Sam Akroyd

Did the pandemic just kill off the Corporate Network?

November 20, 2020 / Sam Akroyd / 0 Comments

Since the start of the year, and the beginning of the pandemic pretty much everyone’s work and personal life has been distrupted. High streets are empty, offices are earily quiet and gyms, well I don’t know – I don’t ever visit them 😉

But aside from my lack of cardio action in 2020, many workers are now working from home, on kitchen tables, home offices and sofas – whilst IT teams scramble round to get laptops so people can work, and install security tools to protect their data. So why bother with a corporate network any more?

2020 – The year of IaC?

November 5, 2020 / Sam Akroyd / 0 Comments

As we enter November, the penultimate month in a rather turbulent year, my thoughts normally wander on to what the next year will bring tech wise for me. Despite a punishing year for many businesses, the big tech companies (on the whole) have continued to grow, AWS posted revenues $11.6bn for Q3 2020, up by 29% year on year and Google Cloud made $3.44bn compared to $2.38bn for same quarter in 2019. But forget about the big boys, what’s more interesting is those tech companies on the way up, and theres a few!

Has a VMware Fling commercialised the Raspberry Pi?

October 22, 2020 / Sam Akroyd / 0 Comments

Since its inception in 2012, the Raspberry Pi has been in the arsenal of many a developer, enthusiast and even school curriculums – but I for one have never seen it as anything more – something to play around at home with. But have VMware with their ESXi on ARM fling, opened the doors to any number of commericial applications?

Want to start using Terraform to manage VMC? Here are some gotchas!

October 15, 2020 / Sam Akroyd / 0 Comments

Infrastructure-as-code, automation and particularly Terraform is the hot topic at the moment, and rightfully so. There has been some fantastic articles by people far more adept and intelligent than me on how to use Terraform in conjunction with VMware Cloud and the NSX-T networking. However, I thought I’d come at this from a different angle, not using a brand-new or greenfield SDDC, but one already in use and ‘worn in’. In other words, one with VMs and NSX-T rules, services and groups already in-situ.

VMworld 2020 – What new stuff is coming?

October 2, 2020 / Sam Akroyd / 0 Comments

Most people who know me well know that I love new technology, whether it be personal, or enterprise grade. One thing I love equally as much though, is a good demonstration, or ‘announcement’ – and this is why I love VMworld. Its an event that is full of tech, new announcements on tech that generally I love. Sadly this year its virtual, which is bad because I love Barcelona, but my liver will thank me long term I’m sure. Here’s a few things I’ve been most excited about.

The long-term demand for remote work

September 23, 2020 / Sam Akroyd / 0 Comments

Whilst everyone initially thought the global pandemic was going to be a brief event which blew over and like returned to normality, it looking increasingly likely that the truth is rather different. Habits are being changed, lifestyles and different and employees are demanding more from their employees. How do businesses, especially those heavily reliant on ‘places of work’ react to these changes, ensuring their employees stays efficient?

How much does a great leader at work influence your career?

September 11, 2020 / Sam Akroyd / 0 Comments

Being an avid user of LinkedIn, I often see posts praising leaders in their workplace and its made me think about what difference having a strong leader makes to your career, so in typical fashion – I wrote a blog about it!

Buy it or Build it?

September 3, 2020 / Sam Akroyd / 0 Comments

Software has evolved hugely over the past 10-20 years, moving from MS-DOS based command line entry, to C# based Windows Apps, to Web-based apps utelising Adobe Flash, and now everything is all about serverless apps and microservices. One things has stayed true though, a good app drives efficiencies in any business – the question is, do you have to build that software from the ground up to give yourself that edge over your competitors, or does buying off the shelf do the job?

A screenshotting tool, a review? Really? YEAH!

August 17, 2020 / Sam Akroyd / 0 Comments

So over the past few years I’ve mixed between both Windows and Mac for daily work drivers and home use. I have a standard app for browsing the web, I have a standard app for writing documents, and I have a standard app for writing code however one thing that has always bugged me is that on Windows I either used Greenshot or the built in Snipping tool to take screenshots, and on Mac I just used the native app, but both of them I found frustrating to use, step forth Snagit!

Building IT Roadmaps (Part 2)

August 11, 2020 / Sam Akroyd / 0 Comments

So the first part of this topic focused mostly around identifying the IT areas that were applicable to your businesses and then assessing your maturity within those areas. Next up is the more interesting bit, where you document where those improvements can be made and how to put a plan of action (or roadmap) of when to implement the new solution, or process improvement.