#234 – Introducing Pure Storage FlashBlade//S and Evergreen//Flex with CTO Rob Lee (Sponsored)

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Guest Speakers, Object Storage, Pure Accelerate techfest22, Pure Storage, Sponsored, Storage Hardware, Storage Unpacked Podcast

In this episode, Chris talks to Rob Lee, CTO at Pure Storage about today’s announcement covering FlashBlade//S and Evergreen//Flex. FlashBlade//S is a new hardware platform that evolves the solution into a disaggregated architecture. The design enables compute and storage resources to be scaled independently, while incorporating existing DFMs (DirectFlash Modules) that are currently used in the FlashArray family. To exploit the benefits of FlashBlade//S, Pure has also announced a realignment of the Evergreen programme, including the new Evergreen//Flex option. //Flex customers can retain hardware ownership while benefiting from “component” mobility. The hardware changes in FlashBlade//S …

#233 – Introduction to the VAST Data Ceres Hardware Platform with Jeff Denworth (Sponsored)

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Guest Speakers, Storage Hardware, Storage Unpacked Podcast, VAST Data

In this episode, Chris is in conversation with VAST Data CMO, Jeff Denworth. The topic covers the recent announcement of Ceres, a new hardware platform combining ruler form-factor flash and BlueField DPUs. The new solution, which will eventually replace the current “Mavericks” D-boxes is a 1U system with flash, storage-class memory and network connectivity through DPU SmartNICs. The design can be vastly simplified compared to other storage solutions as the hardware component simply presents storage as drives over NVMe-oF. A single 1U system supports up to 22 ruler drives, with a capacity of 675TB. Jeff …

#232 – Building Power-Efficient Storage Systems with Justin Emerson from Pure Storage (Sponsored)

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Guest Speakers, Pure Storage, Sponsored, Storage Unpacked Podcast

In this episode, Chris talks to Justin Emerson from Pure Storage about modern design considerations for power-efficient storage. The cost of powering data centres has increased massively over the last 12 months, driven by the global economy and recovery from COVID-19. At a component level, servers are increasing their power usage, with faster processors and memory, plus the use of power-hungry GPUs. By contrast, storage power demands have reduced, as flash takes over from HDDs. Of course, this doesn’t mean there aren’t still considerations to make. Vendors such as Pure Storage have developed custom flash …

#231 – Introducing Infinidat InfiniBox SSA II (Sponsored)

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Guest Speakers, Infinidat, Sponsored, Storage Hardware, Storage Unpacked Podcast

In this episode, Chris talks to Eric Herzog, CMO at Infinidat about the announcement of SSA II, the second generation all-flash InfiniBox platform. The first generation SSA (solid state array) was developed to address a customer requirement that all long-tail latency I/Os must be delivered at all-flash levels of performance. The InfiniBox architecture is capable of delivering up to 95% of I/O from DRAM, but for some customers, that figure simply wasn’t high enough. With SSA II, Infinidat has moved to the Intel Cascade Lake architecture, adding a further 48 cores of processing. In addition, …

#216 – The Data Explosion with VAST Data CEO Renen Hallak

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Data Management, Guest Speakers, Storage Hardware, Storage Unpacked Podcast, VAST Data

This week, Chris chats to VAST Data CEO, Renen Hallak about the explosion in data and the challenges of analysing and managing huge quantities of unstructured content. VAST Data has built a scale-out unstructured object store that customers are now using to store petabytes of complex data. But what does complex mean, and how is that data being used? Renen explains how many of VAST customers are now at the exabyte level, more than might have been expected only a few years ago. What will customers do with this data? AI and analytics are the …

#188 – Is Intel Optane Ready for Primetime?

#188 – Is Intel Optane Ready for Primetime?

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Garbage Collection, Intel, NVMe, Persistent Memory

This week, Chris and Martin dig deeper into the adoption of Intel Optane technology in both the consumer and enterprise markets. Optane is a new persistent memory technology that offers greater performance and lower latency compared to NAND flash, but currently is more expensive and offers smaller capacity devices. As Optane becomes more prevalent in both markets, how is it being adopted and what needs to change to increase adoption levels? Note: Since recording, Chris has tried out the Intel H10 device and the results were disappointing. Read more here. Elapsed Time: 00:31:49 Timeline 00:00:00 …

#185 – Pure-as-a-Service 2.0 (Sponsored)

#185 – Pure-as-a-Service 2.0 (Sponsored)

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Guest Speakers, Pure Storage, Sponsored, Storage Hardware

This week Chris and Martin talk to Rob Walters, GM for Pure-as-a-Service at Pure Storage. The company has recently announced upgrades and expansion of the “as-a-service” model, formerly known as Evergreen storage. The name change and the widening of the portfolio represents an opportunity for customers to see transparent pricing and a greater depth of service offerings. In this sponsored episode, we review the origins of the service and look at how that has evolved into the capability for customers to consume Pure block and file products as true services. We discuss the challenges in …

#175 – IBM FlashSystem Deep Dive (Sponsored)

#175 – IBM FlashSystem Deep Dive (Sponsored)

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Guest Speakers, IBM, Sponsored, Storage Hardware

This week Chris catches up with Ralf Colbus from IBM to talk about the evolution of FlashSystem. The FlashSystem platform is an enterprise-class block-based storage solution that scales from SMB/SME offerings to high-end all-NVMe and SCM capable devices. At the heart of the design is the software behind Spectrum Virtualise, the SAN Volume Controller or SVC. FlashSystem now offers a standardised portfolio based on SVC. This starts with the 5010 and 5030, both SAS-based solutions that can be all-flash or hybrid flash & HDD. The 5100 upwards (including 7200 and 9200) introduces NVMe and IBM’s …

#164 – Introduction to StorONE S1: All-Flash Array.next with George Crump (Sponsored)

#164 – Introduction to StorONE S1: All-Flash Array.next with George Crump (Sponsored)

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Guest Speakers, Software-Defined Storage, Sponsored, Storage Hardware, StorONE

Storage startup StorONE has introduced the S1: All-Flash Array.next (also known as S1:AFAn) which accelerates performance using Intel Optane technology. In this podcast, Chris and Martin discuss the benefits of Optane within the S1 platform in a conversation with George Crump, CMO at StorONE and formerly the founder of Storage Switzerland. S1 is a software-defined storage solution that optimises the use of hardware resources to deliver an efficient and low-cost multi-protocol shared storage platform. The architecture of S1 enables Intel Optane to be used as a tier of storage that acts as the primary target …