Tech Interviews

As an IT Professional, one of the things I believe is crucial is continued learning and development. Over the last few months I’ve spent more time in the world of cloud infrastructure, both public and private and have started to want to understand more how to automate much of its delivery.

This led me to the concept of Infrastructure as Code (IAC), the idea that we can deploy infrastructure in our cloud via templates, meaning that we retain a consistent repeatable deployment experience, allowing us to build infrastructure quickly and efficiently. One of the challenges in this space is how each cloud provider has its own method for deploying IAC, so what if you are using multiple cloud platforms do you need to learn a new methodology every time?

Luckily this is not the case, with an increasing set of tools from 3rd party providers which offer a single consistent deployment across multiple providers, meaning you only need to learn one set of codes and templates which can then be quickly modified to work on different environments, so we not only get speed and consistency in one cloud, but across any suitable infrastructure.

While that is all well and good, what is the real value of IAC? Do I really need the ability to deploy over multiple clouds? How do these 3rd party tools work and deliver useful outcomes?

It sounded like a great set of questions for our first post summer break Tech Interviews, so that is exactly what we are doing.

Helping me to learn more and give an introduction to the IAC space is Rosemary Wang of Hashicorp, the developers of one of the leading IAC tools, Terraform. Rosemary is a Developer Advocate and helps developers and organisations to understand how they can use IAC and the value it can bring, I caught up with Rosemary ahead of Hashicorps’s US Conference Hahsiconf which runs in Seattle from September 9th.

In this episode we discuss;

*What is infrastructure and can we deploy software development practices to it?

*What is driving the need for IAC and is simplification the key?

*The key benefits for IAC.

*Is it only a public cloud thing?

*Risk v Agility, how to help the risk averse to innovate.

*What infrastructure can we “codify”?

*The importance of API’s.

*What is Terraform?

**IAC for the more traditional “enterprise”.

*Why an IT decision maker should consider IAC in their enterprise.

These new cloud inspired, but not cloud exclusive, deployment methods are really interesting and Rosemary provides a great intro to the power of Infrastructure as Code and where tools like Terraform can help in a multi-location world.

Next week we revisit the topic of open source, webscale databases, to make sure you catch that show why not subscribe you’ll find us in all the usual places.

If you have an idea for the show or would like to appear as a guest, then contact me via email at [email protected].

Thanks for listening.

The ever changing cyber security threat landscape is high on the IT agenda for enterprises as they attempt to deal with numerous threats and attacks. One area constantly under attack and a rapidly growing risk is user identities, numerous phishing scams, key loggers and social engineering are all attempts to compromise a user's identity and their security credentials.

The risk posed by the theft of credentials and identity is significant, how then do we protect ourselves, how do we build a security stack that is capable of providing robust identity management, securing user credentials and stop us being victims of an identity-based attack?

That is what we cover on this week's podcast with my two guests, who I came across after reading some excellent blogs on the topic from my first Guest Amy Stokes Waters who is joined by her colleague Shelley Hill, who both work for identity security company, Identity Experts and provide some brilliant insights into this complex area.

In this week's show we cover;

* What makes up our identity

* Why identities are more than technology

* The part automation and intelligence play

* Why we need multi-factor not just in the enterprise but also in our consumer technologies

* Balancing security and productivity

* How to start building your security platform.

Amy and Shelley offer lots of great tips, enjoy the show.

Tech Interviews is on its summer holidays for a few weeks, but if you have an idea for the show email [email protected]

Enjoy the summer and thanks for listening.

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

As more of us move infrastructure to the cloud we come up against an age old IT problem, how do we know if we are getting the best from our cloud investment, we have deployed it following best practice, we have optimised its performance and increasingly have we secured our infrastructure in the way we need too?

These queries are not new to cloud infrastructure, these are challenges we have whenever and wherever we deploy infrastructure and applications. However, one thing that cloud does allow us to do is to look at an extremely wide body of evidence, literally 1000’s of deployments of applications to determine their optimal configuration for performance and security.

How do we get that kind of information and how do we use the metrics available to us to make sure we are following the best practice when utilising cloud services and infrastructure? Today we are starting to see a range of companies developing platforms to aggregate together this information and provide actionable insights that we can all use, one such company who are excelling in this space is Sumo Logic and this week I’m joined by Christian Beedgen, their Co-Founder and CTO as we discuss how to baseline cloud infrastructure.

We discuss;

* Differing attitudes to cloud adoption

* Datacentre as an API

* The dangers on an anti-cloud stance

* How to compare our infrastructure to others

* The problem of the information firehose

* Sumo Logic and AWS GuardDuty

* The future on intelligent monitoring

Sumo Logic is on an interesting journey and it will be fascinating to see how they further develop their model of providing insight to their customers allowing them to get the best from infrastructure deployments ensuring they are efficient, effective and secure.

Thanks for listening.

For full show notes :- https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1H7

Earlier this year I got the chance to chat with Cumulus Networks as part of a series of articles I was working on with my friends at Gestalt IT. It was an interesting piece of research focussed on an area that was new to me, the idea of open networking, using a software driven approach to deliver infrastructure with the scale and flexibility that is required to meet the demands of many modern businesses.

Cumulus introduce this idea as part of their Infrastructure with Purpose strategy an approach that tries to change the way we think about delivering infrastructure, since writing those articles I’ve been keen to have them on the show to introduce the concept to the Tech Interviews audience.

This week, I get that chance as I’m joined by Cumulus’s Pete Lumbis to explore the idea of Infrastructure with Purpose, Pete is Senior Technical Marketing Manager at Cumulus, but don’t be put off, he’s a networking techie at heart maintaining his CCDE as well as having a long history In the networking field.

During the show we discuss;

• The Cumulus approach and keeping everyone “honest”

• Why Infrastructure matters and why we need purpose

• The flexibility of a software driven approach

• Choosing infrastructure based on real value

• The power of Linux for Cumulus

• De-risking our infrastructure

Infrastructure with Purpose is a really interesting strategy and one that stretches beyond networking. Enjoy the episode and thanks for listening.

If you’d have a question or would like to be a Tech Interviews guest contact [email protected]

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

Back in February, I saw a presentation from Hammerspace, a startup company in the field of data management. Their proposition was based on dealing with one of IT’s most challenging problems, that of successfully sharing data across multiple locations, be that datacentres, branch offices or cloud repositories.

What appealed to me with their approach was how they not only thought of a new way of addressing the problem but also redefined how the problem should be looked at.

On this week’s show, I’m joined by Hammerspace’s CEO, David Flynn, to explore their approach in more detail and get an update on how their solution has developed. David has a long and distinguished background in IT including been behind Fusion IO.

During the show we discuss:

* The importance of a datacentric view to solving the problem

* How containers show the way to solving complex data management problems

* How metadata drives their solution

* How it works

* Don't solve the data silo problem with another data silo!

There are a couple of really interesting things about what Hammerspace is doing, both their technological approach and importantly their efforts to shift thinking to one that takes a more data focussed view. Will their technology be the right solution for everyone? Probably not, but their idea that your decisions around your data platform need to be datacentric and based on stated goals for the data, that really should be the case for everyone. It will be interesting to see how Hammerspace continues to evolve and progress.

Thanks for listening.

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

One of the biggest challenges that IT Pro’s face is trying to evaluate new technology and select the right solution for you.

One of the tools available is the use of Proof of Concepts (POC), a POC is a short project to evaluate the suitability of potential solutions. POC’s can, when done properly, be a valuable tool in our assessment of potential solutions. But POC’s are not always a success, why is that the case? The main issue tends to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what a POC is, often this can be caused by the suppliers misusing the phrase POC when really they are delivering no more than a demonstration.

A few weeks back I heard an episode of the excellent Virtually Speaking Podcast in which they discussed performance testing a significant part of which included a properly delivered POC.

The incorrect use of the term and poor definitions of POC’s is something I see often and find frustrating. Inspired by the Virtually Speaking Podcast team I wanted to take the opportunity to do a Tech Interviews episode on that very topic and who better to help me than the guest on that episode, VMware’s Dave Morera.

Dave is a Senior Solutions Architect and a primary part of his role is to help people to fully evaluate solutions with the use of POC’s, which makes him well placed to share some advice with Tech Interviews on how to effectively use them to help you make better technology decisions.

In this episode we discuss:

* What is POC

* How it differs from demo's and pilots

* What makes up a POC

* The importance of accurate definition of the problem , the scope and success criteria.

* Building a test strategy

* The importance of "owning" you POC

Dave’s experience and advice is hugely valuable, POC’s, when done well, are a great way of ensuring you can fully evaluate a solution and ensure it is right for you, Dave’s advice should help more of us deliver successful POC’s in the future.

Thanks for listening.

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

Back in October 2018, I attended Microsoft's Future Decoded event in London, the presentation that stayed with me the most was from Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Microsoft's Chief Accessibility Officer.

Jenny, who is herself deaf, spoke with great enthusiasm and passion about how the work Microsoft is doing with accessibility technology was changing people's lives. As a technology enthusiast, I love to see how technology impacts the world around us, however, nothing is more inspirational than seeing how technology can literally change lives allowing people the opportunity to achieve their potential by enabling them to do something that previously they couldn't.

It's been a subject I've wanted to explore on the podcast ever since and this week I finally got the chance as I'm joined by Arran Smith, an accessibility consultant, to discuss how and why we need to make accessibility a core part of our technology strategy.

Arran himself suffers from Dyslexia and discusses how rather than hold him back it has been his inspiration to develop his own successful career. We discuss how technology plays its part in levelling the playing field for people with disabilities and how it can allow people to properly fulfil their potential.

We also discuss:

* Why accessibility shouldn't be only something "we have too" do

* While an impairment may affect a person it is often compensated by a strength elsewhere

* How Cloud is making access to accessibility technology easier

* How to build an accessibility strategy

This topic if one of the most inspiring I've had the pleasure to cover on this show and Arran provides some fantastic insights into the benefits of embracing accessibility rather than seeing it as a chore and shares his knowledge with real passion and enthusiasm.

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

The Tech Conference is always an interesting source of information, a chance to learn about anything from strategy to technical details. I'm lucky enough to attend quite a few events throughout the year but one that I've never attended is Dell Technologies World. Dell with their wide portfolio, including VMware, can potentially impact and influence organisations of all types, with that in mind, Dell Technologies World is becoming an increasingly interesting event as their wide portfolio has the ability to meet many of our modern technology demands.

On this week's show, we take a look at the main announcements from the Vegas event, what they mean for those buying enterprise IT and for Dell themselves. To help me pick through the event I'm joined by industry analyst and the host of the excellent Storage Unpacked podcast, Chris Evans.

During this show we cover;

* Who the event is aimed at

* Dell Storage and data protection

* Dell's cloud strategy including VMware Cloud on Azure

* Edge to Core to Cloud

Chris as always gives fantastic insight into the event, with some interesting takes on what Dell covered as well as asking some interesting questions about Dell’s direction.

Thanks for listening.

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

Security and compliance of systems is right at the top of the priority list for almost all organisations and as our data and the systems that hold it are ever more critical, the impact of the loss of these systems or the data that resides upon them is significant. As our systems become more complex and diversely spread managing and reducing their vulnerabilities is a real challenge.

On this week's show we discuss how we take a modern approach to security, governance and vulnerability control with my guest Marco Rottigni, Chief Technical Security Officer, EMEA at Qualys.

Our topics include;

* Understanding transformation maturity

* The shift of assessment to management

* The value of a single source of information

* Why we need a new approach

* The criticality of visibility

* Transparent automation

Marco shares some fascinating thoughts on this topic bringing an interesting and fresh perspective.

If you'd like to contact the show email [email protected]

Until next time, thanks for listening.

For full show notes: https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1G5

Your modern infrastructure is highly unlikely to be built on a single platform, in fact not only unlikely to be on a single platform but unlikely to be built in a single location, as increasingly we are developing hybrid infrastructure that can be spread across datacentres, remote locations and of course the public cloud. While this adds complexity to our technology stack, it also adds opportunities when technology vendors work together to bring value to each other’s offerings, improving end-user experience and business outcomes.

That is the focus of this week’s show, recorded on the road at Arrow ECS as we discuss how NetApp HCI and Veeam integrate to work better together and what this means for modern infrastructure in our hybrid world.

I’m joined by a team of people to discuss this week’s topic Alun Griffiths and Paul Stillitano from Arrow ECS, Kev Ridings from Veeam and Jason Fitzgerald, Technical Consultant from Gardner Systems, all with their own take on the changing infrastructure space and how it impacts the way we deliver our technology.

In this week's show we discuss;

* What is HCI and how do we make it more than just a small form factor

*Consistent and repeatable deployment

*How Integrating Veeam which HCI brings real value

*Understanding our "dark data"

*Why Simplicity is crucial

*NetApp and Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure

The team provide some great insights and I hope you found it as useful as I did.

Thanks for listening.

Full show notes are here:- https://wp.me/p4IvtA-1G0