I connected (virtually, of course) with Jennifer Huber in advance of Atmosphere Digital, which starts Tuesday, June 9. In other circumstances, we’d have the pleasure of seeing each other in person, but for now, we connected digitally. Jennifer is a mobility solutions expert, a longstanding Tech Field Day delegate, and a certified yoga teacher. Follow Jennifer on Twitter.
JE: How did you initially get involved in networking?
JH: I got involved in networking because a field support tech (many, many years ago) told me that they couldn't show me the right-click features of the new Windows 98 workstation because if I changed the settings I could potentially crash the system. I didn't believe them and was infuriated by his statement.
I looked up his job description and dug into what exactly he had done to be qualified for the job he was in. It took me a while to put my money where my mouth was and get enrolled into a technical college, but eventually I did and the rest is history.
What keeps you motivated working in the networking field?
The ever-changing technology standards keep me motivated to keep learning and stay current with the state of Wi-Fi as it continues to develop and evolve.
Do you collect any tech?
I used to collect LED watches but I sold my collection off some years ago. Nowadays I collect vinyl, film cameras and oddball sweaters.
What is your vision for how organizations will use AI for their network and security?
I think that AI will be used to identify anomalous device behaviors on networks and tie this information into security systems in order to provide the full picture of the who, what, where and when.
Branch office connectivity has been a longstanding pain point. How do you see the rise of SD-Branch solve that problem?
The rise of SD-Branch improves bandwidth efficiency to help improve application performance. All-in-one devices are often just what a small office needs when a stack of networking hardware is overkill, takes up a lot of valuable space and energy to power.
As organizations continue to migrate to SaaS and cloud, what's the biggest impact on the enterprise network that you're seeing?
I think the biggest impact has been to the end user of the enterprise productivity applications. They are able to access resources much faster than in previous times where they had to put in a ticket to get an application installed onto a PC assigned to them. Now with SaaS and cloud services, the workplace software delivery has transformed into a self-help environment rather than a put-in-a-ticket-and-wait platform.
Who do you admire most in the technology industry? Why?
I'd have to say I admire the team of go-getters at Gestalt IT. Specifically Stephen Foskett for putting together a great team which makes communities happen within the technology industry. The Tech Field Day events are unique spaces where people are invited to come together as strangers and leave as life-long friends.
What’s the best part of Atmosphere? What’s the worst part?The best part of Atmosphere is the getting to catch up with friends in real life and the worst part is when the COVID-19 flu outbreak caused the in-person event to be online only.
