Violin Systems Archives - Unpacked Network

#181 – Is There a Future for Storage Infrastructure Companies?

Chris Evans 6 November 2020Garbage Collection, Storage Hardware, Storage Unpacked Podcast

This week Chris and Martin debate the future of on-premises storage infrastructure companies in light of announcements and events from IBM, Dell and NetApp. IBM is splitting in two, while Dell and NetApp have recently held virtual versions of their annual conferences. Is the on-premises infrastructure business shrinking and becoming too low-margin to be worthwhile? Martin mentions Lou Gerstner’s book – linked here – Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? The Simpson’s episode where Mr Burns runs for Governor is “Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish” – without a doubt a …

#110 – Storage Vendor Consolidations & Acquisitions

Chris Evans 26 July 2019General

We’ve started to see the consolidation of storage vendors as some startups and long-term players in the market get acquired. Is the reason for this buying spree one of positive growth, or a defensive position to maintain survival? Chris and Martin discuss the issues and the vendors doing the buying. Who’s been buying? Violin Systems acquired part of X-IO (specifically the ICE) products as that company changed focus to their edge device (Axellio). DDN acquired Tintri and Nexenta. StorCentric, founded from Drobo and Nexsan has acquired Retrospect and Vexata. Are we seeing a move to …

#58 – Storage Vendor Hero Numbers

Chris Evans 20 July 2018Garbage Collection

This week, Chris Mellor is back and the team take a dive into the subject of storage vendor hero numbers. What are hero numbers? We’ve all seen them, they’re the huge performance figures quoted by all-flash storage vendors aimed at putting their products forward in the best light possible. Are hero numbers believable or should we be looking at certified vendor benchmark testing as a guide to capability? Do users even look at benchmark or hero numbers in the first place? Could the whole exercise be a waste of time? The conversation moves to talk …

#37 – State of the Storage Union with Chris Mellor

Chris Evans 9 February 2018Guest 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. …

Soundbytes #012: The Resurrection of Violin Systems with CEO Ebrahim Abbasi

Chris Evans 13 October 2017All-Flash, Soundbytes

In this podcast, recorded live on 13th October 2017 in London, Chris talks to Violin Systems CEO, Ebrahim Abbasi. Violin Systems is the new name for Violin Memory, one of the pioneers of all-flash storage. Violin Memory entered chapter 11 in December 2016 and the company assets were eventually acquired by the Soros Group. Violin Systems is back, with no debt, positive cashflow and plans for a strong future. Chris and Ebrahim discuss the software acquired from the relationship with Falconstor and taking a more software-focused approach to product development. We can expect scale-out, tiering …

Garbage Collection #005 – Disaggregated Storage

Chris Evans 26 September 2017Garbage Collection

In this podcast, recorded on 6th September 2017, Chris, Martin and Gavin discuss the subject of disaggregated storage. With the move to NVMe, traditional dual controller architectures are hamstrung by the need for all data to go via the processor(s). Disaggregation takes the component parts and makes them scalable, while removing the controller bottleneck. The guys discuss why these solutions are needed, who the players are in the market and what we can expect to see as this section of the storage industry develops. Elapsed time: 00:21:02 Timeline 00:00:00 – Introductions – What do we …