#195 – Fungible Data Processing Units

#195 – Fungible Data Processing Units

Chris EvansFungible, Guest Speakers, SmartNICs, Storage Unpacked Podcast

This week’s podcast episode continues the discussion on SmartNICs and DPUs with Fungible, a company that claims to have originally coined the term DPU. Chris and Martin talk with Pradeep Sindhu (CEO and co-founder) and Jai Menon (Chief Scientist) about Fungible’s storage cluster and host-based DPU. The Fungible architecture aims to solve the challenges of disaggregation, a topic we first looked at back in September 2017. This discussion highlights some interesting challenges that new technology such as NVMe-oF is introducing into the data centre. As we move to a model of highly parallelised workloads, the …

#194 – ScaleFlux & Computational Storage Devices

#194 – ScaleFlux & Computational Storage Devices

Chris EvansSmartNICs, Storage Unpacked Podcast

In this week’s episode, Martin and Chris discuss Computational Storage with Tong Zhang, Chief Scientist and co-founder at ScaleFlux. Computational Storage devices add value to traditional NAND by offloading data processes directly onto the storage media. ScaleFlux offers two families of CSDs, including the CSD 2000 series, which implements inline data compression to improve endurance and logical device capacity. In this conversation, Tong covers the benefits of using CSDs as well as some of the challenges of implementation. It’s likely we will se CSDs being used for AI/Analytics pre-processing, especially in the public cloud. More …

#193 – HYCU Protégé Office 365 Backup as a Service

#193 – HYCU Protégé Office 365 Backup as a Service

Chris EvansData Protection, Guest Speakers, HYCU Inc

This week, Chris and Martin are talking to a podcast repeat offender, Subbiah Sundaram, VP of Products at HYCU. HYCU has recently announced the availability of Protégé for Microsoft Office 365, delivered as SaaS or Backup as a Service (BaaS). This continues an expansion of the HYCU and Protégé backup offerings that started with Nutanix data protection and has expanded past on-premises virtualisation to encompass the public cloud and now SaaS. The conversation covers a wide range of topics relating SaaS and data protection, including the way in which services are implemented via APIs provided …

#192 – Storage & Kubernetes with Nigel Poulton

#192 – Storage & Kubernetes with Nigel Poulton

Chris EvansContainers, Guest Speakers, Storage Unpacked Podcast

This week, Chris and Martin chat to long-time friend and Kubernetes legend, Nigel Poulton. Nigel is well-known in the industry for producing training courses and books on Kubernetes, although was once a storage person in a previous life. The aim of this podcast episode is to examine how storage and Kubernetes come together. However, we start by asking Nigel to explain his pivot to containers and now the Kubernetes ecosystem. This discussion touches on some interesting aspects of how persistent storage and Kubernetes should be managed together, which today is via the CSI (Container Storage …

#191 – CIO Pandemic Priorities

#191 – CIO Pandemic Priorities

Chris EvansGuest Speakers, Pure Storage, Storage Unpacked Podcast

This week, Chris and Martin are in discussion with Cathy Southwick, CIO at Pure Storage. The topic of conversation is the results of a CIO survey undertaken by Pure to look back at the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and how customers have changed their IT strategies. The discussion covers how Pure Storage has adapted to the lack of in-person site visits and adapting to remote installation and operations. Digital transformation projects have continued, while customers have adapted their priorities and goals to align with the challenges presented by COVID-19. Public cloud has been an …

#190 – NVIDIA BlueField SmartNICs & DPUs

#190 – NVIDIA BlueField SmartNICs & DPUs

Chris EvansGuest Speakers, NVIDIA, SmartNICs, Storage Hardware, Storage Unpacked Podcast

This week, Chris and Martin chat to Kevin Deierling, SVP of Marketing for Networking Products at NVIDIA. SmartNICs and DPUs (Data Processing Units) are starting to become mainstream as application use-cases such as AI and analytics drive a need for greater data throughput and performance. Kevin explains the design and thinking behind BlueField, NVIDIA’s family of DPU products that combine offloaded network, storage and security functionality. Elapsed Time: 00:47:36 Timeline 00:00:00 – Intros 00:01:30 – We’re not a networking podcast! 00:02:15 – Why will we need DPUs and SmartNICs? 00:04:30 – Von Neumann is diverging …

#189 – The Quiet Success of Software-Defined Storage

#189 – The Quiet Success of Software-Defined Storage

Chris EvansSoftware-Defined Storage, Storage Unpacked Podcast

This week, Chris and Martin debate the success of software-defined storage or SDS. Over the past 10-15 years, storage systems have evolved into a wide range of software solutions, appliances and cloud-based products. What has driven this move to focus entirely on software and what will the next stage of evolution be? Are we in a position where everything is based on software, in some form? This discussion also touches on consumption models. Has SDS provided the catalyst for vendors to offer better subscription licences and consumption models? Is the writing on the wall for …

#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 …

#187 – End of the Year Show 2020 – Part Two

#187 – End of the Year Show 2020 – Part Two

Chris EvansGarbage Collection

This week, Martin and the two Chris’s conclude their end of year discussions. This episode covers “Turkeys” of 2020, Missing in Action companies and those technologies that should be put into Storage Room 101. These are the products we never want to see darken our doors again. Finally, the team finish on a discussion of what to expect in 2021. And for your delight, here are some Hitachi Mr T videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW1S2tsxVHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boZyHDJ5qCs Elapsed Time: 00:49:54 Timeline 00:00:00 – Intros 00:01:00 – What are the Turkeys of the Year? 00:01:40 – Is secondary data re-use …

#186 – End of the Year Show 2020 – Part One

#186 – End of the Year Show 2020 – Part One

Chris EvansGarbage Collection, Guest Speakers

This week, Martin and the two Chris’s look back at 2020 for the highlights and lowlights of the storage industry. What’s been hyped and what’s been a success? Will we be travelling in 2021 and what impact has the lockdown had on 2020 sales? This episode is the first of a two parter over the next couple of weeks before we close down for the Christmas period. Elapsed Time: 00:43:10 Timeline 00:00:00 – Intros 00:00:56 – Chris has not been to China 00:01:55 – Chris M is on a health kick! 00:02:48 – Gartner analysts …