Gestalt It Rundown

Well, it finally happened folks, and I guess the third time is the charm. If rumors are to be believed, Cisco had approached Splunk on two separate occasion to talk about acquisition, but their offers were rebuffed for unknown reasons. This time it appears that all the planets and comets have aligned and Splunk has entered into a definitive agreement with Cisco to be acquired for $28B. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open 0:45 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:44 - Palo Alto in Advanced Talks to buy Talon and Dig 3:00 - Solidigm Unveils DT-P5810 SCL SSD 6:42 - Open ToFu Joins Linux Foundation 10:14 - CoreWeave Chooses VAST Data for Next Gen Public Cloud 12:40 - Mirantis Announces Lens AppIQ 15:25 - Sierra Forest Coming Soon from Intel 20:08 - Cisco Set to Acquire Splunk 28:22 - The Weeks Ahead 29:23 - Thanks for Watching Hosts: Stephen Foskett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sfoskett/ Ned Bellavance: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ned-bellavance/ Follow Gestalt IT Website: https://www.GestaltIT.com/ Twitter: https://www.twi

Microsoft's AI division just found out they made a mistake. Three years ago they accidentally leaked 38 terabytes of data to a public GitHub repo while contributing to AI learnign models. A security research team found the exposure recently, which came from a misconfigured Azure Blob storage URL that was overly permissive and difficult to manage. This Shared Access Signature, or SAS, token is designed to give teams full control over shared files. However, the difficulty in managing it makes it appear almost impossible to use correctly. The leaked data included passwords, keys, and an archive of internal Microsoft Teams messages. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:49 - BackBox and Paessler Team Up for Backups 3:11 - Lenovo Leaps Into AI at the Edge 7:28 - Announcements from Intel's Innovation 12:00 - HyperFlex Flexes Its Last 16:44 - Microsoft's Security Leaks Get Worse 27:01 - The Weeks Ahead 29:02 - Thanks for Watching Hosts: Tom Hollingsworth: https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd Ch

In an excellent article, Karim Khan of the International Criminal Court has started to make the case that cybercriminals should be subject to international law for their escapades. The current state of the world often sees these criminals go unpunished due to nation state backing or lack of jurisdiction. Khan says that we need to get tougher by ensuring these naer-do-wells can face justice for their crimes, especially when they impact so many people around the world. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:33 - CoreWeave Seeking $8 Billion 4:10 - Enfabrica Enhancing GPU Usage in Datacenters 7:14 - It's MLPerf Benchmark Results Time! 11:57 - Cybersecurity is to Blame for Ongoing Outages says MGM Resorts 14:42 - Thunderbolt 5 revealed by Intel 19:29 - Cybercriminals Gain Attention from International Criminal Courts 29:49 - The Weeks Ahead 31:14 - Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Social Media Tom Hollingsworth: https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd Stephen Foskett: https://www.twitter.com/SFosk

Dell Technologies and AMD are at the forefront of high-performance computing (HPC), driving innovation in various fields, such as space exploration, wildfire prevention, and neuroscience research. Their HPC solutions are in high demand, revolutionizing industries by accelerating productivity, enabling faster market entry, and offering energy-efficient infrastructure modernization. Dell's PowerEdge servers, equipped with the latest AMD 4th Gen EPYC™ processors, provide accessible and easy-to-deploy high-performance solutions for partners serving customers of all sizes, emphasizing optimization for maximum performance right out of the box. This and more on the Gestalt IT Rundown. 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:50 - Intel makes Foundry Deal with Tower after Acquisition Falls Through 2:48 - The Edge is Paying Off for HPE 5:06 - Rubrik to Pursue IPO 7:33 - New Extortion Approach Threatens GDPR Fines 11:06 - Huawei Expands Portfolio with 5-in-1 Scale-Out All Flash Array 14:06 - HashiCorp Licenses and Software

At Hot Chips 2023, Intel unveiled Sierra Forest and Granite Rapids Xeon processors targeting data centers. Sierra Forest is Intel's first E-core Xeon with 144 CPU cores, while Granite Rapids focuses on core performance. Arm introduced Neoverse Compute Subsystem, aiding Neoverse N2 core integration. AMD previewed Siena Epyc processors for edge computing with up to 64 cores, notable power efficiency, and a compact form, catering to the edge computing market's demands. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:06 - Google Revs Up Storage Offerings 4:09 - Arm Files for a NASDAQ Listing 7:20 - Apica Aquires LOGIC.AI and Raises $10 Million in Funding 9:40 - Cisco and Nutanix Form Global Partnership 12:54 - IBM Bumps Tape to 50TB 16:28 - Europe's DSA Hits Big Internet Platforms 20:30 - Intel Previews Next Xeons 29:02 - Arm Presents Neoverse V2 and CSS at Hot Chips 2023 33:50 - AMD Siena Targets Devices at the Edge 38:51 - More Fun Announcements from Hot Chips 2023 41:37 - The Weeks Ahead 42:35 - Thank

VMware just can't stop talking about GenAI, which incorporates many different developments. The company is adding AI assistants to many products and is also introducing a new VMware Private AI offering with enabling generative AI processing on NVIDIA or open-source platforms for enterprise deployment. VMware is talking about security and data privacy while at the same time touting the performance and price benefits of on-premises GPUs. What is this all about? VMware NSX is even more exciting now! NSX+ is the new as-a-service offering focusing specifically on application visibility, network detection and response, and HCX+ Workload Mobility. The goal of the service is provide functionality that modern enterprises at a monthly cost for OpEx budgeting purposes. The other big piece of the NSX announcements is NSX VPC, which is modeled of the virtual private cloud (VPC) networking capabilities in public clouds. This and more from an on-premises version of the Rundown from VMware Explore! Time Stamps: 0:00 -

Do you love licensing drama? Last week HashiCorp made headlines with an announcement by CTO Armon Dadgar that they're changing licensing models. HashiCorp is now adopting the Business Source License, or BSL, which was popularized by MariaDB and Couchbase. Under the BSL, HashiCorp code will remain freely available and usable for non-production use. You may be granted a license for production use if your project doesn't compete with HashiCorp. If it does you'll need to buy a commercial license. The move has generated a lot of discussion and speculation in the community given how prevalent projects like Terraform are. This and more on the Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:43 - NVIDIA Launches Refreshed H100 Without Intel 4:41 - Years of Intel CPUs affected by Downfall Bug 9:06 - Groq and Samsung Foundry Bring Next-Gen LPU 13:43 - OpenELA is formed by Oracle, SUSE, and More 18:03 - Intel Terminates Tower Semiconductor Acquisition 21:27 - Itential and Alkira Team Up 24:27 - Business

We are at the annual Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara this week, with the event showcasing the latest advancements in the storage industry. Let's take a closer look at some of the announcements, including bigger and better SSDs, taller NAND, and a whole lot of talk about CXL. We'll also look at the moves SNIA is doing to help the storage industry branch out into data and management while also providing continuity with the past. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:26 - Cadence Buys Rambus Memory and SerDes PHY Assets 3:14 - New Relic Acquired 5:50 - Microsoft Under Criticism for Security Issues 8:11 - Arm aims for $60 Billion Valueation in September 11:15 - Rubrik Acquires Laminar to Boost Cloud Security 13:25 - Announcements from Flash Memory Summit 37:21 - The Weeks Ahead 38:44 - Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Social Media Tom Hollingsworth: https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd Stephen Foskett: https://www.twitter.com/SFoskett Scott Shadley: https://www.twitter.com/SMShadl

Some of the biggest names in the HPC and hyperconvergence space are banding together to standardize Ethernet. The new Ultra Ethernet Consortium counts AMD, Broadcom, Cisco, HPE, Intel, and others as founding members. Chairman J. Metz says the goal of the consortium is to tune Ethernet for workloads with specific performance requirements. The companies invovled are selling very high speed Ethernet focused on HPC and AI workloads. Notably absent in the list is NVIDIA. Live events are back, baby! It's event season, and hotels are filling up for in-person tech events. But the pandemic has changed everything, including event participation. What should we expect from returning favorites like re:Invent, in-flux standbys like VMware Explore, and smaller events like Flash Memory Summit? This and more on this week's Gestalt IT Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:49 - Stampede3 and Condor Galaxy-1 Show the Future of HPC and AI 7:05 - SEC Sets Four Day Deadline for Breach Disclosures 10:14 -

Cybersecurity remains a critical concern, dominating headlines with its persistent threats and sophisticated attacks. Recent incidents, such as the stolen Microsoft keys and the ongoing MOVEit file transfer hack, exemplify the complexity and severity of security breaches. However, amidst the intricacies of cybersecurity, seemingly minor errors can also lead to significant consequences, as demonstrated by the inadvertent sending of sensitive military emails to the wrong destination due to a simple typo. Moreover, the passing of hacking legend Kevin Mitnick has also captured attention, reflecting the enduring impact of his contributions to the field. Let's take a closer look at these stories. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:04 - Stolen Microsoft security key leads to government email breach 3:22 - Samsung GDDR7 Development Completed 5:56 - Hackers Could Gain Superuser Status in Firmware Vulnerabilities 8:29 - Intel Unifies AVX-512 with AVX10 and AXP Announcements 12:34 - Debian Announces RISC-

Nvidia accelerates its venture capital investments in cloud and AI software startups, taking an equity stake in Lambda Labs, a competitor to Amazon Web Services. The deal, worth potentially $300 million, signifies Nvidia's growing interest in supporting startups in the cloud and AI software market while maintaining its leadership in data center chips for AI applications. Does this move suggest that we're entering a new world of hyperscale competition? Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:31 - Lenovo Unveils New Storage Offerings 3:54 - Oort to be Acquired by Cisco 7:22 - Looking For a NUC Replacement 11:07 - Broadcom Deal to Buy VMware Expected to Clear 15:00 - NVIDIA and Lambda Labs Team Up 18:06 - China Hacks in Microsoft Through Cloud Flaw 22:12 - Hammerspace Finds Funding 25:00 - The Weeks Ahead 26:56 - Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Social Media Tom Hollingsworth: https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd Stephen Foskett: https://www.twitter.com/SFoskett Follow Gestalt IT Websit

The Linux world is abuzz with controversy as IBM Red Hat puts the source code for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) behind a paywall, leaving CentOS Stream as the only accessible option. Meanwhile, Oracle emphasizes its commitment to Linux freedom, offering open access to binaries and source code for their RHEL-compatible distribution, Oracle Linux. On the other hand, SUSE takes a bold step by forking RHEL and investing millions in developing their own RHEL-compatible distribution, free from restrictions. The battle for Linux supremacy is heating up, with each company vying for dominance and championing their respective visions of openness and innovation. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:39 - Intel Shucks NUC Products 7:18 - Kentik Announces Azure Observability 10:18 - El Capitan Reporting for Duty 15:39 - Microsoft Issues Patch Targeting Malicious Drivers 18:53 - InfluxData Sees Influx of Angry Customers 23:01 - Vector Capital Acquires Riverbed Technology 26:52 - Oracle Wants Linux to Remain Open

Now that half of 2023 is behind us, let's take a closer look a the state of the global economy, with a special focus on the enterprise IT industry. As we've discussed, many different factors are impacting the current slowdown in sales of enterprise and cloud tech: Over-buying and hiring coming out of the pandemic, repercussions from the supply chain shortages, the war in Ukraine, tensions between the US, Europe, and China, a global cybercrime wave, and shifting demand from datacenter to cloud. Let's take a look at some of these changes and consider the state of the industry in mid 2023. This and more on this week's Gestalt IT Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Gestalt IT Rundown 0:37 - Apache Iceberg can now be used with BigLake 2:31 - Orion Investigation focuses on SolarWinds CISO and CFO 6:00 - Samsung Lays Out Foundry Roadmap 9:30 - Ex-Splunk CEO Doug Merritt to lead Startup Aviatrix Systems 12:55 - Intel Max Blade Installation Complete on Argonne Aurora Supercomputer 16:10 - Pros

Training 3.0 benchmark results show performance gains of up to 1.54x compared to six months ago and 33-49x improvement over the first round, driving innovation and energy efficiency in the industry. Intel's Habana Gaudi2 ML training engine competes with Nvidia's offerings, boasting better performance than A100 and lower pricing than H100. Nvidia, on the other hand, unveils their NeMo model with half a trillion parameters and expands the MLPerf Training suite to include GPT-3 and a new Recommendation engine. Their collaboration with CoreWeave showcases the superior performance of the H100, providing a 3.6x speed increase for GPT-3 compared to Intel Xeon and Gaudi2. Nvidia is also developing foundation models for their DGX cloud, collaborating with major players in the industry, and Intel is widely rumored to be developing its own Gaudi2-as-a-Service offering. Then there's the Tiny 1.1 inferencing benchmark, which saw over 150 results and performance improvements up to 1000x. Time Stamps: 0:00 - W

Intel is looking to expand their chip making facilities outside of the US. The first story this week involves a huge $25 billion dollar investment in chipmaking in Israel. Intel will pay increased taxes on the factory in return for an even bigger grant on the total investment should the conditions be met upon completion. The Israeli factory is expected to open in 2027 and operate through at least 2035. The second big investment comes in Germany, where the government has agreed to provide over $10 billion in additional subsidies for a fabrication facility in Magdeburg. Both of these announcements come on the heels of a testing facility being built in Poland. Stephen, why is Intel trying to expand their non-US operations after the CHIPS Act? This and more on the Rundown. 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:02 - Intel to Rebrand Core Series Processors 5:31 - FCC Asks ISPs to Justify Data Caps 10:19 - HPE Launches an AI Cloud 14:54 - NetBrain and PRTG Working Together 18:32 - Intel Expanding Chip Fabs in Foreign Lo

We're at Pure Storage's Pure Accelerate conference this week, and the buzz is focused on the company's continuing quest to push hard disk drives out of the datacenter. The new FlashArray R4 products are faster, while the new "E family" of FlashBlade and FlashArray target capacity-focused applications like data protection and logging. Another announcement focuses on ransomware recovery, with Pure offering a temporary replacement array on demand. Let's talk about these stories in more detail. This and more on this on-site Rundown at Pure Accelerate. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:46 - GigaOm Evaluates Data Storage Security Infrastructure 2:29 - AMD Bergamo Packs 128 Zen 4C Cores 6:30 - IOfortify Launched by VergeIO 9:11 - AMD Takes On NVIDIA with New AI Chip 13:11 - WASIX Enhances WebAssembly with POSIX Compatibility 16:13 - TSMC's CoWoS Capacity Mostly Conumed by NVIDIA and AMD 19:51 - Pure Storage Takes Aim at Disk Storage 23:37 - FlashArray//E Targets Bulk SAN 25:

At Cisco Live 2023, Cisco unveiled a range of solutions for SSE, network management, observability, and a new cloud-native application security solution called Panoptica. The event, which includes a performance by comedian Jim Gaffigan, highlighted Cisco's focus on simplifying user experiences and addressing the evolving needs of organizations. The security service edge (SSE) solution aims to streamline access and enhance hybrid work experiences, while the integration of generative AI into the Security Cloud improves security operations and efficiency. Cisco Networking Cloud offers a unified platform for network management, addressing challenges of complexity and fragmentation. The Full-Stack Observability (FSO) Platform brings together data from multiple domains, enabling comprehensive insights, while Panoptica provides end-to-end lifecycle protection for cloud native applications. We're getting more details on all of these products as part of Tech Field Day at Cisco Live, which included presentation

Dell Tech World was the talk of the industry last week. In part it's because Dell is rolling out initiatvies to try and address their key areas as those technologies move closer to the cloud. Dell APEX storage for public cloud was a key piece. APEX is a software defined storage platform for AWS and Azure that integrates with existing tools to create a hybrid multicloud experience. Also of note was Dell NativeEdge, a software platform that can help manage deployment of applications and devices at the edge of the enterprise. Also announced along with NativeEdge is Project Fort Zero, Dell's implementation of zero trust network architecture (ZTNA). The last big announcement was a partnership with Nvidia to provide the Project Helix platform to run Nvida generative AI. Helix sees Nvidia H100 GPUs running in PowerEdge servers. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:46 - Red Hat Summit Headlined With Ansible Announcements 6:46 - Mirantis Introduces Centralized, Enterprise-Wide Management of Lens Pro f

Ransomware attacks continue to pose a significant threat across various sectors, with recent incidents targeting critical industries and causing substantial financial and operational damages. Federal authorities have issued warnings about a surge in cyberattacks exploiting a high-severity vulnerability in Veeam software that enables unauthorized access and raises the risk of data heft and ransomware deployment. With healthcare organizations heavily reliant on Veeam software for data protection, the implications of these attacks are particularly concerning. But the impact of ransomware attacks extends beyond healthcare, as demonstrated by recent incidents faced by companies like Dole, which incurred $10.5 million in direct costs following a ransomware attack, and the ongoing attack on the Dallas Municipal Court Building, disrupting legal proceedings and potentially exposing sensitive personal and case-related information. Since we have an expert in data protection joining us today, let's take a closer look

Controversy over AI, from ChatGPT to Bard, have been all over the news, and the impact of Large Language Models is hitting enterprise IT. We're seeing litigation against GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI just as the US Congress heard testimony by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. And of course IT pros everywhere are grappling with the various ways their jobs will be affected by AI. Let's take a closer look at AI in the enterprise. This and more on this week's Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:58 - Hammerspace Acquires RozoFS 3:15 - Google I/O 2023 happened 6:49 - VAST Data's Platform Certified as Datastore for NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD 10:04 - Microsoft and AMD are Teaming Up 12:42 - Solidigm's D5-P5430 High-Density Data Center SSD 15:47 - AI Controversies Hit Enterprise IT 27:27 - The Weeks Ahead 28:44 - Thanks for Watching Follow our Hosts on Social Media Tom Hollingsworth: https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd Stephen Foskett: https://www.twitter.com/SFoskett Ned Bellavance: https:/