Data Center Therapy

Confused by the alphabet soup of SD-WAN? Wondering whether it's about connecting multiple sites or just improving your local internet performance? Join your Data Center Therapy guides, Matt "Connectivity Curmudgeon" Yette and Matt "Bandwidth Barista" Cozzolino, along with special guest Jeremy "The Network Navigator" Goosen, as they untangle the complexities and demystify SD-WAN in this insightful episode.What's Inside:SD-WAN Defined: We clarify the confusion around SD-WAN by breaking down the two primary uses—site-to-site LAN connectivity (think Meraki or Palo Alto), and local internet optimization solutions (Bigleaf, Cato Networks).Internet Optimization Unpacked: Dive into how solutions like Bigleaf and Cato seamlessly handle multiple internet links, ensuring your traffic uses the most efficient route while maintaining the same public IP—even during failovers.Real-World Stories: Jeremy shares compelling experiences from the trenches, highlighting creative uses of SD-WAN technologies to solve complex connectivity challenges, including cellular and Starlink integrations for reliable remote access.Simplifying Complexity: Learn why companies might prefer plug-and-play SD-WAN solutions over traditional manual setups involving BGP and owned IP addresses, significantly easing deployment and management.Reminders:The VCF Operations Workshop is April 10th; register for it here.The VCF Operations Class is May 20-23; register for it here. Enjoying Data Center Therapy? Like, subscribe, and share this episode with your network! Until next time—stay connected, stay informed!

Are the dense jungles of Windows Server leaving you lost? Are Active Directory tangles, Entra ID integrations, or legacy issues keeping your IT nights sleepless? Well, grab your machete (or PowerShell) and join us on an expedition into the depths of Microsoft ecosystems in this week's episode of Data Center Therapy!In this thrilling adventure, your trusted guides, Matt “Server Sherpa” Yette and Matt “Patch Paladin” Cozzolino, are joined once again by IVOXY's own Microsoft guru, Dade “Forest Ranger” Wilson. Together, they brave the wilds of Windows Server and Active Directory to uncover the secrets, pitfalls, and solutions waiting within.What treasures (and traps) await you in this episode?Windows Server Assessment: Dade spills the beans on what his assessment covers, from identifying lurking performance issues to spotting security vulnerabilities in forgotten corners of your environment.Active Directory & Entra ID: How do these two pillars of Microsoft infrastructure intersect, and why do they often make us break a sweat?Best Practices & Pro Tips: Schema upgrades, time-sync nightmares, and why DNS is always the culprit—Dade and the Matts share their survival tips.Upcoming Workshop Alert: Don't miss out on IVOXY's upcoming Active Directory/Entra ID workshop and hands-on training class, led by Dade, designed to demystify these crucial Microsoft tools and set your team up for success.As always, if you enjoy the show, please be sure to like, share with three colleagues and subscribe wherever you get your quality podcasts.From the DCT crew – Stay cool, stay protected, be informed and see you at the next event and episode, compadres

Hot enough for you, Data Center Therapy listeners?Go ahead, grab a plate of ribs, corn, and green beans, and belly up to the listening picnic table, as your ears get to feast on the freshness that is Episode 94.  In this one, our sun-drenched hosts, Mr. Matt “8 Panel Chamois” Yette and Mr. Matt “Deep Cycle Marine” Cozzolino share their summer exploits along with a healthy heaping of topical news items from the world of I.T.In this episode, you, our loyal DCT fans, will get to hear about:The durability issues plaguing Intel's 13th and 14th generation CPUs, along with their announced layoffsSoftware testing, and some relevant details surrounding the CrowdStrike incident that affected millions of Windows systems worldwideThe complications that affect storage management and backups surrounding Docker containersWhile the boys also muse about the vagaries of automated testing suites and forced updates of software (both on desktop and mobile platforms) the Matts also discuss their latest home lab upgrades, StarLink on boats, and much more.  Give it a listen and get your healthy dose of I.T. empathy from DCT.Reminders: The Aria Operations Workshop is August 8th; register for it here.The Aria Operations Class is September 24th; register for it here.The in-person IVOXY VMware Explore Redux Event in Portland, Olympia and Seattle are September 10th, 11th, and 12th, register for those events here:9/10/24 - Portland, OR9/11/24 - Olympia, WA9/12/24 - Seattle, WAAs always, if you enjoy the show, please be sure to like, share with three colleagues and subscribe wherever you get your quality podcasts.  From the DCT crew - Stay cool, stay protected, be informed and see you at the next event and episode, compadres! 

What things Microsoft lurk in the shadows, basements, and dark closets of your I.T. organization?  Which parts of Active Directory, Exchange, or M365 keep you up at night, racked with anxiety and fear?  Is there no relief from scary upgrades and failures to be had? Fear not, loyal compatriots! Bust out your flashlights, proton packs, and ectoplasm-resistant onesies because this week on Data Center Therapy, your hosts, Matt ‘Venkman' Yette and Matt ‘Ray' Cozzolino welcome IVOXY's newest Consultant and Microsoft Specialist, Mr. Dade ‘Egon' Wilson to the virtual studios to explore all things ‘365.'   In this episode you, our captivated listeners, will:Hear about Dade's background, his hobbies, love of Seattle, and what he does in his spare time.Find out if schema upgrades should be feared, whether Microsoft had constraints of what the backing storage of Exchange had to be, and why functional version upgrades are often neglected.Learn of the new integrations like Intune and Entra ID which necessitate newer software infrastructure parts and pieces.and be amazed by the myriad of ways in which Microsoft systems can break, whether it's DNS, Kerberos, Certificates, or the time (but we all know, it's DNS!).Come listen to this episode to meet the newest member of the IVOXY team and jump into the deep end of the Active Directory pool with us; it'll be intimidating, but also a bit of a fun.  Register for Matt Cozzolino's upcoming June 20th “Ask me Anything” for his Networking for Server Administrators class (coming July 30th) at https://ivoxy.com/n4sa.  Register for the Aria Operations workshop, coming up August 8th, at https://ivoxy.com/ariaworkshop.  As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share, and subscribe and tell three friends about how you get a hearty dose of I.T. empathy and free counseling just by listening to the show.  :)  Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next spooky episode, DCT faithful! 

Welcome back for another new episode, Data Center Therapy aficionados!  This week, our adventurous and hard-working hosts, Matt “Master Link” Yette and Matt “Chromed Crankset” Cozzolino open up the virtual studios to IVOXY's own Ryan “Security Gusset” Grelck, who joins the fellas to talk all things endpoint-related for the first part of the podcast.In addition to discussions of all things client-related, the crew also discuss:The differences between endpoint protection (EPP) and endpoint detection and response (EDR).SentinelOne's purple.ai feature and automated root cause analysis (RCA).Microsoft's Recall feature for Copilot+ PCs, and its security implications.The browser wars, Firefox, and how Chromium code maintenance impacts modern browser platforms.With all those topics and more, including the upcoming Q3 and Q4 classes from IVOXY, the Matts and Ryan also briefly cover the newer software suites now included in VMware vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation.  We hope you have as much fun listening to the show as much as we had making it, and if you do, be sure to tell three friends, like and subscribe wherever you find your quality podcasts.  Thanks for joining us once again and we'll see you in an IVOXY class, on a free webinar or on the next episode of DCT.  Ciao for now! 

Welcome back, long-awaiting listeners, as your favorite IT podcast with a healthy dose of empathy, Data Center Therapy, returns after a seven-month hiatus.  It's been too long, we know, but we're back and we're recharged so we can bring you the first of many new episodes with exciting, topical and relevant content.  Thanks for joining us!On this episode, your intrepid hosts, Mr. Matt “been through the desert on a horse with no name” Cozzolino and Mr. Matt “Call me Heisenberg” Yette share Cozzo's adventures hiking from Supai to Havasupai Falls in the great state of Arizona, and talk all things Broadcom, given the big news of the acquisition of VMware completed since the last episode aired.While sharing their thoughts on the whole VMware ecosystem and the changes, the DCT crew muse about:The new tiers of subscription licensing that replace many of the old VMware SKUs,The changes in licensing from sockets to cores,The aborted licensing change back in the VMware days regarding vRAM,The “second day” about face on ROBO licensingViable alternatives to vSphereThe spinning off of the Horizon technology to the new firm named Omnissa,and much, much more.As a reminder, IVOXY are hosting a vSphere 8 Advanced Class in just two weeks, and we're developing classes and workshops for Disaster Recovery and Aria Operations (formerly VMware vRealize Operations.)  If you're interested in Matt Cozzolino's Networking for Server admins Ask Me Anything on June 20th at 11AM Pacific, register at: https://ivoxy.com/ama-networkingforserveradmins.   If you're looking for the DirtFish 2024 event registration, it may be found at: https://ivoxy.com/dirtfish2024.  As always, if you enjoy Data Center Therapy, please tell three friends and be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.  Thanks for your patience, your attention, and we eagerly look forward to sharing more in 2024 with you all on the next episode of Data Center Therapy!

Welcome back, loyal Data Center Therapy listeners!  As summer gives way to fall, we're dropping another fresh and topical episode onto the hot podcast grill for your informational delight (with a dash of fun thrown in for good measure.)  Your host, Mr. Matt “My Stack Overflowed” Cozzolino joins IVOXY End User Compute specialists Ryan "Universal Broker" Grelck and Aaron "Auto-Scaling" Hagman for a deep dive into the new and cloud-enabled world that is Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop, and Windows 365.   In just thirty-two minutes, you, our listeners will get to learn about: What Azure Virtual Desktop is, why it exists, and what the implications are for mobility and security. What kinds of capabilities AVD has for integration with VNETs, storage, profiles, domains and Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory.) Why some organizations use multi-session desktops. How Windows 365 differs from AVD, and how it's two flavors (Business and Enterprise) differ from each other. What MSIX App Attach is, how it's similar to Horizon's AppVolumes, and how Horizon on Azure is now a thing. What the future of Windows Software Update Services is, how Intune and Group Policy interact, and what ADMX/ADML templates are. And many of the reasons businesses ultimately choose to implement AVD, including a focus on budget, CAPEX/OPEX, security or performance considerations. Along the way the crew also discusses Azure Arc, VPN tunnels and Express Routes, GPU-enabled cloud desktop instances, Windows Update for Business, thin clients and much more. If you like what you hear, please be sure to like, subscribe and share wherever you find quality podcasts like Data Center Therapy.  If you're interested in learning more about AVD or Windows 365, please reach out to your IVOXY Account Manager and we'd be happy to help guide you on your journey.  Thanks for listening!  Be safe, be informed, manage your virtual desktop environment like a boss, and catch you on the next fresh episode!

Welcome back to another exciting episode of Data Center Therapy, where the digital device management seas are stormy but the DCT deck crew are always ready for a challenge!  While Matt ‘Hard to Starboard' Cozzolino is out on PTO this week, your reliable and experienced Captain, Mr. Matt ‘Engines Steady at Quarter Impulse' Yette welcomes IVOXY End User Computing Consultants Mr. Ryan ‘Magnum VDI' Grelck and Mr. Aaron ‘Active Directory Animal' Hagman to the virtual DCT studios, for a chat about all things Microsoft Intune.       In this episode, you, our adventurous listeners, will get to hear about: What Microsoft 365 traditionally encompasses and how offerings beyond M365 integrate into the usual core technologies (Exchange, Sharepoint, OneDrive and Teams). How Microsoft Intune can be helpful for hybrid work and remote/travelling sales teams, and how SCCM relates. Mobile Device Management, including some old stories of MobileIron, and what Intune is capable of doing for the new corporate end user's experience and data management (including conditional access). How Azure Active Directory (now Entra) can integrate with on-premises infrastructure and clients and what happens when the Internet goes out.     After listening, if you're excited to join the September 19th through 21st Intune class (with Office Hours on September 22nd) then please be sure to reach out to your IVOXY Account Manager or podcasts@ivoxy.com so you can register yourself.  If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts like DCT are found.     Thanks as always for listening, and stay safe, get your (Windows) Autopilot on, stay (mobile) managed and catch you on the next fun and informative episode of Data Center Therapy!    

Welcome back to another installment of your favorite IT podcast with a healthy dose of empathy, Data Center Therapy.  On this episode Matt ‘Mouse Master' Yette and Matt ‘4K before 4K was cool' Cozzolino invite VDI expert and all-around VMware guru Mr. Ryan Grelck back to the virtual studios.  Ryan shares the latest and greatest developments of end-user-computing and virtualization technologies, the changes that were made in the IVOXY training labs as of late, and even ends up getting mired in debates over the best input systems for end-user devices. In this episode, you, the lifeblood of our show - our listeners, will get to learn about: Which software offerings make sense to deliver over application virtualization technologies. New evolutions of App Volumes including the intriguing and flexible Apps On Demand feature. Why imaging suites in medical systems tend not to be delivered over thin clients. Ryan's latest Summer 2023 Horizon class is coming up July 10th through the 14th, so if you're interested in attending, please reach out to your IVOXY Account Manager or hit up the IVOXY website at your earliest convenience.  If you enjoyed what you heard, please be sure to like, share and subscribe to this podcast wherever you found it.   Now that the dog days of summer are upon us, be sure to stay cool, stay informed, stay trained up, and catch you on the next episode of Data Center Therapy.  Thanks for listening!  

You're a one-person wrecking crew. You rock your compute infrastructure, your hypervisor and virtual machine management system, and your storage subsystems, but you'll admit, you could use some help with the networking side every once in a while.  In fact, every now and again, something happens on the network and you never can quite get to the root of it; you rebooted a device and that ended up fixing it ninety nine times out of a hundred.  Let's not talk about that one-hundredth time - that was a doozy and turned out to be an obscure setting, or a malfunctioning printer or client system.  Either way, it sure would be nice to know, for certain, if you could make things better, permanently. Or… Maybe you're at a large organization; perhaps even in the networking and security arm of an I.T. group, but somebody new starts and as you look over the documentation, you realize it's terribly out of date.  It would be a great exercise to map everything out and update the records and create diagrams in addition to mentoring the new person, but there's just not enough hours in the day to do both.  Or…is there a way you could? Welcome back to another episode of your favorite I.T. podcast with a healthy dose of empathy, Data Center Therapy.  Your hosts, as always, include the gregarious and well-travelled Mr. Matt “Traffic Shaping the T1 with Napster” Yette as well as the multi-talented and tenured Mr. Matt “Hospitals don't have change control windows!” Cozzolino.  In this edition, the Matts welcome IVOXY Director of Consulting and O.G. of the Networking Practice, Mr. Mack “Channel Surfing” Nethkin as well as the newest IVOXY Senior Network Consultant, Mr. Robert “Pain is just Weakness leaving the Network” Clack. If terms like STP, HSRP, VRRP, BGP, OSPF, and Dynamic Routing get your motor running, great.  If it's all Greek to you, that's A-OK - in fact, you'll likely pick up a few new network terms while giving this one a listen. When listening to this latest episode, you, our grateful listeners will hear tales of: Mack's experiences at Alaska Airlines and how those experiences shaped the practices he advocates for (including good switch names) and things he looks for when delivering network assessments for customers. The various sections of a typical network assessment, and what are included in those sections (including infrastructure, availability, management, performance and security elements, all to paint a more complete picture!) How network assessments are performed (and yes, there are diagrams!), the red/yellow/green light methodologies, but also more importantly, the why of the assessment - and why those reasons matter to businesses. Please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you found this podcast and stay tuned to our show to learn about our upcoming training courses, including a second round of Matt Cozzolino's Advanced vSphere 8 class.  Catch you on the next jam-packed episode of Data Center Therapy - and stay safe, assess your stacks or get some help assessing them, and as always, stay informed, DCT friends!

You!  Yes, you!  Running vSphere 6.5 or 6.7?  We understand, you're busy!  For many, many reasons, you couldn't get around to upgrading your systems to 7.0 when VMware deprecated support for 6.7 and 6.5 on October 15th, 2022.   So now you're at a cross roads.  vSphere 8 is out, but fairly new, and comes with its own set of new hardware requirements.  Assuming your existing hardware meets them, do you upgrade to vSphere 7 or vSphere 8?  If instead you get new hosts, should you run ESXi 7 or 8 on them?  And what if you're already running vSphere 7?  Should you upgrade to 8? It's a been a little while, but your favorite, most empathetic, most wise and most entertaining IT therapists are back in the office to look at all things vSphere 8.  In this episode of Data Center Therapy, your intrepid hosts Matt ‘Pi before Pi was cool' Yette and Matt ‘Distributed Everything Si-fu' Cozzolino teach you with their technology equivalents of the martial art of Wing Chun on what's new with vSphere 8.   In this episode, you, our treasured watchers (DCT is now on YouTube!) and our listeners, will get to learn about: How mature ESXi 7.0 is, when it came out, and how relatively rare PSODs are now What some of the implications of the new hardware requirements are for ESXi 8, and how boot media and types have changed since ESXi 7 appeared What new concepts and hardware support exists in ESXi 8, what Distributed Processing Units (DPUs) do and how AI/ML and hardware consumption models are managed inside vCenter What changes have taken place in the Lifecycle Manager of vCenter to make things easier to update and upgrade (both on the ESXi front, as well as the firmware of the systems ESXi is deployed on!) How regions and availability zone concepts, once solely in cloud hosting providers, has trickled down into the vSphere command-and-control paradigms as well as Tanzu's current state of integration As the Matts state in this episode, it's not too late to join “Professor” Cozzolino in his Introduction to vSphere 8 class March 21st through 24th, and his Advanced vSphere 8 class April 18th through 21st.  If you need to know “how” to operate your systems, the Intro class is likely the best choice for you.  If you'd like to know the “why” of best practices in vSphere, then the Advanced class is the best choice for you.  To get registered ASAP, talk to your IVOXY Account Manager and we'll be happy to assist right away. As always, be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you found this episode of Data Center Therapy.   If you need assistance planning or executing your own organization's vSphere upgrades, please reach out to your IVOXY Account Manager. In the meantime, stay up to date, stay supported, stay stable and optimized (as we like our ESXi hosts to be), and stay informed, DCT friends!  Talk to you on our next fresh episode!

The Matts are back, baby! Your intrepid Data Center Therapy hosts, Mr. Matt ‘He sings the bass' Yette, and Mr. Matt ‘He sings the tenor' Cozzolino have returned!  The Matts welcome IVOXY's own End-User Compute specialist Mr. Hoppy Shaw back to the DCT virtual studios.  Hoppy once again regales you, our audience, with stories of his time in Operations and the evolution of Microsoft products we've come to all know and (somewhat) love.   Among the many topics they review are: The beginnings of ActiveSync and Exchange. The evolution of relevant software suites from Microsoft, including Systems Management Server, System Center Configuration Manager and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager. How things like networks, infrastructure, and security must all be considered at the same time when integrating Azure cloud-based services into an Enterprise. The difference between Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktops. Hoppy and the Matts also cover whether GPU-enabled virtual desktops are an option for folks thinking about Desktop-as-a-Service.  If your own organization needs help evolving its networks, infrastructure, or security practices so that you can leverage cost-effective virtual or cloud desktop infrastructure, please be sure to reach out to your IVOXY Account Manager so that we can help!  If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you get your quality podcasts.  Thanks for listening as always and we hope to catch up with you on our next exciting episode.  Stay safe, stay secure, and stay well (endpoint) managed, DCT friends!  Ciao.

Scene: a dimly lit but warm lobby, looking a little like a doctor's office in a log cabin but more comfortable.  You're patiently waiting to hear from some I.T. podcast microphone jockeys who've haven't peeked out of their door in some time. You've been in that waiting room for a bit, but thankfully your Data Center Therapists, Mr. Matt “Email shields up” Yette and Mr. Matt “Attack vector identified” Cozzolino are back and ready to see you now! As Yette says, if you could spend only a dollar on security, it should be spent on email security so give this episode a good listen to find out exactly why he says that.  You'll likely end up agreeing. Inside the virtual studios of DCT on this episode, our intrepid hosts welcome Darla Teeter, Global Solutions Architect from ProofPoint to talk about email security in a depth and breadth that you might not have thought possible.  Along the precarious, dangerous, do-not-click-here dark alleys of their email security discussion, the Matts and Darla discuss: What kinds of email, be it malicious or SPAM, can be filtered through email security solutions and how that filtering is accomplished What threats exist to businesses through email, and how social engineering and targeted campaigns are becoming more prevalent and attacking specific people in your organization How “browser isolation” can reduce or remove the threat of hackers leveraging “highly attacked people” for their privileges and access How machine learning, AI, threat analytics and rich data play a role in improving filtering solutions and security overall Why “default security” from a cloud provider may not be sufficient to protect an organization In addition to the above, Darla also explains how ProofPoint goes way beyond the cliched and often boring, hour-long typical “security awareness trainings” when it comes to educating workers on email security.  The detection and remediation of knowledge gaps (via “mock attacks”) makes their solution a very interesting one. Listen to this episode and you'll find out how to win a Yeti cooler (no relating to our intrepid host, Mr. Matt Yette, of course) and be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts are found.    As always, thanks for listening, stay warm this winter, practice safe email and stay informed with our next episode of Data Center Therapy!

Howdy Data Center Therapy regulars and new “Therapy Clients” alike! On this episode, your hosts Matt “Release and Report” Yette and Matt “Reverse Lookup” Cozzolino break down email security for you, our listeners, with a little history, a little humor, and a little education around all those three, five and six letter acronyms.  The Matts share their deep technical knowledge and experiences so that you can understand what those acronyms add, protocol-wise, to enhancing the integrity of the email system as a whole.  During the course of this podcast, you'll get to hear about: The relationship of email to the ever growing threat of ransomware (“i.e. the malicious clicks”.) Technical protocols like DNSSEC, TXT, BIMI, DMARC, SPF and DKIM, and how those contribute to strengthening email security (while not breaking compatibility with the forty (40!)-year-old email protocol) How solutions like ProofPoint can easily add a strong layer of security to your own Office365 implementations After you've listened to the episode, if you're interested in the free IVOXY Email Integrity Assessment to check your own incoming and outgoing email security postures, please reach out to your local IVOXY representative, and if you don't have one, hit us up at podcasts@ivoxy.com.  If you're an Office365 customer, the Consultants assisting you will include a Rapid Risk Report as stated earlier.   We hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts like DCT are found.  We appreciate it! Guard that front door (of email activity!), stay safe, and stay as secure as you can, listeners.  Catch you on the next informative episode of Data Center Therapy!

Howdy Data Center Therapy listeners - are you all ready to go on a trip?  What if we told you this trip would take you back to the beginnings of Graphics Processing Units? Are you ready to time-travel to the start of 3D-enabled gaming, the beginnings of fancy operating system user interfaces with visual effects, and the early artificial intelligence and machine learning efforts? Strap on those headphones and press play to go on our GPU Journey, with your hosts Matt “3DFX” Yette and Matt “Literal Duct Tape” Cozzolino as they welcome IVOXY's own Virtual Desktop and End User Computing Specialist Mr. Ryan Grelck back to the virtual Data Center Therapy studios.  The Matts and Ryan talk about: What GPUs actually do, what the early use cases for them were, and how they changed PCs and gaming, with a focus on the mid and late 90's (while mentioning some blast-from-the-past games!) The current players in the GPU market, what kinds of applications GPUs can be used for, and the barriers of entry into the GPU business that keep choices limited. The fiscally unattractive elements of using GPUs in the Corporate and Enterprise space - licensing, and what may change soon with the entry of new GPU players. If hearing the phrases “Quake”, “Counterstrike”, “Halo 3”, “Call of Duty” and “Destiny 2” pique your interest, you'll no doubt enjoy this episode.  That said, even if you're not a gamer, and you're here to discern new developments in the GPU market, you'll definitely want to tune into this one to learn more about Intel's plans with “Arctic Sound M.” As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts can be found.  If you're looking for the documentary on “Unreal Tournament” Ryan mentioned, it may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKDvqLNk7CQ  Stay low-latency, stay fragging, stay sharp and catch you on the next shiny episode, DCT friends!

Who doesn't love a good trilogy?   Cue the John Williams music! Mr. Shane Bradley, IVOXY's resident VMware Master, returns for his third appearance on Data Center Therapy.  Your intrepid hosts, Matt “No!  I want Performant, Scalable AND Value-Conscious!” Yette joins his co-host Matt “Have I shown you this Docker setup?” Cozzolino to collectively welcome Shane back to the DCT virtual studios, and talk about the new Advanced vSphere class he's been working studiously on for the past few months.  Along the way, the Matts and Shane discuss: What folks would learn in a more advanced class covering VMware and how it can help shops with just two hosts all the way up to monster Enterprise organizations. How VMware vVols converged on some of the same instrumentation and monitoring that Tintri brought to the market with their VMstore appliance. How Host Profiles can be used to reset root passwords when your hosts get locked out. If you're a fan of Letterkenny, the Red Green show, or Schitt's Creek, you'll appreciate the alternative North American velvety tones of our favorite Albertan DCT guest and VMware expert, Shane.  We look forward to seeing many of you at Shane's next Advanced vSphere class, debuting sometime in June 2022.  If you enjoy the episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts like Data Center Therapy may be found.  We wish our customers and new-to-IVOXY students the best in their VMware journeys (and are here to help!) and appreciate all the IVOXY learning and technology partnerships we've made through the years.  Thanks for listening!

Cliched though it may be, it's true: It's not if you're going to experience a ransomware attack, it's just a matter of when. What can you do to prepare for it? Matt “It's 2022 but Backup is still Sexy” Yette  and Matt “Trip this Wire” Cozzolino welcome back to the virtual studios for the second time in a row IVOXY's own Mr. Quinton Barber, Security Consultant, who counts acting as an Anti-Ransomware Specialist as one of his many responsibilities.  Quinton and the Matts waste no time and begin to prescribe steps you can take to harden your environment, instrument your infrastructure, and shorten the time to restore when something happens to your data. In this episode you, our loyal and proactive but ransomware-prone listeners will get to hear about: What aggregation of logs and the use of a SIEM means to your business, and how it can inform your decision makers of when to restore from (known good backup points) in a Business Continuity event. How long to set your log retention for both compliance for your business and for forensics purposes for your infrastructure.   What the costs of business are, so to speak, when it comes to running the adjunct compute, storage, and networking you need to effectively monitor and alert on events. How cutting-edge technologies like suspicious-activity snapshots from storage vendors is changing the way ransomware events are handled If phrases like event correlation, firewalls, IDS/IPS, and MDR garner your interest, this episode's going to be a great one for you.  On the other hand, Quinton and your DCT hosts do their best to keep things very understandable and relatable if your ransomware concerns are there, but your own knowledge of all those anti-ransomware tools needs augmentation.  If you'd like to attend one of IVOXY's Security Roundtables, please reach out to your Account Manager and we'd be happy to help.  If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you found our quality podcast.  Lock it down and stay tuned for another exciting episode of Data Center Therapy!  Thanks for listening!

What's better than having a Security-minded Consultant guest on Data Center Therapy, sharing their tips on how to manage endpoints and access in your network? Why, having TWO of them, of course!   Matt “Tech Debt Crusher” Yette and Matt “Magnificent Bastion” Cozzolino welcome back to the virtual studios one Mr. Quinton Barber, Security Consultant for IVOXY as well as one Mr. Hoppy Shaw, End-User Technology Consultant for IVOXY, as they discuss the challenges of remote work and zero trust. Some of the concepts, you, our loyal listeners will hear on this episode include multi-factor authentication, identity management, device compliance and control, mobile device management solutions, Active Directory to Azure migrations, and much, much more.  BYOD for iPhones and Android phones?  Yep, we've got that too. Please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts are found.  Do you have challenges with securing some of your endpoints?  Reach out to your local IVOXY Account Manager and we'll be able to help secure the devices that you previously didn't have the time or willpower to tackle on your own.  Thanks for listening!  Stay secure, stay (Windows Server) updated, stay (Microsoft) InTune-d in, and stay informed DCT fans!  Catch you again on our next topical episode.  Ciao for now.

Using a Garmin?  Maybe a TomTom?  It's OK if you're not, because it's 2022 and your phone has a maps application, right? If you thought you knew everything about what you can do with your phone and a mapping app, think again! We welcome our Data Center Therapy guests to a gadget- and application-filled episode as your hosts Matt “Major Release Blues” Yette and Matt “Offroad Antenna” Cozzolino chat about mapping and then circle around to the state of Macintosh hardware and software.  Whether you're a diehard camper, an off-road enthusiast, a powder hound, or you just want to know how deep the rabbit hole goes on mapping applications, the Matts have you covered with this podcast.  In this episode you'll get to learn about: How cars have evolved subscription models for some services, and how those are still far behind modern mobile apps and the modern PC browser experience. Mapping players such as CalTopo and Gaia, and what their (premium) subscriptions enable. What kinds of data satellite feeds can provide and how to integrate those up-to-date feeds into certain mapping apps. The Matts also share their historic experiences with Macintosh, the current state of Macintosh hardware and Apple's own CPU platform, and their thoughts on the modern development and evolution of the MacOS operating system.  If you enjoyed your listening experience, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you found this podcast.  Always know where you are, share that with your travel buddies, and stay tuned loyal listeners for the next fun episode of DCT!  Thanks for listening!

What are you going to print? Head straight downtown to the 3D statue-filled intersection of “Fun Street” and “Technology Avenue” with this Data Center Therapy podcast!  Your hosts Mr. Matt “What can't you do with a Pi?” Yette and Mr. Matt “Printable Log Cabin” Cozzolino welcome you, our loyal listeners, into their virtual garages for an entertaining introduction to 3D printing, sans the resin fumes.  If you're wondering what the heck a “PEI magnetic build plate” is, give this episode a listen! In this quick but enjoyable 30-minute dash, you'll get a handle on: Which 3D printers are the “Ford F-150s” of the market; trustable industry standards to get started with and to modify when you're ready. The difference between Filament-based and Resin-based 3D printers, how they function, and which ones are more hazardous and need special consideration. And tips and tricks that the Matts share to keep your 3D prints extruding well, staying sharp and functionally strong (and the reason why Yette owns a grow tent!). You'll get a little background on the common things some of the gaming-minded folks print (hint: Final Fantasy VII, Warhammer, and Day of the Tentacle come into the discussion) and you'll also find out where things like ESP32 and Arduinos (nifty pieces of technology in their own right) mesh with 3D printing.   If you loved this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you quality podcasts are found.  Be sure keep those printer beds warm, keep those filament spools spooling, and tune in again for another fun episode of Data Center Therapy.  Thanks everybody!

Welcome back Data Center Therapy fans!  We have a special treat on this podcast as IVOXY's own Kris Lamet returns to the virtual DCT studios, this time employed at NetApp as their Technical Partner Manager for the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada. Kris and your two intrepid hosts, Matt “2.4 Gigahertz?  Sure Does!” Yette and Matt “Deadbolt This!” Cozzolino crack a couple of frosty ones and muse about the amazing longevity and adaptability of NetApp, the challenges of using the cloud either for DR or for hybrid datacenter scaling, and the newest home automation projects they're all working on. You'll also learn in this episode: Which technologies NetApp themselves pioneered that are still in widespread use by all storage vendors to this day. How many unique products NetApp have in their portfolio, and which new acquisitions they've made have been relevant to the cloud-first adopters. What challenges in home automation arise with WiFi versus Z-Wave devices and why RoomAssistant and HomeAssistant have tortured Matt Yette most recently. When listening, you're in for some storage and cloud talk for sure, but you'll also be a party to some good old-fashioned IVOXY Squad camaraderie and home gadget talk, so there's something for everybody.  Please be sure to like, share and subscribe as always, and stay connected, stay secure, stay cloud-enabled, and stay tuned for the next great episode of Data Center Therapy!  Thanks for listening!

Join us on this special episode of Data Center Therapy where Matt “M.C. MFA” Yette and Matt “So Many Rules” Cozzolino welcome the newest member of the IVOXY family, Security Consultant Quinton Barber. Quinton joins the team with over 25 years of experience in Information Technology and has specialized in producing Assessments and Gap Analysis for all his customers, from the improbably small to the stupendously large F500s. In this episode, you'll get talk that includes conceptual basics such as Defense-in-depth, zero-trust, and edge and endpoint protection layers. You'll hear discussion around policies, firewalls, anti-virus and mobile device management solutions.  You'll find out why an Identity Access Management solution can be critical to securing your systems. You'll also learn information on how to get out of the tactical, fix-it-now practices and evolve your own processes and procedures into those which can adapt and change in time to respond to the threats that modern enterprise systems and businesses face. As always be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you've found our quality podcast.  Security couldn't be any more important, especially given all that's happening right now. Stay safe, stay informed, watch those any-any firewall rules, and stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Data Center Therapy!

Away crew, prepare to set your phasers to ‘fun'!    On this episode of Data Center Therapy, your fabulous hosts, Mr. Matt “SCUMM For Life” Yette and Mr. Matt “Bring up your Inventory Screen!” Cozzolino drive the DeLorean Time Machine and drop you, our loyal listeners, off at the Pizza Hut with a huge stack of quarters for the Pac-Man, Galaga, and pinball machines.  Come on a retro journey with the IVOXY gang as they share their thoughts on their favorite games of years past, including: Beloved Nintendo64 and PlayStation classics such as GoldenEye and Final Fantasy VII. The finest Nintendo classics like Track & Field and Zelda, and must-play-back-in-the-day arcade games (with special respects paid to NBA Jam!). And the best adventure games from Sierra Online (King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry) and LucasArts (Sam & Max, The Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Maniac Mansion, and Day of the Tentacle). You'll feel a nostalgic thrill as you hear Cozzolino recalling him and a friend staying up all night to play Resident Evil (and scaring the heck out of themselves while doing so!).  You'll learn how Cozz took a fancy to EverQuest and World of Warcraft, but not older titles and games (and why!).  You'll also get to hear about the latest advances in retro gaming, including Field Programmable Gate Arrays that let newer hardware become the awesome custom hardware that powered the games of old.   Finally, the boys also open the podcast with their take on VMware (suddenly and without much warning) deprecating the use of inexpensive USB and SD card boot devices for the ESXi Hypervisor, and what you can do about it.  Though the Matts mention Boot-from-SAN and Netbooting, you'll want to listen in so you can stay informed and knowledgeable as you, our loyal listeners, embark on your own quest to remediate that challenge! As always, if you enjoy this podcast, wherever you found it, please be sure to like, share, and subscribe, and do reach out to IVOXY should you need assistance transitioning your hosts to supported boot mediums in your ESXi 7.0 journeys.  Be safe, be in the know, have some (retro gaming) fun, and catch you on our next episode, DCT friends!

It's the near future.  You're on a road trip across the country.  At some point, you realize you're tired and lower your seat for a nap.  You go ahead and take one.  In the meanwhile, your car nearly silently glides onward, ever attentive to the road. On this quick bite of an episode, your Data Center Therapy hosts Matt “You think that's air you're breathing?” Yette and Matt “We Hope You Enjoy the Ride!” Cozzolino talk about Artificial Intelligence, the Metaverse, 3D movies and Washington state drivers. You, our dear listeners, will also get the Matts' takes on: How the world might look without Facebook, and how Google and Apple develop similar technologies (but ostensibly implement them way differently!) How things like voice recognition and augmented reality have evolved over the years from initial attempts to now When (or if!) Tesla and other auto manufacturers will ever achieve fully autonomous self-driving and why it's valuable Join us on this forward-looking chat and challenge yourself to see into the future as the Matts have here.  For those folks clamoring for more enterprise best practices and technically focused content, get ready friends, for an exciting interview with IVOXY's new Security Consultant, Mr. Quinton Barber.  As always, be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever you find your quality podcasts.  Thanks for listening and see you (virtually?) on the next episode of Data Center Therapy!

You already work from home, and you're in IT, so there's probably not much you can do to improve your setup, right? Maybe not! In this episode of Data Center Therapy, your hosts Matt “Faster than Gigabit” Yette and Matt “Layer 2 Plus” Cozzolino welcome IVOXY's own Systems and Storage Consultant Neil Kassal into the virtual studios.  Neil shares his tips on optimizing your work from home setup, from your seating all the way up to network segmentation and home backups. Along the way, the dynamic trio discuss: “Layer 8 issues” - how to deal with the distractions of pets, roommates, family and your own physical spaces How to decide what to optimize for in your home network and how to make sure you choose the right gear for those goals Why it makes sense to exercise “best practices” not just in your business and enterprise networks, but also in your home As a bonus, Yette, Cozz and Neil also talk about the newest exploit that affects much of the enterprise information technology world at the moment: the log4j JNDI vulnerability.  Whether you're into system security or just want some tips for working from home, there should be something to make you laugh or think on this episode. As always, if you enjoyed listening to Data Center Therapy, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts may be found.  If you need help dealing with the implications and remediation of the log4j vulnerability in your software, systems and storage infrastructure, please reach out to your trusted IVOXY Account Manager or Consultants, and as ever, stay healthy, stay warm in the Pacific Northwest this winter, and stay informed DCT friends.  Catch you on the next fun episode!

You ever envision updating the firmware of a weapons system on your fighter jet while you're flying it? No?  That makes sense.  But for the people trying to evolve our military's ossified bureaucracies and systems, that vision is indeed a reality. Your hosts of this Data Center Therapy episode, Matt ‘I've got a lock on the target' Yette and Alec ‘It's a UNIX system! I know this!' Taylor welcome the United States of America's very first Chief Software Officer, Nicolas M. Chaillan to the DCT virtual studios.  Nicolas shares his background, how his career at the DoD evolved, and what he sees in the future of cyber-warfare and security for both the military and American enterprise.  It's a fascinating look inside the inner workings of some quite large organizations, our own U.S. Air Force and Space Force branches. During this show, you'll also gain some understanding of: How agility differs in the private sector versus the military, and how Nicolas attempted the impossible by both steering his organizations and by letting his contributors grow and explore their own technology skills and practices. How politics plays a role in the development of software systems, and how challenges with egos and inertia clash with evolving the processes in that development. Nicolas' thoughts on Hypersonic weapons systems, Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and how some of those have already impacted us and caused great concern in the Air Force and Space Force. You, our business and enterprise-oriented listeners will also get a great overview of the practices (some of them simple or less difficult to implement than you might think!) that you could be doing today to secure your critical data and systems, like implementing Single Sign On, Zero Trust, and Endpoint Protection solutions.  As always, if you enjoy this episode, please like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts like Data Center Therapy can be found.  Thanks for listening, stay safe and soar high, DCT friends! 

When you need to talk about the supply chain issues that affect IVOXY, our customers and really everyone and everything, who'd be the logical guest to bring on an episode of Data Center Therapy?  Maybe…somebody who's seen it all, and been there from the very start? This week on DCT, our intrepid hosts, the newly returned Matt “Logistical Challenge Accepted!” Yette and Matt “Holdin' up the Fort” Cozzolino welcome IVOXY's founder, Mr. Eric Watson, to the virtual studios to share his unique, broad perspective on the supply chain conundrum.  Eric knows finance and the IVOXY customer base quite well, but also the happenings across the globe as they pertain to our collective business, and as such shares the very time-sensitive and complicated causes that got us to where we are right now. You, our loyal listeners, will also get to hear about: How China's fixed utility/electrical rates impacted the global supply chain through simple microeconomic consequences. What IVOXY is currently doing to help our customers when availability and lead times affects the solutions we design and implement. And how ransomware protection and increased security-focused activities have changed how IVOXY plan and educate our customers on their own infrastructure, especially in terms of how to remediate incidents quickly. This episode is a quick but fascinating look at the global, large-scale factors that led us to this point in history, and having Eric on DCT is a rare treat – you'll want to give this one a listen.  If you enjoy this episode, as always, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts are found.  If you don't have a plan on what to do if your organization gets hit with ransomware, and you'd like to, please do reach out to your IVOXY Account Manager so we can help ASAP.  Stay safe, skate ahead of the technology puck and the supply chain woes, listen to DCT again soon and we hope you have quick shipments and some happy holidays in your future!

Space out.  No, really, go ahead and think of your favorite space themed games, movies, and books, because on this episode of Data Center Therapy, your host Matt “PlexMan” Cozzolino welcomes Ryan Grelck into the virtual studios to talk about 2022 and what fun things are right around the corner.  Don't be fooled, however, as the duo also talk about Linux as a desktop operating system, ransomware, and transparent network virtualization technologies all in the same episode!  While taking you, our dear listeners, on an intergalactic journey through the greatly anticipated entertainment releases of late 2021 and 2022, Ryan and Matt also discuss: Why manning a Security Operations Center typically requires more people than you'd initially estimate. If Linux gaming is ready for prime-time, and the performance price you might pay to play on it. And why NSX-T's most nifty feature is not the much-vaunted microsegmentation and VM firewalling it's known for.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          This episode is a whirlwind of topics so there's something for just about everybody.  If you're into Dune, Star Wars, Fallout, or the Half-Life series, there's definitely something here for you.    Please be sure to like, share and subscribe the Data Center Therapy show wherever finer podcasts are found, and be safe, stretch your Layer 2 network (across the country) if you feel like it (with NSX-T!), be entertained, get excited and we'll catch you on the next episode of Data Center Therapy!

IOS.  Android. MacOS. Windows.  No, this isn't an episode about which is better or what Apple just released.  It's all about managing those mobile and desktop platforms because, face it, the world is complicated, and the stronger businesses know how to play nice with all the different platforms.  Keep the users happy, but also keep the critical enterprise data protected while allowing those platform choices.  This isn't an easy thing to do for most companies.  The software is complicated.  There are many competing vendors.  Experts are few and far between. IVOXY recognize that your problems are also our problems.  We are, after all, a consultancy that looks for specific, curated solutions to our customers technology challenges.  For us, making sure we have the staff with those ever-so-rare magical skills is a priority.  To that end, we had to grow our family to keep up. In this episode of Data Center Therapy, Matt ‘Let Me Un-pretzel your Network' Cozzolino welcomes to the virtual studios one Mr. Hoppy Shaw, our newest IVOXY Consultant and End User Compute Specialist Extraordinaire.  Hoppy shares his background, his experiences with Endpoint Configuration Manager and Workspace One, as well as an impeccable knowledge of the whole desktop, laptop, and mobile device management landscape.  Your get to hear about MDM tools like JAMF, MobileIron and Nomad.  You'll get an understanding of Windows Virtual Desktops, including the difference between Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktops.  You'll also get to hear great stories about playing old Nintendo games with his family (and some gaming nostalgia thrown in by Cozzolino as well!)  Hoppy is as charming as a summer breeze, but knows his way around the endpoint game like LeBron knows basketball – give it a listen. If you have questions about your own virtual desktop initiatives or endpoint management, be sure to reach out to IVOXY so you can speak with Hoppy or Ryan (our endpoint specialty team.)  If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever finer podcasts are found.  As always, be informed, go virtual, protect and manage those endpoints and tune in soon to another exciting new episode of Data Center Therapy!

Time flows strangely in the era of the pandemic.  Sometimes you go out on what seems like a four hour walk, and barely two hours have passed.  Or you might sit down on the couch in what you thought was the morning and suddenly it's 4PM and you have no idea how that's even possible.  Here on this podcast episode is a rare change up for Data Center Therapy; there's almost no mention of the datacenter!  Instead, Matt “Bonjour” Yette and Matt “You have a Rendezvous with a uPnP problem?” Cozzolino melt away thirty-five minutes into what feels like a quick ten minute catch-up with a friend about their home automation adventures.  The Matts talk about Home Assistant and HomeKit here, but this time, it comes loaded with stories about compromises (for the sake of home automation) and the “buyer beware!” security implications of the technologies they've played with.  We promise: it's still a fun one. You, our curious listeners, also get to hear: Which robotic vacuums and mops have the Matts looked at (and bought?) How automating things can truly just shift around tasks that you do instead of eliminating them. What happened at a bank inside of a grocery store that made Cozzolino rethink what duties workers have nowadays? For the network propeller heads, you'll get to hear about some of the backend technologies and protocols (like mDNS, or the Avahi daemon on Linux) powering some of the newer devices and applications emerging.  Gadget-loving listeners who love a good debate can rest soundly knowing the Z-wave versus Wi-fi tech battle continues unabated.  Listen in for the latest on cutting-edge home tech with the Matts, and as always, be sure to like, share, and subscribe wherever finer podcasts are found.  Stay safe, get automated (but stay secure!) and keep a lookout for our all-new episodes, DCT friends!  

We know, we know, EVERYbody's talking about ransomware lately.  Given that there's so many bad actors, and so many easily tricked users, though, how can we not talk about it?  At least talk about a different technical approach to anti-virus and anti-malware software, we say.  Tell us what makes it different and how it can be proactive, and not just reactive like most solutions out there. Ask and ye shall receive!  Matt “The tinfoil doesn't seem to be working!” Yette and Matt “I DROPped that packet, didn't I?” Cozzolino welcome to the virtual studios a very special guest with a highly unique background.  John Nelson, Global Field Solutions Engineer from VMware's Carbon Black acquisition joins the Matts and shares his experiences.  Were you expecting a Pennsylvania State Police Corporal, or a Computer Forensics specialist for the United States government to join Data Center Therapy for an episode?  Neither were we! John and the Dynamic DCT Duo talk about: When companies talk about Machine Learning with respect to endpoint scanning, what does that REALLY mean? How is Carbon Black different than anti-virus or anti-malware scanning software? What kinds of bad-guy methodologies are out there to subvert typical scanning strategies, and what kinds of counter-strategies are there to harden or secure endpoints? This one's both entertaining and a shockingly deep dive into the somewhat dark, but not-so-mysterious-anymore world of cybersecurity.  Give it a listen and be sure to like, share and subscribe at all the usual doobleydoos.  If you'd like help implementing or learning more about Carbon Black in your virtual infrastructure and more, please reach out to your local IVOXY Account Manager.  Stay safe, stay ahead of the baddies, look into this Neuralyzer, and do join us on our next episode of Data Center Therapy!

Welcome back to Data Center Therapy's second security episode of late summer 2021.  With your hosts Matt “Fragged due to network latency!” Yette and Matt “Raspberry PIs 4 Life!” Cozzolino, the DCT Duo get into the nuts and bolts of how firewalls have evolved over the years (ASA to PIX and well beyond those), and the DCT Duo also discuss how your company's most critical data can be corralled INSIDE your network with the right set of tools. In this episode the Matts ask and answer: What information can be extracted from seemingly encrypted communications? What did the first generation of firewalls not have that modern, next-generation firewalls do? What's the value in implementing outgoing web proxies? Keep the security party going, give this episode a listen and if you dig it, please like, share, and subscribe wherever finer podcasts are found.  Should you have questions about the security in your networks and applications, do reach out to your IVOXY Account Managers so we engage the right folks in our conversations.  Thanks for listening and stay safe, lock it down when you need to, and stay tuned for yet more totally fresh episodes of Data Center Therapy!

Welcome back to another episode of Data Center Therapy where the topic this week is all things security related.  With your hosts Matt “You sure you wanna kick that can down the road?” Yette and Matt “The answer is: It Depends!” Cozzolino, the intrepid DCT Duo has a quick and fun but also informative podcast all around Information Technology Security this week. In this episode, the Matts answer a few white-hot, timely and relevant questions such as: Is the sole purpose of SD-WAN to reduce costs by eliminating proprietary networking circuits? Is there a way to implement a SIEM without full time engineers manning a security NOC 24x7? In a zero-sum budget game, what's the solution to security issues - endpoint protection, firewalls, multi-factor authentication (MFA), or microsegmentation? Join us on this fast and light run through the landscape of security technologies, where you'll get a high-level overview of the technologies and solutions that the Matts work with and prescribe for the folks they help.  As always, the Matts keep it funny and refreshingly frank, so give it a listen and if you like it, be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever finer podcasts are found.  Thanks for listening and stay safe, stay informed, harden those security postures, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Data Center Therapy!

Who doesn't love a good procedural cop show?  Welcome to a very different episode of your favorite I.T.-themed podcast, Data Center Therapy, where your hosts Matt “Football is Life” Yette and Matt “Now the Hunted becomes the Hunter!” Cozzolino welcome to the virtual studios Doug Abbott, Senior Investigator for Brand Protection at Cisco.  Doug and the Matts talk about many of the different ways Cisco gear can be counterfeited, and they cover topics on this show such as: How Cisco counterfeit products are created, “upgraded” or modified and how they're trafficked, including on the Grey Market. What product diversion fraud is, and examples of how it happens. How stolen and counterfeit units enter the various markets and how unauthorized resellers play into those scenarios. With over 13 years of experience in his role at Cisco, Doug shares his thoughts and glimpses of how his team stays vigilant, engaging in the fight against counterfeit gear.  Yette and Cozzolino also share their views on dial-home technologies, how that plays out into the future and how long-term assurances of functioning gear are still important after companies sunset solutions.  Give this shaking-things-up edition a listen for its unique guest and a prescriptive action item on making sure your I.T. gear stays supported and powers your networks and infrastructure for years to come.  Please be sure to like, share and subscribe wherever quality podcasts can be grokked.  Stay informed, stay genuine, avoid those knockoffs and get ready for another exciting DCT episode in the coming weeks!  Thanks for listening.  

After a short summer hiatus, hosts Matt “If you're from Chicago, fight me!” Yette and Matt “Free Chimenea” Cozzolino return to the virtual Data Center Therapy studios to record another fun and casual podcast about all things Smart Home.  Commenting on Cozzolino's continued updates to his new-to-him log cabin, our intrepid hosts cover a wide amount of topics such as: Core technologies that power automation, such as Node Red, IFTTT (If This Then That), MQTT and Message Brokers, and Home Assistant. Z-wave sensors and clever programs to integrate changes in motion, temperature, humidity and luminosity. Corded and cordless electric chainsaws - their surprising utility, as well as speculation on motor and battery innovations over the years. Ubiquiti products such as UDM Pro, USG and the possible decline in the quality of their solutions. And musings on proper pizza (including opinions on both pineapple-on-pizza, as well as deep dish, by Mr. Matt Yette). You, our valued listeners, also learn the true name of Yoshi from the Mario Series (Therapoda Yoshisaurus Munchakoopas, surely a future discount code for IVOXY classes!) and find out just how flammable old Christmas trees can be.  Blow some steam off, crack open your favorite beverage, give it a listen and have some fun learning about everything BUT datacenter technology on this episode.   If you like this podcast, please be sure to like, subscribe and share wherever quality podcasts are found.  Thanks for tuning in and as always, stay safe, stay informed, and catch you on our next podcast drop, DCT friends!

For this episode, our intrepid hosts Matt “Southern Upstate New York Accent” Yette and Matt “Running NFSv3 before eligible for Driver's Ed” Cozzolino welcome vSphere Guru and Senior IVOXY Consultant Shane Bradley back into the virtual studios.  Shane shares where he's at, what he's working on, and gives us, the loyal Data Center Therapy listeners, a little preview of what's coming down the pipe for Shane's newest class, vSphere 7 Advanced. Along the way, the Matts and Shane talk about: NFSv4, pNFS, and how the changes from NFSv3 can potentially impact their customers and you. Best practices and use cases for folks considering large numbers of vSphere Standard Switches (or for the folks with the right license levels, large numbers of vSphere Distributed Switches!). How VMware's Skyline, vSAN, and (now retired) vCloud Air products have changed in the past few years, sometimes for the worse, but mostly for the better. Yette also gives a quick overview of one of the shows he's enjoyed in the past, Orphan Black.  Give this episode a listen, it's short and sweet and will give you a peek into a new class which you, our listeners, can even submit requests in to add material so you can get the most out of the experience when you register for it! As always, be sure to like, subscribe and rate our podcasts wherever you grab them from.  Be safe, enjoy the summer, we hope things open back up for you, your family and friends and we'll be here, keeping the lights on, educating everyone, and sharing our empathy and tech tips with all.  Catch you on the next episode!

What is Bitcoin?  What’s Dogecoin (pronounced dohj-coin)?  For that matter, what the heck is cryptocurrency?  What’s it useful for?  Why is the price of it so volatile? To answer these questions and more, Matt “Mine This!” Yette and Matt “Transactions and…all the things!”  Cozzolino welcome IVOXY Network Consultant Keith Emmanuel to the virtual Data Center Therapy studios this week to break it all down for us.  Keith sheds some light on how he got interested in cryptocurrency, the history and genesis of Bitcoin, and how it works (or the “Layer 1” as Yette likes to describe it!). To bootstrap our loyal DCT listener’s knowledge, in this overview, Keith talks about: Mining and how Bitcoin is created. What Block chains and blocks are. The economic realities of the finite number of Bitcoins possible, and how macroeconomic Bitcoin trends impact the (fixed) costs of real-world things.  What Bitcoins effectively accomplish with respect to certain countries’ (failing) monetary policies. For those who love to learn more and dive deep, this episode is certainly a great start to your own understanding of cryptocurrencies - so tune on in if you’re ready to get your head twisted and enjoy a technical and intellectual challenge (and something other than the usual datacenter infrastructure chats!). It is probably worth saying that we are not financial advisers or cryptocurrency experts - so please no cryptocurrency or life altering financial decisions based off today's Data Center Therapy session!  Stay tuned from the IVOXY crew for more educational opportunities - there will soon be a vSphere 7 Advanced Class, another Horizon class and much, much more.  Stay safe, stay informed, like, share and subscribe as always and we’ll catch up with you soon on the next episode of Data Center Therapy!

Question: When does a 40-minute podcast episode feel like a fun 15-minute chat beside the old water cooler? (Remember when that was still a thing?)   Answer: When it’s Matt “Lemme tell you something about Android” Yette and Matt “Got YubiKey?” Cozzolino talking about multi-factor authentication! Our intrepid hosts of Data Center Therapy have a lively and always topical talk about MFA and more in this latest chapter.  You, our welcome listeners, get to hear about: How TouchID, FaceID, and biometrics are an important part of the multi-factor authentication story (and if they’re generally proven to be secure). How Duo, Okta, Microsoft and Google Authenticator apps as well as password management software tie into enabling better security. When a “backup plan” involving printouts, USB keys, or a big heavy safe might be a good idea for a CYA factor. You’ll also get to hear cringey tales of sticky notes under keyboards, badly designed applications (for banks!) that improperly used two-factor auth, and how back in the day PayPal sent Yette a nifty gadget, now long gone.  Tune in to have some fun, learn a little, and come away from the conversation with a fresh perspective on how to lock things down. As mentioned in the episode, if you’re interested in attending Matt Cozzolino’s “Introduction to Microsegmentation with NSX-T” class, please be sure to reach out to your IVOXY Account Manager to register for the class before it fills completely up.  If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to like, subscribe and share wherever finer podcasts are found.   Be safe, be healthy, subscribe to the “something you have, something you know, and something you are” model of security, and we’ll keep the lights on for you, our loyal DCT friends!  See you next time.

Join Matt “Always carry a Mobile Hotspot” Yette and Matt “Palo Alto ARE my middle Names!” Cozzolino as they welcome Senior Network Consultant and Engineering Manager Mack Nethkin to the virtual Data Center Therapy Studio, to talk about all things Software-Defined Wide Area Network, or SD-WAN it’s come to be known. Mack and the Matts chat about: What the basic recipe of SD-WAN is, and where you’d want to use it in your corporate and datacenter networks. How SD-WAN can act as a unified management platform for wide area connectivity, how it can efficiently enable cloud applications. Who the players are in the SD-WAN space, such as CloudGenix, Silver Peak, Velocloud and Viptela, and how various acquisitions of the OEMs by other companies affects them. Mack also shares an “I’ve never seen that before!” about his experience working with SD-WANs in the field.  Note that there’s some audio difficulties with Mack’s studio set up on this episode, but loyal listeners will be rewarded with a great introduction to this new world of high-bandwidth, managed-performance, cloud-enabled 2021-ready networking technologies. As Yette mentions, drop the promo code PODCASTPODS when you register for Cozzolino’s Introduction to Microsegmentation with NSX-T class and you’ll receive $1,000 off and a pair of AirPods Pros, so register now before the class fills up completely!  And as always, be sure to like, subscribe and share your love for DCT wherever finer podcasts and social media are found. Stay safe, stay healthy, and securely network (with SD-WAN technology!) DCT friends, and we’ll see you (listening on) our next exciting episode!

In this short but sweet DCT Episode, Matt “Yette never refers to himself in the third person!” Yette and Matt “Every User is an Attack Surface” Cozzolino give a great little introduction to traditional firewalling, microsegmentation, and Zero Trust concepts in the IT world. Listening to this episode, you’ll get to hear about: The history of the security “bastion” mindset, leading to how most enterprises built their network infrastructure. What Layer 2 stretch is, what Zero Trust represents, and what microsegmentation comprises and why it’s desirable. Why Windows Firewalls (and even Linux firewalls) can “fall down” after a compromise and how microsegmentation at the hypervisor layer can be a better solution. How to inspect flows between components of an application with software tools, and how to implement microsegmentation after understanding and analyzing those flows. As Matt Yette mentions in this podcast, if you register for Matt Cozzolino’s Microsegmentation with NSX-T Virtual Workshop using the promo code PODCASTPODS, you’ll save $1,000 off the class and receive a pair of Apple AirPod Pros as well, so be sure to get in and register before the class fills up! Go to ivoxy.com/micro-segmentation-using-nsxt to learn more and enroll.  Be sure to like, subscribe and share wherever finer podcasts are found, and be safe, trust nothing, micro-segment like a boss, and tune into the next empathy-filled episode of Data Center Therapy, friends!

End-user computing and virtual desktop administrators: You may rejoice as IVOXY VDI Senior Consultant Ryan Grelck returns to the virtual studio of Data Center Therapy to share the latest and greatest on Horizon 8 and beyond! When you tune into this timely and relevant VDI-centered podcast, you’ll hear Matt “PiHole Schmihole” Yette and Matt “Layer 2 Stretch is cooler than MicroSeg” Cozzolino ask Ryan questions such as: How the IVOXY lab is configured to serve our students in the Horizon for Virtual Administrators class, and which virtual machines and applications you can find in the class environment. How to decode the version numbers of Horizon releases, and why they’re not exactly what you’d expect given the dates they appear on the market. When to expect more VDI classes, and what topics will appear in Ryan’s Advanced VDI courses. The Matts and Ryan also talk about hot wings, getting pepper-sprayed, Linux desktops, password managers, and ad-blockers like AdGuard and PiHole.  Give it a listen and be sure to like, share, and subscribe wherever quality podcasts are found.  Ryan’s second class, in July, has seats available, so if you’re interested, be sure to talk to your IVOXY Account Manager to reserve a spot soon!  Cozzolino’s Microsegmentation class is also in the works so stay tuned for more news on it in our future DCT episodes! Thanks for listening, and be sure to stay safe, stay informed, block those malware and ad-infested domains with your DNS, and listen on, loyal Data Center Therapy fans!  Until next time!

Set the gadget geek dial to 100% for this Data Center Therapy episode, where Matt “No way do I use Just for Men” Yette and Matt “Slope Astronaut” Cozzolino welcome back to the virtual DCT studio our own Kris “Single-Pole Switch? No Problem!” Lamet to talk about everybody’s favorite post-lockdown hobby tech - Home Automation. Kris and the Matts cover in this episode: Which platforms, protocols and technologies the Matts and Kris have in their homes including Z-Wave, HomeKit, NodeRed, Ecobee thermostats, Apple Hub, Amazon Echo devices and Home Assistant. How to train your loved ones to do easier electrical wiring work (and how to get frustrated working on the more complicated switches and rooms yourself!). Whether or not to advertise that your home is a “Smart Home” when putting it on the market - and how Kris’ experience turned out, even after the home was sold. You, our faithful DCT listeners, are guaranteed an episode completely devoid of anything Data Center related, but you’re also guaranteed to have some fun!  The crew riffs on novel uses for key fobs, If-This-Then-That, and shares opinions on how to make sure an Internet outage doesn’t render a Smart Home into a dumb one.  Give it a listen and enjoy the show.   Get ready for our upcoming vSphere 7 Fundamentals and Microsegmentation class and as always please be sure to like, share and subscribe to Data Center Therapy wherever quality podcasts are found.  We’re in the home stretch - so please be safe, be informed, and see you soon in one of our signature IVOXY hands-on classes this spring and summer, DCT friends!

Proud family that we are, IVOXY formally invites you to tune into this special episode of Data Center Therapy, where our hosts Matt “LAN party” Yette and Matt “Beard Ambassador” Cozzolino welcome Network Consultant Joe Lentz to the virtual DCT studio. Joe shares stories with the hosts about his networking background (dating back to high school!), his service in the Air Force, and his experiences working between security policy implementation and datacenter networking deployments.    Learn more: https://www.ivoxy.com/networking-with-joe In other news, registration is open for our upcoming Introduction to Virtualization with vSphere 7.0 class. 

Here we go – the final episode of this series [insert Return of the Jedi reference here]. This week we here at Data Center Therapy we’re bringing you the ultimate conclusion of the IVOXY On-Demand Lab podcast series, where the subject is all things Terraform. Keep an eye out for our Terraform Demo Day coming in March, and consider saving your seat for our Hands-on VMware Horizon for Administrators class later this month. Learn more: ivoxy.com/scaling-with-terraform

If the acronym “API” excites you, the phrase “software-defined infrastructure” tickles your fancy, or if skating ahead of where the technology puck is going is your MO, be sure to tune in to this one to hear Dave share about what’s coming down the pike from Cisco across networking, hyper-converged and computing solutions. Learn more at ivoxy.com/cisco-intersight By the way, we just announced our upcoming Hands-on VMware Horizon for Administrators – learn more and save your seat now: ivoxy.com/vmware-horizon-for-administrators/

Need a quick break from work? On this episode of Data Center Therapy we've just got fun water cooler topics like TV shows, home improvements and delicious beef dinners. Learn more at ivoxy.com/holiday-sundries

This week Keith astounds and delights the systems folks as well as the network infrastructure die-hards on this episode as he gives details on the parts and pieces needed to command, control and deploy a network from scratch. Learn more at ivoxy.com/network-automation-with-keith-emmanuel PS: There is still time to save your seat for our Hands-on Network Automation with Ansible hosted by Keith: ivoxy.com/ansible.  

Our intrepid hosts welcome back to the virtual studios IVOXY’s very own Ryan "Magnum VDI" Grelck to talk about a smorgasbord full of Horizon topics, including how it has changed and how it’s been implemented in our On-Demand Lab. You will also find out why Matt Cozzolino doesn’t need a stud finder in his new house (and no, it is not the obvious joke you’re thinking of!!)  Learn more at ivoxy.com/vdi-with-ryan-grelck PS: There is still time to save your seat for our Hands-on Network Automation with Ansible hosted by Keith Emmanuel (with Cozz helping along as Teacher’s Assistant and lab proctor): ivoxy.com/ansible.

Our series reaches new depths as the guys discuss nesting NSX-T instances, GNS3 integration into the lab, and why on-prem solutions like vSphere & NSX-T are convergently evolving towards the DevOps space. Learn more at ivoxy.com/network-virtualization PS: Don't forget about our December 15 Gene Kim event – the first 50 to RSVP & attend get a complimentary copy of his latest book: ivoxy.com/gene-therapy PPS: Save your seat for our Hands-on Network Automation with Ansible coming this January right here: ivoxy.com/ansible.

We welcome back Shane to share how our On-Demand Lab was conceived, sized and configured. Topics include the evolution from VMware Workstation virtual machine to full-on co-located infrastructure, NSX-T, Nested ESXi, Terraform, TrueNAS, ESXi on Arm and more. PS: We just announced an exciting event with Gene Kim coming up on December 15 – and the first 50 to RSVP & attend get a complimentary copy of his latest book: ivoxy.com/gene-therapy Learn more at ivoxy.com/sizing Save your seat for our Hands-on Network Automation with Ansible coming this January right here: ivoxy.com/ansible.

This episode is the first of our new series. Matt & Matt discuss how the new IVOXY lab was designed, how it was implemented, the things it can do, where it’ll go in the future and what it all means to you! This is a fun and delightful episode that shares adventures from just about all disciplines: networking, storage, compute, cloud and automation, so be sure to give it a listen if your technical interests veer towards any of those. Learn more at ivoxy.com/origins. Save your seat for our Hands-on Network Automation with Ansible coming this January right here: ivoxy.com/ansible.