Heavy Strategy

From technology to workplace culture, from geopolitical trends to economics, Heavy Strategy debates pivotal questions in enterprise IT. Hosts Johna Till Johnson & John Burke bring their technical expertise, analytical acumen, and contrasting viewpoints to discuss complex topics of interest to IT leaders. Frequently irreverent and always thought-provoking, these are the conversations you wish you could have at the leadership table. Tune in and join the think tank, where unanswered questions are better than unquestioned answers.

Last refreshed: July 3rd, 2025 at 6:56 AM ⓘ

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Episodes

HS018 API Management is a Configuration Problem

Johna believes that API management is part of IT operations. Greg doesn't understand the question and so we set off in search of answers.

Mar 30, 2022•29 min

HS017 The Role of Standards in a Conflicted World

The internet has become part of society now and this means that governments will want to put controls on it. Are our standards bodies fit for purpose ?

Mar 10, 2022•31 min

HS016 Team Structure for Technology Teams

Discussing what might drives team structure in Enterprise IT.

Feb 10, 2022

HS015: Targeting in IT Marketing – Who and When

With so much money allocated to marketing teams, why do customers find it disagreeable and unpleasant to be a victim of their activities ?

Jan 20, 2022•36 min

HS014 Software Defined Infrastructure – New Build or Not ?

Do you need new hardware to cloud enable your infrastructure ? Should you strategise products on new hardware/greenfield basis or enable your existing brownfield infrastructure ? In this episode we discuss value of enabling existing infrastructure Beware of the vendor goldfield that Greenfield represents Whether supply chain impacts your decisions ? The value of federated ... Read more »...

Dec 13, 2021

HS013 SaaS Solutions – What Does the Customer Lose ?

SaaS is popular as a 'not my problem' solution and easy-on-pocket entrè. So lets examine adversarial question "What does the customer lose?". Johna and Greg discuss many issues on both in the search for critical analysis on SaaS and the longer term impacts.

Nov 18, 2021

Heavy Strategy 012: Professional Development in Infrastructure Technology

A rarely covered topic in technology is professional development. Other careers have extensive programs to ensure practitioners develop and maintain a wide range of skills but this principle is rare in IT.

Nov 04, 2021•39 min

HS011 Can We Survive IT Supply Chain Disruption

We discuss what we know so far about supply chain disruption, what impacts to your projects. We also consider resellers/distributors survival and what plans can companies make.

Oct 20, 2021•31 min

HS010 Budgeting for Cybersecurity

When it comes to allocating budget for cybersecurity there are many approaches to breaking it down into line items. We discuss various ideas and possibilities that might offer some insight for your own situation.

Sep 02, 2021•34 min

HS 009 The Metrics of IT Security

How do you measure IT Security ? Specifically, how do you decide to allocate budget and justify the underlying reasoning. Most companies allocate a percentage of IT Budget, but Johna argues differently.

Jul 28, 2021

HS 008: Five Core Issues for IT Architects in 2021

What five issues would be top of mind for IT architects ? Security, Backup.Recovery, Cloud, Skills Development and Distributed/Hybrid Work. Listen in on why and how these issues are our choices. If you have feedback or want us to followup then head over to our Follow Up page and send us your anonymous (or not) feedback.

Jul 15, 2021•31 min

HS007: Distributed Work and Return To Office Strategies

Returning to the office is a key issue as companies learn that being "in person" is the new remote working

May 24, 2021

Heavy Strategy 006 – Renting your Hyperconverged Stack, Wrong or Right

Some call it subscription but we call it renting your hyper-converged solution. Whats the business and technology strategy of consumption based HCI ?

Nov 30, 2020•21 min

Heavy Strategy 005 – Infection Handling Open Source In Enterprise IT

The question: Is open source is viable for Enterprise IT ? The discussion resulted in describing the mechanics of onboarding new products as infection repsonse. Did the metaphor work ?

Nov 17, 2020•Ep. 5

Heavy Strategy 004 – Is Kubernetes A Thing

Kubernetes is operational not transformational.

Nov 10, 2020•28 min•Ep. 4

Heavy Strategy 003 – The Impact of DPUs, SmartNICs on IT Infrastructure Decision Making

Are DPU's something that you want ? What use cases can be addressed ? What makes them more than a SmartNIC ? How do you consume DPU's in your infrastructure ?

Nov 03, 2020•37 min•Ep. 3

Heavy Strategy 002 – Is Microsoft VMware’s Biggest Threat ?

A topic that’s been popular from my blog is Microsoft is VMware’s biggest threat. The core of the conversation around it seems be about the stack. Does it make sense to outsource private and public cloud engineering to a provider such as Microsoft. An adjacent conversation is does VMware matter when you zoom out of ... Read more »

Oct 29, 2020•33 min•Ep. 2

HS001 – Detecting Hype in 5G Marketing

Greg brings the topic of Hype in 5G Marketing and attempts to explain why some hype is legit but humans should care less. Keith puts the brakes on and provides context, breakdown and reality.

Oct 20, 2020•29 min•Ep. 1

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