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The Fungible data center offers the ability to create infrastructure on the fly, pulling from CPU, GPU, and storage resources as needed. This allows for better utilization and a cloud-like model in terms of consumption. Underpinning the Fungible model is their own data processing unit (DPU), which handles most of the work. In fact, their FS1600 NVMe-oF storage platforms have no traditional x86 CPU at all running exclusively on the DPU. Listen or watch our latest podcast to learn more about the notion of composable data centers and how Fungible aims to bring its vision to the enterprise.

Jonmichael Hands left what most consider to be a very good job at Intel, taking on the role of head of storage at Chia. Chia is a cryptocurrency that's billed as one of the most green in the world since it leverages proof of space (PoS) rather than proof of work (PoW). The PoS model in this particular blockchain works in two core functions. That is Chia plotting, then Chia farming. The plotting work is best done on high-speed NVMe SSDs, while the farming, where coins are earned, is done on good old hard drives - no GPUs needed. This is the definitive Chia podcast to get you entirely up to speed on what the latest crypto craze is all about.

Micron announced a shift in portfolio strategy this week and involves ceasing the development of 3D XPoint. The company stated: “Micron has now determined that there is insufficient market validation to justify the ongoing high levels of investments required to successfully commercialize 3D XPoint at scale to address the evolving memory and storage needs of its customers.” This spurred Chris Mellor to do some digging, which he is oft to do. On this podcast, I sit down with the meanest man in enterprise IT to talk Optane, Micron killing XPoint, the future of PMem, Compute Express Link (CXL), and other up-and-coming tech in the data center.

Larry O'Connor has been solving problems for creative professionals and Mac enthusiasts for over 30 years. What started out as a RAM shop for Macs has turned into a haven of storage and accessories for those who want the best. On this podcast, I talk with Larry about how it all got started and spend an inordinate amount of time talking about cables, like OWC's latest Thunderbolt 4 cable that immediately sold out upon launch.

HPE launched the first off-the-shelf supercomputer, Spaceborne Computer-1, to the International Space Station (ISS) back in 2017. The Spaceborne Computer-1 ran on the ISS for 651 days, near flawlessly, before returning to Earth. The big takeaway is that supercomputers can survive and function well in the harsh environment of space. On February 20, 2021, HPE plans on launching Spaceborne Computer-2 to the ISS to improve on the predecessor.

NVIDIA is known throughout the world as a GPU company. With their acquisition of Mellanox though, the lens through which NVIDIA is viewed casts a much wider perspective, not to mention the potential acquisition of ARM. NVIDIA is now taking aim at the humble NIC. With an embedded data processing unit (DPU) and even a GPU on the NIC, we now get to SmartNICs that are able to sit alongside CPUs and GPUs in a server to create the next generation datacenter.

We've been covering a lot of edge use cases on the podcast and this week it's another one, but with an AI twist. The University of Florida is working with citrus growers to fight a terrible disease called "citrus greening" that kills off their trees. Professor Yiannis Ampatzidis, with the UF Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department, has been working on intelligent sprayers that not only solve the problem but do so in a more ecologically friendly way. Thanks to a new relationship with NVIDIA and its Applied Research Accelerator Program, a fleet of smart sprayers can analyze each possible tree and make the right call when deploying care.

Creative Pros are a special bunch with specific technology and storage needs. And when you pile a bunch of them together into an agency, corporate IT systems quickly get stressed. Clockwork 9 suffered this exact issue, as the agency was overworking their NAS, leading to slowdowns in work being completed. After extensive research, Creative Director Andrew Spirk sought out the TrueNAS storage platform.

AWS may not have built the cloud, but they've driven more cloud adoption than anyone else since they launched S3 object storage buckets in 2006, nearly 15 years ago. Since then, AWS has listened to their customers when it comes to launching new features. In fact, 90% of anything new in AWS comes directly from customers themselves. This holds true from edge data collection with the new AWS Snowcone, all the way up to the latest EBS io2 Block Express volumes, what Amazon calls the first SAN built for the cloud.

Last week Red Hat made a fundamental change to their plan with CentOS, dramatically changing both the tracking of RHEL and the end of life, which went from 2029 to 2021. CentOS is going to become CentOS Stream, which means it's now on an upstream continual release schedule. This means CentOS is now a preview of what's to come in RHEL rather than a community edition of existing RHEL builds. Enterprises that rely on a stable Linux distribution that mirrors RHEL, will have to make a change away from CentOS soon.