Strategies for Building Cloud Confidence

Are you a control freak? Have you ever wondered what was the difference between a storage controller, a RAID controller, a PCIe Controller, or a metadata controller? What about an NVMe controller? Aren’t they all the same thing?

In part Aqua of the “Everything You Wanted To Know About Storage But Were Too Proud To Ask” webcast series, we’re going to be taking an unusual step of focusing on a term that is used constantly, but often has different meanings. When you have a controller that manages hardware, there are very different requirements than a controller that manages an entire system-wide control plane. From the outside looking in, it may be easy to get confused. You can even have controllers managing other controllers!
Here we’ll be revisiting some of the pieces we talked about in Part Chartreuse [https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/663/215131], but with a bit more focus on the variety we have to play with:
•What do we mean when we say “controller?”
•How are the systems being managed different?
•How are controllers used in various storage entities: drives, SSDs, storage networks, software-defined
•How do controller systems work, and what are the trade-offs?
•How do storage controllers protect against Spectre and Meltdown?
Join us to learn more about the workhorse behind your favorite storage systems.

Without a solid collaboration strategy, organizations are very unlikely to succeed at digital transformation initiatives, particularly those that involve improved customer experience. The "customer" may be internal or external to the company.

This webinar reviews key data and real-world scenarios that show why collaboration tools enable customer experience improvements.

We will address the following:

• What measurable benefits do collaboration tools bring to CX?
• How can IT and business teams use CX initiatives to help secure budget for collaboration projects?
• What does management need to change--immediately--to help propel better collaboration and improved CX?
• How do collaboration initiatives integrate with CX in the contact center?
• How can you benefit from emerging AI integrations in both collaboration and contact-center tools?

We look forward to sharing this information with you!

Team collaboration apps like Slack, Spark, Glip, and Microsoft Teams are taking the enterprise market by storm. Given the more than 20 apps now on the market, where do IT leaders begin?

In this webinar series, we'll provide insight and guidance based on Nemertes' 2018 Unified Communications and Collaboration Research Study, answering the following questions:

• What is the state of team collaboration adoption?
• What are the drivers and business cases?
• How do customers rate their vendors?
• Will team collaboration replace or augment existing UC apps?
• What are the pros and cons of a single vendor versus multi-vendor approach?
• How do I integrate team collaboration into business apps and workflows?
• How do I address security, governance, and compliance?
• How are vendors differentiating themselves?
• What are the on-premises alternatives if cloud is not an option?

Attendees will gain the information they need to make better decisions as they build and deploy their own team collaboration strategy.

We look forward to sharing this information with you!

This webinar is part of BrightTALK's Founders Spotlight Series, where each week we feature inspiring founders and entrepreneurs from across industries.

In this episode, Doug Marschke will share his insight and expertise into the software-defined networking industry: what it means to found and run a consulting and managed services company, where the network industry is headed in the age of software-defined everything, and how to scale and grow a services organization in the hi-tech industry.

Join us for this live AMA where the audience will be encouraged to ask questions and engage directly with the panelists.

Have you wondered which solution--on-premise, cloud, or hybrid—is the right Unified Communications architecture for your organization? Would you like to know which provider costs the most—and least?
Nemertes has the answer!
In this first episode of our five-part series on Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC), Robin Gareiss, Nemertes President and Founder, will present findings from our real-world research on UCC costs—based on the cost data from our 2018-19 Unified Communications and Collaboration Research study.
She also will introduce The Nemertes UC Cost Analysis Tool, our on-line, interactive, customizable tool that allows you to cost-compare solutions and providers. With this tool you’ll find out which architecture, and which provider, are the best fit for your organization.
This episode will take an in-depth look at UC Total Cost of Ownership and will cover:
• How to use Nemertes’ Online Cost Analysis Tool to get the data you need to make the best decisions
• How operational, implementation, and capital costs vary with on-prem, cloud, and hybrid deployments
• The Nemertes True Cost of Operations™ of key collaboration technologies including telephony, meetings, team collaboration, and more
• Which providers offer the lowest costs and best value, based on cost data and provider ratings from IT leaders across all industries
• What you’ll save on operational costs by investing in management and monitoring tools

We look forward to sharing all this information with you and to answering as many of your questions as possible!

Microservices aren’t for every organization, but if you know what to expect and prepare accordingly—and if you pair them with Docker containers—they can bring unprecedented agility and scalability to application development and deployment, especially in large, complex projects where speed is crucial and small errors can be disastrous.

In this high-level presentation geared toward executives and other decision-makers, Parminder Kocher, author of the newly published book, Microservices and Containers, will break down these potentially game-changing technologies. First, are they right for you? Making the switch to microservices is a large undertaking with a steep learning curve, both operationally and culturally, so it's crucial to assess the risks before taking the plunge. Second, what should you expect if and when you decide to move forward with the shift? Kocher draws from his own personal experience to help you with the transition. By the end of the presentation, you should have a good idea how microservices—especially when paired with Docker containers—can bring unprecedented agility and scalability to application development and deployment, especially in large, complex projects where time to market and scalability are paramount.

About the presenter:

As the Engineering Director for the Cisco Networking Academy, Parminder currently leads the team responsible for developing the Academy’s platform, which is accessed by 1.5 million students in 180 countries. In addition to bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science, Kocher has an executive MBA from Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business, an executive certificate in strategy and innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and a certificate in Professional Coaching from iPEC, an International Coach Federation (ICF)-accredited coaching training program. His first book, Microservices and Containers, was published by Addison-Wesley earlier this month.

Looking for more cost-effective ways to implement fibre channel cabling? Learn why proper cabling is important and how it fits into data center designs. Join this webcast to hear FCIA experts discuss:
- Cable and connector types, cassettes, patch panels and other cabling products
- Variables in Fiber Optic and Copper Cables: Reflectance, Insertion Loss,
Crosstalk, Speed/Length Limitations and more
- Different variations of Structured Cabling in an environment with FC
- Helpful tips when planning and implementing a cabling infrastructure within a SAN

The SNIA Swordfish™ specification helps to provide a unified approach for the management of storage and servers in hyperscale and cloud infrastructure environments, making it easier for IT administrators to integrate scalable solutions into their data centers. Swordfish builds on the Distributed Management Task Force’s (DMTF’s) Redfish® specification using the same easy-to-use RESTful methods and lightweight JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) formatting. Join this session to receive an overview of Swordfish including the new functionality added in version 1.0.6 released in March, 2018.

To simplify the development process, microservice development is increasingly being conducted using containers. However, the picture is not always rosy, especially in an enterprise environment where both old and new processes must be managed simultaneously and elegantly in order to avoid chaos.

This session will review the top issues that must be addressed when making this transition--including development, operations, and even the finance department--with a focus on microservice development in hybrid cloud environments.

About the presenter:
Robert Starmer is a cloud advisor and the founder of Kumulus Technologies. At Kumulus, Robert and his team provide infrastructure-focused DevOps, systems reliability engineering, and cloud computing consulting, enabling companies at all levels to optimize their cloud usage. He also uses his more than 20 years of experience in cloud, SRE, and DevOps to educate the industry through articles, presentations, and curriculum development. Robert is a Certified OpenStack Administrator (COA) and a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Leading The Intelligent Operations with Micro Focus Operations Bridge (OpsBridge)

The management of IT Operations in a dynamic and highly scalable MSP environment can be difficult. With the right partner and strong expertise, you can be helped to lead in the “New”. Join Kulvinder Singh from Accenture as he discusses the deployment of OpsBridge as standard within their MSP Platform. Learn the objectives, scope, methodology, and results of their deployment, as Accenture continues to scale and mature this capability with the increasing number of their clients.

Join us for the next upcoming SIG Talk on Tuesday, May 17, 2018: http://www.vivit-worldwide.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1089263&group=.

This Vivit SIG Talk session will feature 2 speakers who will share their vast knowledge and experience on SACM Practice and Micro Focus Operations Bridge. Vivit is excited to present this informative SIG Talk on these important topics.
Shown below is an outline of the agenda and topics:

Speaker: Bill Curran
Areas of Focus to Create a Successful SACM Practice: For Citizens Bank, major difficulties were encountered not just in implementing software itself, but in creating a sustainable and successful Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM) practice. Come and learn 3 key areas to focus on to create and sustain a successful SACM process in order to:
- Provide robust reporting for audit and regulations
- Promote and maintain confidence in the quality of CMS data
- Provide ITSM users with the information they need, when they
need it

Speaker: Kulvinder Singh
Leading The Intelligent Operations with Micro Focus Operations Bridge (OpsBridge): The management of IT Operations in a dynamic and highly scalable MSP environment can be difficult. With the right partner and strong expertise, you can be helped to lead in the “New”. Join Kulvinder Singh from Accenture as he discusses the deployment of OpsBridge as standard within their MSP Platform. Learn the objectives, scope, methodology, and results of their deployment, as Accenture continues to scale and mature this capability with the increasing number of their clients.

Join us for the next upcoming SIG Talk on Tuesday, May 17, 2018: http://www.vivit-worldwide.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1089263&group=.

Form3 Chief Platform Architect, Edward Wilde, shares his experience of building a pure microservices architecture for real-time payment processing. Architecture includes Terraform, Docker, Vault, Consul, Linkerd and AWS: SQS, SNS, EC2, RDS.

Essentially these technologies enable high levels of availability, processing performance and continuous product deployment, all at a fraction of the cost of legacy software deployed in proprietary data centers. Even the most sophisticated challenger bank and Fintech’s have said this is a technology stack that they really want to have in the future!

About the presenter:

Edward Wilde is the Platform Architect at Form3, leading the development of a novel distributed payment system allowing connectivity, payment processing, clearing and settlement services for a wide range of regulated financial institutions, including leading banks and fintechs.

The use of microservice architectures has exploded over the past couple years, but does that mean they are right for every business? When it comes to building a business case for containers and microservices, how do you determine whether or not this model is the right fit for your organization?

Join this live expert panel moderated by Haidee McMahon, SDDC Technical Solutions Marketing Manager at Intel, for a deeper look and discussion around deriving value from microservices. Whether in a complex data center app or a web or mobile app hosted on cloud infrastructure, what is the underlying architecture behind the scenes? What are the pros and cons from a UX/UI perspective, if any, and how do you make a case for microservices in your enterprise?

Panelists:
Chris Priest, Senior Consultant & Technical Lead, Amido
Duncan Doyle, JBoss Technology Evangelist, Red Hat
Roel Hodzelmans, Senior Solution Architect, Red Hat