This week, Chris and Martin discuss the merits of building virtual SANs in the public cloud. Vendors including Silk and Pure Storage now offer virtual storage "appliances" built from virtual instances and cloud storage. Why are these solutions necessary, when the public cloud providers have plenty of high-performance block and file storage offerings? The discussion looks at … [Read more...] about #210 – Building SANs in the Cloud
Software-Defined Storage
#198 – Software-Only Storage Vendors
With the news that VAST Data is moving to a software-only model, this week Chris and Martin debate the merits of the move, for both the vendor and customers. Does this transition for VAST represent a new move in the industry, or can we point to other companies that have already made the jump? What does a disaggregated commercial model mean for customers and how should IT … [Read more...] about #198 – Software-Only Storage Vendors
#189 – The Quiet Success of Software-Defined Storage
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 … [Read more...] about #189 – The Quiet Success of Software-Defined Storage
#170 – The End of Pure Play Storage Companies
This week, Chris and Martin debate whether we have seen the end of new "pure play" storage companies that go the distance to full independence. Where there used to be many businesses like EMC, Pure Storage and NetApp, the number of public storage-only companies is dwindling. Is this market too challenging to get into or is there simply no money to be made? If we look back … [Read more...] about #170 – The End of Pure Play Storage Companies
#167 – Adapting Open Source Storage for the Enterprise
This week Chris and Martin catch up with Phil Straw, CEO at Softiron for a discussion on packaging Open Source storage solutions for adoption by the enterprise. Softiron sells a software appliance based on Ceph which has been tuned to deliver high performance with high efficiency. So, exactly how do vendors go about making Open Source more consumable without breaking the … [Read more...] about #167 – Adapting Open Source Storage for the Enterprise
#164 – Introduction to StorONE S1: All-Flash Array.next with George Crump (Sponsored)
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 … [Read more...] about #164 – Introduction to StorONE S1: All-Flash Array.next with George Crump (Sponsored)
#156 – Introduction to Hammerspace (sponsored)
In this episode, returning guest Douglas Fallstrom from Hammerspace takes Chris and Martin through the details of the Hammerspace global file system platform. The solution is software-defined, running either on virtual machines or in the public cloud. Customers can choose to leave data on existing hardware platforms and simply abstract the data into the Hammerspace platform, … [Read more...] about #156 – Introduction to Hammerspace (sponsored)
#152 – Global File System Concepts
This week, Chris and Martin are joined by Douglas Fallstrom, SVP Product & Operations at Hammerspace, as the conversation on global file systems continues. Hammerspace has developed a global file system platform that caters for geographic data dispersion and sits above traditional storage. In this podcast episode, Douglas explains some of the challenges of stretching … [Read more...] about #152 – Global File System Concepts
#151 – Introduction to StorageOS V2.0 (Sponsored)
In this episode, Martin and Chris are joined in conversation by Alex Chircop, CEO at StorageOS. The company has announced StorageOS V2.0, a significant evolution in their storage platform, built for containers using containers. As this episode explains, the version 2.0 release of StorageOS enhances scalability and resiliency, with a strong focus on features needed for … [Read more...] about #151 – Introduction to StorageOS V2.0 (Sponsored)
#148 – Unpacking HPE's Storage Strategy
As reported by Chris Mellor, HPE recently announced Q1 2020 figures that show storage down 8% and servers down 15%. In light of these numbers, we look at HPE's storage products, partners and overall strategy in the market. HPE primary products are strong contenders, with XP8 for high-end/mainframe, 3PAR & Primera, Nimble and MSA. Outside of the main platforms, HPE has … [Read more...] about #148 – Unpacking HPE's Storage Strategy