Brian Gracely

🚨 New Episode of Telemetry News Now! 🎧 In the latest TNN episode, Phillip Gervasi and Justin Ryburn discuss a series of significant industry developments: 🏢 Oracle’s substantial $40B investment in Nvidia chips for OpenAI’s Texas data center 💰 Salesforce’s $8B purchase of Informatica to enhance its AI-driven CRM 📞 AT&T’s acquisition of fiber from Lumen for $5.75B 🤖 Extreme Networks’ venture into agentic AI with Platform ONE ✅ Cisco’s revamp of its certification program to align with the needs of AI, automation, and modern networking ➕ And much more! Whether you’re deeply involved in NetOps or just trying to keep up, this episode is filled with insights you won’t want to miss. 🎙️ 👉 Listen now and stay ahead:

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 Ensuring high availability in the cloud doesn’t have to mean inflating your budget. In my recent conversation with Dave Bermingham, Senior Technical Evangelist at SIOS Technology Corp., we dove into how businesses can maintain uptime while controlling cloud costs. “Using SQL Server Standard Edition with SIOS DataKeeper gives you failover clustering without the high licensing and storage costs,” Dave shared. He also pointed out that right-sizing infrastructure and deploying across availability zones can qualify teams for a four-nines SLA—without overspending. This is a must-watch for anyone designing cloud architectures under tight constraints. https://lnkd.in/g8yyuqGV

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This one changed how I think about authorization. FGA is not just about locking things down. It unlocks new revenue models in streaming, gaming, and e-commerce. If you build B2C apps, this is worth your time. https://bit.ly/40oYs7u Auth0

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It would be super obnoxious of me if I were to now mention that in my multi-cloud resiliency myth talk I gave for Cloud Security Alliance members a few weeks ago we covered how CDN/DNS was just as likely to take you out as a hyperscale provider outage, so multicloud resiliency is... mostly a myth. But I'm nicer than that.

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Network performance issues don’t stop at the edge of your VMware Cloud Foundation environment. But most monitoring tools do. Our new guide shows how Broadcom’s Network Observability service eliminates blind spots across SaaS, public cloud, and remote networks, helping teams quickly isolate the true source of performance issues and reduce MTTI. See real customer use cases and learn how to validate and accelerate your VCF transformations. Explore the guide below.

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NetApp delivered a solid earnings beat w/ its $1.7B quater with growth across the board, but big growth in as-a-Service (~65% y/y). Unsurprisingly maintained strong profitability despite cost pressures. Still, some surprises: Financial highlights: • Revenue: $1.71B (+4% YoY; +6% ex-Spot) • EPS: $2.12 (+11% YoY), above guidance • Gross margin: 71.2% (+50 bps YoY); operating margin: 31.1% • All-flash revenue: $1B (+11% YoY) • Keystone STaaS: ~+65% YoY • Public cloud (ex-Spot): +17% YoY Non-financial highlights: • ~300 AI customer engagements in the quarter • AI Data Engine moving toward GA in Q4 • Continued competitive wins driven by cyber resilience capabilities Interesting Observations: • AI workloads still ~60% data prep vs ~40% production • Public cloud gross margin reached ~85% — highly accretive • Cloud AFX adoption beat internal expectations + already landed neocloud win • AFA revenue $1.0B implies a $4.2B annualized run rate Memory Crunch Impact: • George said they've already raised prices and will do so again if needed. • Giving customers ~90–120 days to adjust purchasing plans after price changes. • Not yet seeing supply shortages & aren't aware of imminent shortages Congratulations to George Kurian & the team. Nicely done. #NetApp #Earnings #Storage #AIInfrastructure #HybridCloud #Cloud #EnterpriseIT

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NetApp should be well positioned to participate in this enterprise-level AI spend as it materializes because of its: (1) deep enterprise relationship for traditional business applications; (2) its differentiated hybrid multi-cloud capabilities; and (3) its AI-tailored hardware and software, including the AFX system and AI Data Engine (AIDE). First, NTAP has deeply entrenched relationships with some of the largest enterprises in the world with 85% of Fortune 500 using its product. We believe NetApp's position as a highly reliable incumbent with a long track record makes for an easier cross-sell motion as enterprises look to make investments to ready themselves for future AI workloads. Second, NTAP's ONTAP platform offers a unified storage infrastructure for hybrid cloud/multi cloud environments. In addition to being a widely adopted, mature on-premise storage platform from traditional business applications, ONTAP is also uniquely runs as a native, first-party cloud service in all three major public clouds. ONTAP allows customers to simplify its management of a data set across multiple environments, which will be increasingly important as enterprise implement AI solutions in the most cost effective and secure way. Third, NTAP recently launched a new AFX storage system that supports the independent scaling or compute and storage resources. This disaggregated storage architecture is well suited for the performance and the capacity demands of AI workflows.

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Another quarter, another multi-billion dollar acquisition for Palo Alto Networks. Their Q1'26 earnings report was captivating from beginning to end. 16% revenue growth. $20B ARR target for FY'30. $3.35B Chronosphere acquisition. Observability market entry. Winning multiple technology waves. Let's go: → The platform consolidation story is firing on all cylinders. Put opinions aside and take a dispassionate look at the platformization numbers: – Platformization count: 60 net new platformizations in Q1, with XSIAM platformizations literally doubling year-over-year. – NGS ARR: 170 customers $5M+ spend, 50 customers $10M+ spend. Both segments growing ~50% YoY. – SASE: $1.3B in ARR (up 34% YoY) with over 6,800 customers. This is basically a standalone product line that anyone would be envious of. Palo Alto Networks is building and executing a flywheel where customers start with one product and expand into the rest of their offerings...which just keep growing. Their M&A and integration track record is genuinely strong (definitely their superpower). Palo Alto Networks doesn't let their tuck-in acquisitions become anchor-dragging tech debt. They became core revenue drivers. Now, they're layering CyberArk, Chronosphere, and new AI security capabilities on top of this momentum. I don't think it's overreach. I think it's a company that knows how to execute at scale. → Chronosphere is more of a sophisticated bet than it may initially appear. It's easy to hear "observability" and jump to the conclusion this deal was about competing with Splunk and Datadog in observability. Part of the story, maybe — but I think their leadership team is smarter than that. Observability is a market where Palo Alto Networks has no historical advantage. Instead, it's about positioning their AgentiX AI to reason across security and infrastructure data. Strategically, Palo Alto Networks is betting that security-first reasoning will win over observability-first or unified-operations-first approaches. Security-first reasoning requires observability data as a critical input, but where security context and threat detection remain the primary lens. This distinction matters because the competitive advantage in the AI era is no longer about whose data model is cleaner or which UI is better. It's about whose AI can reason most effectively over unified security and observability data to detect threats that require context from both domains. → Quantum security and secure browsers are already contributing, but offer a lot of future upside. It's easy to dismiss quantum as a "future" concern (I'm guilty of that with quantum), but it's an active part of Palo Alto Networks' core product roadmaps and GTM motion right now. Prisma Browser (7.5M deployed, bookings +4x YoY) monetization is blended into SASE today — but longer term, browsers could be a standalone, high-margin platform.

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I co-hosted the UC Today Big Teams News show for February 2026 along with Kristian McCann, Teams expert Satish Upadhyaya, and special guest Oleg Danyliuk. You can watch it here: https://lnkd.in/gfc8PYWh Or read the summary below: 1. France’s Sovereign Video Platform France has announced plans to ditch Teams and Zoom for its own government-developed platform by 2027. Data Sovereignty: Kevin noted that data residency and sovereignty are becoming top priorities for CIOs in regulated industries. On-Premise Solutions: While Teams is cloud-only, competitors like Cisco Webex are gaining traction due to their hybrid and on-premise capabilities. Microsoft's Response: Satish highlighted "Microsoft 365 Local," which aims to address these sovereignty (but not on-prem) concerns by keeping data within specific geographical borders. 2. Teams and Google Meet Interoperability A major announcement at ISC revealed that Google Meet and Microsoft Teams can now join each other's calls via specific conference room hardware. The "Complex Hurdle": Kevin warned that while this is a step forward, it often leads to a "lowest common denominator" experience where advanced features are lost. The Next Frontier: Satish suggested that the industry now needs message interoperability (e.g., texting between Slack and Teams) rather than just video. 3. New Microsoft Teams Features Report Suspicious Calls: A new button to fight "vishing" (voice fishing). Kevin critiqued the fact that advanced security features often require higher-tier licensing. External Collaboration Admin Role: Allows IT to manage guest access without full tenant control, though currently restricted to PowerShell. Branded Reactions: Companies can now use custom emojis for meeting reactions—a feature the panelists deemed "less consequential" but likely requested by a major enterprise client. Skills on Display: Users can list expertise on profile cards. This is Microsoft's "sixth attempt" at solving expertise-finding within large organizations. Guest Case Study: Oleg Danyliuk (GNX) Oleg shared his experience as a CEO who dual-licensed Slack and Teams for five years. Oleg's Perspective - The History: started with Slack because it was "hyped" and developer-friendly; I used Teams only when clients forced it. The Shift: In 2020, Teams added multi-workspace support, making it as stable and usable as Slack. Why Switch? -- Integration. Teams is part of the Office 365 suite, reducing overhead costs. -- Consolidation: Having calendar, chat, and meetings in one place is more efficient than jumping between Slack and Google Meet. Verdict: Oleg plans to fully consolidate to Teams, noting that Slack no longer provides a unique benefit that justifies its higher price.

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Ron Okopnik from Pentera Labs built on Wiz’s IngressNightmare research and discovered three previously undocumented injection points in Kubernetes’ ingress-nginx controller. These vectors go beyond the original four CVEs and give attackers the ability to bypass security controls, execute arbitrary code, and pivot deeper into Kubernetes clusters. Security teams need to think like attackers. This research helps them do exactly that. 👉 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸𝘀 𝘂𝗻𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗞𝘂𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆: https://okt.to/pHsdZ9 #Kubernetes #PenteraLabs #CloudSecurity

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Palo Alto Networks is scaling fast, and they’re doing it with sales execution and data integrity moving in lockstep thanks to ZoomInfo. 🤝 From the sales floor to their data foundation, Palo Alto Networks relies on ZoomInfo to power smarter prospecting, clearer segmentation, and scalable GTM operations. The results? ✔️Increased sales productivity ✔️Greater operational efficiency ✔️Faster account cleanup at scale Watch this video and read the full story to learn more: https://bit.ly/4rXvVS5

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