JNUC 2021 Recap

Hello everyone, this will be a quick recap of my experience from the JNUC 2021 virtual conference, and a companion update to the talk I gave. First, I need to really thank Jamf for putting on a well produced virtual conference. I will admit that I was a bit skeptical of things like audio and video quality, participant interaction, and the look and feel of pre-recorded talks. Everything exceeded my expectations. The audio and video quality were very well done. The recorded sessions were great to watch, and the attendee interaction was a lot better than I expected. We all hopped into various Slack channels to interact with each other on subjects or about specific talks that were given. While this does not come close to seeing everyone in person, it still felt great to see everyone virtually. Some of us even hopped on several web conference calls to interact with each other, talk shop, have a drink, and just in general have some fun.

This was the first time I have done a pre-recorded conference talk, and I will admit it did feel awkward to me personally. I am so used to seeing actual people when I have given talks in the past. Recording it felt like I was acting in a used car commercial or something similar. Regardless of those awkward moments the production company was great to work with.

Being Data-Driven

My talk can be viewed on YouTube now that Jamf has uploaded all the content online, which I have linked below.

Data can be a magical thing with in your organization, but data itself doesn’t solve the entire problem. Adopting a data culture, enabling IT and Operations folks to grow data skills, and using data to change how you do things is the real magic. I hope this talk at the very least got some of you folks out there thinking about how your IT Org can leverage data. Centralizing your data into a single data platform where data can be freely shared amongst teams is really the big point I wanted to make in my talk. This is such a game changer, and it gives you insights into things outside your normal scope.

I did see some other data topic talks at JNUC 2021 as well, and this was fantastic to see. Concepts aren’t always specific to the presenters, and concepts can be altered to fit one’s specific use cases. So, just by hearing the other data stories at JNUC 2021 is a great thing for everyone to go check out. I highly encourage people to dive in and take a look at the returns you can get from having great data, and a collaborative workforce using it.

Other Presentations on Data and Security

Here go some other presentations around security and data that I enjoyed. While, I may not use the same tools stack that the presenters use, the concepts and ideas from the presentations I think were valuable. Especially if you are new to some of these concepts. Since I think IT, Security, and Data all go together here are some videos that align with this. All of these talks are on subjects that also require having good data.

An overall good introduction to some security concepts around vulnerabilities

How bad configurations can snowball into security issues, you could use data to audit these.

Here is another Org who has adopted a data based culture around IT and Security. Again, without robust, reliable, and data sharing these things are a lot more difficult to accomplish.

I also had to post this, which is from two old friends of mine from our IT community. Bryson did call me out after all :-)

Conclusion

I think it is pretty clear that adopting a data-driven culture and framework has huge returns on investment. I hope some of these talks inspires others to start their data journey in the IT and Operations world. Having a syslog server is a nice start, and it gives you some data, but it is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the data around how your organization operates. Maybe next year we can see each other in person at the next big conference. I look forward to finally seeing all your faces in person again someday.

The rest of the JNUC 2021 Videos can be viewed here