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Physical Distancing Isn’t Possible for IT Support

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With many people working from home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, IT is faced with challenges of how it can fulfill its support mission while maintaining a safe physical distance. Certainly the proliferation of cloud services has changed the landscape considerably for a lot of organizations, removing some of the infrastructure that would otherwise need to be maintained by the organization. But cloud data centers, automated though they may largely be, still require physical footprints, and other support becomes much harder, if not impossible, when maintaining pandemic distancing. In this episode, the roundtable discusses how they’ve changed their IT support as a result of the pandemic, if it’s possible to maintain distances while still providing effective IT, and what support challenges lay ahead as week of self-isolation turn into months. 

Single Pane of Glass is a Myth – The On-Premise IT Roundtable

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From a user’s perspective, it can be argued that single pane of glass doesn’t exist at all, and vendors who push this idea are never looking beyond their product. When users look at heterogeneous networks, there may be a single pane of glass for this and a single pane of glass for that, which ends up being 25+ panes of glass and not really solving anyone’s problems. So how do we reconcile this chasm between the user and vendor perspectives? The question we tackle in this On-Premise IT Roundtable is: Is there such a thing as an all-in-one solution or is “single pane of glass” simply a myth?

Going Independent

Being your own boss seems like a laudable goal when you’re working for someone else. On a recent Community Roundtable, Jordan Martin from Network Collective talked with Jody Lemoine and Bruno Wollmann about how they made the move to going independent. It has a distinctly Canadian perspective, but there’s lots of great perspective that anyone can enjoy. 

Cisco Defense Orchestrator

Cisco Defense Orchestrator (CDO) is a subscription-based SaaS offering that brings deployment and management of edge security policies on an array of devices under central control. Jody Lemoine  got a look at CDO at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Us 2019. He takes an in-depth look in this piece.

Network Analytics Is Too Expensive – The On-Premise IT Roundtable

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Thanks to the growth of software-defined networking, a lot of network information that used to be unknown, is now known. But in order to get that information out of the network, you have to spend a lot of money on specialized hardware, software, and talent to program it all. Is it beyond the reach of most enterprises? Or is the cost of not knowing always greater? The roundtable discusses.

IT Burnout is Inevitable – The On-Premise IT Roundtable

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The On-Premise IT Roundtable looks at the idea that IT burnout is inevitable. They discuss some of the underlying factors behind burnout, and why people attracted to IT might be susceptible. They also offer some insight into how they’ve coped with the issue, both from a self-employed consultant perspective, as well as working for a larger organization. Definitely an important discussion for any IT practitioner to consider.

Managing Your IT Career – The On-Premise IT Roundtable

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IT professionals spend years learning how to manage the complex infrastructure that organizations depend on. But they often spend far less time thinking about how to manage their careers. The roundtable takes on this topic, looking into dealing with imposter syndrome, knowing your own worth, and how to navigate these potentially problematic waters.