NetApp Active IQ - A Logical Next Step in Maintenance

February 23, 2019 by Nathaniel Avery in Conferences

NetApp presented their latest in proactive maintenance technology, ActiveIQ at Tech Field Day 18 in Austin, TX. ActiveIQ is a blend of software and service that allows NetApp to review configurations and propose suggestions based on their extensive body of knowledge. To power the product, NetApp collects more than 10 trillion data points per month of information from customer’s systems, stores it in a massive data lake, and exposes that data to other systems within NetApp to look for trends. The tech vendor also uses a machine learning algorithm to mine customer data for issues and optimal configurations. It’s really quite promising stuff.

SolarWinds Takes on Security

February 16, 2019 by Nathaniel Avery in Conferences

SolarWinds made their desire to be considered a serious player in the security space known during their most recent Tech Field Day presentation. Gartner predicted computer security spending to be over $118 B in 2018, so jumping into this market makes sense. Security isn’t typically associated with SolarWinds. There will be some effort to get the word out. Working in SolarWinds’ favor is the fact that the products look pretty good.

SolarWinds - Moving Monitoring in the Right Direction

February 12, 2019 by Nathaniel Avery in Conferences

Last week I had the honor to server as a Tech Field Day delegate and hear a presentation by SolarWinds. SolarWinds is primarily known as a Network Monitoring and Management company. Over the years, they’ve built a large community of IT Pros who use their software. I first learned about them through the tools SolarWinds provides for free, such as the TFTP server app. Back when I was in charge of managing network equipment like routers and switches, the TFTP server was a lifesaver for updating switch firmware. Later, I would use their Network Performance Monitor (NPM) tool to track the performance of the overall network. I was curious to see where SolarWinds was at this point in time as well as to get a glimpse of where they might be headed.

Tech Field Day Delegate - Part Deux

January 31, 2019 by Nathaniel Avery in Conferences

One week from now I’ll be in Austin as part of the Tech Field Day delegate crew for Tech Field Day 18. This is my second Field Day event having attended Cloud Field Day 4 in Silicon Valley last year. I remember being completely terrified going into the trip. I had no idea what to expect. Sure, I’d watched presentations over the internet for years, but I hadn’t considered what happened once the cameras stopped rolling. It’s also fair to say I suffered from a fair bit of impostor syndrome. I didn’t feel my voice was as strong as the other delegates’. I couldn’t have imaged the sense of camaraderie, conversations, and history gained from attending.. Long story short, it turned out to be one of the most fun work-ish experiences I’ve had in my adult life.