Monthly Archives: March 2019

EP 19 – TECHunplugged preview of Dell Technologies World 2019

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In this episode TECHunplugged hosts Max Mortillaro and Arjan Timmerman will do a preview on Dell Technologies World 2019 which they will both attend as analysts.

The conversation is on what we think about Dell Technologies, the past but also the road ahead for this great company. The companies under the Dell Technologies umbrella offer a great opportunity but need the right guidance and steering to act as one. Also Max takes us back to the Dell Technologies analyst event in Chicago late 2018 where he heard directly from Michael Dell and his team on the Dell Technologies vision.

We also talk about the opportunity we get to be at Tech Field Day Extra at Dell Technologies World 2019, and the awesomeness and opportunities provided by the Tech Field Day Team, which by the way celebrates its ten year anniversary (congrats team!!). Looking at their website we talk a little about the #TFDx sponsor Liqid and the composable infrastructure.

Last but not least we go into what we look forward on hearing at the event, as well as some of the #DTW sponsors like Komprise (listen to our podcast with them here) and Data Management and where we would like to see (and hear) Dell Technologies focus on the next couple of years.

Happy listening!

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EP18 – Geeking out about Persistent Memory, 3D XPoint, 3D NAND and all things flashy with Rob Peglar

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In this 18th episode of the TECHunplugged Podcast we welcome storage & flash memory industry veteran Rob Peglar (@peglarr) who is also President of Advanced Computation and Storage LLC, and Member of the SNIA Board of Directors. For the younger ones, Rob is the former VP of Advanced Storage Memory at Micron (hello 3D XPoint) and former Americas CTO for Isilon (then EMC, today Dell Technologies).

Podcast co-hosts Max Mortillaro (@darkkavenger) and Arjan Timmerman (@Arjantim) talk with Rob about many exciting topics such as the evolution of the computer industry from a memory and architectural concepts perspective, to then discuss about the latest innovations in persistent memory, 3D XPoint, 3D NAND and other industry matters.

This podcast is the follow-up to a private discussion / peer review we have had with Rob following the publication of our industry research paper on “The Solid State Memory Industry in 2019“.

We’re glad to have welcomed Rob on this episode and we thank him for the very exciting discussion and geeking!

Show schedule:

  • 0:00 Introductions & Rob gives some background information about him
  • 2:56 The early days of computing, the TECHunplugged research paper on Solid-State Memory, and about what originally was solid-state memory
  • 04:25 Is ferrite core memory the ancestor of persistent memory?
  • 05:15 Parallels between old days persistent memory and today’s persistent memory, and the art of writing code
  • 07:01 Talking about the SNIA, persistent memory, and development frameworks on how to write code for systems with persistent memory
  • 09:47 Is persistent memory the tip of the iceberg? what are the drivers to persistent memory adoption?
  • 13:12 Will persistent memory be used as a cache layer to address denser storage? What about QLC? The case of VAST Data
  • 14:49 Looking at 3D XPoint and persistent memory from a non storage-centric perspective; going beyond cache
  • 17:44 Isn’t this brave new world of persistent memory just a redux of what existed 40 years ago?
  • 19:00 Talking about 3D NAND QLC / TLC, Storage Field Day 18 and Western Digital  – are 3D NAND density projections around 128-Layer and above realistic? What are the alternatives?
  • 23:00 What about the rise of 3D NAND manufacturing in China?
  • 25:36 Discussing about the future of 3D XPoint in light of the Intel-Micron split, and other « competing » (or rather emerging) technologies (MRAM, etc.)
  • 29:52 Conclusion

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EP17 – Storpool: Being the best in Block Based storage – with Boyan Ivanov

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In the 17th episode of the TECHunplugged Podcast we’re joined by Boyan Ivanov, co-founder of StorPool Storage. Podcast co-hosts Max Mortillaro (@darkkavenger) and Arjan Timmerman (@Arjantim) talk with Boyan about the Storpool product offering, how the product has evolved, why customers are choosing for the Storpool product and what can we expect from Storpool in the future.

Show schedule:

  • 00:00 Max: Introduction
  • 00:40 Boyan: What and who is Storpool and what do they do?
  • 02:32 Arjan: What is the Storpool journey?
  • 03:08 Boyan: The history and a little future of Storpool
  • 04:25 Max: What is the primary driver of Storpool clients to choose them?
  • 04:50 Boyan: Storpool wants to be the best at block based storage and delivers on this
  • 6:34 Max: Could you tell a bit more on the Architecture of your product?
  • 6:47 Boyan: Started coding at the age of ten and does a bit deeper dive into the architecture
  • 8:48 Arjan: Not being a Silicon Valley company, how do you compete (or not) with them?
  • 9:38 Max: Another question on that, is the Storpool customer base European or Global?
  • 9:54 Boyan: Answer both questions on competing against Silicon Valley companies and being a global company
  • 12:08 Max: So Storpool being funded in much different way doesn’t feel the VC pressure as much?
  • 12:41 Boyan: Correct. Having a business that is resilient and self-funded is a much better sustainable way to grow a company
  • 14:04 Arjan: What is a feature your customer base is requesting at the moment?
  • 14:42 Boyan: Software approach first (SDS) and Backup and Recovery second (and everything in between)
  • 16:49 Arjan: Is that than something you’re building into the platform, or do you have partners helping you provide certain solutions?
  • 17:25 Boyan: Storpool is a pure software company, but also a storage team as a service
  • 19:15 Arjan: Can Storpool customers use on-prem and cloud data storage as one?
  • 19:48 Boyan: Not yet, but as the way forward is hybrid for Storpool this will be added
  • 20:53 Arjan: What about API’s, is Storpool as a software company API driven?
  • 21:03 Boyan: The Storpool product is entirely API driven
  • A last question from Arjan is on monitoring and Boyan answers this that Storpool provides its own monitoring as well as giving customers the opportunity to use the API and other tools to hook into their already existing monitoring tools.

TECHunplugged would like to Thank Boyan and Storpool for this very informative podcast and we’re looking forward to hearing a lot more from this great company!

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