And that's a wrap for September and Q3. Are you ready for the last quarter of the year? There's something symbolic about the last three months of the year for getting things done. We're looking forward to the surprises and curveballs that the technology industry tends to throw in Q4.

Speaking of surprises — our top story this month was a bit of a surprise to us, as it was published just a few days ago, on the 25th, but was such a hit with our readers that it had more than double the page views of our second highest story. SDxCentral's Nancy Liu took an under-the-hood look at Cloudflare's extensive networking backbone.

Liu also hit it big in second place with her story that went behind the firewall at Palo Alto Networks to spend a day in the life of a security operations center analyst. We have more “day in the life” stories planned, so stay tuned.

And as with every month, cloud, security and telecom are top of mind and on our Top 10 list. Check it out here. Rankings are based on unique visitors aggregated during the month.

Cloudflare handles about 20% of the world’s web traffic, but the details of its extensive backbone remained undisclosed, until now. The vendor unveiled its machine learning (ML) (ML)-based Traffic Manager while explaining how Cloudflare connects between data centers worldwide, moves around traffic and determines the most efficient route across the public Internet or its private fiber networks.

Palo Alto Networks’ internal security operations center (SOC) ingests more than 36 billion events and 75 terabytes of data per day, yet it’s run by only 10 analysts. The company’s SOC Operations Specialist Devin Johnstone explained their 30/30/30 working model and how they leverage new artificial intelligence (AI) (AI)-powered cybersecurity technologies to handle the workloads of about 16 analysts for them.

The data center Switch market broke its fifth consecutive quarter of sales records in Q2 2023, with Cisco and Arista Networks positioned as the leading vendors. According to a report from Dell’Oro Group, No. 1 Cisco increased its revenue share by two points, No. 2 Arista by four points and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) by one point in the second quarter.

AI and ML were unsurprising topics of popularity at Cisco‘s annual sales kickoff, in terms of how those technologies will impact both the industry at large and Cisco’s networking business. While AI has existed in some form since the 1960s, its current iterations are finally able to change the definition of what is possible in terms of unlocking the value of data, Cisco VP Thomas Scheibe, who leads data center networking product management, told SDxCentral.

To expand its growth in the hybrid cloud and hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) markets, Nutanix is forming a global strategic partnership with Cisco, continues to compete with VMware and moves into AI support with its GPT-in-a-Box launch.

With its potential VMware acquisition, Broadcom has the opportunity to meld Symantec’s security portfolio with VMware’s SD-WAN capabilities. By integrating Symantec, VMware SD-WAN and some of Carbon Black’s security capabilities, Broadcom could enter the single-vendor secure access service edge (SASE) market and boost its overall SASE market share and revenue, if executed well.

VMware’s management used couched words like “solid” and “pleased” to describe its second fiscal quarter operating results, seeming to stay in step with the notion the vendor needs saving by Broadcom’s pending acquisition.

From a numbers perspective, VMware reported a 2% increase in revenues for its most recent quarter, with mid-year revenues up a more substantial 4% compared to the same period for its last fiscal year.

Dragos, a leading cybersecurity player focused on operational technology (OT) environments, announced a $74 million extension of its Series D funding round.

OT commonly refers to industrial types of networks, such as power and utilities as well as those used in manufacturing environments. In recent years, both attackers and regulators have paid increasing attention to OT security, which has led to growth and opportunity for Dragos.

During the company’s most recent earnings call, Zscaler Chairman and CEO Jay Chaudhry defended the vendor’s multivendor secure access service edge (SASE) and SSE approach, distinguishing itself from the recently noted single-vendor SASE trends. He also touted Zscaler’s head start advantage over Microsoft‘s late entry into the SSE market.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced a series of changes to its organizational structure and executive leadership, including the creation of a new Hybrid Cloud business unit. The shakeup aims to streamline operations, focus on key growth areas and unify the portfolio under the successful HPE GreenLake brand.