Tech Interviews

The world finds itself in uncharted territory, gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic putting unprecedented pressure on public health and the global economy. For enterprises of all types, the challenges of trying to continue business as normal are going to be significant.

I’ve been wondering how I could help, one idea is to try to share good practice and advice from those in the IT and business continuity industries on dealing with the current crisis and giving your enterprises the very best chance of successfully finding a path through these challenging times. What better way to do that than through the Tech Interviews podcast.

In this special episode, we pick up on something that is a question I’ve been asked on many occasions over the last couple of weeks “with all of these remote users how do I ensure we maintain the security of our systems and data?” It’s a great question to be asking, to help me explore this topic I’ve drafted in a returning guest Amy Stokes-Waters, Amy works for Identity Experts a company that specialises in identity security who has written a handy LinkedIn article called “Secure remote working at short notice” and it was some of the key ideas in this article that I thought would be valuable to share and Amy was good enough to join me at short notice to do just that.

We discuss.

• The risk of people working from unusual locations with unusual devices

• Pushing people outside of their comfort zones

• Tips for maintaining security and effectiveness for our users.

• We need security but we need people to be able to operate

• Just becomes times are unusual don’t forget the basics

• Importance of familiar communication

• Let people know what is expected of them

• Importance of using sanctioned tools for storing data

• Maybe now is not the best time to come up with new ideas

• VPN is not the only answer to your remote access problems

• Amy’s two top tips

Amy is hugely passionate on this topic and shares with us some great tips on ensuring you retain a strong security posture while enabling your users to continue to work effectively during these vastly changed times.

If you’d like to talk to me professionally you can email me at [email protected]. If you have a topic you’d like us to cover on Tech Interviews then email me at [email protected] or find me on twitter @techstringy.

Until next time, stay safe, healthy and thanks for listening.

Full show notes with links are here :- https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1Kz

The world finds itself in uncharted territory, gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic putting unprecedented pressure on public health and the global economy. For enterprises of all types, the challenges of trying to continue business as normal are going to be significant.

In this special episode, we discuss one of the biggest challenges that we have seen reported already and that is the robustness of remote connectivity, this goes beyond just those working from home, how are people who work in critical enterprises, who have remote locations and services that are needed and under increased pressure and demand at this time, ensure they remain stable and usable when it is very difficult to access those facilities and services when your IT Pro’s can no longer travel to them.

This topic came up when this episode’s guest contacted me to ask if he could come on and share some of his experiences and of course I was happy to provide the platform. Roger Sands is CEO at Wyebot and he shares some of his experiences in helping their customers deal with this as well as some of the initiatives Wyebot have introduced to help enterprises deal with the challenges presented to them.

We discuss.

• The critical wi-fi challenge has moved

• The need for increased remote visibility and automation

• Remote working easier said than sometimes done

• Monitoring and automation

• It is not just the public cloud that is stressed but private services as well

• Remote performance is no longer a “nice to have”

• People are adapting quickly to change if we can give them the tools.

• Some of the changes we are making are going to be more “permanent”

• Top tips for remote working and remote locations

• How Wyebot can help

There is no doubt we are in unusual times and issues around remote locations and working is going to continue to be a challenge as we all readjust. Wyebot has tools that can be very valuable across several industries, but tools that are also going to be valuable in the future of how we work, not just in the short term.

We'll have some more special episodes soon, until then stay healthy and thanks for listening.

Full show notes :- https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1Kp

The world finds itself in uncharted territory, gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic putting unprecedented pressure on public health and the global economy. For enterprises of all types, the challenges of trying to continue business as normal are going significant. How do we go about it? What is our business continuance strategy? What are some of the key things we should be considering and the challenges we need to overcome?

I’ve been wondering over the last few days how I could help, one idea is to try to share good practice and advice from those in the IT and business continuity industries on dealing with the current crisis and giving your enterprises the very best chance of successfully finding a path through these challenging times. What better way to do that than through the Tech Interviews podcast.

In this first Tech Interviews special, I speak with business continuity specialist and returning guest, Steve Lambert of Biscon, a UK based risk and business continuity consultancy to share with us their experience and tips on how delivering an effective plan for dealing with this current global crisis.

We discuss.

The main areas of consideration

Why crisis communication is crucial

The challenge of dealing with IT that has never been tested like this before

Thinking about your staff – can they really work remotely?

Keeping in contact

Not all communication is technology!

Be flexible

Supplying and suppliers

What things may catch you out?

Keeping informed

The advice is fluid, your continuity plan needs to be too.

Prioritize what’s important today

Make sure you learn your lessons

These are certainly unprecedented challenges we are dealing with and to a degree we are all learning as we go but having a plan is hugely valuable and Steve shared some great tips, experience and advice.

If you have questions about the topics covered or other areas you’d like us to cover on the podcast, then of course, you can email me at [email protected]

I’ll have some more special shows coming soon alongside the more usual content, but for the time been, stay healthy and thanks for listening.

Full show notes are here https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1Kl

The use of virtual desktops is seemingly always about to become the next big wave of technology, there is an industry running joke that this year will be the year of VDI (and completely coincidentally for this podcast, flexible and remote working technology has never been more in the news) but it has never quite happened, it’s not that VDI or centralised desktops aren’t deployed or remain a strategically relevant consideration, it just never quite seems to get the critical mass that it often promises too.

Why hasn’t VDI become a widely adopted technology?

On this week’s show, I’m joined by NetApp’s Laurence James (Products and Solutions Manager for Northern EMEA), to explore VDI, why it has not been more widely adopted up to this point and how both changing end-user computer demands, as well as more powerful and flexible technology, may be evolving just enough to drive wider virtual desktop adoption, is this finally the year of VDI?

In this week’s episode, we discuss.

• What is VDI?

• How a changing world is driving the need for richer content to be more widely available

• The $12bn market

• The Changing demands of the end user “experience”

• Why VDI has failed before

• It’s not applications it’s end user demand

• How flexible compute can make VDI investments more realistic

• If VDI hasn’t been for me in the past, why would it be now?

• How are vendors like NetApp helping their customers to adopt this kind of technology

The centralised desktop with all the simplification of management and better control and security for our data makes a lot of sense, however it has, up to now, never quite taken off, but Loz makes some fascinating points and a strong case as to why that may be about to change, as evolving end-user demands and more flexible hardware infrastructure may just make VDI a more attractive option when we discuss our future technology and data strategies.

Thanks for listening.

Full show notes are here :- https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1Kf

Modernisation is a buzzword across the IT industry, but it is more than just a technology subject, it is about changing the way you view and use technology, deliver services, products, deal with customers and drive innovation across all aspects of the enterprise and of course IT plays a part in that, but how?

This week’s podcast was recorded at Microsoft’s Ignite Tour in London early in 2020 where I caught up with two of my friends from the IT industry, Ruairi McBride and Jason Benedicic to discuss modernisation across applications, datacentres and businesses and how technology providers like Microsoft are helping to enable this kind of transformational change.

Amongst our topics, we discuss.

*What we mean by modernisation

*How and what is application modernisation

*How the speed of development and delivery is key

*What types of companies are investing in application modernisation

*Who is modernising their datacentres?

*Why it is much more than just technology refresh

*Why “consumer” technology is driving enterprise thinking

*Microsoft modernisation technologies

*The “enterprise focussed” cloud

*What is driving companies to modernise?

I really enjoyed this chat and learned a lot about how and what is driving enterprises of all shapes and sizes to modernise their business practices and technologies. I hope you gain as much from the insights Ruairi and Jason provide as I did.

Next week we take a fresh look at the changing face of the virtual desktop, to make sure you catch that show, why not subscribe?

If you have an idea for a show or would like to appear as a guest on Tech Interviews then email me at [email protected]

Until next time, thanks for listening.

Full show notes :- https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1K1

It’s a big week for Veeam software with the release of Version 10 of their core product set Veeam Availability Suite. Major software releases are often about much more than just a set of new features, they are about solving evolving industry and customer challenges and helping to drive forward a company strategy (I wrote a piece recently discussing this). What then are some of the drivers behind these software releases? What thinking goes into them? Why do they sometimes take a long time to come out? And why do they focus on some of the features they do?

With Veeam having a major software release, I thought it would be a great time to explore some of those questions with two friends of Tech Interviews Michael Cade and Adam Bergh of Veeam Software.

We discuss.

• Why V10 took 3 years?

• The importance or recognising the changing landscape

• 5 keys of cloud data management

• V10 helping deliver an overall strategy

• Delivering what customers need and putting data to work

• The value of close partnerships

• Taking a holistic approach

• Be better than “good enough”

I’m a fan of what Veeam do both as a software solution but more importantly as a company with a very clear strategic direction and I think what shows in my chat with Michael and Adam is how Veeam have a very clear direction and that V10 is more than just a software release but is part of a much bigger picture. I hope you find their insight useful.

Thanks for listening.

Show notes are here : https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1JP

When we deploy technology into an organisation it’s important we focus on the right thing, technology shouldn’t be deployed for its own sake, it is there to serve a purpose, deliver an outcome and provide a good and useful experience for our customers and end-users. But how do we know that our technology is providing that?

Understanding our user experience is not something that is easy to do, but Why does it matter? Why is a good end-user experience important? And do we really need to care?

They are some of the questions we cover on this week’s podcast as we examine the idea of Digital Customer Experience monitoring with Catchpoint founder and CEO Medhi Daoudi. He formed Catchpoint 11 years ago but has spent most of his career working in technology monitoring and shares with us that experience and how you can build a strategy for ensuring that both your customers and employee experience with your technology is a positive one.

We discuss;

• What is digital experience monitoring?

• The positive experience monitoring can deliver.

• How more complexity is driving more sophisticated monitoring.

• Monitor outcomes, not things, the “outcome economy”.

• The increasing drive to monitor the employee experience.

• Examples of what happens when we don’t monitor employees experience.

• How to start your digital experience monitoring plan.

• The importance of proactively identifying issues and customer experience.

Mehdi shared some great ideas and certainly provided a lot of food for thought during our chat on this increasingly important topic.

Full show notes are here : https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1JK

Thanks for listening.

The move to the cloud continues at a pace as more organisations look to harness cloud-like capabilities like scale, flexibility and commercial value into their business operations. These companies are now more likely to be more "traditional" types that already have a datacentre and an enterprise IT environment, finding ways to tactically use the cloud in these environments is high on the priory list for IT teams across many types of business.

One interesting consideration for helping with this integration is looking at how to exploit more traditional enterprise technology to ease adoption and integration and that is the premise of this week's show.

To discuss this I'm joined by Kelly Goolsby a Presales Solutions Architect at Liquidweb, working with customers to help them find the right technology to meet their changing business demands, he has 17 years in the IT industry under his belt spent predominately in the cloud and hosting space.

During the show we cover;

Cloud, more than just someone else's computer?

Is cloud about more than a technology shift?

The innovation driver to cloud adoption

The shrinking datacentre

The VMware reality and meeting customers where they are

Private versus Public clouds and the process to help decide

The value of private cloud partnerships

Kelly's experience in the area opened up a really interesting chat and makes some great points and provides a fascinating insight into the topic.

Thanks for listening.

For full show notes visit https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1JF

It’s part two of our new year look ahead last week we looked at areas such as tech company consolidation, more acceptance of the move to cloud and maybe even the death of blockchain. In this second part, I catch up with two more respected industry figures Rick Vanover and John Nicholson. Rick and John are highly experienced technologists and provide some fascinating thoughts on what the next 12 months may bring.

We cover topics from 5G networks, accepting that hybrid cloud is OK and Kubernetes moving from hype to adoption.

Background on our guests.

Rick Vanover @RickVanover

Rick is Senior Director of Product Strategy at Veeam and a well-known figure across the technology community. He’s now entering his 10th year at Veeam and has spent much of his career in the data management and protection field.

John Nicholson @lost_signal

John is part of the technical marketing team at VMware, focussing on their HCI and VSAN technologies, also a well know tech community figure, John co-hosts the excellent Virtually Speaking podcast (find it here you can also contact the show [email protected]) which covers all things VMware as well as a broader look at the technology industry.

Next week we look at the part VMware plays in building cloud solutions, public, private and hybrid with my guest Kelly Goolsby. To get that you can subscribe to the show in all good homes of podcasts, now including Spotify.

If you would like to be a guest or have an idea for the show, then email [email protected]

Thanks for listening.

Full show notes here: https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1Js

A new year a new set of Tech Interviews podcasts for you to enjoy. In our first two shows of 2020 I chat with five people from across the technology industry to find out what trends, technologies and ideas they expect to see shape the next 12 months in enterprise IT.

In this first episode, I speak with Chris Evans, Sarah Lean and Greg Knieriemen to see how they think 2020 is going to shape up. In our conversations it's interesting to see a number of subjects that run as common threads, data and cloud is at the core of much of the thinking as most of the contributors feel that both better understanding and a growing maturity of these technologies and what they can deliver will see them continue to dominate as topics throughout the year.

Background on the guests;

Chris Evans - Chris is a well known and respected industry analyst who can be found hosting the excellent Storage Unpacked podcast as well as some fascinating analysis, particularly on the enterprise storage market, on his website architecting.it.

Sarah Lean - Sarah is a cloud advocate at Microsoft and spends her time working with the technical community to understand how cloud can better meet the demands of the modern business.

Greg Knieriermen - Greg is a wearer of many hats at NetApp, but mainly spends his time advocating NetApp strategy to the wider community, a well known IT community figure, Greg is the co-host of the excellent Go Your Way podcast with Phoebe Goh.

Some interesting insights from all our guests. Next week in part two, I speak with two more people from the technology industry about what they think 2020 has instore for Enterprise IT.

If you would like to be a guest or have an idea for the show, then email [email protected]

Thanks for listening.

Full show notes are here : https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1Jp