Multimedia

Video Interviews

vCatchup with… Stephen Foskett (Feb 2013)
Virtualization a Game Changer in Legacy-Burdened Data Centers, Says Stephen Foskett (Dec 14, 2012)
Edge2012: Stephen Foskett on the state of enterprise storage and server virtualization (June 6, 2012)
The Cube – IBM Edge 2012 – Stephen Foskett (June 6, 2012)

Podcasts

VM-aware storage provides better migration, performance and more (Jan 16, 2013)
Speaking in Tech #38 — Hunger Games meets IT (Dec 12, 2012)
RunAs Radio – Stephen Foskett Builds Virtual Data Centers! (Feb 2, 2012)
RunAs Radio – Stephen Foskett Talks Storage (Jul 12, 2011)
Niketown588: Coffee With Thomas Episode 12 – The Founder of Gestalt IT (Oct 26 2010)
Packet Pushers Show 12 – Get On The Ring! (Jul 18 2010)
Runt Packet — Tech Field Day — What’s That All About? (Jul 12 2010)
Steve Foskett and Lee Johns Explains Unified Storage – Geekazine … (June 29 2010)
Infosmack 40 – HP Blades Day Wrap Up (Feb 28 2010)
Infosmack Episode 35 – I’m with Paco (Jan 24 2010)
Infosmack Episode 22 – HP Tech Day Wrap Up (Oct 5 2009)
Infosmack Episode 15 – VMworld, VMware and storage stories from the dark side (August 16 2009)
Infosmack Episode 6 – HDS USP-V announcement, EMC non-competes and changes at VMworld (May 31 2009)
Infosmack Episode 3 – Sun, Oracle and Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS) (May 11 2009)
Infosmack Episode 2 – EMC, David Donatelli and Non-Compete Agreements (May 3 2009)
SAN School Lesson One: Building a SAN (Apr 2008) In this first lesson of Advanced SAN School, Stephen Foskett, Director of Data Practice for Contoural discusses the different types of storage arrays, switches, and software that make up a storage network.
SAN School Lesson Two: SAN Architecture and Topology (Apr 2008) In lesson two, Stephen discusses the evolution of SANs from standalone entities, to islands and beyond. Discover techniques that can make a substantial difference in the way data is moved and processed, as well as in your company’s consolidation plans.
SAN School Lesson Three: SAN Management and Security (Apr 2008) In this Podcast, expert Stephen Foskett, Director of Data Practice for Contoural explains what the options are for management tools. He’ll dissect array management, change management, virtualization and more to help you manage your environment.

Webcasts

The Deletion Dilemma (April 2011) How should your organization deal with the issue of data deletion?
Webcast: Improve your actual storage utilization (Oct. 09, 2003) Join Stephen Foskett, senior consultant, storage management strategies and integration at Glasshouse Technologies for a webcast on how to “Improve your actual storage utilization.”…
Digging into iSCSI : Learn about: 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Continuous Data Protection, Disk Backups (Dec. 21, 2007) This expert Videocast features Stephen Foskett of Contoural. View this presentation as Stephen digs into iSCSI and answers the most pressing questions surrounding this technology.
Business and technical considerations for email archiving (Apr 2008) Because email archiving systems vary in features, the process of matching a solution to an individual company’s architectural, business and legal requirements is very complex. In this webcast, Foskett offers an overview of architectural considerations and major email archiving methods, ranging from managed and hosted solutions to hardware and software combinations. He also provides key questions to ask when sizing and pricing an archiving system.

Videocasts

The Next Wave of Virtualization (June 2008) The next generation of virtualization will have a big impact on storage infrastructures.View this Videocast, featuring storage expert, Stephen Foskett — Director of Data Practice at Contoural to find out the chief storage management challenges associated with a virtualized environment, and get practical tips on how to deal with them.
Where the SAN Stands (May 2008) As SANs grow and expand, understanding the right architecture can be critical in making sure SANs are available and properly utilized. In this expert Videocast, Stephen Foskett dives into the nuts and bolts of SAN architecture and topology.

The 2018 iPad Pro is a Beast!

The third-generation iPad Pro is a great machine but also a bellwether of change at Apple. It will be very hard for the rest of the mobile and client computing industry to keep up with this kind of progress!

Go Get a ProtonMail Account and Protect Your Online Life!

It’s an easy decision: Get a free ProtonMail account and use that as your verification address for important financial and social media accounts. Keep using whatever email account you like for regular communication, but don’t mix security and communication!

Virtual Machine Mobility: Of What, and to Where and in What State?

January 16, 2012

Moving cold virtual machine images from system to system, or even across great distances, is one of the main selling points of server virtualization. But it becomes much more difficult to manage movement of virtual machines that are still running, especially outside cluster or across WAN links. When talking about virtual machine mobility, it is important to consider what is being moved, the state it is in, and where it is going.

Thoughts on the Modern Miracle of 3D Printing

July 28, 2015

Although I enjoy my AIO Robotics Zeus 3D printer, I’m under no illusions that it’s an economical or practical device. It’s a toy that takes me into the future, and I love being there!

Fasting to Mitigate Jet Lag: Surprise! It Works!

February 11, 2013

I’m a frequent traveler, and thus a frequently suffer from moderate jet lag. It’s just so hard to adjust to a new time zone! But I recently stumbled on a simple method many claim helps your internal clock re-calibrate to travel. After trying it out on my trip to Australia last week, I’m convinced it can help!

A High-Tech Water Heater? Yep! Introducing the A. O. Smith Vertex

November 15, 2012

I justify spending six times more on the Vertex 100 for a simple reason: It’ll keep up with the heavy water use in my house. I’m hoping I’ll never have to worry about hot water as long as I live here. The fact that it saves over $100 per year due to energy-efficient design is just icing on the cake.

Deduplication Coming to Primary Storage

September 16, 2008

Although deduplication of storage is nothing new, with Data Domain and other making hay with the technique for years, it has never been ready for prime time – reduction of active primary storage applications like email and databases. Instead, deduplication has been relegated to second- or third-tier status, deduplicating archives and backup data. But change is in the air, and deduplication vendors are starting to bustle towards the bright lights of primary storage.

My 2012 Project: Improving Energy Efficiency

January 3, 2012

I am in the process of upgrading my own home to make it more energy efficient. I do this mainly as an exercise of faith and science, since my electric and gas bills are not currently all that expensive. But I just can’t countenance burning 10 times more electricity than I need to, even if I can afford it. It’s also an exercise in geekiness, since today’s lighting alternatives and appliances have an undeniable techno-cool factor about them.

The Rack Endgame: A New Storage Architecture For the Data Center

September 3, 2014

Top-of-rack flash and bottom-of-rack disk makes a ton of sense in a world of virtualized, distributed storage. It fits with enterprise paradigms yet delivers real architectural change that could “move the needle” in a way that no centralized shared storage system ever will. SAN and NAS aren’t going away immediately, but this new storage architecture will be an attractive next-generation direction!

The Myths of Standardization

December 15, 2011

I certainly benefit from standardization of the world around me, and I welcome interoperability and interchangeability as well as the price and product selection advantages. But I am not blithely focused on standardization above all else. I will happily use a proprietary solution if the alternative is inelegant, ineffective, or insufficient.