The annual security party known as RSA kicked off this week and one of the things you can count on is big announcements from companies at the event and we've collected a few of them. Red Hat Summit 2024 is also happening this week. The big news from the event is all about AI. The first big announcement is InstructLab, an open-source project aimed at improving LLM outputs. The other big news is Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI, a platform designed to run IBM Granite LLMs. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome t...
May 08, 2024•30 min
You don't need an algorithm to know that AI is the hottest invements right now outside of frozen concentrated orange juice. Investors are seeing the mountain of money that Nvdia is making and giving startups all the funding they could hope for. While massive funding for startups in Silicon Valley is old news this recent wave has seen the huge investments coming in the very early stages instead of later rounds after a product has been developed and is ready to be put on the market. 2023 saw almos...
May 01, 2024•41 min
In a landmark ruling from the US Federal Trade Commission, non-compete clauses in employment agreements are no longer valid and all existing non-compete clauses are null and void starting in 120 days. The government argues that non-competes stifle wages and reduce the talent pool for companies to draw from. Businesses counter that argument with the need to protect intellectual property. The ruling came after nearly 26,000 public comments. After the ruling was issued, the US Chamber of Commerce i...
Apr 24, 2024•36 min
Our eyes were on Google Cloud Next last week, as the hyperscaler announced new ARM chips, lots of partnerships, and of course wall-to-wall AI. Google's Vertex AI Agent Builder allows no-code deployment of agents, Google Vids targets video editing, and the search giant is leaning into Retrieval-Augmented Generation or RAG. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 0:40 - BREAKING: The Futurum Group Acquires Techstrong Group 2:23 - Commvault Acquires Appranix 4:53 - IBM Invests in $150 Million Fu...
Apr 17, 2024•37 min
In a historic move, key federal lawmakers, including Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers unveiled a sweeping proposal aimed at granting consumers extensive rights to manage the use of their personal data by tech giants like Google, Meta, and TikTok. The proposed legislation, titled the American Privacy Rights Act, establishes a national baseline for data collection, usage, and transfer on the internet, allowing users...
Apr 10, 2024•28 min
The US and the UK have allied to make sure AI is developed safely. A new memorandum of understanding has laid out proposals for testing and information sharing to ensure that AI is being safely written and maintained to prevent harm to anyone using it. The ultimate goal, as stated by representatives from both governments, is harnessing the potential of AI while ensuring the risks are understood and mitigated. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:04 - Intel Reveals Foundry Operating Model...
Apr 03, 2024•40 min
NVIDIA GTC event was the big story last week, both on the Rundown and in the tech industry generally. NVIDIA is clearly the company to beat in AI and HPC and this has the entire industry on its toes. Every company in tech is emphasizing their partnership and joint offerings with NVIDIA. But there's a reaction from their competitors, too, with Google, Qualcomm, and Intel announcing their intent to undermine NVIDIA's dominance. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:08 - New RISC-V Devices R...
Mar 27, 2024•45 min
This week is NVIDIA GTC, or as Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman called it "the Woodstock of AI". There's been a lot of discussion about the ascendant NVIDIA and how they plan on capitalizing on a hot market. NVIDIA unveiled Blackwell, their newest architecture. The chip was named after American mathematician David Blackwell and math is most definitely the strong suit of this product line. It has 208 billion transistors to power a second-generation transformer engine for accelerating inferencing. ...
Mar 20, 2024•44 min
Yesterday VAST Data announced what they are calling the AI Factory, and we got a detailed look at this during a Tech Field Day Showcase. VAST is collaborating with NVIDIA, Supermicro, and Run:ai to demonstrate their ability to operationalize AI at scale. Highlighting their rapid growth and partnerships, VAST Data's architecture supports new capabilities like VAST DataBase and VAST DataEngine. Discussions cover integrating VAST Data with NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs, optimizing for Supermicro hypersca...
Mar 13, 2024•46 min
NetApp is updaing their ransomware protection solutions. They've made some new additions to their Automated Ransomware Protection (ARP) platform to address new attack vectors and improve logic for attack detection, including new methods like partial file encryption. NetApp is claiming a 99% precision in detection of ransomware attacks. They have also announced the availability of their Ransomware Recovery Guarantee for Keystone, their storage-as-a-service offering. These announcements come as pa...
Mar 06, 2024•40 min
In a series of bold moves, Broadcom has restructured VMware shifting to subscription-only licenses across all offerings. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan wants VMware to focus on resiliency, developer efficiency, and infrastructure efficiency. Tan outlines three key strategies: radical simplification, substantial R&D investment for on-premises to private cloud solutions, and enhancing the ecosystem. The discontinuation of products, including Aria SaaS and Carbon Black, and divesture of EUC is part of a...
Feb 28, 2024•41 min
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 cl...
Feb 21, 2024•27 min
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 - Ne...
Feb 14, 2024•36 min
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 Caes...
Feb 07, 2024•27 min
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 Mortilla...
Jan 31, 2024•28 min
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 Po...
Jan 24, 2024•47 min
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 s...
Jan 17, 2024•43 min
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 s...
Jan 10, 2024•43 min
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 - In...
Jan 03, 2024•46 min
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...
Dec 20, 2023•34 min
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 ...
Dec 13, 2023•31 min
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 p...
Dec 06, 2023•39 min
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 ...
Nov 29, 2023•35 min
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! Thi...
Nov 22, 2023•34 min
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...
Nov 15, 2023•34 min
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 Rundo...
Nov 08, 2023•31 min
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 ...
Nov 01, 2023•34 min
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 Tighten...
Oct 25, 2023•31 min
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 co...
Oct 18, 2023•34 min
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 artif...
Oct 11, 2023•30 min
