256- Hyper-Convergence and the Cloud with Drew Harris

Dissecting Popular IT Nerds

Technology

5 • 49 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2024

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Drew Harris Drew Harris is Field CTO at EVOTEK and an accomplished IT leader with over 25 years of experience spanning various industries. He previously led hyper-convergence and cloud initiatives at major hospitality and public companies. Drew specializes in infrastructure modernization, with a focus on performance, stability, and security. He enjoys mentoring the next generation of IT professionals through programs like Tech Impact. Hyper-Convergence and the Cloud with Drew Harris What does it really take to move your infrastructure to the cloud? How can you make such a major transition while keeping systems running 24/7? In this podcast, we explore these questions and more with IT leader Drew Harris. Drew recounts his journey migrating a major Vegas casino to hyper-converged infrastructure, then going fully cloud for a public company. Drew shares the challenges faced and lessons learned in optimizing performance, stability and security during these complex projects. You’ll hear his tips for managing costs, refactoring apps, and getting visibility across cloud environments.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	All right. Well, welcome to another dissecting popular IT nerds where we're allowed to geek out with fellow nerds and there's no loss of conscious thought as people's eyes glaze over.
0:17.8	Today I'm proud to introduce Drew Harris, who helped one of the casinos on the strip
0:22.0	become the first one to go fully hyperconverged, and during his next opportunity, went 100% cloud.
0:28.7	So, Drew, tell us a little about yourself, and let's talk about that journey, hyperconvergent,
0:34.5	and what it means to be 100% cloud.
0:39.1	I appreciate you having me on.
0:44.0	This is a great opportunity and I'm really looking forward to have an opening discussion about this.
0:46.8	Just a little bit about myself.
0:50.6	I've been in information technology almost 30 years now.
0:58.2	I've done various vertibles, you know, almost 10 years sled with the state of Florida.
1:05.1	You know, I've been in banking and finance with a lot of virtualization, casino hospitality,
1:12.1	four or five years in a public company before coming over as an executive advisor with the current company I'm with.
1:20.9	So, yeah, I've done a lot of technology and infrastructure. And like I like to tell my engineers,
1:25.9	I don't have them do anything. I haven't done myself. So I'm an engineer by trade. And so,
1:30.1	you know, having the opportunity when I did to come on to the cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and help them with their journey to go from that traditional server, sand,
1:37.0	you know, EMC Dell architecture stack and move into a hyper-converging infrastructure was a great opportunity, right?
1:43.4	And a great learning experience.
1:45.6	Yeah, I mean, I remember the first few times that I started looking at hyper-convergent.
1:49.7	It was mainly because there was some kind of an issue. And it was, you always had to look at one of
1:53.9	the three areas of it. It was either the host, it was either the network fabric, or it was
1:59.8	the sand, or a combination of all three in the configurations.
2:03.3	So hyperconvergence helped bring all of that together into a single unit and hopefully made life easier.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dissecting Popular IT Nerds, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Dissecting Popular IT Nerds and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.