Stuff we talk about at Lumics

On the 40th anniversary of one of the coolest high school movies of all time, we honor the one and only Francis Bandwidth, Lumics’ own IT rebel with a cause. Fran is the man and from his first day on the job (also approx 40 yrs ago) he’s been tickling the keyboard like Elton on them ivories. Hats off to you, Sir Francis, king of the systems engineers. If you’re a network or systems engineer monitoring and protecting a network, there’s nobody better to have in your corner. #networkmonitoring #systemsmonitoring

A little over 8 years ago the Lumics brothers Gario and Gavinigi, along with their sidekicks Young Master Francisco and J-Brownie set out to rescue Princess IT from the evil clutches of subpar network and infrastructure monitoring systems. They were successful, and became known as the Super Monitoring Brothers. Movies and video games have been made about their epic adventures. They continue to rescue all IT teams in distress and under the dark shadows of the old, oppressive, taxing monitoring regimes.

29 years ago Clash of the Titans introduced some then-cutting edge stop-motion and special effects to theaters across the country. Then 16 years ago it was remade, this time with some impressive CGI and even more epic special effects, making the phrase “Release the Kraken!” (Liam Neeson as Zeus) a legendary pop culture reference. Fun fact we learned from ChatGPT: Neil Corbould who worked on the original Clash as a teenager (he assisted with the mechanical owl Bubo) returned for the 2010 version as the Special Effects Supervisor. Sadly, Bubo did not return (apparently Sam Worthington – the “new” Perseus – didn’t like the idea of a mechanical owl sidekick). OpenAI and Anthropic and other tech Titans have now “released the Kraken” of AI upon us. If we can tame it and use it properly, it can be an incredible force for good in the world. If we’re not wise, however, it will surely destroy us all. I’m an AI optimist and stand on the side of harnessing its power to rapidly accelerate innovation to benefit humanity. We’re building some cool AI stuff (with serious security guide rails) into Lumics to help IT warriors accomplish nearly impossible tasks with ease.

On the last weekend of March in 1999, The Matrix hit theaters. People walked out of the theaters completely stunned, mind melted, totally blown away. It was a huge hit. The Matrix was a quantum leap forward in cinematography. We’re accelerating towards the Convergence – where the lines between human and digital are blurring. In so many ways this is amazing! AI will enable us to exponentially increase innovation in every field. It will replace many current jobs, but will simultaneously generate multitudes more. AI is so powerful we have to be incredibly thoughtful about how we leverage it. At Lumics we’re building AI into our core architecture in a way that will enable our MSP and IT clients to do so much more with their current talent, while simultaneously protecting customer data. It’s a fun time to be alive! #redpill

As a network or systems engineer you are frequently called upon to put out fires, defend and protect the critical data, keep everyone communicating efficiently and securely regardless of where they’re located or what types of devices they’re using. Sometimes things get so hairy you’re not sure what to do. With Lumics, you can always call a Hail Gary (he’s one of our best) and we’ll get him to fix all your issues. Network and infrastructure issues, that is.

Many years ago on this very weekend, Gavinardo, Franatello, Garyael, Kyleangelo, and Jason joined forces in the dark hidden caverns of the Lumics NOC to form the now-famous band of network and infrastructure defenders known as the Middle-Age Mutant NetFlow Ninjas. They live to help IT teams across the globe monitor and protect the precious data flows that keep businesses businessing. Cowabunga!