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Three and a half years is a long time to not do something you actually enjoy. In my defence, I had good intentions every single one of those years! [In hindsight, I may have been operating on an intentions-heavy, outcomes-light model.] Anyway, Jason Gray and I have started a podcast! It’s called Optimise to Innovate and it’s out now… What’s it about? I often have conversations with potential…

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while [having had the idea back during Covid times, when we were all trying to find ways to stay healthy and sane]. Life however [as has been famously quoted], moves pretty fast… Anyway, I read quite a lot and a listen to a lot of audiobooks (which helps pass the time when working on the house renovations you promised your better half would be finished in the…

I work with a lot of organisations on cloud and technology strategy, and there’s a phrase I’ve been hearing with increasing regularity over the last three years. It comes from the boardroom, from the CEO, occasionally from a CFO who’s just come back from a conference looking slightly panicked… “We need an AI strategy.” It sounds urgent, and of course it is urgent in a way, but I’ve come to…

The tool I’ve been tinkering with just made headlines. Peter Steinberger, creator of OpenClaw, is joining OpenAI to “drive the next generation of personal agents.” Sam Altman called him “a genius.” Not bad for an open source project only weeks old… I’ve been running OpenClaw as a personal AI agent for several weeks now (in very strict isolation). It handles a standalone calendar, sends me…

This weekend I decided to test OpenClaw, formerly Clawdbot, formerly MoltBot for about five minutes, (which should already tell you something about the maturity curve)! Not a quick poke around, but leaving it running as an always-on AI assistant and seeing what broke first. After consuming a frankly unhealthy amount of opinions and hype about it, my aim was simple enough; to explore what it can…

New Blog Post: Is the Cloud actually greener? #Sustainability #ESG #Cloud

This week, I returned from an amazing family adventure holiday in Morocco, where the country’s wonderful culture and fascinating history made it (I hope!) an unforgettable experience for my kids. However, recent droughts there have had severe consequences on the country’s agriculture, economy, and water resources. Reduction in rainfall over the past two years has impacted crops, increased food…

TekBytes #5: The Current State of Cloud Security - A few brief observations and tips #cloud #security #cloudsecurity #aiml

Discussing the concept of Cloud Security over breakfast with my kids (yup – poor kids I hear you say!), I was thinking about the current state as one of constant (and accelerating) evolution and improvement. As more businesses adopt cloud computing, the need for robust and effective security measures has become increasingly important. While cloud hyperscalers have made significant investments in…

New Blog Post: TekBytes 4: Why I've Switched to Simple #Markdown in #WordPress | #blogging

I’m always looking for ways to improve my workflow and productivity; most recently I’ve started using Markdown for as many projects as I can, so using Markdown in WordPress is no exception! If you haven’t seen or used Markdown before; it’s a super-lightweight markup language that allows you to add formatting elements as you go by using special syntax. For example, if you want to make a section…

New Blog Post: #TekBytes #3: A #Certification Haiku for the #vExpert Announcement! #VMware #GCP

I am very chuffed to have become a VMware vExpert for the 6th time this year! Last year I wrote a post about how awesome the programme is, so I won’t bore you with that this year! If you want to read it, you can find it here:

VMware vExpert 2017 – It’s not just about the schwag!

Instead, I am compelled to write a wee haiku about something which most vExperts hold near and dear to their hearts –…

#TekBytes #2: The Complexity of Public #Cloud Architecture

For many organisations, the cloud and cloud-native application refactoring is attractive. This is often due to the belief that it will reduce complexity and risk for them, when compared to running their own DCs. The theory being that public cloud architecture is simpler.

By going all in, however, many modern “cloud-native” applications are built upon a multitude of solutions, services and…

New Blog Post: TekBytes #1 - #CloudSpotting - A New Tech Podcast #vExpert #RackspaceUK

In the spirit of these new short-form blog posts (see TekBytes: A Blogging Experiment) it’s probably appropriate that I write a quick post on a new short-form podcasting project I am working on; CloudSpotting!

My day job is as a Solutions Architect at Rackspace, where I’m fortunate enough to work for one of the most tech-agnostic global service providers around! A typical week could include me…

New Blog Post: #TekBytes: A #Blogging Experiment #vExpert

I don’t know about you, but some of my best and worst ideas come to me when I’m in the shower… it’s quite possible this may be the latter, but let’s see where it goes!

For those of you who are either regular readers of this blog, or perhaps even know me in the “walking, talking flesh sacks” world, you will probably have noticed I’m prone to long-form communication; whether it’s writing, or indeed…

#Swordfish - A Standard by Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet #SNIA #TFD13 #TFD12 #Storage

Whether it’s the IEEE, the ISO or any other, we live in a world governed by standards. This has the positive impact in allowing interoperability of devices and elements, but at the same time has the unfortunate side effect of hampering the development of new technologies which conflict with those standards, even if their adoption would ultimately provide a better outcome for everyone!

At the same…

Counting Clouds and Operating #VMware - Another Awesome #OpenTechCast Guest! - With @spoonen #vExpert #VMworld

On day two of VMworld Barcelona 2017, our team of intrepid podcasters were able to catch up with Chief Operating Officer of Customer Operations, Sanjay Poonen, for a chat about life, careers, cloud architecture, VMware strategy and the startup space!

It was a great conversation and clear to see how passionate Sanjay is about the organisation, but more importantly, the people around him. He ended…

New Blog Post: @OpenTechCast - The One with Pat Gelsinger! #VMworld #vExpert

The title does kind of give it away, but the co-hosts of our humble little community podcast were fortunate to spend 40 minutes or so this week with VMware’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger.

We discussed Pat’s journey into to VMware, the difficulties of maintaining a healthy work/life balance, gender equality in the workplace, the transition from traditional licensing models, the future of SDDC and much, much…