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In this episode of Smarter Strategic Thinking, host Ray Quattromini talks to Alex MacIndoe, UK Flash Systems sales lead at IBM, about the newly refreshed FlashSystem range the 5600, 7600 and 9600 launched in February 2026.

Want to know more: https://www.data-storage.uk/ibm-flashsystem/?utm_source=Podcast_Flashsystem&utm_medium=Youtube_Video&utm_campaign=Flashsystem

The conversation covers how IBM is achieving industry-leading storage density: 20PB in just 18U of rack space at a 1:1 data reduction ratio, compared with over 100U from IBM's nearest competitors. Alex explains how IBM's in-house manufacturing of FlashCore Modules protects lead times, and how a custom CPU built into every module enables hardware-accelerated compression, deduplication and ransomware detection without loading the controllers.

Alex also demos FlashSystem AI, a natural-language assistant that lets storage admins provision LUNs, tune performance and manage compliance documentation through chat rather than command line — with every action logged and a dual-approval safeguard against destructive commands from rogue operators.

On the security side, Alex details IBM's inline ransomware detection: the system monitors every I/O for entropy-level anomalies and is contractually guaranteed to detect a ransomware event within 60 seconds, with Sentinel verifying clean snapshots before any restore.

The episode closes on Flash Grid, IBM's single-pane-of-glass tool for managing multiple FlashSystems — including older and newer models — across sites.

Keywords: IBM FlashSystem 9600, storage density, ransomware detection, FlashSystem AI, Flash Grid, enterprise storage, flash storage, cyber resilience, IBM storage.

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In this episode of Smarter Strategic Thinking, Ray Quattromini is joined by Nipa Soni, AI and HPC Enablement Lead at FSAS Technologies, to explore their fully on-premises private GPT solution designed from the ground up for organisations that cannot afford to compromise on data sovereignty, security, or regulatory compliance.

FSAS Technologies is a Fujitsu spinoff operating across the UK and European market, aligned with the EU AI Regulatory Act and its emphasis on data control, governance, and privacy. Their private GPT runs entirely on-premises your data never leaves your environment, there's no internet exposure, and there are no per-query token costs. Licensing is user-based: unlimited usage for a fixed cost.

What you'll hear in this episode:

Nipa explains why public cloud AI models however capable introduce data sovereignty risk that regulated organisations and IP-sensitive businesses simply can't accept. They walks through the architecture that prevents data leakage, the department-level segregation model that keeps finance, HR, sales, and R&D siloed from one another, and how the system integrates with existing platforms including IBM Maximo via API and MCP.

The conversation covers the end-to-end customer journey: from an initial enquiry through to the £2,500 discovery workshop which includes AI consultants, data scientists, and mathematicians working alongside the customer's own stakeholders to identify one or two specific, high-impact use cases. The workshop takes roughly half a day to a day; a detailed findings report follows within a week and a half to two weeks. From there, POC development proceeds at no additional cost until the customer is satisfied before any further commercial commitment is required.

A UK manufacturer use case is discussed in detail: they deployed private GPT to address high error rates in part dispatch, training the model on their own proprietary data and seeing a significant reduction in errors and therefore returns within approximately three months.

The episode also addresses AI ethics and governance, including FSAS's programme delivered to first-year college students exploring the societal implications of AI decision-making, and how those same ethics principles are embedded at the platform level making it well-suited to education environments and regulated industries.

This episode is relevant to: CIOs and Heads of Infrastructure evaluating on-premises AI, MSPs and resellers considering private GPT for clients, organisations in regulated sectors (legal, public sector, manufacturing, education), and any business concerned about what happens to their data when staff use public AI tools.

Smarter Strategic Thinking is produced by Fortuna Data a UK-based IT storage reseller and consultancy specialising in data sovereignty, LTO tape archiving, ransomware resilience, cloud strategy, and AI-ready infrastructure.

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In this episode, Ray Quattromini speaks with Patrick Kay, Product Manager for IBM Content Aware Storage (IBM CAS) at IBM, in one of the most technically detailed conversations on the podcast to date.

IBM CAS is IBM's semantic interface for AI-ready data, a solution designed to transform unstructured enterprise data into a searchable vector database, without requiring costly data migrations or duplication. Patrick explains how IBM CAS uses Active File Management (AFM) to connect disparate storage environments, how the RAG framework is embedded directly into the storage layer, and why incremental vectorization dramatically reduces the GPU compute required to keep AI applications grounded in up-to-date enterprise data.

They also discuss IBM CAS deployment architectures, storage tiering from flash to tape, the impact of the global storage shortage on AI infrastructure planning, and why IBM CAS is increasingly the missing layer between enterprise data estates and production AI workloads.

Essential listening for CIOs, data engineers, storage architects and anyone evaluating IBM CAS or enterprise AI infrastructure.

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Ray Quattromini of Fortuna Data is joined by David Fox from JPY, the UK distributor for Archiware, for a deep dive into one of the most underappreciated areas of IT: data archiving, backup, and long-term storage management. 

David has been in the industry since the early 90s, starting out in pre-press and desktop publishing before migrating into the world of audio, video, and media storage. Today, he helps organisations across media & entertainment, law enforcement, universities, and enterprise manage and protect their data using Archiware's P5 software a powerful backup, archive, and replication platform that works across LTO tape, cloud, and a wide range of storage hardware. 

In this episode, they cover: - 

- The difference between backup and archive and why both matter 

- Hot vs cold storage and why media companies are constantly running out of space 

- How P5 handles LTO tape migration (LTO 8/9 to LTO 10) without losing your index - CCTV and law enforcement use cases, including 90-day retention compliance 

- Why LTO tape is making a comeback especially for AI training data 

- The real cost of cloud storage vs on-prem tape 

- Immutable backups and ransomware protection using S3 object storage 

- Data sovereignty concerns and the shift back to on-prem solutions 

- New features in Archiware P5 v8: EDL restore for video editors 

- How P5 is licensed and what that means for your infrastructure Whether you're in post-production, IT, or just trying to figure out where to put all your data this episode is packed with practical insight. 

Find out more about Archiware: www.archiware.com 

Find out more about Fortuna Data: www.fortunadata.com

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In this episode, Ray Quattromini speaks with Richard Howson, UK Channel Manager at Impossible Cloud, about one of the most overlooked risks in enterprise storage the US Cloud Act.

Richard explains why simply storing data in the UK isn't enough if you're using a US-based cloud provider, and how true data sovereignty requires knowing where your data lives, who has legal access to it, and how it's protected. They also dig into the real cost of hyperscaler storage, the growing demand for UK sovereign solutions across all sectors, and how Impossible Cloud is positioning itself as the go-to object storage layer in a multi-cloud world.

A must-listen for MSPs, resellers and IT leaders navigating data compliance and cloud cost control.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction – Meet Richard Howson from Impossible Cloud
00:46 What Is Impossible Cloud and Richard's Role in the UK Launch
01:04 The US Cloud Act – What It Means for Your Data
02:16 How Impossible Cloud Delivers True Data Sovereignty
02:43 Why Hyperscalers Are Failing on Cost Transparency
04:09 How Impossible Cloud Pricing Works – Zero Egress, Zero API Fees
05:11 Setting Up Buckets and Managing Customers as an MSP
05:50 Immutability, Versioning and Data Encryption Explained
06:39 Cloud Performance – Does It Match the Hyperscalers?
07:47 S3 Compatibility and Software Integrations (Veeam, Acronis, HYCU)
09:23 Ransomware Recovery – How Fast Can You Restore?
10:00 Why Impossible Cloud Focus on Object Storage Only
12:15 The Partner-First Channel Model – No Direct Sales
13:57 The Problem With Hyperscaler Lock-In
16:19 Why You Need to Understand and Classify Your Data Now
18:47 Use Cases – CCTV, Media & Entertainment, AI Training Data
21:17 API Automation for MSPs and Resellers
23:14 Why Data Sovereignty Is Now a Board-Level Decision
27:02 Where Cloud Storage Is Heading in the Next 5 Years
29:23 Wrap Up

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Is your storage strategy built for the future or setting your business up for failure?

In this episode of the Fortuna Data Podcast, Ray Quattromini sits down with Matteo from Kingston Technology to break down what IT leaders, CIOs, and infrastructure decision-makers need to understand about modern storage.

With data growing faster than most organisations can control, and AI workloads driving unprecedented demand, the wrong storage decisions today can lead to higher costs, downtime, and long-term risk.

This conversation covers:
How to choose the right SSD, NVMe, or memory for your workload
Why total cost of ownership (TCO) matters more than cost per GB
The real differences between SLC, MLC, TLC, and QLC NAND
How AI is reshaping infrastructure and driving on-premise demand
The hidden risks of cheap storage decisions
Why storage is now a board-level conversation (not just IT)

You’ll also gain insight into enterprise storage reliability, endurance, and performance trade-offs, plus what’s coming next in storage architecture, including PCIe Gen5 and composable infrastructure.

Who This Is For
CIOs, CTOs, and IT Leaders
Infrastructure & Data Centre Managers
Businesses scaling AI or high-performance workloads
Anyone evaluating storage, backup, or long-term data strategy

00:00 The storage problem businesses are ignoring
00:22 Introduction: Fortuna Data x Kingston Technology
00:40 Kingston’s history and evolution in storage & memory
01:47 Matteo’s role: bridging customers and engineering
02:44 Storage shortages, rising costs, and supply strategy
05:07 Military-grade encrypted storage explained
06:17 NAND types explained: SLC vs MLC vs TLC vs QLC
08:46 Matching storage to workloads (and why it’s often missed)
09:48 Endurance vs capacity vs cost: making the right trade-off
10:42 What makes Kingston enterprise storage different
11:29 Testing, reliability, and lifetime warranties
13:43 Enterprise SSDs, NVMe, and performance benchmarks
15:25 AI workloads: hype vs real demand
16:14 Why businesses are bringing data back on-premise
18:08 Why cost per GB is the wrong metric
19:23 The biggest storage mistakes businesses will regret
21:02 NVMe vs SATA: where each fits
22:18 Why SSDs are NOT ideal for long-term archiving
24:01 The future of storage: architecture over hardware
25:10 CXL, memory pooling, and composable infrastructure
26:09 Silicon photonics and the future data centre
31:34 Why storage is now a boardroom priority
32:45 AI, cyber resilience, and data growth pressures
33:46 Energy efficiency and smarter storage decisions

If you're rethinking your storage strategy or planning for AI-driven workloads:

👉 Visit Fortuna Data for expert guidance on building resilient, scalable infrastructure
👉 Or request a storage architecture review to ensure your decisions today won’t cost you tomorrow

#DataStorage #EnterpriseStorage #StorageStrategy #ITInfrastructure #DataManagement #ITCosts #CostOptimisation #TotalCostOfOwnership #EnterpriseIT #CIO #CTO #DigitalTransformation #TechStrategy

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Is your archive built to last 30 years?

In this episode, we sit down with Charlie Gale CEO & Founder of HoloMem, the startup building a commercial holographic data storage drive designed to complement LTO in enterprise backup and compliance use cases.

📩 Want to see HoloMem in your data center?
Get in touch https://www.fortunadata.com/contact-us/
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We cover:

• Why holographic data storage finally makes sense
• How HoloMem’s drive and cartridges integrate into existing tape ecosystems
• Use cases for immutable media (WORM by default) in compliance, AI reference, and unalterable archives
• Their delivery roadmap through pilots and into production

If you're thinking about the future of long-term storage, this is a practical and forward-looking conversation with the team building it.

Follow the show for more on storage, infrastructure, and data at scale.

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How flexible is your storage infrastructure and how resilient is it under pressure?

In this episode, we speak David Cayla from DataCore about the role of software-defined storage (SDS) in modern enterprise environments.

Want to know more? Contact us today: https://www.fortunadata.com/contact-us/

We explore how SANsymphony enables organizations to virtualize storage across mixed hardware platforms, improve performance, and build high-availability infrastructure without being locked into proprietary systems.

Key discussion points include:

• What software-defined storage actually means in practice
• Storage virtualization across hybrid environments
• High availability and failover architecture
• Performance optimization and intelligent tiering
• Reducing hardware dependency and extending asset lifespan
• Comparing SDS to hyperconverged infrastructure models

For CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, and infrastructure leaders overseeing complex storage estates, this episode provides strategic insight into how DataCore helps enterprises modernize without disruption.

Follow the podcast for more conversations shaping the future of enterprise storage and IT infrastructure.

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Is tape storage obsolete or strategically misunderstood?

In this episode, we speak with Qualstar about the evolving role of enterprise tape libraries in modern data protection and archive strategies.

As organizations face:

Rising cloud storage costs
Increasing ransomware threats
Growing compliance and retention requirements
Expanding petabyte-scale data growth
many are reassessing where long-term data should live.

Qualstar explains how modern tape infrastructure provides:

Air-gapped ransomware protection
Predictable, long-term storage economics
Scalable archive for enterprise environments
Support for compliance-driven data retention
Integration within hybrid storage architectures
For CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, and infrastructure leaders managing large data estates, this episode explores how tape fits alongside cloud and disk — not as legacy technology, but as a deliberate strategic layer.

If you're reviewing backup architecture, archive policy, or cloud repatriation initiatives, this conversation offers practical insight into how enterprise tape supports resilience and cost control.

Follow the podcast for more discussions shaping the future of enterprise IT infrastructure.

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Cyber risk has changed, has your strategy?

In this episode, Ray Quattromini from Fortuna Data sits  down with Keith Maskell, Head of Cybersecurity Sales at Titan Data Solutions, to break down what enterprise organisations must prioritise in 2026.

From why identity is now the #1 attack vector, to how mid-market organisations can achieve Zero Trust without ripping out their infrastructure — this conversation challenges conventional thinking around resilience, cyber essentials, AI-driven threat response and leadership accountability.

If you’re a CIO, CTO, CISO, or responsible for data, storage or security strategy, this episode will help you think bigger, plan smarter and defend better.

Key themes:

• The cyber landscape enterprises are sleepwalking into
• Board education: why cybersecurity still isn’t understood
• Zero Trust in the real world
• Vendor noise vs real outcomes
• Why AI won’t save you — yet
• The economics of ransomware protection

Have any questions Contact us today: https://www.fortunadata.com/podcast/

👉 Listen. Learn. Lead smarter.

🎙️ Smarter Strategic Thinking by Fortuna Data