In the world of technology, transformation is often discussed in triumphant tones—big tools, big platforms, big promises. But what if the real story isn't about the tools at all? What if the beating heart of innovation lies somewhere else, quietly pulsing beneath the surface?

This week on Trilio Insights, Pete Wright sits down with Ed Keen, Director of OpenShift Platform Global Services at Red Hat, and David Safaii, co-founder of Trilio. In this fireside chat, they explore the dimensions of digital transformation—where fear, uncertainty, and doubt collide with ambition, trust, and the sheer force of necessity.

Sure, it's a discussion about migrating virtual machines. But even more, it's about the cultural tectonics of legacy systems giving way to cloud-native horizons. It's about VM admins clinging to their hard-won expertise, the developers dreaming of microservices, the leaders balancing budgets against innovation. It's about the human side of technology, where every detail matters and every decision ripples outward.

Ed started as a London-based software engineer and today serves as a global leader at Red Hat. David is a data protection pioneer, offering a glimpse into how Trilio helps enterprises not just survive, but thrive in the chaos of migration. What emerges is a roadmap for the future of IT.

About Red Hat
Through hands-on guidance and a mentor-based approach, Red Hat Consulting helps organizations maximize the effectiveness—and therefore value—of their Red Hat technology investment. To assist organizations that need to exit their current virtualization solution and efficiently migrate their VMs to a modern platform while mitigating risk, Red Hat Consulting offers customized support that addresses every step of VM migration.

Links & Notes

• Virtualization Migration Assessment
• Red Hat Migration Blog
• Learn more about Ed Keen
• VMware to OpenStack Migration: A Strategic Transformation Guide
• Reference Guide: Optimizing Backup Strategies for Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization
• Key Concepts and Best Practices for OpenShift Virtualization

Is OpenStack having a moment? On this episode of Trilio Insights, Pete Wright chats with David Safaii and Kevin Jackson, fresh from the Open Infrastructure Days North America conference, about the latest news in OpenStack, fueled by the search for VMware alternatives.

Kevin, an OpenStack veteran from the very beginning, offers a fascinating perspective on this resurgence. He contrasts the early days of OpenStack, with its challenges and leaps of faith, to today's streamlined installations. They explore why organizations are turning to OpenStack now, highlighting the impact of the VMware acquisition.

A key takeaway from the conference was Rackspace's return to the OpenStack fold. David and Kevin discuss the significance of this announcement, emphasizing Rackspace's transparency and the positive ripple effect it will have on the entire OpenStack ecosystem.

Kevin also shares insights from his panel on VMware-to-OpenStack migration, stressing the need to avoid “analysis paralysis” and encouraging a learn-by-doing approach.

Finally, they discuss Trilio's unique position in providing data protection for both OpenStack and Kubernetes, expressing excitement for the future of OpenStack and its evolution towards Kubernetes. Kevin's advice for those considering the migration? Don't wait, start learning now.

Links & Notes

• Open Infrastructure Days North America 2024
• Rackspace Technology Strengthens Commitment to Global OpenStack Community with Board of Directors' Seat on OpenInfra Foundation
• Red Hat OpenStack

Ever wonder what it takes to build a company from the ground up? This week, Pete Wright sits down with Murali Balcha, the founder and CTO of Trilio, as he shares his personal journey of entrepreneurism and innovation. 

Murali opens up about the pivotal moment he realized his idea was "startup worthy," leaving the comfort of a years-long career at EMC to pursue a vision. He paints a picture of the early days: the scrappy resourcefulness of building a company on a foundation of used Dell servers, the uncertainty of securing funding, and the satisfaction of landing that first major client. 

Murali takes us through the challenges of navigating the ever-evolving universe of cloud technology, the surprising twists and turns along the way, and the quiet confidence that comes from building something truly unique. They explore the potential of AI and what it means for the future of Trilio and the tech industry as a whole. 

This episode offers a glimpse into the heart and soul of a startup, the challenges, the triumphs, and the belief in the power of an idea seeded in the cloud.

Links & Notes

• From Founding to Funding: Perspectives from Murali Balcha, Founder and CTO of Trilio | Trilio
• OpenStack Backup and Recovery | Kubernetes Backup and Recovery

This month, Pete Wright welcomes back Rodolfo Casás, who previously introduced us to the OpenShift mindset. This time, Rodolfo dives into the must-have features of Trilio for OpenShift and OpenShift virtualization data protection.

Throughout the conversation, Rodolfo highlights several key features that resonate with customers. He discusses the simplicity and efficiency of the OpenShift console plugin, which allows users to easily manage backups directly from the OpenShift UI. Rodolfo also emphasizes the importance of operator data protection, noting that many customers forget to protect their operators despite their growing significance in the Kubernetes ecosystem.

One of the most stunning features Rodolfo presents is the low recovery time objective (RTO) capability. By pre-staging backups and creating volume snapshots in the destination cluster, Trilio enables customers to recover hundreds of virtual machines in a matter of minutes rather than hours or days. Other notable features include application-level encryption for enhanced security and the ability to protect application container images for seamless disaster recovery and regulatory compliance.

Rodolfo also shares insights on Trilio's integrations with automation tools like Ansible and Advanced Cluster Manager (ACM). These integrations allow customers to deploy and manage their backup strategies at scale, streamlining processes such as data center migrations and disaster recovery testing. While acknowledging the potential for "automation rot," Rodolfo stresses the importance of having a dedicated DevOps team to maintain and update these automations regularly.

Links & Notes

• Trilio for OpenShift
• OpenShift Virtualization
• Ansible Automation Platform
• Advanced Cluster Manager

In this episode of Trilio Insights, our senior solutions architect Rodolfo Casás joins Pete Wright to discuss the critical world of disaster recovery in IT.

Casás breaks down the key differences between backups, high availability, and disaster recovery, emphasizing that while backups are essential, they're not enough for critical systems that can't afford downtime. He explains how high availability has evolved from relying on expensive, "fail-proof" servers to modern cloud-native approaches that assume any component can fail at any time.

The conversation delves into the sobering statistics of data disasters: 82% of breaches involve human error and the average cost of downtime is $1,400 per minute. Casás stresses the importance of thorough disaster recovery planning, including risk assessment, understanding critical applications, and regular testing.

Finally, Casás introduces Trilio's "continuous restore" feature, which aims to dramatically reduce recovery time by pre-staging data on secondary clusters. This approach can significantly speed up disaster recovery, especially for large datasets.

The episode concludes with a call to listeners to learn more about disaster recovery, with Wright emphasizing its importance for anyone who has experienced data loss.

Links & Notes

• Continuous Recovery & Restore
• A Common Misconception- Backup Is Not Disaster Recovery
• High availability is not disaster recovery - Disaster Recovery of Workloads on AWS: Recovery in the Cloud
• Business Data loss and Disaster Recovery Statistics in 2024
• An 8-step Guide for Creating a Disaster Recovery Plan | Kaluari Limited
• Strengthening operational resilience and reducing concentration risk in financial services - Microsoft Service Assurance
• Service Trust Portal

In a world where businesses rely on the constant flow of data and the uninterrupted availability of applications, IT downtime has become an unavoidable reality with far-reaching consequences. This week, Pete Wright sits down with David Safaii, Executive Chairman at Trilio, to explore the causes, consequences, and solutions to one of the most pressing challenges facing businesses in the digital age.

Safaii explains that while the public often hears about catastrophic outages, smaller disruptions occur more frequently than one might think. These outages can be caused by a variety of factors, ranging from hardware failures and network issues to human errors and cyber attacks. The impact of these outages can be staggering, with the average length of an interruption after a ransomware attack in 2022 being 24 days.

The financial costs of downtime are equally alarming. Safaii cites a report stating that the Fortune 500 lost about $1.5 trillion a year in unplanned downtime. However, he emphasizes that the consequences extend beyond just dollars and cents. "In addition to the people in that building, you have to turn people away from the outside. They can't receive the treatment they require. That is the cost of downtime. You can't put a number on that," Safaii says, highlighting the potential impact on healthcare facilities.

Safaii also highlights the reputational damage that companies can suffer due to outages, noting that trust and consistency are key to building brand loyalty. When outages result in data loss or prolonged disruptions, customer satisfaction and trust can be severely impacted.

So, what can businesses do to mitigate these risks? Safaii stresses the importance of having a well-tested disaster recovery plan in place. However, he notes that many organizations fall short in this area, with only 31% testing their DR plan once a year. "Testing can be easy and you can automate it if you've got the right tools," he says, encouraging businesses to prioritize regular testing.

Safaii also dispels the notion that relying on public cloud providers is enough to ensure data protection and application availability. "The number of times I've had conversations about this, where they say, oh, we just charged our public cloud provider. You know, they're there to provide you with the infrastructure to run your applications. They're not there to provide you with application or data protection," he emphasizes, urging businesses to take responsibility for their own disaster recovery measures.

Looking to the future, Safaii encourages businesses to be proactive in their approach to disaster recovery. By investing time, processes, and technology in mission-critical applications, companies can minimize the impact of downtime and build resilience in the face of an ever-evolving landscape of threats. "If you're planning properly and you're prepared, the more you put in, the more you'll get out."

Links & Notes

• Backup & Recovery from Trilio.io

This week on the show, Pete Wright sits down with a panel of experts from Trilio, Red Hat, Accenture, and Dynatrace ahead of their upcoming presentation at Red Hat Summit 2024 in Denver. Kevin Jackson (Trilio), Jan Myklebust (Red Hat), Usmin Mir (Accenture), and Steve Weinert (Dynatrace) discuss their collaboration on achieving IT service continuity through ecosystem-powered AIOps and event-driven automation.

The panel explores the origins of their partnership, which began with a project called Navan, a hybrid multi-cloud environment designed to drive co-creation and innovation for joint customer opportunities. As the collaboration evolved, the team tackled challenges such as digital sovereignty and operational resiliency, bringing together the expertise of each partner to create comprehensive solutions.

The conversation delves into the importance of open source ideology in fostering effective collaboration among ecosystem players and the challenges of working with large hyperscalers. The panelists also share their expectations for Red Hat Summit 2024, emphasizing the significance of raising awareness about the potential of ecosystem collaborations and the reality of cloud downtime.

Tune in to discover the journey of this unique partnership and gain insights into the future of IT service continuity in an increasingly complex cloud landscape.

Links & Notes

• Migrating Cloud Native Applications to Support Cloud Sovereignty - Usman Mir & Jan Myklebust
• Red Hat Summit 2024

Kubernetes may be considered "legacy" by some in the fast-moving world of tech, but the recent KubeCon 2024 conference proved there's still plenty of innovation happening in the cloud native ecosystem.

Host Pete Wright sat down with Trilio's own Rodolfo Casás to get the inside scoop on the major announcements and themes from the 10,000+ attendee event. Casás reports that while AI dominated the keynotes and much of the buzz, key developments around Kubernetes and cloud native technology abounded.

Highlights included:

• Virtualization on Kubernetes gaining steam as companies look for alternatives with the VMware/Broadcom acquisition
• The rising popularity of WebAssembly (WASM) for its speed, security and portability advantages vs containers
• Operators for deploying databases on Kubernetes - there's progress but also much room for improvement
• An emphasis on responsible innovation, sustainability and reduced resource consumption
• Ongoing security challenges, with immutable backups emerging as an essential ransomware defense
• New CNCF certifications and training initiatives to address the Kubernetes skills gap

For those lamenting Kubernetes entering legacy status, Casás believes the market is still early and the platform has staying power, even with AI advancements. "Many companies are still building on Kubernetes... containers and Kubernetes are a must for their digital transformation."

Intrigued? Check out the full interview for Casás' take on the KubeCon 2024 highlights and a look ahead at upcoming KubeCons already on the books through 2026. One thing's for sure - the innovation shows no signs of slowing down.

Links & Notes

• Linux Foundation Events
• Red Hat original series — Rodolfo recommends Command Line Heroes, but these are all great shows!
• The Cloudcast
• Kubernetes Podcast from Google

Virtual machines have long provided IT teams with important flexibility and isolation for running workloads. But as container adoption accelerates, how can organizations integrate their VM environments into modern infrastructure? On this episode of Trilio Insights, host Pete Wright explores KubeVirt with industry expert Kevin Jackson. 

KubeVirt brings virtual machines into the Kubernetes ecosystem, unifying VM and container management. With the VMware-Broadcom drama causing ripples across the industry, there’s renewed interest in open alternatives to proprietary virtualization. As a Cloud Native Computing Foundation incubating project,
KubeVirt shows promise in bridging legacy and cloud-native infrastructure.

Tune in as Pete and Kevin break down the KubeVirt project. Learn how it extends Kubernetes for managing VMs, walk through use cases, and discuss adoption challenges. You’ll come away with a 360-degree view on KubeVirt and how it might fit into your container strategy. The future of virtualization is coming into focus this week on Trilio Insights.

Links & Notes

• KubeVirt.io
• Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization
• OpenShift Backup and Recovery • Trilio
• YouTube • Trilio
• Platform9 Managed KubeVirt
• Spectro Cloud • KubeVirt
• Harvester • Open-source hyperconverged infrastructure

The future is multi-cluster. 

Today, we're diving into the complex world of Multi-Cluster OpenShift, a linchpin in the realm of modern application deployments. As businesses scale and the demand for resilient, cost-effective, and efficient operations crescendos, managing multiple Kubernetes clusters isn't just a challenge—it's an art.

Rodolfo Casás is a senior solutions architect at Trilio and joins Pete Wright for a conversation unraveling the intricacies of Multi-Cluster OpenShift, exploring the tools that conduct these distributed environments, and sharing tales of transformation from the organizations hitting all the right notes.