanks in part to the rise of cloud and mobile devices, anti-trust rulings, and a robust open-source movement that found inspiration in its role as the Rebel Alliance, Microsoft is a much different organization.

It’s still a multi-billion dollar company, and force to be reckoned with for business tools and email. But it’s second fiddle in server virtualization and IaaS, and nearly invisible in the vast consumer mobile market.

From this humbler position, Microsoft has learned what its competitors learned a long time ago: there’s value to be had in open source, not only as a consumer but as a contributor.

Today on the Datanauts, we’re joined by Melissa Wright (aka vMiss on your favorite social network), a technical marketing engineer, VCDX, and Creative Director at Virtual Design Master, to talk about why Microsoft is embracing open source, and how the company is going about it.

In particular we focus on the Microsoft and Docker partnership, PowerShell going open source, and Microsoft becoming a platinum member of the Linux Foundation.

You can follow Melissa on Twitter and check out her blog at vMiss.net.

Sponsor: Interop ITX

Interop ITX, May 15 – 19 in Las Vegas, is the only independent conference for technology leaders. Get a year’s worth of objective IT education in one week. And don’t miss the Packet Pushers’ Future Of Networking Summit at Interop. Visit interopitx.com and use promo code PacketPushers for a 20% discount.

Show Links:

Docker And Microsoft – Docker

PowerShell is open sourced and is available on Linux – Microsoft Azure Blog

Microsoft Fortifies Commitment to Open Source, Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member – Linux Foundation