 And we're back. Hi, this is Stu Miniman with wikibond.org. Here with SiliconANGLE TVs, live continuous coverage from HP Discover here in Las Vegas. And joining me for this next segment is Rob Crawford, VPSales with QLogic. Rob, welcome back in theCUBE. Thanks, Stu. So Rob's actually a CUBE alum. He's been with QLogic just about a year and one of the first things he did when he joined with QLogic is come on theCUBE last year at HP Discover. I did. I was brave, experienced to step up. Great. Dave, one or two there. So for those of you that aren't familiar with QLogic, they're one of these kind of core components that help infrastructure work. They're at the core of convergence, some of the building blocks for cloud and even big data is using a lot of their technology. So everybody talks about like Intel inside. If you talk about convergence, QLogic's really one of the components driving that technology and HP is a very strong partnership of QLogic. So Rob, tell us, what's new with QLogic these days? Well, it's been a busy year. We've got a lot of new technology that we've brought to market with HP. We've got a partnership with HP that's longstanding 15 plus years that we've been working together. And I think if you look at the value of that partnership, we bring a lot of innovation into the HP product offering. It's probably our deepest technical relationship in terms of the partners that we work with. And so we've seen a lot of exciting things this year. I think the big announcement at the show this week was around the FlatSan technology that was part of the three-part announcement this week. Very exciting technology, largely put in place to simplify sand infrastructure, make it a lot simpler to deploy a sand, to manage a sand and to do it with less hardware and less complexity. Okay, so obviously one of the challenges people talk about for sands in general is they tend to be a little bit complex. So can we just peel the onion a little bit when you talk FlatSan simplicity, what does that mean? I got a little bit of a briefing, but if you can tee it up. Yeah, I mean, the basic idea is that if you look at Q-Logic technology, we're one of the few companies that has technology both on the switch side and on the host side and also on the target side, right? So we kind of cover a variety of technology pieces within the infrastructure and that allows us to do some creative things in terms of the way we can become part of the sand infrastructure. And so a lot of what you see with the FlatSan technology is kind of taking the best of all those technologies and put them together in a way that allows you to simplify some of the normally complex components in a sand. Okay, so if I can for a second. Actually, I went to talk to some of your geeks over in the booth and they whiteboarded this for me. So if you're familiar, we've got a blade server. HP blade server has the FlexFabric virtual connect switching component, which is Q-Logic technology. Typically, you're plugging that into an external switch for fan out and scalability. And then you've got the storage array on the other side. Q-Logic has adapters in a lot of the storage devices and they also have the adapters inside the server. What this FlatSan technology is doing is we're saying, we don't need that external switch because what we're going to do is on the internal switch, the virtual connect technology, what is currently NPIV mode, which basically means I can work with any external switch, means if I'm running NPIV mode, I can't plug a storage array directly into it. It's a different version of software that I need to have storage direct attach. And Q-Logic now working with HP has launched the ability to plug storage straight in. So it's just a different software mode for the switch. So we're not eliminating switching. It's just we're utilizing internal switching and there's a good scalability story from the blade servers to the storage. So a lot of times I won't need to go buy that chassis, very expensive switch. I can just scale it out in a more modular model using HP technology leveraging Q-Logic components. Did I get it right? I think you nailed it. I think in this technology space, I think one of the things that's important is that this is not eliminating sand. This is not an alternative to sand. This is really just a matter of simplifying and reducing some of the complexity that makes sand less accessible to customers that don't have extensive experience or don't have the extensive teams to deploy it and don't want the complexity. It really extends the blade server and converged infrastructure, messaging, reducing cabling, simplicity. Still a fiber channel switched environment. So storage admins don't have to worry about this is something different. It's just going to be plug and go, all the stuff that they love and everything. In my mind, this is extending the viability of sand. I think there's sand and fiber channel storage is obviously a very central part of our business. So yeah, let's talk fiber channel. I mean, for a second. What's the state of the industry on fiber channel from a key logic perspective? Well, I mean, this is a time when fiber channel is in an exciting transition, right? So 16 gig technology is now coming into the market. You've got transitions that are happening as part of that. I think one of the things that we're wanting to make sure we stay on top of is just when that transition is going to happen on the market, we'll make sure our technologies are relevant. A lot of what we're doing, technology-wise, is converging our technology to support multi-protocol. If you look at our switching technology, if you look at our adapter technology, if you look at our technology, is it applies on the host side. One of the great things that we've announced and we've been promoting a lot in the industry is a common multi-protocol architecture that allows you to have flexibility in terms of how you use storage in a networked environment. Yeah, no, I mean, so, you know, I've been pretty vocal about it's not about fiber channel or ethernet. It's those two protocols are actually coming together. Q-Logic with HP actually had the first solution on that with the FlexFiber Virtual Connector. It's been out over two years now. Cisco has this kind of technology. Juniper is doing some things, but Q-Logic's really been the leader in bringing that in from the adapter side and the switch side now when the 168 product hits the market. So we're talking about when adoption happens. I think that the piece that is kind of missing from the puzzle right now is the storage technology. And while I understand you can't pre-announce any OEMs, just broad strokes, is that a late this year? When do we expect to see 16 gig end-to-end? Yeah, I think the end-to-end pieces, there's a lot of dependencies on when this actually goes end-to-end. I think one of the biggest components that dictates when a faster speed makes sense is on the target side and when the target arrays start to offer 16 gig technology in terms of how they participate in the sand. So I think what we're seeing, ballpark, I think towards the end of this calendar year we'll start to see some things. I think, you know, mainstay, the big guy is probably a little further out even still. And you know, I think one of the things that, you know, we're actively participating on a lot of that business today with those partners. And I think as those technologies come to market, you'll be hearing a lot more about it. Yeah, right, so the translation on that is we expect Q-Logic to have design wins. They've got lots of design wins on the storage arrays and with 16 gig fiber channel, PMC Sierra has exited the market. So that has left a transition on the fiber channel market where Q-Logic's there and Emulex have been fighting for those OEM design wins. We're on the storage, it's really sticky. You know, so maybe talk on the server side for a bit because one of the challenges for companies like Q-Logic, we talked about this with Intel, we talked about this with Broadcom this week, is the adapter market when we go to 10 gig tends to be what they call the flex-lomb technology. So all the server guys are qualifying everyone. So if you want Q-Logic, you can buy it, HP, Dell, IBM, but you can also take Emulex or you can take Intel or Broadcom, even Brocade and Melanox are getting into the mix there. So how does Q-Logic differentiate themselves in the marketplace and get those customers to choose? The 10 gig market's interesting, right? And you talk about the flex-lomb technology. Really, I think what has proven out is that that level of flexibility is really important in this market. So the idea that customers are going to have preference in terms of the 10 gig fabric that they deploy and how they put that together is something that our partners are embracing. So I think part of what is important is to figure out when does it make sense to have Q-Logic as a selection? What are the places where we really differentiate and add value? And I think we look at a broad deployment, but the key pieces that we think where we're differentiated and offer some really compelling offerings in that space. Virtualization's a big one. The ability to do partitioning at a NIC level and support a virtualized environment with quality service as part of how you implement 10 gig Ethernet, we see as being a big attractor. So virtualized environment. You had a term for that, I believe, it was like... So NIC partitioning or NPAR is what we typically refer to, and it basically allows you to virtualize the NIC layer and assign quality of service for different app loads, really applicable in a virtualized environment because I might have critical applications and less critical applications running on a single virtualized server. So what you can do is assign specific workload quality of service through the NIC level out into the fabric. So it's a great differentiator, it's something we've seen very popular with folks that are deploying virtualized environments today. The second piece that's always gonna be kind of central to our business is storage. If you're 10 gig Ethernet's a phenomenal technology, one of the great things it does is it opens up the pipe where you can have real converged infrastructure. I can run and start using it as part of my storage infrastructure. As part of that, FCOE and the support of protocols that are popular in the storage realm is something that we've always been known for. Clearly a place where we have a differentiated offering and think we had a lot of value. Yeah, and not to FCOE, but Ice Guzzi, Geologic has a long history on Ice Guzzi. Deep with the storage people, really a trusted stack, something I know when I talk to enterprises, it's any new protocol is they like, I tested my entire application stack with these drivers and Q-Logic gives kind of a common-looking feel across lots of different offerings. And that's one of the things that we see that's interesting, right? So in the fiber channel market, we have a share leadership position that's pretty well documented. Vast majority of customers that are running fiber channel prefer Q-Logic technology. We've built up that share position based on great solutions in market. And one of the things you worry about is when you go into a 10 gig Ethernet world, that that share preference starts to have less relevance. I think one of the things that's interesting is if you look at the share position in our FCOE products, it maps very closely to the share position we have with our fiber channel products. So it's a good indicator that folks that are moving into an FCOE environment, converged environment, one way that they maintain comfort and make sure they have confidence in the reliability of the stack that they're using is to use the same stack in both places. And obviously Q-Logic has a good solution there. Great, so we dug pretty deep on how Q-Logic fits into the convergence story. Obviously cloud, big discussion here, HP has lots of different offerings. Does Q-Logic have an angle into the cloud? We do, I mean, the cloud's an interesting, there's different ways you can look at it, right? One of the things that we see is, obviously the large cloud infrastructure providers are a big consumer of technology. We work hard to make sure that our offerings stay relevant with them. A lot of what you see right now in those big cloud providers is the 10 gig ethernet is a very relevant technology for how they're deploying their environments today. Great offering in that space. Also interesting that you see movement on the end user side, right? So as end users start to look at cloud infrastructures, being part of their infrastructure, all of the things that we do to connect things together, really we're an IO centric company. And as storage is a play both at the end user level and at the cloud provider level, all the IO that makes that come together and work is something we're very focused on from a technology perspective. So we see that as being really a great opportunity for us because cloud environments, more than anything, you need flexibility. So flexibility of a converged infrastructure, but you also need people that understand multi-protocol that can move data between different types of environments. And as people build out their cloud environments, sometimes that's with public cloud, sometimes it's with private cloud, sometimes it's co-located. You've got a lot of different options and having flexibility on the infrastructure is really what makes it happen. All right, so Rob, the final question that I have for you is you're a sales guy. I am. Can you give, what's your take on kind of just the conditions in the marketplace today, for storage and overall for networking? Yeah, I mean this is one of those interesting times in the market right now, the Romley server launches was a big thing. And as we see that business ramp and as IT organizations start to look at transitions of their server architecture, anytime that's going on that creates opportunities for us. A lot of our business is tied to servers. When servers are being sold, we attach to those servers. So this is one of those transitions in the server cycle that are always exciting and you try to figure out how quickly that transition happens. What is the, as people are moving into new environments, what do the new environments look more like? I think one of the things that we see a lot with the Romley servers is that they're able to scale much larger in terms of virtual machines. VM environments tend to be very, perform very well in the new Romley servers. Anytime you've got a lot of virtual machines on a server, IO becomes a critical part of the configuration. And so we see our participation on the IO side of that, both from a storage perspective, but also more broadly, as you put in 10 gig ethernet technology, our participation in that part of the market is going to be really critical. So we see that transition as helping us and we see a lot of good momentum in the business because of that. I think on the storage side, you see a lot of things happening as well, right? So you kind of, if you plot out the different parts of the market where things are changing, between storage, networking, and servers, we're in the midst of a lot of moving parts right now. And I think anytime that's happening, flexibility is what makes it all happen. It's, you know, I don't have to move everything at one time. I've got flexibility in my infrastructure. That's really a place where Q-Logic brings a lot of value. So, you know, bringing storage together with networking, with servers is really what we're all about. Great. So Rob Crawford, VP of sales for Q-Logic, exciting times in the networking and convergence space. Congrats on your one year anniversary with Q-Logic. Thanks so much for coming back and sharing with us. Good. I hope to be back here again a year from now. Sounds great. In the VM world, we might catch you up. There you go. So always good to see you. And the Stu Miniman with Wikibon, we will be right back with our live continuous coverage right after this brief break.