Well, That Was Quick: Orbi Disappoints and Is Returned

I was pretty excited about the switch to Orbi: performance doubled and coverage was great. While it had an app, it also had a full web-based GUI for management and included a depth of configuration options. The fact that the web console was a bit clunky and hard to work with was fine because I could once again control my network from a laptop.

Then the updates started.

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Amplifi vs. Orbi – It’s Time for a Change

I have been working with mesh systems for quite a while now and have some new observations. I had begun the journey with Google WiFi, a product that checked all of my boxes and had incredible performance, right out of the box. However, what I quickly realized with Google was that their business model and lack of flexibility really became the real issue and that led me down the path of unplugging it and replacing it with Amplifi.

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Sorting the hype from the truth with intent-based networking systems

Everyone is talking about intent-based networking these days, but because there is no great agreement on what it is, many people are trying to twist that around. The latest entrant to this is Cisco, who is trying to co-opt the trend. Where do we go from here?

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China is Driving to 5G and IoT Through Global Collaboration

I spent a week in Beijing, participating in the OPNFV Summit which is a global event focused on the NFV market, primarily with carriers. I had a lot of engagement with the Chinese carriers and found that there is an amazing amount of collaboration within their ranks.

Read more in my Forbes.com article

Red Hat Summit And OpenStack Summit: Two Weeks Of Open Source Software In Boston

Back to back trips to Boston gave me an opportunity to talk open source and cloud from different perspectives with both Red Hat and OpenStack. There is a lot going on in this space and the trips showed that just as the open source movement has a lot of commonality, what really brings them together is the acceptance of opposing viewpoints.

Read more in my Forbes.com article

Cisco UCS: True System Innovation

Most servers today have a 20+ year legacy, which can be a hindrance to true flexibility because they are mired in the past. Cisco built its UCS product from a clean sheet of paper, designing a system, not a server, in order to tackle the compute challenges of both today and the future.

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SD-WAN Gets Real As Cisco Systems Makes A Big Investment

There has been a lot of activity in the SD-WAN space, it is the “low hanging fruit” of SDN because it deals with point-to-point connections for the most part. Last year I predicted consolidation in the industry and we are seeing the beginning of that with the Cisco / Viptela acquisition. 

Read more in my Forbes.com article

CIOs Are Driving Digital Transformation

The drive for digital transformation is being led by the CIO. Because of the criticality of this transformational strategy, the CIO is finding a place at the table more often because their efforts are now driving the business, not just the infrastructure.

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Lenovo Brings Azure Stack On Premises

As more businesses contemplate a move to the cloud, there are requirements that prevent them from moving all of their applications off-premises. Microsoft Azure Stack can drive consistency across both public and private clouds and Lenovo is one of the first to bring Azure Stack to customers’ datacenters.

Click here to read the paper