#235 – FlashCore Futures with IBM CMO Scott Baker

#235 – FlashCore Futures with IBM CMO Scott Baker

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Flash Memory Summit 2022, Guest Speakers, IBM, NVMe, Storage Hardware, Storage Unpacked Podcast

In this episode, Chris is joined by IBM Storage CMO Scott Baker. The discussion takes place at Flash Memory Summit 2022 (FMS), being held in person in Santa Clara, USA. FlashCore Modules are IBM’s custom flash drives, developed from IP acquired with the acquisition of Texas Memory Systems. Scott is presenting at FMS, discussing how FlashCore could be used for anomaly detection and enhanced ransomware protection. You can learn more about FlashCore modules in our deep dive into FlashSystem 5200 and in this podcast recorded in September 2020. Elapsed Time: 00:13:36 Timeline Related Podcasts & …

#215 – Stateless Compute Machines

#215 – Stateless Compute Machines

Chris EvansGarbage Collection, NVMe, SmartNICs, Storage Hardware, Storage Unpacked Podcast

In this week’s episode, Chris and Martin discuss network booting and the ability to create completely stateless servers. The idea of SAN booting has been around for two decades, enabling both the operating system disk and data disks to be delivered from SAN storage. NVMe/TCP and other NVMe-oF protocols promise the ability to implement the same capability for modern systems. Can this be done today? Why are more servers not booted from SAN? Is this a technical issue or one of practicality and comfort? With large-scale computing platforms, perhaps network booting will make (or already …

#206 – An Update on NVMe 2.0 with Amber Huffman

#206 – An Update on NVMe 2.0 with Amber Huffman

Chris EvansGuest Speakers, NVMe, Storage Unpacked Podcast

This week, Chris and Martin chat to Amber Huffman, Intel Fellow and President of NVM Express about the updates in NVMe 2.0. NVM Express (generally abbreviated to NVMe) is a storage protocol that was developed to overcome some of the shortcomings of traditional protocols when working with new high performance media such as NAND SSDs and Optane. The 2.0 release of the NVMe standard refactors the protocol design and also introduces new features, including Namespace Types, Zoned Namespaces, Key-Value data types, endurance group management and HDD support. Amber explains the rationale behind the restructuring and …

#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 …

#157 – Introduction to Dell PowerStore (sponsored)

#157 – Introduction to Dell PowerStore (sponsored)

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

In this sponsored episode, Chris and Martin look at the newly announced midrange storage platform from Dell Technologies. PowerStore is a new all-flash midrange storage solution that offers both scale-up and scale-out capabilities. As we find out in the discussion with Dan Cummins and Devon Reed, this is only one aspect of the new technology. Through a feature called AppsOn, customers can run their own applications on a native ESXi hypervisor. In building a new storage platform, how did Dell Technologies leverage the assets already in the portfolio? We find out that XtremIO, SC Series …

#154 – Hitachi Vantara VSP E990 NVMe Midrange Appliance with Colin Gallagher (Sponsored)

#154 – Hitachi Vantara VSP E990 NVMe Midrange Appliance with Colin Gallagher (Sponsored)

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Guest Speakers, NVMe, Storage Hardware

Today, Hitachi Vantara announced the VSP E990, a midrange all-NVMe storage appliance. The new solution, available immediately, offers up to 5.8 million IOPS, I/O latency as low as 64µs with up to 64PB effective capacity. In this episode, Chris Evans chats remotely to Colin Gallagher about the new platform. VSP E990 extends the existing solutions in the VSP family, from the F350 up to the 5000 series enterprise-class solutions. The “E” denotes NVMe – other platform models have “F” (flash) and “G” (general) designations. The quoted 64µs latency figure is lower than the VSP 5000 …

#130 – Making Money in the Storage Business

#130 – Making Money in the Storage Business

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Garbage Collection, NVMe, Storage Hardware

This week, Chris and Martin reflect on changes in the storage industry and the ways in which vendors can make money from storage hardware and software. It’s been a tough time for storage vendors of late and the discussion starts by looking at the challenges of making money in a market where components are commodity and decline in price each month. How should vendors adapt to these challenges? There are alternative strategies than simply piling it high and selling it cheap (although that is one model). All-flash systems offered the ability to charge higher margins, …

#123 – Hitachi Next 2019: VSP 5000

#123 – Hitachi Next 2019: VSP 5000

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Guest Speakers, NVMe, Storage Hardware

This is the first of a series of podcast episodes recorded at Hitachi NEXT 2019 in Las Vegas. Hitachi announced the next generation of VSP storage arrays, the VSP 5000 at the show. The new platform provides greater performance and capacity than previous systems at lower latency. Chris meets with Colin Gallagher (VP Product Marketing for the Infrastructure Portfolio) and Dan McConnell (SVP of Infrastructure Product Management) to discuss the details. VSP 5000 offers up to 21 million IOPS at 70µs and up to 69PB of internal capacity. This level of performance can be delivered …

#121 – NVMe 1.4 Deep Dive Part II with J Metz

#121 – NVMe 1.4 Deep Dive Part II with J Metz

Chris EvansGuest Speakers, NVMe, Storage Unpacked Podcast

This podcast episode continues the discussion with Dr J Metz and focuses on the detail of NVMe 1.4 and NVMe over Fabrics 1.1. Both standards are complete and have been published in the last few months. The conversation today digs deeper into what the new standards offer and specifically how NVMe/TCP becomes “officially” part of the NVMe standard. The conversation on NVMe/TCP is particularly interesting as it highlights how the protocol will offer significant benefits over iSCSI. The details in the podcast are quite technical and so it’s worth checking out some of the additional …