Gestalt It Rundown

Intel is still looking to smooth out their operations under new CEO Lip-Bu Tan. The announcement came last week that Intel is going to be cutting more positions. Initial reports rumored that it could be as much 20,000 employees but CFO David Zinsner refuted that number last Friday. Instead, each department will assess their structure and decide whether to cut positions or offer voluntary packages. Zinsner cautioned that not all buyout offers would be accepted. Additionally, early retirements would not be offered, as previously these had led to other issues in the long term. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:36 - Native Sidecars Land in Kubernetes 1.335:39 - Q-CTRL Reveals Quantum Navigation System10:24 - TSMC Launches A14, Targets AI Speed14:06 - Factory Settings added to Commvault's Cleanroom Recovery17:46 - Safeguarding NATS and Open Source23:13 - HPE Expands Cybersecurity Across Platforms26:54 - Another Round of Layoffs for

Chris Krebs is a well-known figure in the cybersecurity space. As the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Krebs was responsible for directing security for the US federal government starting 2018. Krebs was fired from CISA in 2020 by President Donald Trump for his stance on the 2020 election. Last week, President Trump stripped Krebs of his security clearances for this 4-year-old issue. Krebs then announced that he would be stepping down from his role at security company SentinelOne in order to prevent the company from being harmed by what appears to be a personal issue between the president of the United States and a private citizen that dared to disagree with him. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown0:55 - Zoom Comes to a Halt for 90 Minutes2:47 - VMware Brings Back Free ESXi6:00 - AI Can Write Code, But Struggles With Debugging8:05 - Hammerspace Gains Investors for AI Data Performance Standard11:32 - Google Ad Tech Deemed Monopolized by Federal Judge13:47 - HPE Stake R

At Intel Vision 2025, CEO Lip-Bu Tan emphasized a customer-centric strategy, focusing on advancements in AI PCs, Gaudi 3 accelerators, and the 18A process node. He introduced the concept of “Physical AI,” highlighting Intel’s commitment to integrating AI into hardware solutions across various sectors. Tan’s leadership aims to position Intel at the forefront of AI-driven innovation by enhancing its product portfolio and foundry capabilities. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open0:45 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown2:01 - Trump Shifts Stance on NVIDIA Chip Ban7:29 - Remember Windows 11 Recall? It's Back!11:31 - Solo.io Adds MCP Gateway to API Platform14:43 - Dell Launches PowerEdge Servers with Intel Xeon 6 Chips20:27 - Google Cloud Paving the Way for AI Transformation from Google Cloud Next26:32 - Intel to Sell off 51% of Altera Chip Business to Silver Lake31:08 - Embracing Physical AI at Intel Vision 202540:50 - The Weeks Ahead42:54 - Thanks for Watchi

Half a century is a long time for an IT business, and Microsoft is justified in making a lot of noise to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. The celebration brought together three Microsoft CEOs: Gates, Balmer, and Nadella. Microsoft CoPilot isn’t quite as old as the company, but it was still at the center of the celebrations. Many Microsoft products have come and gone over fifty years. Is CoPilot going to be one of the keepers? This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown1:20 - NVIDIA AI Servers Immune to US Tariffs4:14 - Ivanti Hardware Hacked by Chinese Group7:42 - Oracle Cloud Admits Breach12:07 - Juniper Networks and Palo Alto Products are Being Probed15:55 - IBM launches the AI Mainframe20:05 - HPE Announces Aruba Central VPC Options24:32 - Microsoft Turns Fifty33:09 - The Weeks Ahead35:42 - Thanks for WatchingFollow our hosts ⁠⁠⁠Tom Hollingsworth⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Alastair Cooke⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠Stephen Foskett⁠⁠⁠. Follow Tech Field Day ⁠⁠⁠on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠, on ⁠⁠⁠X/Twitter⁠

During the keynote for Intel VIsion 2025, new CEO Lip-Bu Tan told the attendees about his vision for the return of Intel. He said that intel needs to attract engineering talent, fix the balance sheet issues, and look at manufacturing processes. One of the biggest ways to take care of those last two that was proposed was Intel spinning off non-core business units. He also asked customers to be "brutally honest" with the company going forward. He also reiterated his focus in going to be on engineering talent, either by hiring new engineers or encouraging former Intel employees to return. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day Rundown1:25 - Techstrong.IT Launches7:33 - Check Point Breached10:39 - Broadcom Raises Minimum VMware Core Count15:22 - Google Suggestions Change TLS Certificates19:48 - CoreWeave IPO Cools Down26:43 - Broadcom Debuts Networking Chips for AI Workloads31:06 - Lip-Bu Tan Lays Out Intel Recovery PlansFollow our hosts ⁠⁠Tom Hollingsw

For shownotes, head to the episode website postThis week has been a big one for messaging privacy. The news broke on Monday that the Editor-in-Chief for The Atlantic magazine was accidentally added to a Signal group where members of the US government were talking about highly classified military actions. The report kicked off a firestorm of Congressional hearings about the nature of data sharing and privacy for not only government officials but members of the defense and intelligence community. This has also raised questions about the way that those same officials will often circumvent policy to facilitate communications. While the nature of the group and their discussion topic is highly political in nature let's focus on the communications aspect. Why did they use Signal? How can we be sure it's safe? And what does this mean for government agencies that still want to create backdoors into secure protocols? This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown. Time Stamps: 1:13 - Employers target engineer

Visit ⁠Episode Post for Show NotesNVIDIA unveiled new AI-focused chips at its GTC conference, including the Blackwell Ultra series launching this year and the next-gen Vera Rubin GPUs set for 2026. CEO Jensen Huang emphasized the company’s shift to an annual release cycle, a departure from its previous biennial schedule. This move reflects NVIDIA's response to the growing AI market and increasing competition. This and more on the Rundown. Episode Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown2:29 - Taara Spun Out from Google's Parent Company Alphabet6:41 - Intel Names Lip-Bu Tan as New CEO12:38 - DevOps Gets Empowered by Semaphore Going Open Source16:38 - Microsoft’s New Quantum Chip Greeted with Major Skepticism22:04 - Solo.io Launches Kagent for Agentic AI-Driven Cloud Ops25:37 - Amazon, Google, and Meta Nuclear Datacenters by 205029:38 - NVIDIA Reveals Rubin AI and Blackwell Ultra40:58 - The Weeks Ahead44:02 - Thanks for WatchingFollow our hosts Tom Hollingsworth, Alastair Cooke, and Stephen Foskett. F

Visit Episode Post for Show NotesWe've spoken at length about the CHIPS Act for the past year or so and you know that we've been big proponents of bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to the US. The latest news from the federal governement isn't so rosy though. According to reports, the current administration is trying to find ways to prevent the funding for the act from being disbursed. Options floated include firing the staff at NIST responsible for sending out the money as well as clawing back the funding for "non-performance" which is the only way for the money to be returned to the government. The news comes as the administration is contemplating tariffs on TSMC even after the announcement of $100 billion in US funding.Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown3:26 - VAST Data Business Update9:03 - X Knocked Offline by Dark Storm DDOS13:16 - ASML Opening Chinese Facility18:18 - Druva Powering Enhanced Azure Data Security21:55 - Cerebras Opening New AI Accelerator Datacenters28:

I want to take you back to the halcyon days of just a few weeks ago when we discussed the ways that NVIDIA AI chips were showing up in China even though they were under US embargo not to be able to get this advanced technology. This came as a result of a last minute policy decision from the outgoing Biden administration that blocked the Chinese from buying these chips. Now, companies like Microsoft are urging the new presidential administration to rescind the ban to give them access to the growing AI market in China. Chinese authorities are firing back at the ban by tellling their researchers to avoid visiting the US. And third parties are making a fortune reshipping shipments of restricted items to China from places like Singapore, where police just arrested three men charged with running an operation of that nature. This and more on the Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:35 - Intel Pushes Ohio Fab Again to 20304:45 - Nokia Acquires Infinera 7:55 - Qualcomm and IBM Raise GenAI Competitive

We've talked about quantum computing before but Microsoft created a quantum quake in the tech space last week. They announced a new quantum computer chip that took seventeen years to make. The Majorana-1 uses a brand new Topological Core technology that reduces error rates significantly and could create chips with as much as one million qubits of processing power per unit. Microsoft's researchers reportedly created a new state of matter in the accompanying research paper published to Nature to help them create the method for increasing the power of the chip. This and more on The Rundown.Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown1:15 - Docker Pauses Pull Plans5:30 - Default Passwords Strike Again8:12 - Apple is Betting on AI Infrastructure12:00 - Cisco and NVIDIA Expand Their Partnership15:57 - T-Mobile Dials Up Cloud Efficiency Drive with Red Hat OpenShift19:37 - HP Ends 15 Minute Tech Support Wait Time24:37 - Microsoft's Quantum Computing Breakthrough with Majorana 1 Chip33:29 - The Weeks Ahead35

A report this week claims that Broadcom is investigating Intel's chip design business and is contemplating an acquisition. The news comes from the Wall Street Journal and says that while Broadcom is interested in chip design they are not interested in the foundry business. Analysts are intriguied because that means that Broadcom could either use Intel's designs to augment their existing lineup or perhaps package the businesses for sale to other partners or even competitors. Keith, do you think Broadcom is going to invest in Intel?Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown1:35 - Nokia Upgrades Internet Exchange Backbone4:38 - Veeam Loses Data in Restore Debacle7:47 - SanDisk Looks to Petabyte SSDs10:18 - SonicWall Gets Hit with Cyberattack13:43 - HPE Announces Gen12 Ahead16:24 - OpenSSH Found to Be Vulnerable to MITM Attacks20:12 - Broadcom Wants Intel Chip Designs?25:30 - The Weeks Ahead27:16 - Thanks for Watching Hosts:Tom Hollingsworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/networkingnerd/Keith Townsend: http

A group of investors, led by Elon Musk’s startup xAI and other backers, has made a $97.4 billion bid to take control of OpenAI, aiming to refocus the organization on open-source AI and safety amid rising tensions between Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over its shift to a for-profit model. Meanwhile, OpenAI is advancing its AI hardware strategy with plans to launch a custom-designed AI chip in 2024, fabricated by TSMC using 3-nanometer technology to reduce reliance on Nvidia. Initially deployed on a limited scale, the chip is designed to optimize AI model performance, with OpenAI’s expanding chip team already working on future iterations with enhanced capabilities. This and more on The Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown2:44 - Turn/River Capital Acquires SolarWinds5:21 - WEKA Restructure to Focus on AI9:23 - Cisco One Silicon Shows Big at Cisco Live EMEA12:50 - Hammerspace is Changing the AI Training Game17:31 - French President to Invest $112B in AI22:36 - Huawei Shows Revenue Growth Despite B

We heard the rumors back in November that the HPE deal to acquired Juniper Networks was getting a closer look from the Department of Justice. Last week we got confirmation that the DoJ will be filing suit to half the deal. The arugument from the government is that the result of the deal would be 70% of the market for networking equipment being held by just two companies. Specifically cited was the wireless LAN component, where the DoJ said there were only three major players. This was refuted quickly by both HPE and Juniper. The UK Competition and Markets authority and the EU have both cleared the deal. This and more on The Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to The Rundown 1:10 - Intel Not Bringing Falcon Shores GPU to Market 3:52 - NVIDIA Accelerates Storage Networking 7:42 - Phishing attacks against Microsoft ADFS 11:31 - Ventev Acquired by Hubbell Inc 14:25 - AI and Cloud costs are driving a closer look at FinOps tools 17:33 - Microsoft Stops TPM Bypass for Win11 Installs 22:16 - DoJ Blocks HPE Junipe

As we mentioned earlier, the early days of a US government change invovle a lot of new orders and announcements. After a week in office the current US administration announced a plan to impose import tariffs on Taiwan for a variety of goods, including pharmaceuticals, steel, and chips. The tariff was reported to be 25% but could be as high as 100%. In further comments the president said the goal of the move was to lure companies back to the US to manufacture chips domestically. However, the CHIPS Act was specifically called out as being problematic because it simply gave money away instead of punishing companies with additional taxes to change their behavior. This is definitely a developing situation but lets dive in. Al, what's the ultimate goal here? This and more on the Gestalt IT Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to The Rundown 1:23 - Pure Storage Gets Hyperscale Win 4:31 - Salt Typhoon Probe Potentially Disrupted 7:47 - AI Gets Trapped in a Maze 11:35 - Swedes Seize Ship Slashing Subsea Stuff 14

We spoke last week about the executive order issued by former President Biden around AI export controls. There has been some more information released about the reasoning behind the controls. One of those was that, as mentioned, third party actors are shipping restricted hardware to countries that were already banned from receiving it. Still others were able to access those systems through cloud computing in countries such as Malaysia and Brazil. The AI Diffusion Framework names 18 "friendly" countries with no restrictions and designates 23 countries under embargo with restrictions and caps on certain AI chips. The remaining nations of the world are categorized into a kind of limbo. The restrictions are based on a Total Processing Performance (TPP) metric that restricts exports based on the power of the chip. This and more on the Gestalt IT Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:05 - Futurum Asks CEOs About AI 6:40 - HPE Investigating IntelBroker Claims 9:51 - Former Meta Exec leads

The Biden presidential administration might be winding down but thre are still some things that are making news. Yesterday the president proposed a new framework for the export of chips used to developer AI. The rules seek to limit exports of the chips to some 120 countries, including Mexico, Israel, and Switzerland. The rules appear to be aimed at protecting US national security and the undercurrent in the order is aimed squarely at China. The administration says this is designed to close some of the loopholes in currently existing regulations on chip exports. NVIDIA released a statement calling the rules "misguided" due to the fact that they could impact the largest AI hardware company in the world. This and more on the Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:16 - Cohesity's CERT Service Boosted by Added Partners 3:43 - Building GenAI Apps Creating Headaches 7:01 - Eutelsat's 2-Day Outage and Resiliency 10:52 - Web Apps Exposed by AWS Configuration 14:28 - Oracle to battle for JavaScript Trad

At CES 2025, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang introduced Cosmos, a new AI model trained on 20 million hours of video to help machines better understand and interact with the physical world, available via Hugging Face and NVIDIA’s GPU Cloud. He also urged businesses to adopt a three-computer AI system, featuring tools like Project DIGITS for AI development and the Llama Nemotron models for autonomous agents. Meanwhile, Dell announced a full rebrand, replacing familiar names like XPS and Latitude with Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max, along with Plus and Premium tiers, aiming to attract customers seeking AI-powered PCs. Critics noted the naming is familiar, but it could help Dell appeal to new users. This and more on the Gestalt IT Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:38 - Anthropic Raising More Money 6:15 - Net Neutrality Neutralized 10:01 - GlobalFoundries and IBM Find Their New Years Resolution 14:56 - FCC Opens Lower 6GHz Band for Low Power Devices 19:54 - HashiCorp Acquisition by IBM Reviewed by U

We're looking back at our reporting on the biggest enterprise IT stories of 2024 and telling you the trends that will be discussion points well into 2025. We're reconsidering Broadcom's moves with VMware, the fall of Intel, HPE's acquisition of Juniper, that fab CHIPS act, the evolution of data protection companies to security, power-hungry GPUs, Co-Pilot PCs, lots of AI infrastructure, a whole lot of hacks, including Snowflake and Salt Typhoon, and the government's actions against big tech.  Time Stamps: 0:00 - Programming Note 1:10 - Welcome to the Rundown 2:04 - The Fall of Intel 10:09 - Broadcom and VMware 20:53 - That's HPE's Juniper Buy! 26:59 - Fabulous Fabs and CHIPS! 34:37 - Transforming Data Protection 41:29 - Nuking GPUs in Pennsylvania 46:09 - My Co-Pilot is a Dog 52:44 - AI Infrastructure Baby! 1:00:10 - It's Snowing Data (Breaches) 1:03:25 - Crowd Strikes Back 1:07:14 - Salt Typhoon 1:10:18 - DOJ Gonna DOJ 1:14:53 - Thanks for Joining Us in 2024 Hosts: Tom Hollingsworth: https://www.twitter

The big story this week is the continued fallout from Salt Typhoon. The US government is feeling the heat from the exposure of so many telecom companies and they want answers. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has announced a proposed set of rules that would require companies that participate in the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to have a yearly requirement to certify their cybersecurity risk management plans to prevent hackers from getting in. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has gone even further and proposed a draft bill to secure telecom networks with the FCC implementing specific requirements instead of simple certifications. 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:21 - StormForge Rightsizes JVMs 4:11 - Cisco Switches Vulnerable to Verification Exploit 7:29 - VMware by Broadcom Welcomes Partners Back to the Top 11:16 - Google Stabilizes Quantum Qubit for an Hour 16:49 - Open Source Flooded by Bad AI Bug Reports 21:52 - Salt Typhoon Storms the Government 32:57 - The Weeks Ahead 34:19 - T

The biggest news of the holiday weekend dropped on Monday. Pat Gelsinger has retired from Intel, effective immediately. David Zinsner, CFO, and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, newly named CEO of the Intel Product subunit, have been named as Co-CEOs while the board searches for a permanent member. Gelsinger has been the CEO since 2021. He has been focused on returning Intel to dominance in the chip market while also facing headwinds from industry transitions to mobile and AI computing. Intel stock prices rose on the news. This and more on The Gestalt IT Rundown. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Rundown 1:14 - AWS Announces Nova AI Models 5:35 - UK Company Bails on Broadcom Due to 1,000% Hike 9:36 - Chinese Say US Chips No Longer Safe 14:20 - EnGlobal Fighting Cyberattack 17:49 - Intel Forced to Control Their Own Fabs for CHIPS Cash 21:52 - Pat Gelsinger Retires from Intel 36:50 - The Weeks Ahead 38:30 - Thanks for Listening Hosts: Tom Hollingsworth: https://www.twitter.com/NetworkingNerd Stephen Foskett: h