#42 – Understanding Storage PR with Fred Monsone

#42 – Understanding Storage PR with Fred Monsone

Chris Evans Guest Speakers

In this week’s episode, Martin and Chris talk to Fred Monsone, founder of A3 Communications, a boutique storage PR and communications company.  It’s clear that modern day PR isn’t the right term any more and communications describes the work much more accurately.  Fred describes the reasons why start-ups and seasoned companies want to find the right way to engage with the press & journalists, bloggers and other influencers.  Dealing with people is a challenge, especially the divas (like Martin), who expect bacon rolls at events!  In case you’re wondering, we mentioned A3 Technology Live, an …

#38 – Talking Dedicated Backup Appliances with Don Foster from Commvault

#38 – Talking Dedicated Backup Appliances with Don Foster from Commvault

Chris Evans Commvault, Guest Speakers

In this week’s podcast, the team talk to Don Foster, Senior Director for WW Solutions Marketing at Commvault.  Initially this podcast was intended to be recorded at Commvault Go last November (2017) in Washington DC, but schedules didn’t align so we did it remotely.  The audio quality is not as good as we’d like, so apologies for that.  However, there are some good discussions in this episode, including lots to think about if you’re looking to deploy a backup appliance in place of a traditional DIY solution.  Don spends some time at the end of …

#37 – State of the Storage Union with Chris Mellor

#37 – State of the Storage Union with Chris Mellor

Chris Evans Guest Speakers

This week Chris and Gavin catch up with Chris Mellor, Storage Editor for The Register.  With so much happening in storage, it’s difficult to know where to start, so the guys focus on the rumour of Dell EMC reversing into VMware.  Could this really happen and why is Dell EMC even thinking about this?  The conversation flows on to IBM and their super-mega-hyper-uber announcement on NVMe.  Is IBM getting its storage mojo back?  Finally, the discussion turns to IoT and how storage and compute move to “The Edge” – no, not Dave Evans, but IoT.  …

#36 – The Persistence of Memory with Rob Peglar

#36 – The Persistence of Memory with Rob Peglar

Chris Evans Guest Speakers

In this week’s episode, the team talk to Rob Peglar, Senior VP and CTO at SymbolicIO.  The conversation covers persistent memory and in particular the NVDIMM format of devices that provide persistent storage in a standard server DIMM slot.  Rob explains how the standards are set through JEDEC, with a description of the three types – NVDIMM-N, F and P. The discussion continues to use cases, which seem mainly to be for any application needing low latency with local server persistence.  Databases and analytics are the main beneficiary, however Rob believes that the hyper-scalers may …

#35 – The Spectre of Meltdown with Alex Chircop

#35 – The Spectre of Meltdown with Alex Chircop

Chris Evans Guest Speakers

In this week’s podcast, the team talk to Alex Chircop, CTO at StorageOS about the implications on storage of the recent Spectre/Meltdown vulnerabilities.  Much has been made of the potential impact to I/O performance and by definition storage platforms and products.  The guys talk about what the vulnerabilities actually mean for end users and what to expect from storage vendors.  Finally, the podcast concludes with some suggestions from Martin, as the token end user in the discussion. Two references were made in the podcast.  The first is to a Techspot article comparing NVMe and SSD …

#34 – NAND Shortage? What NAND Shortage!  with Jim Handy

#34 – NAND Shortage? What NAND Shortage! with Jim Handy

Chris Evans Guest Speakers

In this week’s podcast, the team chat again with Jim Handy from Objective Analysis.  Jim is an analyst covering the semiconductor industry and provides some great insight into where pricing is headed in the NAND flash market.  The conversation covers some of the technical challenges the industry faces, as well as the impact from China entering the market.  Finally, the guys discuss the impact on Enterprise storage pricing. There are some interesting observations in this conversation, such as the capability for NAND to be used in multiple densities and how the ability for the Enterprise …

Introduction to GDPR with Nigel Tozer from Commvault

Introduction to GDPR with Nigel Tozer from Commvault

Chris Evans Guest Speakers

In this podcast, recorded in December 2017, Chris talks to Nigel Tozer, Solutions Marketing Director, EMEA at Commvault.  Today the subject is GDPR, otherwise known as the General Data Protection Regulation.  GDPR is an update to existing data protection legislation that is meant to reflect the needs of EU citizens in protecting their personal data in a digital age. Chris and Nigel talk through the issues, some of the steps end users can take and how Commvault offers solutions to bring businesses in line with GDPR. Elapsed Time: 00:27:52 Timeline 00:00:00 – Intro 00:01:40 – …

Disaggregated Storage Part II with Zivan Ori from E8 Storage

Disaggregated Storage Part II with Zivan Ori from E8 Storage

Chris Evans Guest Speakers

In this podcast, originally recorded on 30 October 2017, Chris and Gavin follow up on the subject of disaggregated storage with Zivan Ori, CEO at E8 Storage.  E8 is a start-up that markets and sells a storage array that uses a disaggregated architecture. The conversation covers what disaggregation really means and how E8 focuses on splitting the data and control paths of traditional I/O commands.  With NVMe and RDMA, the E8 architecture allows direct access to metadata on dual controllers within the E8 hardware.  This piece was actually a revelation during the conversation as it …

Private Cloud Storage and The Tintri Platform with Kieran Harty

Storage Unpacked 25 – Private Cloud Storage and The Tintri Platform with Kieran Harty

Chris Evans Guest Speakers, Storage Unpacked Podcast

In this podcast, recorded on 9 October 2017, Chris and Martin chat to Kieran Harty, CTO and co-founder at Tintri.  The discussion covers the requirements for private cloud and in particular how storage should be deployed in private cloud environments.  Kieran highlights how Tintri has adapted their all-flash and hybrid arrays to meet the needs of organisations looking to transform to private cloud operations. During the podcast Kieran mentions Tintri Scale-out.  Details can be found here.  Chris mentions the HPE 3PAR paper on private cloud storage, which can be found here. Elapsed Time: 00:32:15 Timeline …

Cloud File Storage – A Conversation with Andy Hardy from Nasuni

Cloud File Storage – A Conversation with Andy Hardy from Nasuni

Chris Evans Guest Speakers

In this podcast, recorded on 2nd September 2017, the guys chat to Andy Hardy, Regional Vice President at Nasuni.  Nasuni has developed a global file platform that uses cloud storage as the “backing store”.  In this podcast, the guys chat to Andy about the benefits of a global file system that requires very little on-premises storage and the components it replaces, including backup and DR.  The conversation also touches on where the market is headed, who is having success and the continual divergence between IOPS for block and capacity storage for file/object. Elapsed Time: 00:29:09 …