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 … [Read more...]
#110 – Storage Vendor Consolidations & Acquisitions
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 … [Read more...]
#58 – Storage Vendor Hero Numbers
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 … [Read more...]
#37 – State of the Storage Union with Chris Mellor
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 … [Read more...]
Soundbytes #012: The Resurrection of Violin Systems with CEO Ebrahim Abbasi
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 … [Read more...]
Garbage Collection #005 – Disaggregated Storage
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 … [Read more...]