Technology:Unpacked

This podcast was recorded at NetApp Insight in Berlin on 15 November 2017.  Chris talks to Dave Hitz, founder of NetApp Inc.  The conversation is fairly free flowing, covering a general discussion on data management, NetApp’s positioning with Azure NFS and how we can expect to see hybrid cloud work in the future.  You’ll notice there’s no discussion on any hardware products at all and little product discussion of any kind.

This conversation could have continued for hours (and in fact we did continue off-air), but we kept it to 20 minutes.

Elapsed Time: 00:19:05

Timeline

* 00:00:00 – Intro

* 00:00:30 – Embracing the cloud

* 00:01:30 – Azure Files, NFS?  What’s it called?

* 00:03:30 – Linux in Azure – 30% or 40%

* 00:05:00 – Transforming into data management

* 00:06:00 – The stickiness of cloud – additional functionality creates a pull

* 00:08:20 – What is big data?  Big files, big downloads or lots of complex content?

* 00:09:30 – Yes, the UK is still part of the EU for now and we will have GDPR

* 00:11:00 – Data security, how do we fix it – is the cloud more or less secure?

* 00:12:00 – Public reporting of data breaches, Sunshine laws

* 00:13:00 – How long will we have a hybrid world?

* 00:15:00 – Three ways to build IT

* 00:17:30 – Will NetApp become a service provider?

* 00:19:00 – Wrap up

Copyright (c) 2016-2017 Storage Unpacked.  No reproduction or re-use without permission.

This podcast was recorded at NetApp Insight in Berlin on 15 November 2017.  Chris talks to Dave Hitz, founder of NetApp Inc.  The conversation is fairly free flowing, covering a general discussion on data management, NetApp’s positioning with Azure NFS and how we can expect to see hybrid cloud work in the future.  You’ll notice there’s no discussion on any hardware products at all and little product discussion of any kind.

This conversation could have continued for hours (and in fact we did continue off-air), but we kept it to 20 minutes.

Elapsed Time: 00:19:05

Timeline

* 00:00:00 – Intro

* 00:00:30 – Embracing the cloud

* 00:01:30 – Azure Files, NFS?  What’s it called?

* 00:03:30 – Linux in Azure – 30% or 40%

* 00:05:00 – Transforming into data management

* 00:06:00 – The stickiness of cloud – additional functionality creates a pull

* 00:08:20 – What is big data?  Big files, big downloads or lots of complex content?

* 00:09:30 – Yes, the UK is still part of the EU for now and we will have GDPR

* 00:11:00 – Data security, how do we fix it – is the cloud more or less secure?

* 00:12:00 – Public reporting of data breaches, Sunshine laws

* 00:13:00 – How long will we have a hybrid world?

* 00:15:00 – Three ways to build IT

* 00:17:30 – Will NetApp become a service provider?

* 00:19:00 – Wrap up

Copyright (c) 2016-2017 Storage Unpacked.  No reproduction or re-use without permission.

This podcast was recorded at NetApp Insight in Berlin on 15 November 2017.  Chris talks to Dave Hitz, founder of NetApp Inc.  The conversation is fairly free flowing, covering a general discussion on data management, NetApp’s positioning with Azure NFS and how we can expect to see hybrid cloud work in the future.  You’ll notice […]

Continuing on our theme of disaggregated storage, Gavin and Martin talk to Josh Goldenhar, VP Products at Excelero.  In this podcast, recorded on 6th November 2017, the guys talk about NVMesh, the Excelero technology that transforms servers and NVMe drives into a distributed storage mesh.  As we’re starting to see, there are some common themes developing here, with Linux-based support, some client and (in this case) host software.

Elapsed Time: 00:43:21

Timeline

* 00:00:00 – Introductions, Martin, Gavin – no Chris

* 00:01:51 – Who are Excelero?

* 00:03:50 – Excelero – software only (with partners)

* 00:05:30 – But how does it actually work?  The dreaded Server/SAN terminology

* 00:07:30 – Client and target software – separating into management and data planes

* 00:08:30 – Any O/S you want as long as it’s Linux (Kernel dependencies)

* 00:09:30 – It’s all about PCIe and NVMe

* 00:12:00 – 1 million IOPS per socket – NVMe overruns the processor

* 00:16:30 – What about data services? Making comparison with all-flash arrays

* 00:18:30 – Currently using RAID-0 (striping), RAID-1 or RAID-10, RAID-6 8+2 in the future

* 00:24:00 – Why use Excelero (or any disaggregated platform) – full usage of IOPS

* 00:25:00 – Use cases – machine learning, financial, multimedia

* 00:30:00 – Giving less money to Uncle Larry

* 00:33:00 – File system support – better decision making, Spectrum Scale (GPFS), StorNext

* 00:35:00 – what about hardware partners?  Addressing the proverbial elephant

* 00:41:00 – Wrap up

Copyright (c) 2016-2017 Storage Unpacked.  No reproduction or re-use without permission.

Continuing on our theme of disaggregated storage, Gavin and Martin talk to Josh Goldenhar, VP Products at Excelero.  In this podcast, recorded on 6th November 2017, the guys talk about NVMesh, the Excelero technology that transforms servers and NVMe drives into a distributed storage mesh.  As we’re starting to see, there are some common themes developing here, with Linux-based support, some client and (in this case) host software.

Elapsed Time: 00:43:21

Timeline

* 00:00:00 – Introductions, Martin, Gavin – no Chris

* 00:01:51 – Who are Excelero?

* 00:03:50 – Excelero – software only (with partners)

* 00:05:30 – But how does it actually work?  The dreaded Server/SAN terminology

* 00:07:30 – Client and target software – separating into management and data planes

* 00:08:30 – Any O/S you want as long as it’s Linux (Kernel dependencies)

* 00:09:30 – It’s all about PCIe and NVMe

* 00:12:00 – 1 million IOPS per socket – NVMe overruns the processor

* 00:16:30 – What about data services? Making comparison with all-flash arrays

* 00:18:30 – Currently using RAID-0 (striping), RAID-1 or RAID-10, RAID-6 8+2 in the future

* 00:24:00 – Why use Excelero (or any disaggregated platform) – full usage of IOPS

* 00:25:00 – Use cases – machine learning, financial, multimedia

* 00:30:00 – Giving less money to Uncle Larry

* 00:33:00 – File system support – better decision making, Spectrum Scale (GPFS), StorNext

* 00:35:00 – what about hardware partners?  Addressing the proverbial elephant

* 00:41:00 – Wrap up

Copyright (c) 2016-2017 Storage Unpacked.  No reproduction or re-use without permission.

Continuing on our theme of disaggregated storage, Gavin and Martin talk to Josh Goldenhar, VP Products at Excelero.  In this podcast, recorded on 6th November 2017, the guys talk about NVMesh, the Excelero technology that transforms servers and NVMe drives into a distributed storage mesh.  As we’re starting to see, there are some common themes […]

In this quick podcast, recorded live at Commvault GO 2017, Chris talks to Greg Knieriemen, Technology Evangelist with Hitachi Vantara.  Hitachi recently merged the HDS (Hitachi Data Systems), Pentaho and Hitachi Insight Group brands together into a single entity, Hitachi Vantara.

The new company will focus more on data and IoT, as Greg explains.  Unfortunately the recording terminated early, so we lost about a minute of wrap up and some of the conversation with Max Mortillaro, who joined us at the beginning of the recording.

Elapsed Time: 00:14:36

Timeline

* 00:00:00 – Intro

* 00:01:17 – Oops – who is Greg Knieriemen, Evangelist with Hitachi Vantara

* 00:02:00 – Passing the mantle over for Speaking in Tech

* 00:03:30 – HDS, Hitachi Insight Group, Pentaho become Hitachi Vantara

* 00:04:00 – Max randomly joins the conversation

* 00:06:30 – The evolution of Hitachi, moving to IoT

* 00:07:14 – Greg teases about storage announcements coming in May 2018

* 00:09:50 – Moving steel bars!

* 00:11:12 – Adapting to work with the open source community

* 00:12:00 – What is Hitachi Lumada?

Copyright (c) 2016-2017 Storage Unpacked.  No reproduction or re-use without permission.

In this quick podcast, recorded live at Commvault GO 2017, Chris talks to Greg Knieriemen, Technology Evangelist with Hitachi Vantara.  Hitachi recently merged the HDS (Hitachi Data Systems), Pentaho and Hitachi Insight Group brands together into a single entity, Hitachi Vantara.

The new company will focus more on data and IoT, as Greg explains.  Unfortunately the recording terminated early, so we lost about a minute of wrap up and some of the conversation with Max Mortillaro, who joined us at the beginning of the recording.

Elapsed Time: 00:14:36

Timeline

* 00:00:00 – Intro

* 00:01:17 – Oops – who is Greg Knieriemen, Evangelist with Hitachi Vantara

* 00:02:00 – Passing the mantle over for Speaking in Tech

* 00:03:30 – HDS, Hitachi Insight Group, Pentaho become Hitachi Vantara

* 00:04:00 – Max randomly joins the conversation

* 00:06:30 – The evolution of Hitachi, moving to IoT

* 00:07:14 – Greg teases about storage announcements coming in May 2018

* 00:09:50 – Moving steel bars!

* 00:11:12 – Adapting to work with the open source community

* 00:12:00 – What is Hitachi Lumada?

Copyright (c) 2016-2017 Storage Unpacked.  No reproduction or re-use without permission.

In this quick podcast, recorded live at Commvault GO 2017, Chris talks to Greg Knieriemen, Technology Evangelist with Hitachi Vantara.  Hitachi recently merged the HDS (Hitachi Data Systems), Pentaho and Hitachi Insight Group brands together into a single entity, Hitachi Vantara. The new company will focus more on data and IoT, as Greg explains.  Unfortunately […]

In this podcast, originally recorded on 30 October 2017, Chris and Gavin follow up on the subject of disaggregated storage with Zivan Ori, CEO at E8 Storage.  E8 is a start-up that markets and sells a storage array that uses a disaggregated architecture.

The conversation covers what disaggregation really means and how E8 focuses on splitting the data and control paths of traditional I/O commands.  With NVMe and RDMA, the E8 architecture allows direct access to metadata on dual controllers within the E8 hardware.  This piece was actually a revelation during the conversation as it explains how shared direct access to NVMe drives can be achieved without each connected host getting in the way of another.

The conversation wraps up with a discussion on typical customers and what applications need this level of high performance and low latency.  The original podcast on disaggregation can be found here – Garbage Collection #005 – Disaggregated Storage.

Note that this podcast is a little longer than our normal shows, however it is packed with some great insights into the use of NVMe versus SAS/SATA drives and much more.

Elapsed time: 00:41:36

Timeline

* 00:00:00 – Introductions

* 00:01:00 – Disaggregated Storage recap

* 00:02:00 – Separating the data and control paths, why this matters

* 00:03:30 – How much better are NVMe drives than SAS/SATA? (Including Zivan’s laptop)

* 00:05:30 – What about the price differential – are NVMe drives more expensive per IO?

* 00:06:53 – Apologies for the background sneeze….

* 00:07:23 – Betting on commodity trends – not taking the DSSD route (or Violin)

* 00:08:20 – Getting into more technical detail

* 00:10:00 – How can you break the dual controller model with just software?

* 00:10:52 – Using RDMA to extend the control and data planes outside the shared array

* 00:11:36 – How important is networking in this architecture?

* 00:12:35 – Fibre Channel doesn’t cut it any more?

* 00:14:06 – Why not build a server solution, rather than a storage solution?

* 00:15:48 – Shared storage still provides an advantage over hyper-converged

* 00:17:00 – Getting into E8 architecture in more detail

* 00:18:52 – Client requirements, drivers, agents and emulated block devices

* 00:20:00 – The secret sauce – splitting the data and control paths for generic I/O commands

* 00:25:20 – and here’s the key – being able to talk to the metadata servers with very low latency

* 00:27:00 – New architectures – driven by RDMA and NVMe

* 00:28:48 – How is data protection within the box implemented?

* 00:32:30 – What does a typical customer look like?

* 00:38:00 – How does faster storage lead to better business advantage?

* 00:39:17 – What’s next?

* 00:40:50 – Wrap up time

Vendors/Products Mentioned In this Podcast

* DSSD, E8 Storage, Pure Storage.

Copyright (c) 2016-2017 Storage Unpacked.  No reproduction or re-use without permission.