Episodes

In this never-published recording, Keith Townsend, Chief Technology Advisor, talks with Kelsey Hightower, fresh off his then promotion to Google Distinguished Engineer. The two explore the trajectory that brought Kelsey to this prestigious title.

In this episode of the CTO Advisor Podcast, Keith Townsend and guest Jason Benedicic dive deep into the challenges and opportunities surrounding private cloud solutions. As businesses grapple with the complexity of building private clouds, this conversation covers: The evolution of cloud strategies, from OpenStack to Kubernetes and VMware. The growing role of Kubernetes in [...]

Mark and Keith welcome Matt Broberg and Luigi Danakos for a candid chat about the IT industry. Together, they explore real-life experiences with navigating layoffs, job hunting, and various career hurdles. Matt shares an update on his job search and moving. Luigi shares what it’s like to fight back from hundreds of failed job applications. Keith shares his [...]

In this episode, Keith Townsend and Alastair Cook, both seasoned CTO advisors at the Futurum Group, delve into the challenges and strategies of migrating legacy, VM-based applications to the public cloud. Using the "Granite" application as a case study, they explore the practical considerations of containerization, the complexities of cloud-native transitions, and the impact of [...]

In this episode of the CTO Advisor Podcast, Keith Townsend interviews Gene Kim, the renowned author of "The Phoenix Project" and "The Unicorn Project." Gene shares his experiences and insights from his extensive DevOps and IT leadership career, exploring how these fictional narratives reflect real-world challenges and triumphs in technology transformations. Gene discusses the role [...]

Join hosts Keith Townsend and Dave Nicholson as they sit down with Brad Tompkins, Executive Director of VMware User Group (VMUG), to discuss the latest developments and insights following VMware's acquisition by Broadcom. In this episode, they dive into: The impact of Broadcom's acquisition on the VMware user community. Expected changes in VMware's product and [...]

In this episode of the CTO Advisor podcast, hosts Alistair Cooke and Keith Kirkpatrick, Research Director at the Futurum Group, delve into the transformative role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in cloud-based enterprise applications. The conversation highlights how AI can significantly enhance the functionality of enterprise software, emphasizing the critical importance of data centralization. They explore [...]

Welcome to another insightful episode of The CTO Advisor Podcast! Today, we have the pleasure of hosting Dion Hinchcliffe, who recently joined the Futurum Group and leads their CIO practice. With over 30 years in the IT industry, Dion shares his vast experience as an ex-practitioner, chief architect, and current strategic advisor at the CIO [...]

In this sponsored episode of the CTO Advisor Podcast, host Keith Townsend welcomes Dell Technologies' Sharon Maher and Nicholas Brackney for a deep dive into Dell's recent innovations in on-premises AI. Recorded on the inaugural day of Dell Tech World 2024, the discussion explores groundbreaking developments that are influencing the future of technology. This episode [...]

In this episode of the CTO Advisor Podcast, Keith Townsend, a Global Advisor at the Futurum Group, and Erik Bethke, the CTO of Futurum, discuss the latest release from OpenAI, GPT-4.0. They begin by sharing their experiences at Futurum, where both have been working for seven months, and highlighting the development of a new intelligence [...]

In this enlightening episode of the CTO Advisor Podcast, Chris Williams joins host Keith Townsend to revisit their memorable discussion from Las Vegas about the complexities of Kubernetes. Chris shares how Keith's clear explanation became his first true understanding of Kubernetes, marking a pivotal learning moment. Now a DevRel Manager at HashiCorp, Chris dives deep [...]

Host: Keith Townsend, Futurum Global Advisor Guest: Miles Ward, CTO of Sada Overview: This episode of the CTO Advisor podcast features a return guest, Miles Ward, to discuss the technological and strategic advancements in data management and cloud migrations, focusing on the challenges of data sovereignty and the innovative solutions developed to address these complex [...]

Keith Townsend interviews Cohesity CEO Sanjay Poonan. Cohesity announced the intended acquisition of Veritas' data protection business. The acquisition will close a significant gap in the amount of data on protection for Cohesity. However, Townsend challenges Sanjay on the gap in use cases for Cohesity vs. Veritas. Poonan speaks to the current market and the opportunity [...]

Introducing Alastair Cooke as a full-time voice within the Futurum Group Family via the CTO Advisor. Alastair will wear two hats within the Futurum Group. He's helping support the Signal65 Labs and is an analyst with the CTO Advisor. Alastair is experienced in data center and cloud technologies. He's supported many of our existing research and lab projects. [...]

This episode, Keith Townsend sits down with Jim King, Sales Director of SES Satellites, to talk about the importance of space networking—that is, satellite broadband. Jim and I explore why space networking is essential, especially in scenarios where terrestrial service is not available or practical. When disaster strikes, reliable communication is essential. Our sponsor SES [...]

Return guest Nathaniel Avery joins podcast host Keith Townsend to talk platform engineering. Specifically, the duo talks about the holy grail of creating a developer platform where developers focus on code and platform engineers create a seamless workflow. Many of these patterns existed during the height of the virtual machine (VM). Is there anything new in the desire [...]

*New York Times CTO, Nick Rockwell, joins Keith and Mark to talk about the big bet the New York Times is making on Serverless. Nick believes serverless is a bigger shift in computing than Cloud computing. The belief is so strong, that Rockwell made a bet on a Serverless architecture for the New York Times [...]

Keith is no longer the Principal of the CTO Advisor. What’s next, and what does that mean for the podcast?

We continue our conversation with Algolia’s CTO, Sean Mullaney. In this editorial conversation, Keith and Sean discuss the difference between developing code and AI models. The duo also discusses the drivers for multi-cloud and overcoming the challenges associated with cost and engineering resources.

We are jazzed to have Dashaun Carter, VMware Spring Developer Advocate, on the CTO Advisor Studio at VMware Explore 2022. Dashaun presented at both of the VMware Explore 2022 Keynotes. CTO Advisor Studio host Keith Townsend probes Dashaun’s journey to the stage.

Dan Newman, The Futurum Group CEO, joins Keith Townsend, President of the CTO Advisor, to discuss the current state of VMware while the companies await the Chinese government to approve the $61B deal. Recorded at VMware Explore 2023 EU

Guy Currier, the Futurum Group Contributor, joins the podcast from Super Compute 23. Keith and Guy discuss the news out of Super Computer 2023 and how the intersection of AI infrastructure meets and relates to HPC infrastructure.

Alex Ellis, founder of OpenFaaS Limited, returns to the program to discuss his company's latest product, Actuated. Keith and Alex discuss the challenges of building ARM code via emulation on x86 and the ability to go between platforms. Alex shares stories from the field while Keith challenges him on security and compliance.

CTO Advisor podcast host, Keith Townsend has been a long time follower of Zerto data protection. Zerto has traditionally provided data protection via replication for hardware agnostic environments. In this sponsored podcast, Verma Deepak, VP of Product at Zerto, an HPE Company discusses the idea of Zerto as an HPE GreenLake product. Does HPE GreenLake [...]