Jason Gintert
Name: Jason Gintert
Current Job: Co-Founder & CTO of WAN Dynamics
Favorite restaurant in town? Crumb & Spigot in Bainbridge
Favorite thing about Cleveland? I love being able to enjoy world-renowned theater, orchestra, and art right in my own backyard
Q: Jason, you are a networking wizard. Let's start off by talking about the industry. I think many companies both small and large don't invest enough in network engineering. Can you talk about the importance of why it's important for organizations to pay more attention to the networking part of the tech stack? The network is the most neglected component of the IT stack. There’s a common and pervasive lack of understanding with regard to the underlying technologies required to deploy and manage a performant and reliable network. This is because the network usually “just works” after being installed so skills on managing it atrophy or walk out the door for a new challenge over time. Many organizations are making their way to the cloud and overlooking the network during the transition, all too often resulting in a serious network redesign or re-optimization effort at the end. We are encouraging clients to start with the network and security conversations at the beginning of their journey to the cloud.
Q: After spending, 15 years working for different companies, why did you make the decision to break out on your own and what does your company WAN Dynamics do? I come from the telecom industry and felt the products/services we were selling really were not solving today’s connectivity challenges very well. After discovering tools like software-defined networking (SDN) and more specifically software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN), there was a realization that the capabilities of these smarter, more agile networks was going to change the way organizations connect from now on. There has also been too little regard or understanding for securing networks in particular within the context of cloud-based applications. Cloud connectivity is a different thought process that many are still trying to apply legacy network security models to. We founded WAN Dynamics in order to help our clients securely improve the performance of and make more resilient their network infrastructure for the modern, cloud-first world.
Q: You are also the co-founder of the Ohio Networking User Group. What is the purpose of the group and how would interested readers get involved? The Ohio Networking User Group or (OH)NUG was founded as a place for network engineers to meet and collaborate to discuss standards, common issues and new technologies in the network engineering space. We hold 4 “sales-free” events annually in Toledo, Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland to showcase vendor-independent presentations about emerging technologies and panel discussions about trends in the industry. We are now over 750 members and average 70+ attendees per event with the last Cleveland event bringing in over 120 people. The best way to get involved is to check us out at http://ohnug.org, join the MeetUp to find out when the next event is and just show up! We are also always looking for sponsors.
Q: You spend a lot of time thinking about ISPs and broadband strategy, what are some of the interesting technology developments you are seeing in the space? Though not new, there is a sharp increase in the use of Internet Exchange (IX) and Cloud Exchange (CX) networks that democratize interconnectivity between networks and to cloud providers regionally. Large, high volume networks connect to these exchanges in order to reduce cost and increase performance bypassing the need to cross-service provider backbones, sending this traffic directly to its destination. A great example of this is an IX right in our backyard, OHIO-IX, which has elements of both an Internet and Cloud Exchange in one. For larger organizations looking to cut costs and improve performance, I highly recommend exploring the Internet and Cloud Exchange options in your region. Another thing is Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) which is a new approach to connectivity that drastically improves redundancy and performance over existing networks.
Q: Outside of networking, how do you spend your free time? I live in Chesterland with my wife, 2 girls, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 3 chickens and a rabbit. We like the outdoors so are looking forward to the pending change in weather to be out more. I am also an aging hipster who plays drums loudly with a band from time to time. I also like networking so much, I play around that in my spare time as well as lame as that sounds.