Aviatrix Blog 
Since early 2023, the Altitude podcast has celebrated the unsung heroes of cloud networking, highlighted the hottest industry trends, and shared best practices for everything from network designs to career growth. Bryan “Woody” Woodworth’s thoughtful, gracious approach as host has invited industry experts and influencers to share insightful stories from their networking journeys.
A new era of the Altitude podcast begins this month as Woody transitions to a new role at Aviatrix and passes the podcast torch to Jason Gervickas, Senior System Engineer at Aviatrix with more than 20 years of experience in IT.
In a recent episode of Altitude, Woody introduced Jason and they discussed Jason’s experience in IT, networking hardware, on-prem environments, and transition to the cloud. Woody also interviewed Isabella “Bella” Mullaney, the producer of the Altitude podcast, who stepped behind the mic for the first time to share her experience at Aviatrix and launching the podcast.
The People Behind the Mic: Bella and Jason
Bella, host of the Altitude podcast, transitioned to marketing after earning a Health and Human Sciences degree, serving as an emergency medical technician (EMT) and a medical assistant in orthopedic surgery, and completing thousands of patient hours. After joining Aviatrix as an intern, she was tapped to launch the Altitude podcast. She identified Woody as the perfect host almost immediately due to his professorly attitude, skill in asking great questions, and fun flair as a musician.
The new host, Jason, joins the podcast as a networking expert. Previous roles at the IT helpdesk at Juniper, managing large VMWare environments at EMC, and operations at Juniper gave him a comprehensive knowledge of on-prem networking environments before he transitioned to the cloud in his role at Aviatrix. Jason’s experience both on-premises and cloud networking, as well as his familiarity with multicloud and hybrid cloud environments, gives him an in-depth knowledge of how the industry has grown and possibilities for future innovations.
The Elephant in the Room: What’s Going on at VMware
Together, Woody, Jason, and Bella launch this new era of the podcast with a discussion of the recent happenings at VMware. Broadcom, the company who acquired VMware, is redefining VMware’s business model, including the pricing structure and the way they partner, and some possible intentions behind those decisions. Jason shares some insights from friends at VMware and how the shift in their cost model opens opportunities for other companies to have a better market share.
The Second Elephant in the Room: The CrowdStrike Outage
A second major incident has rocked the industry: the CrowdStrike incident and its devastating consequences for companies around the globe. Woody recaps the incident as one of the largest global outages in IT history in terms of media attention and impact. Without shaming or pointing fingers, Woody describes the situation as “perfect storm” and focused on the positive side of the situation and how the industry will change the way they think about IT. He also pointed out that, for once, the problem wasn’t the network, a fact that gave networking professionals worldwide a “collective sigh of relief.”
Woody and Jason share personal anecdotes of people they knew who were affected by the incident that weekend and how much it revealed about CrowdStrike’s market share. Both discussed possible changes to the industry in response.
“Resiliency is going to be a big deal,” said Woody. He speculated about how companies may prioritize redundancy, despite the cost.
Jason pointed out that the issue this time was an embedded security solution and how the industry may integrate those solutions less closely moving forward. He also suggested that we may see more of a diversity of software in the future: using different platforms in different locations to promote resiliency.
Altitude’s Finest Achievements
Woody turned to Bella to ask about her proudest achievements and future dreams concerning the podcast. Bella described being proud of being able to launch the podcast successfully, and her vision of making Altitude more of a community where listeners can network with each other.
Jason also envisioned interviewing people with different viewpoints regarding the cloud – maybe even drawing viewpoints on the cloud from the hardware side.
“You are in awesome hands with Jason and Bella,” Woody told podcast listeners. “These two are just phenomenal.”
Listen to the full conversation between Woody, Jason, and the podcast producer, Bella Mullaney, to learn more.