Storage Unpacked

A weekly podcast on deploying and managing enterprise storage and data

#199 – Quantifying Data Storage Innovation

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This week, Chris and Martin discuss the level of innovation seen in the data storage industry over the last decade. This topic is one that comes up repeatedly as we review the market, startups and incumbents. In reality, of course there's been innovation, whether the "micro-innovations" that move the storage media industry along, or the more significant changes like NVMe and … [Read more...] about #199 – Quantifying Data Storage Innovation

#198 – Software-Only Storage Vendors

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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

#197 – Prioritising Disaster Recovery Planning

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The ongoing saga at OVH highlights the need to have solid disaster recovery plans that reflect the risk and impact of systems failure on the business. In this episode, Chris and Martin dig into the issues at OVH and how they represent a wake-up call for businesses in general. High profile failures have been apparent over many years, so does DR get the investment and respect … [Read more...] about #197 – Prioritising Disaster Recovery Planning

#196 – Creating a Multi-Cloud Data Strategy

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This week, Chris and Martin discuss the issues of building a multi-cloud data storage strategy. The range of options for private, public and hosted data services is huge, with each offering a different set of services and implemented in subtly unique ways. How can an enterprise take advantage of these services, while maintaining data protection, cost control and service … [Read more...] about #196 – Creating a Multi-Cloud Data Strategy

#195 – Fungible Data Processing Units

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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 … [Read more...] about #195 – Fungible Data Processing Units

#194 – ScaleFlux & Computational Storage Devices

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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 … [Read more...] about #194 – ScaleFlux & Computational Storage Devices

#193 – HYCU Protégé Office 365 Backup as a Service

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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- … [Read more...] about #193 – HYCU Protégé Office 365 Backup as a Service

#192 – Storage & Kubernetes with Nigel Poulton

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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 … [Read more...] about #192 – Storage & Kubernetes with Nigel Poulton

#191 – CIO Pandemic Priorities

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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 … [Read more...] about #191 – CIO Pandemic Priorities

#190 – NVIDIA BlueField SmartNICs & DPUs

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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 … [Read more...] about #190 – NVIDIA BlueField SmartNICs & DPUs