The CTO Advisor

I'm joined by Built.IO director of evangelism Kurt Collins. I and Kurt have been meaning to connect for a few months. Built.IO is looking to simplify using API's across multiple services and reduce or eliminate API lock-in. We discuss the risk of API lock-in and how Built solution helps to limit the risk. As a bonus we discuss Facebook bots and the future of connected cities.

In this episode I'm joined by the person I have some of the most interesting Twitter discussion. I've known Tyler Brittin for a few years now. We've had some epic conversations about how we both agree that infrastructure doesn't offer value to the business. However, infrastructure is needed. We discuss the value prop of Bluebox and how it fits into IBM's cloud strategy. We spend the bulk of our time talking about serverless computing and go a little deep into how the sausage is made for serverless computing interacts with solutions such as Openstack.

Developer turned network engineer turned developer, Matt Oswalt discusses the goal of continuous integration networking. The goal of making changes to the network at peak and ensuring the change achieves the desired result. Matt introduces the concept of his open source project ToDD and how continuous integration is a achievable long term goal.

How many enterprise tech podcast can checkoff having woman who can code in Python, takes Assembler during maternity leave to brush up on programing and got featured in Cosmo? To boot my guest Christina Morrillo is also a VP of Risk & Security for a leading financial services and is a community leader for Women of Color in Tech Chat (#WOCinTECH).

It's all about the future of tech careers. Some say the current generation will have 5 jobs through their life while our children will have 5 jobs at a time. Careers are changing and enterprise IT practitioners have to change as well. In this episode I'm joined by TechRepublic's Editor Jason Hiner. (Disclaimer: I'm a contributor to TechRepublic). Jason and Lindsey Gilpin follow the careers of 10 well known technologist. Each of whom needed to pivot their career. Each person became an entrepreneur through basically requirement. I and Jason have a wide ranging conversation about some of the subjects of the book and lessons for enterprise IT practitioners.

EMC made a big deal of their DSSD product announcement. But, EMC makes a big deal out of every product announcement. Chad Sakac wrote his normal verbose post on the topic. To help digest the announcement I invited industry expert Howard Marks. How helps break down the technology and potential use cases. We also talk about other persistent memory technologies and why they haven't taken off.

Not every organization is a multi-billion dollar Fortune 500 company. A majority of the market is small and medium business (SMB). SMBs have some of the same challenges as large enterprises without the huge IT budget. I like to look back at the market for ideas of working around budget constraints. I talk with Sonia Cuff who runs a SMB managed service provider about the challenges faced by the SMB market.

Wikibon has predicted that Server SAN will overtake traditional storage arrays. The latest version of VSAN 6.2 moves a step closer to displacing legacy storage arrays. I'm joined by VMware Principle Architect Rawlinson Rivera (@punchinglcloud). We hit some critical questions about the latest version. Here's a short list of topics we touched upon.

I'm joined by Open Source advocate & Architect Ken Hui. Ken goes way back to all most the beginning of OpenStack. He's spent time at RackSpack, EMC and most recently Platform9 focused on helping customers understand OpenStack. Ken wrote a intriguing post questioning the current direction of OpenStack. We discuss the potential of the platform and where it needs to go.

I'm joined by Ahead's Tim Carr. Tim is an Automation and Orchestration Architect with Ahead. In this podcast we talk about Tim's real world experiences helping customers implement automation and orchestration to support Cloud efforts. How many customers are embracing hybrid-cloud? What are Tim's thoughts on Microsoft's Azure Stack? Where does VMware vRealize fit in the discussion or Cisco UCS? We even talk OpenStack and a little private cloud pricing.

Wide ranging conversation with Pivotnine managing director Justin Warren. I wanted to catch Just fresh off his conversation with Speaking In Tech's Greg Knieriemen. In Justin and Greg's conversation they talk through the challenges and attributes of leveraging Gartner to make multi-million dollar decisions. We go deeper into the conversation in using management and technology consultants in making decisions. We also address some of the common pitfalls of commonly experienced in these large scale purchases.

The Data Center is changing as a result of challenges to traditional businesses. As a result, a new crop of IT vendor has arisen. Traditional solution providers need to adjust while maintaining their customer base. It’s the classic innovator’s dilemma. In this extended CTO Advisor Podcast, Keith Townsend (@CTOAdvisor) sits down with TechField Day Founder Stephen Foskett (@SFoskett) and Justin Warren (@JPWarren) of PivotNine. The trio discusses the mix of presentations at the last Virtualization Field Day event.

Friends don't let friends take unnecessary risks on Cloud service providers. In the search for the best combination of technology and service an organization can waste a good amount of time trying out various cloud services. In this week's podcast I talk with Switches EVP of Evangelism, Mark Thiele. Mark gives an overview of the difference between Cloud Exchanges and Cloud Brokers and provides the high-level benefits of a cloud exchange. Mark describes how Switch's ability to offer high-speed/low latency connectivity virtually on demand provides value over traditional Co-Location providers.

Scale Computing (The Toyota Camry of Hyperconverged) - CTO022

It's been well over a year after I quit my great job at PwC to pursue a different course. No big deal as people quit their jobs all the time. The exception my case was that I didn't have another job lined up. The Geek Whisperers did a great job of getting my side of the story. But, I'm married. What was my wife's response and thoughts.