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How to Survive an M&A — SolarWinds TechPod 014
Host Alex Navarro discusses how to survive and thrive before, during, and after an acquisition with the organizer in chief of Gestalt IT’s Tech Field Day, Stephen Foskett and SolarWinds Head Geek, Patrick Hubbard.…
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Automation, End Users, and Industry Trends — SolarWinds TechPod 002
This episode of SolarWinds TechPod features Stephen Foskett, discussing his takeaways from Gestalt IT’s Tech Field Day Austin event, including behind-the-scenes insight into what it takes to be selected as a Tech Field Day delegate. He also discusses themes that have emerged from Tech Field Day events and how end users are…
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Will I Save Money by Moving to the Cloud?
This post is post one in a small series, taking an atypical look at the public cloud and why you may or may not want to leverage it. Part 2 asks the question I'm Still On-Premises, Is That OK? and in part 3 we explore SaaS in Beyond IaaS, Cloud for the SMB, the Enterprise, and Beyond! Did you know AWS came about partly…
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Know Your IT Department Frenemies (aka Why Can’t We Be Friends?)
If you’re in tune with the various tech communities, you’ve probably noticed a big push for professional development in the technical ranks. I love the recognition that IT pros need more than just technical skills to succeed, but most of the outreach has been about improving one’s own stature in the tech hierarchy. There’s…
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What’s Up With Virtualization? Virtualization Basics 101
In part one of this series, I tried to apply context to the virtualization market—its history, how it’s changed the way we deploy infrastructure, and how it’s developed into the de facto standard for infrastructure deployment. Over the last 20 years, virtualization has had a very positive impact in enabling us to deliver…
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POwerful SHortcut to Automating Operations
A few years back I was working at a SaaS provider when we had an internal hackathon. The guidelines were simple: As part of your project you had to learn something, and you had to choose a framework/methodology beneficial to the organization. I was a Windows and VI admin, but along with my developer friend, we wrote an…
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5 Ansible Playbook Steps to Success
There are many configuration management, deployment, and orchestration tools available, ranging from open-source tools to automation engines. Ansible is one such software stack available to cover all the bases, and seems to be gaining more traction by the day. In this post, we’ll look at how this simple but powerful tool…
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You Too Can Stink at Information Security!
“Security? We don’t need no stinking security!” I’ve actually heard a CTO utter words this effect. If you subscribe to a similar mindset, here are five ways you too can stink at information security. * Train once and never test Policy says you and your users need to be trained once a year, so once a year is good enough.…
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Start Automating Your Career
In a recent episode of a popular tech podcast, I heard the hosts say, “If you can’t automate, you and your career are going to get left behind.” Some form of this phrase has been uttered on nearly every tech podcast over the last few years. It’s a bit of hyperbole, but has some obvious truth to it. IT isn’t slowing down.…
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IT—More Than a Fancy Calculator: Moving From Cost Center to Business Value
It’s time to stop seeing IT as just a black hole to throw money towards and instead, give back to the business. Often, the lack of proper measurement and standardization are the problem, so how do we address this? We’ve all tried to leverage more funds from the organization to undertake a project. Whether replacing aging…