Show 318: Future Of Networking With Doug Gourlay

The Future of Networking series continues with our latest guest, Doug Gourlay. Currently a Strategic Advisor at the startup Apstra, he’s had a long career in networking at companies such as Cisco and Arista. Most recently, he was Corporate Vice President at Skyport Systems, a venture-backed security startup.

Greg and Doug start the podcast with a conversation about the current state of the startup industry, and how enterprise infrastructure startups are different from new businesses targeting consumers. They look at the barriers to entry that an enterprise startup faces, including higher costs, product market fit, and how to scale.

They also talk about the rising role of the developer in the IT organization, and how they are driving technology decisions for companies, and what that means for the infrastructure team. Drivers behind this rise include the availability of cloud platforms and the velocity at which new applications and services can be brought online.

While this velocity may be good for developers, it shifts a significant burden to infrastructure operators who have to ensure that the underlying environment can keep up in the face of containers, overlays, and ephemeral workloads.

Other topics they discuss include VXLAN and SDN, what problems these developments were created to solve, and where they’re going.

Sponsor: ManageEngine

Today’s show is sponsored in part by ManageEngine and their OpManager network management software. OpManager integrates NetFlow monitoring, configuration management, firewall log management, IP address management and more in a single product. Go to OpManager/packetpushers to get a 30-day free trial!

Sponsor: Micronics Training

Micronics Training is the real deal! The company offers courses and bootcamps, including CCIE Routing & Switching, Security, Data Center, and Service Provider, as well as other courses including CCNA, CCNP, DCICN, CCDE, and more. To learn from the best, head over to micronicstraining.com. Micronics is an authorized Cisco Learning Partner, and they accept Cisco Learning Credits. When you sign up, let them know that Packet Pushers sent you.