John Gentry - Chief Technology Officer & Senior VP at Virtana

In ancient times the task of threshing, sifting edible grains of wheat from chaff, was performed with an agricultural tool called a flail. Modern farmers today accomplish the same undertaking at significant scale using huge mechanized vehicles called combines. When it comes to threshing the real from the imagined about AIOps, many IT executive decision-makers literally feel like they're flailing about. Everywhere they look, vast undulating fields of marketing buzz extend deep over the horizon making inflated claims about what AIOps can do for them. If only there was a metaphorical combine to sift facts from hype, expectations regarding the practical capabilities of AIOps would be more realistic, leaving the disappointment of unrealized objectives to flutter away like chaff in a light breeze. Since no such apparatus exists, metaphorical or otherwise, we turn instead to John Gentry, CTO & Sr. VP of Virtana, a leading AIOps provider. John's trenchant perspective on the current state of AIOps & its near-term prospects leaves listeners with a clear-eyed, pragmatic view of how this transformative technology is reshaping the data center. Along the way we'll learn what differentiates General Purpose AIOps from Domain-Specific AIOps, how AIOps helped one major company grow their transaction volume 700% while only scaling their infrastructure 300% with no head count increase, and why geography might be the key to attracting data scientists who perform the critical work AIOps relies upon.