
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Learn more about AI Infrastructure Field Day 4 here.
The big headlines that we're seeing around the massive funding of large AI companies are a distraction from the reality that AI is being built and used in business applications. This episode of the Tech Field Day podcast features Frederic Van Haren, Chris Grundemann, Brian Martin, and Alastair Cooke reflecting after AI Infrastructure Field Day in Santa Clara. Popular news often covers the creation of large, general purpose AI models, yet the real-world application of AI through inference is where most companies see a return on their investment. Similarly, the common understanding of "AI" is as a single topic, without a more granular view that differentiates between rules-based systems, traditional machine learning, and emergent generative models like Large Language Models (LLMs). Specialized AI models will be vital for cost-effective applications with enhanced efficiency and the integration of diverse AI capabilities into agentic architectures. Advanced security protocols and regulatory frameworks are vital to mitigate novel vulnerabilities, organizations must adapt to an extraordinarily rapid pace of technological evolution. AI has already had a profound impact on software development, potentially enabling widespread custom application creation.
Panelists:
Frederic Van Haren, CTO and Founder of HighFens, Inc.
Brian Martin, VP of Data Center Performance at Signal 65
Chris Grundemann, Executive Consultant at Khadga Consulting
Hosts:
Tom Hollingsworth, Event Lead for Tech Field Day
Alastair Cooke, Event Lead at Tech Field Day
Stephen Foskett, President and Organizer of Tech Field Day
Follow the Tech Field Day Podcast on X/Twitter or on Bluesky and use the Hashtag #TFDPodcast to join the discussion. Listen to more episodes on the podcast page of the website.
Follow Tech Field Day for more information on upcoming and current event coverage on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
Learn more about AI Infrastructure Field Day 4 here.
As we build out AI infrastructure and applications we need resource efficiency, continuously buying more horsepower cannot go on forever. This episode of the Tech Field Day podcast features Pete Welcher, Gina Rosenthal, Andy Banta, and Alastair Cooke hoping for a more efficient AI future. Large language models are trained using massive farms of GPUs and massive amounts of Internet data, so we expect to use large farms of GPUs and unstructured data to run those LLMs. Those large farms have led to scarcity of GPUs, and now RAM price increases that are impeding businesses building their own large AI infrastructure. Task-specific AIs, that use more efficient, task-specific models should be the future of Agentic AI and AI embedded in applications. More efficient and targeted AI may be the only way to get business value from the investment, especially in resource constrained edge environments. Does every AI problem need a twenty billion parameter model? More mature use of LLMs and AI will focus on reducing the cost of delivering inference to applications, your staff, and your customers.
Panelists:
Gina Rosenthal, Product Marketing Manager
Pete Welcher, Networking Expert
Andy Banta, Storage and Infrastructure Consultant
Hosts:
Tom Hollingsworth, Event Lead for Tech Field Day
Alastair Cooke, Event Lead at Tech Field Day
Stephen Foskett, President and Organizer of Tech Field Day
Follow the Tech Field Day Podcast on X/Twitter or on Bluesky and use the Hashtag #TFDPodcast to join the discussion. Listen to more episodes on the podcast page of the website.
Follow Tech Field Day for more information on upcoming and current event coverage on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
View upcoming Tech Field Day events here.
Modern security needs more than checklists. Instead of working down a process you need to start thinking like the attackers trying to get into your systems. In this episode of the Tech Field Day Podcast, Jay Cuthrell and Girard Kavelines join Tom Hollingsworth to discuss how Microsoft Sentinel helps bring this new security strategy to your environment.
They discuss the advances that have been made in data lake technology, including the increased retention time offered by Microsoft. They also talk about the way that graphs help train new security analysts to understand the way that attackers think. They discuss how you can adapt your plans in the new year to take advantage of new offerings and the questions you should be asking to make sure you’re not missing out.
Girard Kavelines, Networking and Security Engineer, Aqueduct Technologies, Inc.
Jay Cuthrell, Chief Product Officer, NexusTek
Hosts:
Tom Hollingsworth, Event Lead for Tech Field Day
Alastair Cooke, Event Lead at Tech Field Day
Stephen Foskett, President and Organizer of Tech Field Day
Follow the Tech Field Day Podcast on X/Twitter or on Bluesky and use the Hashtag #TFDPodcast to join the discussion. Listen to more episodes on the podcast page of the website.
Follow Tech Field Day for more information on upcoming and current event coverage on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
Watch the Hammerspace presentations from AI Infrastructure Field Day here.
Learn more about Hammerspace on their website here
Modern data mobility is challenging the laws of physics; the speed of light is a fundamental limit for moving signals. This episode of the Tech Field Day podcast features Kurt Kuckein from Hammerspace discussing data movement and management with Jim Jones, Jack Poller, Andy Banta, and Alastair Cooke. The challenge is that the distributed nature of data, spread across the globe, creates significant obstacles for AI, particularly regarding the speed of light and power consumption. We delve into overcoming these limitations through technologies that facilitate data access and movement, touching on concepts such as efficient storage solutions (Open Flash Platform), the importance of centralized data management, and the agility required for evolving AI workloads. While the underlying principles of data management are not new, the scale and complexity of AI necessitate innovative approaches to ensure data can be accessed and utilized effectively, regardless of its physical location.
Hammerspace Representative: Kurt Kuckein, Sr. Director of AI Product Marketing
Panelists:
Jim Jones, Sr. Product Infrastructure Architect at 11:11 Systems
Jack Poller, Principal Analyst at Paradigm Technica
Andy Banta, Consultant
Hosts:
Tom Hollingsworth, Event Lead for Tech Field Day
Alastair Cooke, Event Lead at Tech Field Day
Stephen Foskett, President and Organizer of Tech Field Day
Follow the Tech Field Day Podcast on X/Twitter or on Bluesky and use the Hashtag #TFDPodcast to join the discussion. Listen to more episodes on the podcast page of the website.
Follow Tech Field Day for more information on upcoming and current event coverage on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
View upcoming Tech Field Day events here.
2025 was a big year for both HPE and Juniper, but 2026 is the year when the real integration starts. In this episode of the Tech Field Day podcast, Tom Hollingsworth is joined by wireless experts Jonathan Davis and Keith Parsons as they look at the acquisition of Juniper Networks by HPE and what the future holds for the new combined company.
They discuss how the culture of the two companies is coming together as well as the unification of their management platforms. They look at the differences between Juniper Mist and Aruba Central and which platform will be the one users log into going forward. The guests also look at the competition between Cisco and HPE and how the race will develop as customers look to refresh their installations and what they are likely to choose.
Panelists:
Keith Parsons, Managing Director of Wireless LAN Professionals, Inc.
Jonathan Davis, Wi-Fi and Networking Expert
Hosts:
Tom Hollingsworth, Event Lead for Tech Field Day
Alastair Cooke, Event Lead at Tech Field Day
Stephen Foskett, President and Organizer of Tech Field Day
Follow the Tech Field Day Podcast on X/Twitter or on Bluesky and use the Hashtag #TFDPodcast to join the discussion. Listen to more episodes on the podcast page of the website.
Follow Tech Field Day for more information on upcoming and current event coverage on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
Check out upcoming Tech Field Day events on our website.
2025 was the year of AI Mania. Everyone wants you to know where they stand with AI in their product. Tech Field Day has a different approach. In this special year end episode, Tom Hollingsworth, Stephen Foskett, and Alastair Cooke look back at the discussions and deep dives into AI and how Tech Field Day grounded them all in practical real terms. Our event leads discuss the boring reality of AI tools and how AI has a dual nature that must be understood to get real value. They also debate the changing landscape of security where AI is concerned, including the importance of data sovereignty. They wrap up with a focus on the fundamentals and how Tech Field Day continues to make those important for the community at large.
Tom Hollingsworth, Event Lead for Tech Field Day
Alastair Cooke, Event Lead at Tech Field Day
Stephen Foskett, President and Organizer of Tech Field Day
Follow the Tech Field Day Podcast on X/Twitter or on Bluesky and use the Hashtag #TFDPodcast to join the discussion. Listen to more episodes on the podcast page of the website.
Follow Tech Field Day for more information on upcoming and current event coverage on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
AI is writing a large proportion of modern software and Generative AI coding tools make enterprise applications worse. This episode of the Tech Field Day podcast looks at AI generated applications with Calvin Hendryx-Parker, Jim Czuprynski, Jay Cuthrell, and Alastair Cooke. Satya Nadella says that up to 30% of the code Microsoft writes is AI generated, AWS is at about 25% AI generated code. We ponder whether there is a link between this AI generated code and the quality of the Windows 11 codebase, possibly even the recent AWS outage? Calvin has hands-on experience with a range of AI coding tools, finding he uses different AI tools for specialist tasks in his development projects. The easy task for AI coding is translating existing applications from one platform version to another, or rewriting existing application code in new languages. Both these tasks are onerous for human developers and ideal for an AI assistant. The unanswered question is whether generative AI tools can handle creating new functionality in enterprise applications, can AI fulfill the role of the senior developer or software architect?
Host: Alastair Cooke, Event Lead at Tech Field Day
Panelists:
Jim Czuprynski, Chief Storyteller at Zero Defect Computing
Jay Cuthrell, Chief Product Officer at NexusTek
Calvin Hendryx-Parker, CTO and Founder of Six Feet Up
Follow the Tech Field Day Podcast on X/Twitter or on Bluesky and use the Hashtag #TFDPodcast to join the discussion. Listen to more episodes on the podcast page of the website.
Follow Tech Field Day for more information on upcoming and current event coverage on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
Watch presentations from Networking Field Day 39 here.
Automation is the best way to scale network deployment and operations. But the lack of formal standards in the field cause delays and wasted resources. In this episode of the Tech Field Day Podcast, Tom Hollingsworth is joined by Denise Donohue, Steve Puluka, and Kevin Myers. They discuss how some common things have emerged more from consensus and not from formalized standards bodies. The panel also discuss the value of using open ideas and not being forced into a single-vendor solution. They also discuss regulations and the likelihood that an organization like the IETF or IEEE will pick up the task of formalizing automation standards.
Host: Tom Hollingsworth, Event Lead for Tech Field Day.
Panelists:
Steve Puluka, Network Architect
Denise Donohue, Network Architect and Technical Author
Kevin Myers, Network Architect
Follow the Tech Field Day Podcast on X/Twitter or on Bluesky and use the Hashtag #TFDPodcast to join the discussion. Listen to more episodes on the podcast page of the website.
Follow Tech Field Day for more information on upcoming and current event coverage on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
Watch the presentations from Cloud Field Day 24 here.
Simplification in IT is an illusion; increasing complexity outpaces every effort to simplify. This episode of the Tech Field Day podcast, recorded on-site at Cloud Field Day 24, features Camberley Bates, Nathan Nielsen, Guy Currier, and Alastair Cooke. Cloud services and centralized management platforms offer simplified interfaces but also introduce a multitude of choices and underlying complexities. History matters; advancements from mainframes to PCs demonstrate continuously shifting goalposts, while the more recent integration of cloud and AI contributes to increased complexity. It may be that AI brings simply advanced simplicity, yet it may also bring the unintended consequence of people becoming "ignorant" of how IT works. CIOs and CTOs need to think strategically to manage increasingly complex environments, striking a balance between patchwork fixes and long-term strategic approaches.
Host: Alastair Cooke, Event Lead at Tech Field Day
Panelists:
Guy Currier, Chief Analyst at Visible Impact, The Futurum Group
Camberley Bates
Nathan Nielsen
Follow the Tech Field Day Podcast on X/Twitter or on Bluesky and use the Hashtag #TFDPodcast to join the discussion. Listen to more episodes on the podcast page of the website.
Follow Tech Field Day for more information on upcoming and current event coverage on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
Watch Infoblox and more Security Field Day 14 videos here.
DNS security is no longer optional. This service is not only being attacked by nefarious actors but it is also being leveraged in ways to compromise users and exfiltrate data. In this episode of the Tech Field Day podcast, brought to you by Infoblox, Tom Hollingsworth is joined by Jack Poller and Cricket Liu. They talk about the historical openness of DNS and how that has led to it becoming easy to see what users are doing and create ways to manipulate them. They discuss ways to secure the protocol and how companies like Infoblox are extending the capabilities for future security.
Infoblox Representative
Cricket Liu, EVP Engineering, Chief DNS Architect. and Senior Fellow
Host: Tom Hollingsworth, Event Lead for Tech Field Day.
Panelist:
Jack Poller, Principal Analyst at Paradigm Technica
Follow the Tech Field Day Podcast on X/Twitter or on Bluesky and use the Hashtag #TFDPodcast to join the discussion. Listen to more episodes on the podcast page of the website.
Follow Tech Field Day for more information on upcoming and current event coverage on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on LinkedIn, or visit our website.
From the publisher's feed

101 Listeners

10,244 Listeners

6,070 Listeners

393 Listeners

84 Listeners

137 Listeners

27 Listeners