3426: Aura Technology at TechSummit25: XDR, Secure Edge, Real Outcomes
Release Date: 09/20/2025
3427: Can Smarter Compression Help Save the Planet? CompressionX Think so
Tech Talks Daily
What if the way we store data is shaping the planet’s future? That thought has been on my mind ever since attending the IT Press Tour in Amsterdam, where I first connected with today’s guest. With global data creation forecast to hit 510 zettabytes by 2030, and data centers already consuming staggering amounts of power, the conversation is no longer about whether change is needed but about how we approach it. Joining me on the podcast is Nicholas Stavrinou, co-founder of CompressionX, a company rethinking lossless compression. Nicholas shares how a mathematical paradox in a university...
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3426: Aura Technology at TechSummit25: XDR, Secure Edge, Real Outcomes
Tech Talks Daily
I recorded this episode at Barracuda TechSummit25 in Alpbach, Austria, a mountain village that looks like a postcard and hosts some of the most grounded security conversations you will hear all year. My guest is Richard Flanders, Commercial Director at Aura Technology, a managed service provider on the south coast of England that supports public sector organisations and tightly regulated commercial clients. Richard arrived as part of Barracuda’s Partner Advisory Board, which means he spends as much time feeding customer reality back into product teams as he does comparing notes with peers in...
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3425: Barracuda XDR: From Football Playbooks to Home Alone Tactics
Tech Talks Daily
I recorded this conversation at Barracuda TechSummit25 in Alpbach, Austria, where the mountains feel close enough to touch and the discussions get very real very quickly. My guests are Adam Khan, VP of Global Security Operations at Barracuda XDR, and Eric Russo, Director of SOC Defensive Security. Together they run the teams that watch, interpret, and act when attacks move across email, identity, network, cloud, and endpoints. Their keynote used the language of sport to make sense of modern defense, and it worked. You will hear why football tactics map cleanly to security, how roles and...
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3424: Barracuda TechSummit 25: Secure Today, Ready Tomorrow
Tech Talks Daily
I recorded this conversation in Alpbach, Austria, a village that looks like a postcard and hosts a very serious tech gathering. TechSummit25 is Barracuda’s deeply technical event, and it shows. The rooms are packed with solution architects, product managers, and engineers comparing notes with customers who run these systems every day. It is the kind of environment where product direction and real-world pain points meet over a coffee, then head straight into a lab to test an idea. My guest today is Neal Bradbury, Chief Product Officer at Barracuda, who leads engineering, product management,...
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3423: Johnson Controls Explains How to Cut Data Center Cooling Energy by 40%
Tech Talks Daily
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I’m joined by Todd Grabowski from Johnson Controls to unpack the physics, products, and design choices shaping the next generation of data center cooling. It’s a practical conversation that moves from chips and compressors to water, power, and land constraints, and what it really takes to keep modern infrastructure reliable at scale. Todd brings three decades of experience to the table and a front-row view of how Johnson Controls and the York brand have kept their focus on energy efficiency, reliability, and sustainability for more than a century. That...
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3422: Meet Symphion and the Print Fleet Cybersecurity as a Service
Tech Talks Daily
I’ve spent years talking about endpoint security, yet printers rarely enter the conversation. Today, that blind spot takes center stage. I’m joined by Jim LaRoe, CEO of Symphion, to unpack why printers now represent one of the most exposed corners of the enterprise and what can be done about it. Jim’s team protects fleets that range from a few hundred devices to tens of thousands, and the picture he paints is stark. In many organizations, printers make up 20 to 30 percent of endpoints, and almost all of them are left in a factory default state. That means open ports, default passwords,...
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Marketing Intelligence After Cookies: How Funnel Turns Data Into Decisions
Tech Talks Daily
Marketing teams used to have a simple enough job: follow the click, count the conversions, and shift the budget accordingly. But that world is gone. GDPR, iOS restrictions, and browser-level changes have left most attribution models broken or unreliable. So what now? In this episode, I sat down with Fredrik Skansen, CEO of Funnel, to unpack how marketing intelligence actually works in a world where data is partial, journeys are fragmented, and the old models don’t hold. Since founding Funnel in 2014, Fredrik has grown the company into a platform that supports over 2,600 brands and handles...
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Why FeatureOps Might Be the Future of Software Delivery
Tech Talks Daily
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From Bots To Agents: Building Trustworthy Autonomy With Hakkōda, an IBM Company
Tech Talks Daily
I invited Atalia Horenshtien to unpack a topic many leaders are wrestling with right now. Everyone is talking about AI agents, yet most teams are still living with rule based bots, brittle scripts, and a fair bit of anxiety about handing decisions to software. Atalia has lived through the full arc, from early machine learning and automated pipelines to today’s agent frameworks inside large enterprises. She is an AI and data strategist, a former data scientist and software engineer, and has just joined Hakoda, an IBM company, to help global brands move from experiments to outcomes. The timing...
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3418: Scaling IoT Security with Real Time Visibility at Wireless Logic
Tech Talks Daily
Here’s the thing. Connecting thousands of devices is the easy part. Keeping them resilient and secure as you grow is where the real work lives. In this episode, I sit down with Iain Davidson, Senior Product Manager at Wireless Logic, to unpack what happens when connectivity, security, and operations meet in the real world. Wireless Logic connects a new IoT device every 18 seconds, with more than 18 million active subscriptions across 165 countries and partnerships with over 750 mobile networks. That reach brings hard lessons about where projects stall, where breaches begin, and how to build...
info_outlineI recorded this episode at Barracuda TechSummit25 in Alpbach, Austria, a mountain village that looks like a postcard and hosts some of the most grounded security conversations you will hear all year.
My guest is Richard Flanders, Commercial Director at Aura Technology, a managed service provider on the south coast of England that supports public sector organisations and tightly regulated commercial clients. Richard arrived as part of Barracuda’s Partner Advisory Board, which means he spends as much time feeding customer reality back into product teams as he does comparing notes with peers in the hallway.
We talk through his first TechSummit experience and why the event’s focus on hands-on engineering matters for MSPs who live in the weeds of configuration, policy, and response. Richard shares early thoughts on Barracuda’s secure edge service and the continued maturation of XDR, but the heart of our chat is the pressure he sees on customers. Compliance is no longer a side quest. ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials Plus, supply chain reporting, and new European rules are shaping budgets and expectations. Boards want proof. Auditors want evidence. Buyers want to know a supplier chose fit-for-purpose tools. That makes documentation, contracts, and the ability to show your working as important as the tech itself.
We also get into the human side. In a world that loves point solutions, many teams are tired of alert noise and tool sprawl. Richard explains why a single, coherent view helps his engineers move faster and train better, and why MSPs are leaning into prevention-focused workflows rather than waiting for the next fire. He is candid about the conversations no one enjoys, like end-of-life systems that keep a legacy app alive, and the need for tougher stances when risk sits outside an acceptable boundary.
AI comes up too, without the hype. Aura is hiring a Head of AI and Automation, standing up a private AI platform, and committing to ship a handful of small, useful apps for customers in the year ahead. The lens is productivity and safety, with an emphasis on teaching teams how to question outputs and rethink everyday tasks. Add in security awareness training, phishing simulations, and tabletop exercises, and you start to see a culture shift from annual tick-boxes to regular, lived practice.
There is a lovely moment of serendipity in here as well. Richard’s first conversation on day one was with another partner from Pune, the same city where Aura runs its network operations. They swapped ideas on automation and integration that might never have surfaced on a video call. That is the value of getting people in a room together, especially when the room happens to be carved into the side of a mountain.
If you work with an MSP, this episode will help you ask better questions. If you are an MSP, you will recognise the balance Richard describes. Pick the right controls for the risks you actually face. Prove what you do. Keep training. And give your teams a single place to see what matters, so the next incident stays small.
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