Virtual Stack

eBPF is one of the most interesting emerging technologies in the area of observability, networking and security. On the 44th episode of the Virtual Stack Podcast, Moustafa Harbi (Sr. Technical Account Manager at Red Hat) and I have a chat about this technology and its use cases in today's enterprise IT industry.   Show Notes: 00:00 - Intros 01:30 - What's eBPF in a nutshell? 06:40 - What can eBPF offer us? 12:30 - In what language or on what framework do we write eBPF code? 14:20 - What are the use cases of eBPF in an enterprise setting? 21:30 - Do eBPF programs create any load on system CPU or memory? 23:00 - How do we use eBPF on an enterprise-wide scale? 24:45 - What's Cilium and what's its relationship with eBPF? 30:30 - What do you think about the future of eBPF and Cilium? Can they change the way we do networking? 35:00 - How can we start learning about eBPF? 39:00 - Closing notes   Links: eBPF project Cilium project BCC (BPF Compiler Collection) GitHub page

On the 43rd episode of the Virtual Stack Podcast, I'm joined by Sean Cavanaugh (Senior Principal Technical Marketing Manager - Ansible Automation Platform, at Red Hat) and we discuss all things network automation. If you'd like to hear about main use cases, common obstacles and the solution you need (spoiler alert: Ansible :)), this episode is for you.   Show notes: 01:00 - Intros 07:30 - Some of the biggest changes in networking in the last few years 18:30 - Main use cases for network automation 31:00 - Key benefits of Ansible 36:00 - Common obstacles on the journey to automation 41:30 - Closing notes Links: Red Hat Ansible Automation YouTube Channel Ansible Automation Platform Self-Paced Labs Sean's Twitter

On the 42th episode of Virtual Stack Podcast, I'm joined by Gil Hoffer (co-founder & CTO at Salto) and we discuss about their solution of automating the configuration of SaaS applications, which they describe as company-as-code.   Can we manage and operate our business applications the same way as our CI/CD pipelines and IT infrastructure? Answers are on this episode.   Show notes: Intros: 00:00 What's Salto? 01:30 What can be automated by Salto on some typical applications? 06:00 How do you make sure Salto works with many SaaS applications and keep up with their changes? 14:00 What made you design an automation language instead of using something like YAML or XML? 17:15 What types of companies benefit from the company-as-code approach? 19:55 Who are the main buyers? What business benefits do they get? 22:10 What are the main obstacles that organisations encounter when adopting company-as-code? 26:10 How can customers test the solution? 32:30 Closing notes: 34:30 Links: Salto: Company-as-Code - Blog article on Salto.io Salto on GitHub  Gil on Twitter

On the 41st episode, Nick Barcet (Sr. Director Technology Strategy, Office of the CTO at Red Hat) joins me on the show we talk about MicroShift, an open source project of optimizing OpenShift for edge/small form factor use cases. We also talk about how Red Hat looks into emerging technology projects. Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech. Links: Nick's twitter MicroShift MicroShift blog post Red Hat Emerging Technologies portal

Virtual Stack Podcast is back after a 10 months long hiatus! On the 40th episode of the show, I'm joined by a fellow Red Hatter and the co-host of the The Cloudcast, Brian Gracely. With Brian, we look into several technology trends such as cloud computing, web3, security then we discuss what to expect in 2022 and beyond. Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Show notes: 1:30: Intros 6:00: Cloud computing 20:30: web3 and Metaverse 27:45: Security 33:15: Tech investors and VC funding 39:45: Future of work and great resignation. 47:30: Closing notes   Links: Brian's twitter. The Cloudcast: Web, Twitter.

Chris Love and Jay Vyas's book "Core Kubernetes" is about to hit the shelves around July this year via Manning Publications. Chris joined me on the 39th episode of the Virtual Stack Podcast and we discussed about all things Kubernetes: learning, common challenges of running in production and the exciting future of K8S. I have free eBook codes for this book and you’ll get one if you’re one of the first 5 people to share my LinkedIn and Twitter posts with your network. Besides that, you can use the code “podstack20” for a 40% discount on all Manning Publications products (use this link).   Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Links: Core Kubernetes Twitter: Chris, Jay Lionkube

Learning Kubernetes can be a great boost for your career, and you might be wondering where to start and what resources to use. Elton Stoneman joined me on the 38th episode of Virtual Stack Podcast and talked about his new book "Learn Kubernetes in a Month of Lunches", his journey of learning K8S and his views about the future of K8S.   I have free eBook codes for this book and you’ll get one if you’re one of the first 5 people to share my LinkedIn and Twitter posts with your network. Besides that, you can use the code “podstack20” for a 40% discount on all Manning Publications products.   Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Links: Learn Kubernetes in a Month of Lunches  Twitter Elton's Blog Elton's Pluralsight profile Show notes: 02:00 - Intro about the book and Elton's background 08:45 - How does the approach for learning K8S change for different personas, e.g. infra teams, dev teams, security teams? 15:15 - How would you learn K8S if you were to start from scratch today? 22:45 - How do you see the adoption trends and future of K8S? 27:00 - In the future, are we still going to need to learn how K8S works under the hood, or will we just use  it as a service 32:00 - Closing notes

Virtual Stack Podcast is back after a long break! On the 37th episode of the show, I'm joined by the authors of the book "AI as a Service", Peter Elger (CEO, fourTheorem) and Eoin Shanaghy (CTO, fourTheorem).   No need to mention the importance of the role that AI/ML play in digital transformation. With the incredible speed of evolution of cloud computing, it's now much easier to adopt cloud-based solutions rather than building everything by yourself. Peter and Eoin's book explain the AI as a Service with real world examples.   I have free eBook codes for this book and you’ll get one if you’re one of the first 5 people to share my LinkedIn and Twitter posts with your network. Besides that, you can use the code “podstack20” for a 40% discount on all Manning Publications products.   Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Show Notes: 02:00 - Intro 08:30 - Current cloud landscape and definition of AI/ML and Serverless 17:30 - Who can benefit the most from reading the book? 19:45 - What are the main use cases for AIaaS and which industries can benefit the most? 21:30 - When do you recommend using AIaaS versus DIY, or vice versa? 27:00 - How would you build a web application using AIaaS and Serverless technologies? What are the architectural building blocks and public cloud services? 36:00 - How can we be more effective and efficient while using AIaaS? 41:00 - Recommendations for further learning and closing notes Links: Peter and Eoin's book: "AI as a Service" Peter's Twitter Eoin's Twitter SLIC Starter: A complete starter project from fourTheorem for production-grade serverless applications on AWS.

vSphere Bitfusion delivers elastic infrastructure for AI/ML workloads by creating pools of hardware accelerator resources, such as GPUs. VMware has acquired Bitfusion in late-2019 and it has been recently announced that Bitfusion will be an integrated feature of vSphere 7.0. On the 36th episode of Virtual Stack Podcast, I'm joined by Mike Adams (Sr. Director Cloud Platform Product Marketing at VMware) and we discuss about vSphere Bitfusion, its technology and use cases. You can reach out to Mike on Twitter and LinkedIn, and you can learn more about vSphere Bitfusion via AskBitfusion@vmware.com mailer.  Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech. Show Notes: 01:00 - Intro 02:00 - Intro to Bitfusion and their technology 05:30 - Relationship between GPU technology and AI/ML applications 08:30 - How can we use Bitfusion, is it now a part of vSphere? How’s pricing and packaging? 12:30 - The architecture and components of the solution 15:00 - What’s CUDA and what’s its relationship with Bitfusion technology? 19:15 - What about Kubernetes workloads and Bitfusion? 21:45 - What are some of the use cases/verticals that can benefit from Bitfusion technology?  30:15 - Usage of FPGA and custom ASICs with Bitfusion. 32:30 - Closing notes Links: Hardware Acceleration with vSphere Bitfusion Announcing vSphere Bitfusion – Elastic Infrastructure for AI/ML Workloads VMware Blogs on AI/ML VMware’s AI/ML direction and Hardware Acceleration with vSphere Bitfusion VMware Kubernetes Integration with Bitfusion  

On the 35th episode of the Virtual Stack Podcast, I'm joined by David Burton (Director, Colleague Experience & Technology - EMEA at VMware) and we discuss about how VMware uses its own technologies to create the best employee experience. We also touch base on the new definition of workplace in enterprises after the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech. Show notes: 01:00 - Intro 02:00 - What’s employee experience, why does it matter? 05:30 - What sets the difference between companies that can and cannot identify customer needs and set the right experience. What are they doing right or wrong? 08:45 - How did VMware define the colleague expectations in different areas, like, on boarding, remote working, learning and development? 11:20 - How will the pandemic will effect the employee experience going forward? 20:30 - What’s the technology stack used in VMware’s employee experience solution. 24:30 - Closing notes

Virtual Stack podcast is back with its 34th episode! On this episode, I'm joined by Martijn Smit (Sr. Technical Marketing Architect at VMware) and we dive into the newest features of vRealize Network Insight, such as flow-based app discovery, support for VeloCloud SD-WAN, AWS, Azure and more. Martijn's book, "vRealize Network Insight Cookbook" will be available very soon. You can follow his website networkinsightbook.com to get notified once it's out there. Besides that, you can follow Martijn on Twitter (@smitmartijn). Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.

On the 33rd episode of Virtual Stack, I’m joined by Dylan Shields (Software Engineer at Google) and we talk about his upcoming book called AWS Security. In our discussion, we touch on many points; such as the security governance on public clouds, security services on AWS, best practices for networking/VPC, IAM and continuous monitoring.   Dylan’s book will be published by Manning Publications in Autumn 2020. I have free eBook codes for this book and you’ll get one if you’re one of the first 5 people to share my LinkedIn and Twitter posts with your network.   Besides that, you can use the code “podstack20” for a 40% discount on all Manning Publications products.   Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Links: Dylan's book: "AWS Security" AWS Well Architected Framework Whitepapers AWS Security Blog

On the 32nd episode of Virtual Stack Podcast, I'm joined by Kenneth Reilly (CTO at LevelUP) and we talk about Low-Code Development. Low-Code (often referred to as No-Code) development platforms provide an environment where programmers create their application software through graphical user interfaces and configuration instead of traditional computer programming. While this brings many benefits, especially speed and agility in prototyping and enabling a broader range of users with software development skills, some developers question if low-code is fit for large-scale or mission critical applications. You can reach out to Kenneth on LinkedIn, Twitter and Medium.  Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech. Links: What is Low-Code Development? - Kenneth's Medium article on Low-Code. Low-Code Development Platform - Wikipedia LevelUP - Company website

Digital Workspace is increasingly becoming a strategic IT priority for enterprises, since it's directly related to employee experience and productivity. On the other hand, security and privacy are becoming even more important in parallel with BYOD and mobile working. On the 31st episode of Virtual Stack Podcast, I'm joined by Adam Matthews, Digital Workspace Solution Engineer at VMware, and we discuss about Digital Workspace, employee experience and VMware's Workspace ONE solution. You can reach out to Adam and follow his work on Twitter (@AdamPMatthews) and his blog. Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech. Links:  VMware TestDrive: https://www.vmwdemo.com/ https://whatisworkspaceone.com/ https://techzone.vmware.com/ https://blog.eucse.com/author/matthewsa/

Back in August 2019, Pat Gelsinger and Joe Beda were on stage at VMworld US to announce VMware Tanzu and Project Pacific, the products and solutions that are designed to change the way customers build, run and manage their Kubernetes based applications. On the 30th episode of the Virtual Stack Podcast, I’m joined by Scott Lowe (Staff Kubernetes Architect at VMware, author, blogger and fellow podcaster) and we discuss about these recent announcements and check under the hood. Hope you enjoy the show. You can reach out to Scott and follow his work on his blog and Twitter. Scott hosts a popular podcast called Full Stack Journey and he’s also contributing to the KubeAcademy initiative. Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech. Links: Live announcement at VMworld US (33:00 - 43:00) Project Pacific product page VMware Tanzu product page Scott's author profile; the books that he authored and co-authored

Finding the perfect balance between work and life has always been a trouble, especially for those in the IT sector. IT and many other industries adore productivity, tie your work output to your salary and even your professional status. In the race of maintaining a good work output, we occasionally forget having interests outside of work, our families, relationships and hobbies, and this work-life imbalance often ends up with anxiety, stress, and even depression and burn-out.   Joining me on the 29th episode of the podcast today is Amy Lewis (Director of NSX Product Marketing at VMware) and we talk about work-life balance in IT sector. Why it’s so challenging to maintain it, what causes the imbalance and what are some tips, tricks and life-hacks that we can apply in our lives to maintain a healthy balance work and life.   You can reach out to Amy via Twitter (@CommsNinja) and LinkedIn. She will be launching a new podcast with a group of four called Nerd Herd, so stay tuned for that.    Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more.   Hope you enjoy the show. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Links: Cal Newport - Digital Minimalism OECD Better Life Index The State of Work Life Balance in 2019: What we learned from studying 185 million hours of working time Finding work life balance: Tips, techniques, and exercises for a more balanced life The Illusion of Multitasking Boosts Performance Best Places to Work 2020 - Employees Choice Cities for the Best Work-Life Balance 2019 Eisenhower Matrix

Analytics in the data centre can be challenge since many solutions tend to send extensive packet data and telemetry to disparate centralised engines, which can increase cost and complexity. NSX Intelligence is a new solution that has been announced with NSX-T 2.5 and it’s designed to remediate this challenge. It is a distributed analytics engine that provides detailed application topology visualisation, automated security policy recommendations, continuous monitoring of every flow, and an audit trail of security policies. On the 28th episode of Virtual Stack Podcast, I’m joined by Dumlu Timuralp (NSX Lead Solution Engineer at VMware) and we talk about the new features announced on NSX-T 2.5, especially NSX Intelligence. You can reach out to Dumlu via LinkedIn and Twitter, and follow his work via Medium and Github. Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. Hope you enjoy the show. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech. Show Notes: 02:30 Intro 04:30 NSX Intelligence 20:45 New Security features on NSX-T 2.5 28:45 NSX Cloud enhancements 35:00 Closing notes Links: NSX-T Data Center 2.5 Release Notes  Using NSX Intelligence (NSX-T 2.5 Admin Guide) VMware Blogs - NSX-T 2.5 – A New Marker on the Innovation Timeline VMware Compatibility Guide (NSX-T) NSX-T 2.5 Layer 7 App-IDs VMworld 2019 session - Using VMware NSX Policy and Analytics to Address Key Challenges in Security (SAI3071BE)

On the 27th episode of the show, I’m joined by Stijn Vanveerdeghem, Senior Technical Product Manager at VMware.    Distributed IPS/IDS (Intrusion Prevention and Detection System) on NSX-T was one of the biggest announcements at VMworld 2019 Europe. Stijn is the Technical Product Manager behind this feature and he took the time to explain us what VMware is bringing to the security market and what are the distinctive benefits that customers can gain from using this feature.   You can reach out to Stijn via LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stijnvanv/).    Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more. Hope you enjoy the show. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Show notes: 02:00 - Intro 04:45 - What did VMware announce in VMworld 2019 Europe? 07:50 - What is IPS/IDS and what is the difference between IDS/IPS and a Firewall and NGFW (Next-gen FW) 15:00 - Can you talk about the use cases for Distributed IDS? 21:00 - What additional benefits does VMware bring to the customer? 29:15 - Can you tell us a bit more about the Architecture? 35:30 - What are the NSX-T IPS/IDS signatures based on? 37:15 - What about the general availability? 38:30 - Closing notes Links: VMworld 2019 Europe session: What's New with NSX-T Micro-Segmentation (SAI2565BE)(IPS/IDS is covered at the end) Official Product Page  VMware Blog about the feature announcement 

On the 26th episode of Virtual Stack Podcast, I'm joined by Kelly Goolsby, Director of Enterprise Sales and Solution Architecture at Liquid Web and we talk about a variety of topics; cloud computing, hybrid-clouds, migrating to cloud and Liquid Web's services in this domain.  Liquid Web is a company focusing on managed hosting as well as managed VMware Private Clouds, and Kelly has a lot of experience with cloud use cases, cloud TCO and migration to cloud. You can reach out to Kelly via Twitter (@kgool) and LinkedIn. Liquid Web's website is https://www.liquidweb.com.   Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more.   Hope you enjoy the show. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Show Notes: 04:30 - What trends do you see in cloud market today? 08:30 - Top 3 benefits of moving to cloud 12:00 - What are the main cloud use cases? 16:15 - What does Liquid Web do? 19:15 - What are the cost/TCO differences between hosted cloud and DIY private cloud? 23:00 - How do you migrate your on-prem workload to a hosted cloud solution? 26:30 - Any case studies of customers moving to cloud? 30:30 - Closing notes

On the 25th episode of Virtual Stack Podcast, I'm joined by Martijn Baecke, Cloud Management Technologist at VMware, and we discuss the Journey to Multi-cloud Management. We tried to fit this big topic in less than one hour and we touched on many points, such as the evolution towards SDDC and Private Clouds, the rise of Public Clouds, cloud native applications and finally the paradigm shift into multi-cloud. The rise for multi-cloud is creating new needs, like consistent automation and operations, and we discuss what VMware offers to cover these needs. You can reach out to Martijn via Twitter (@baecke) and his personal blog: http://thinkcloud.nl/   Virtual Stack is available on all major apps: Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more.   Hope you enjoy the show. As usual, feel free to share your feedback via Twitter (@emregirici), LinkedIn or virtualstack.tech.   Links: Martijn's post on VMware Blogs: Journey Towards Multi-Cloud Management Martijn's Lightboard video: VMware Cloud Strategy with Martijn Baecke