Gestalt It Rundown

The US Department of Justice is at it again with a new team for Operation Dying Ember. Sounds spooky, right? This time it was to undertake a secret court order to remove malware from Ubiquiti devices infected by Fancy Bear. The devices in question had default administration passwords as well as remote admin access on the public Internet. The DOJ reinfected the routers with the original malware used to compromise them in the first place and then used that compromise to remove remote access and clean up the secondary payload that had been installed to turn them into a potential botnet. The DOJ said it would then notify users to do a factory reset and install the latest firmware as well as changing their admin password. There's a lot to unpack here! This and more on the Gestalt IT Rundown hosted by Tom Hollingsworth and guest Max Mortillaro. Hosts: Tom Hollingsworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/networkingnerd/ Max Mortillaro: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxmortillaro/ Follow Gestalt IT Website: https://www

Cohesity is set to acquire the data protection assets of Veritas in a huge deal. Cohesity will be picking up the NetBackup portfolio as well as SaaS offering Alta. The move is seen as a huge bolster to Cohesity both in their cloud offerings as well as traditional on-prem enterrpise back and data protection. The deal will merge the two companies into a $7 billion. The remaining parts of Veritas that aren't purchased will be rebranded as DataCo. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:50 - NetApp and SpectraLogic Team Up for On-Prem Archival Storage 4:33 - Flipper Zero is Canada's Number One Enemy 9:18 - AI Continues to Shape Google Gemini 13:42 - Free VMware vSphere Hypervisor Ended by Broadcom 17:56 - Alcion Announces New MSP Partner Program 20:36 - Cohesity to Acquire Veritas Technologies 32:17 - The Weeks Ahead 34:10 - Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Social Media Tom Hollingsworth: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Stephen Foskett: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twi

Cisco Live EMEA is happening this week and we're here learning all the great things that Cisco is investing in and bringing to the market. We thought it would be great to give you a quick overview of the biggest announcements as well as providing some context around why they're important. This and more on this week’s Rundown. Head to GestaltIT.com for show notes. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:09 - Linux Foundation Launches Post-Quantum Cryptography Group 3:35 - DEFCON Defends Caesar's Cancellation Chaos 5:07 - NetApp and SpectraLogic Teaming Up for Archival Options 8:06 - Ivanti Exploited After Advisories 10:05 - Zscaler COO Exits For Wiz 12:34 - Cisco Live EMEA Embraces New Technologies 24:23 - The Weeks Ahead 25:12 - Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Social Media Tom Hollingsworth: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Stephen Foskett: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/SFoskett⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Zoë Rose: https://twitter.com/RoseSecOps Follow Gestalt IT Websit

Juniper Networks is putting more Marvis in everything. In a major announcement this week they released several new products. One of those was expanding the Mist AI platform into Juniper Apstra to create more integration between the two acquisitions. WIth Apstra you get intent-based networking and with Mist you get access to a virtual network assistant that can answer questions about issues or provide help with configuration. This and more on this week's Gestalt IT Rundown. Thanks to Max Mortillaro for sitting in. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Gestalt IT Rundown 0:58 - VAST Data Teams Up with Genesis Cloud 2:46 - TSMC vs. Samsung in Chiplet Manufacturing Race 7:38 - Dynatrace Acquires Runecast 9:42 - Juniper Networks Reveals First AI-Native Networking Platform 17:37 - NVM Express adding Computational Storage 24:22 - For fun: Japan Nixes Floppies 25:01 - The Weeks Ahead 27:47 - Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Social Media Tom Hollingsworth: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd⁠⁠⁠⁠

According to a recent report from the IEA, data center electricity demands are set to rise over the next three years. The report discusses the CO2 emissions and the potential mitigation that companies have committed to doing to achieve carbon neutrality. Also of note was the assertion that clean energy sources could meet this growing demand to help offset the need to rely on older power systems that are harder to optimize for efficiency. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:09 - Veeam Poking Around with Proxmox 4:40 - Snyk Acquires Helios for Cloud Capabilities 7:36 - TSMC's Second Fab in Arizona Delayed 12:44 - CVE Accusations against Ivanti and Juniper Networks. 16:06 - Chinese Authorities Exploit Apple AirDrop Security Weakness 21:46 - Microsoft's Caught In Midnight Blizzard 25:43 - Should We Be Concerned About Growing Electricity Demand? 41:42 - The Weeks Ahead 45:33 - Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Social Media Tom Hollingsworth: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd⁠

Two of the biggest players in the networking space are about to become one. Rumors started swirling on Monday evening that HPE was looking to acquire Juniper Networks and those rumors were confirmed yesterday. HPE will be paying $40/share or approximately $14 billion for all of the company. Juniper started off as a huge player in the service provider space before making strategic acquisitions of companies like Mist Systems and Apstra to become a force in the wireless and data center networking space. The move has the networking analysts abuzz with potential for integration of AI software as well as complementary product lines. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:03 - Articul8 Spun Off From Intel 3:26 - Broadcom Takes VMware's Top Partners Direct 7:02 - IBM Acquires Two iPaaS Applications 9:58 - Wi-Fi 7 Is Finally A Thing (Sort of) 13:26 - Micron is Building FeRAM 18:11 - HPE Acquiring Juniper Networks for $14 Billion 39:07 - The Weeks Ahead 41:31 - Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Soci

Two of the biggest players in the networking space are about to become one. Rumors started swirling on Monday evening that HPE was looking to acquire Juniper Networks and those rumors were confirmed yesterday. HPE will be paying $40/share or approximately $14 billion for all of the company. Juniper started off as a huge player in the service provider space before making strategic acquisitions of companies like Mist Systems and Apstra to become a force in the wireless and data center networking space. The move has the networking analysts abuzz with potential for integration of AI software as well as complementary product lines. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:03 - Articul8 Spun Off From Intel 3:26 - Broadcom Takes VMware's Top Partners Direct 7:02 - IBM Acquires Two iPaaS Applications 9:58 - Wi-Fi 7 Is Finally A Thing (Sort of) 13:26 - Micron is Building FeRAM 18:11 - HPE Acquiring Juniper Networks for $14 Billion 39:07 - The Weeks Ahead 41:31 - Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Soci

It has been a big year in the enterprise IT industry for many reasons. Pat Gelsinger and Intel continue to refocus its business, the SEC gets serious with SolarWinds, Broadcom's deal to acquire VMware, HPE Aruba Ascendant, the incredible rise of generative AI, the battle of open source licenses, and of course, the Futurum Group acquiring Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day. Let's discuss on this year-end edition of the Gestalt IT Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Gestalt IT Rundown 0:42 - Intel Continues Business Focus 4:52 - SEC Getting Serious, Especially with SolarWinds 9:24 - Broadcom VMware Deal 12:55 - HPE Aruba Ascendant 17:09 - Gen AI is the Rage 22:18 - The Open Source Licensing Battle 27:48 - The Futurum Group Acquires Tech Field Day and Gestalt IT 29:32 - Thanks for Watching 31:26 - Thanking the Community 33:32 - Coming in 2024 Follow our Hosts on Social Media Tom Hollingsworth: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Stephen Foskett: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/SFosk

It has been a big year in the enterprise IT industry for many reasons. Pat Gelsinger and Intel continue to refocus its business, the SEC gets serious with SolarWinds, Broadcom's deal to acquire VMware, HPE Aruba Ascendant, the incredible rise of generative AI, the battle of open source licenses, and of course, the Futurum Group acquiring Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day. The Rundown will return in 2024. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Gestalt IT Rundown 0:42 - Intel Continues Business Focus 4:52 - SEC Getting Serious, Especially with SolarWinds 9:24 - Broadcom VMware Deal 12:55 - HPE Aruba Ascendant 17:09 - Gen AI is the Rage 22:18 - The Open Source Licensing Battle 27:48 - The Futurum Group Acquires Tech Field Day and Gestalt IT 29:32 - Thanks for Watching 31:26 - Thanking the Community 33:32 - Coming in 2024 Follow our Hosts on Social Media Tom Hollingsworth: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Stephen Foskett: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/SFoskett⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Follow Gestalt IT Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠

Change is in the air and it's licensed. The biggest news this week came from VMware (by Broadcom) as they announced a simplification of their licensing model. The first change is that VMware Cloud Foundation has had the subscription cost cut in half and additional support levels added to help with activation and lifecycle management. VMware vSphere Foundation is also available as a subscription offering with several add-ons avaialble. Notably missing is the option for perpetual licensing, which was removed in this simplification. Also removed were hybrid purchase programs and anything not subscription-based. Customers may still use their perpetual licenses but will not be able to buy support for them until they transition to the new subscription model. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:57 - AMD Launches MI300 6:13 - Broadcom Divests EUC and Carbon Black Units from VMware 9:33 - Broadcom Acquires Elastics.cloud 12:56 - New Firmware Attacks on Windows and Linux 16:40 - VMware Simplifies Offer

IBM and Facebook parent company Meta have decided to advocate for a more open approach to AI. They've announced a joint AI Alliance group. The companies are part of a growing trend that sees advocates arguing that AI shouldn't be proprietary and closed. Also signing on to the alliance are Dell, Sony, AMD, Intel, and several other AI startups. The group seems to stand in opposition to companies like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft who are focused on creating AI rules that favor outcomes that will put them on top, as well as top dog NVIDIA. 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:55 - VAST Data Upgraded in Two Ways 3:29 - Intel Gets Reprieve from VLSI Patent Ruling 6:22 - Meta Takes On All the RISC-V 10:26 - Aviz Networks Gets Funding Round 13:45 - NetApp Revs FSx for ONTAP in AWS 16:24 - Broadcom Issues Return to Office Order for VMware 22:10 - IBM and Meta's AI Alliance Launched This Week 35:52 - The Weeks Ahead 38:00 Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Social Media Tom Hollingsworth: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.twi

Amazon announced that they will be using Nvidia's NVSwitch to create new rackscale AI platforms. This allows customers to use Nvidia technology like Grace Hopper or build something using AWS Nitro DPUs and Elastic Fabric Adapaters. That last combination doesn't use InfiniBand and moves to Ethernet. Two new chips are coming out from the Amazon labs. The first is Graviton4, the latest generation of Arm processor. Graviton4 has 50% more cores and 75% more memory bandwidth. This version of Graviton is based on the Demeter Neoverse V2 core. On the AI front Amazon also announced the next revision of their AI acceleration chip, Trainium2. This update has a 4x performance increase from the first generation and allows for liquid cooling. Trainium2 is designed to be deployed in clusters of 16 chips. In the data space, AWS made news with the GA of Bedrock, which enables customers to run foundational ML models from companies like Anthropic, Meta, and of course AWS itself. But many companies are worried about hall

It's been a wild week for OpenAI. On Friday, the board notified CEO Sam Altman that he was being removed. Then President and Chairman Greg Brockman quit. OpenAI then went through three interim CEOs in a weekend. Meanwhile, Altman and Brockman were hired by Microsoft but rumors swirled they would be reinstated at OpenAI, which eventually happened late Tuesday night. The condition for the reinstatement was the removal and reappointment of all but one board member. That's one hell of a weekend! This and more on this week’s Rundown. Head to GestaltIT.com for show notes. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:03 - Broadcom Gets Conditional Approval for VMware from China and Closes Deal 4:27 - Nvidia Announces Spectrum-X Partners 8:00 - IOTech Releases Edge Central 10:40 - Ransomware Gang Rats Out Target to SEC 14:03 - OpenAI Chaos Reigns Supreme 32:28 - The Weeks Ahead 33:16 - Thanks for Watching Hosts: Stephen Foskett: ⁠https://www.twitter.com/SFoskett Tom Hollingsworth: https://twitter.com/Network

As Supercomputing 2023 is held in Denver this week, we're on the lookout for all the latest news. We have a new list of Top-500 supercomputers, more Nvidia announcements, and lots of AI. Perhaps the biggest topic of discussion, though, are the many questions about HPC itself: Will we be able to live in an exascale world? And what does that even mean when AI is the main application? Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:41 - US Plans More Spectrum to Commercial Providers for 5G Demand 3:58 - AMD Milan-based Cloud Instances revealed by Google 7:09 - YouTube to Label AI Generated Content 10:42 - Dell and Hugging Face Strike Deal for Open Source GenAI 13:56 - Microsoft Briefly Blocks ChatGPT Access for Employees 17:25 - Comvmault Shift Re-Launch Commvault Cloud 22:12 - Supercomputing 23 Announcements 32:53 - The Weeks Ahead 33:48 - Thanks for Watching Hosts: Stephen Foskett: https://www.twitter.com/SFoskett Tim Bertino: https://www.twitter.com/TimBertino Follow Gestalt IT Website: ⁠⁠https://www.Gestalt

Okta hasn't had a very good run of security headlines lately, and the latest is a breach that resulted in the theft of session tokens of several customers from Okta's customer support system. Though the number of customers was relatively low, the unauthorized access went undetected for over two weeks. The root cause seems to have come from an employee logging into their personal Google account and saving a username and password withing the Chrome browser. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:42 - ZEDEDA Deploys Kubernetes at The Edge 3:33 - CloudFlare Outage 6:04 - Palo Alto Buys Talon Cyber Security 9:49 - Using Google Calendar for Command and Control 12:58 - Updated Security Frameworks (CVSS 4.0 and MITRE ATT&CK 14) 18:12 - Okta Breach Blamed on User's Personal Google Login 28:27 - The Weeks Ahead 29:38 - Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Social Media Tom Hollingsworth: ⁠https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd⁠ Brian Knudtson: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/bknudtson/⁠ Follow Ges

President Joe Biden has signed a comprehensive executive order addressing the safety and governance of artificial intelligence in the United States. The order, running to nearly 20,000 words, signifies a significant shift towards enhanced AI governance, covering areas such as transparency, safety data sharing, federal standards, and tests, and ethical considerations across various sectors. It requires tech companies developing large AI models to share safety data with the U.S. government before releasing them to the public, addressing transparency concerns advocated by AI experts. This comes just before the US, China, European Union, and major tech companies and organizations attend an international summit on AI risks at Bletchley Park organized by the UK government. Are we finally going to do something about AI? Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:51 - Qualcomm Introduces Snapdragon X Elite 4:23 - Windows Insider MVP Program is Terminated 8:21 - Jabil Buys Pluggable Optical Module Business From Int

We are at the 21st annual Information Security Summit in Cleveland today, and it's been an interesting event for us. Not only is this close to home in Northeast Ohio, the long-running ISS event attracts a wide range of attendees and presenters across the information security space. Ransomware and AI are high on the agenda of course, but we're also hearing about budgets and employment in the industry. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:45 - Prosimo Cloud Cost 360 3:43 - StorPool Tightens Data Protection in StorPool v21 7:08 - New Architectural Observability Manager from vFunction 10:25 - New Generative AI Platform from Alluxio 12:56 - Lenovo and Nvidia Announce Hybrid AI 14:47 - NetApp Insight Announcements 18:27 - ISS Cleveland and the Current Market 29:19 - The Weeks Ahead 29:58 - Thanks for Watching Hosts: Stephen Foskett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sfoskett/ Leon Adato: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonadato/ Follow Gestalt IT Website: https://www.GestaltIT.com/ Twitter: https://www.t

Big news this week from the boardroom as Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, has announced her departure from the Cisco Board of Directors. The move comes as a surprise in a recent SEC filing and was announced without fanfare. Su had served on the Cisco board since 2019. She is also stepping down from the board of Analog Devices, a position she has held since 2016. There is speculation that this depature could signal that AMD will begin moving into the networking space more with a focus on DPU technology to compete against Cisco's entrenched posistions with networking hardware. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:00 - StorMagic Announces Edge Control 3:39 - Former Palo Alto Employees Make Gusty Move 7:38 - Huawei All-Flash Array is 2nd in the Market 11:15 - Cisco 0-day Backdoors IOS-XE 14:43 - Cloudflare moves BMC from server motherboards 19:34 - Nyriad Announces Game-Changing Storage-as-a-Service Offering 22:37 - AMD CEO Lisa Su leaves Cisco Board of Directors 31:20 - The Weeks Ahead 33:44 - Thanks for Watchin

In the ongoing geopolitical battle between the United States and China, a new front has emerged, focusing on the open-source chip technology known as RISC-V. American lawmakers, citing national security concerns, are pressuring the Biden administration to place restrictions on U.S. companies' involvement in RISC-V, which is widely utilized in China. This technology competes with proprietary chip architectures from Arm and Intel and has applications ranging from smartphone chips to advanced artificial intelligence processors. The lawmakers fear that China is exploiting the culture of open collaboration among American companies to bolster its own semiconductor industry, potentially undermining the U.S.'s leadership in the chip field and supporting China's military modernization. We've spoken a lot about RISC-V and the US/China situation, so it's no surprise that these are coming together. How should we look at this situation? Time Stamps: 0:00 Welcome to the Rundown 0:50 - Backblaze Listed b

Intel is set to spin off its Programmable Solutions Group as an independent business, aiming for an IPO in 2-3 years. PSG, led by Intel's current Data Center and AI Group EVP Sandra Rivera, will operate independently as part of Intel's broader restructuring efforts. Despite PSG's past financial success, Intel believes this shift will enable more agility and growth, targeting markets beyond data centers. The goal is to retain majority ownership while allowing PSG to operate autonomously in the competitive FPGA market, similar to Intel's approach with Mobileye. Time Stamps: 0:00 Welcome to the Rundown 1:01 - Arrcus Reveals Connected Edge-AI 3:41 - Accedian Acquisition Completed by Cisco 5:42 - Unigen Bakes a Cupcake 9:25 - Cloud Data Security Reach from Cohesity Increases 12:20 - The Formation of the Unified Acceleration Foundation 16:17 - Toshiba is Going Private 19:27 - Programmable Solutions Group Spun-off by Intel 29:09 - The Weeks Ahead 30:17 - Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Social