 The Cube for the past year that we've been in operation has been very very successful and You know companies do pay us to come here. I think the companies who have bring us in with the Cube get two things They get a third-party independent resource to provide knowledge to their audience Who are seeking it this demand for the for the product and also? Complements their existing media. We're here at an event and the company has their own TV Organization and they have to pay a premium for that so we compliment that by offering a Objective organic. Good morning. I'm Kristen Velletti and welcome to news desk on Silicon angle TV for Tuesday, June 11th 2013 Today net app announced a new version of their flagship storage OS clustered data on tap Silicon angle was the first to get an insider's opinion on the latest announcement and our very own founding editor Mark Risen Hopkins took an exclusive interview with Eric Eisman senior systems architect for the advanced systems group to discuss storage Trends and provide details on the cluster data architecture and it's growing popularity in the marketplace Let's take a look now at how their discussion unfolded founding editor Silicon angle and I am here today Speaking with Eric Eisman who's a senior systems architect for the advanced systems group You are here to talk a little bit about Well, what your organization does and we're gonna talk some storage today. So thanks for thanks for joining me No, thanks for having me. So, yeah, so let's start. Let's start with what you guys do. I mean you guys are deep in the the whole Converged infrastructure storage business you guys know you guys are the people to talk to if we wanted to spot a trend if we wanted to Understand go or go deep. So let's talk about what you guys do first So, you know, just just give us the rundown the elevator pitch if you will. Okay, so yeah, we are a We're based in Denver and we're a western half of the US data center infrastructure company, so we do reselling of hardware and software and architectures designs data center moves We were very large in the Sun space all throughout the 90s We are very large in the Hitachi data center space and in the net app data center space as well as the converged infrastructures, you know that you hear about around unified computing and things like that So so we we've talked to net app a lot recently about the on tap and of course the CDOT announcement so I was gonna start off with you know, what let's talk about the broader the broader topic Why customers choose the clustered architecture in the first place? I mean, what's what is the the benefit over a more more traditional or more? Common common use case scenario the main thing that what used to be called C modes now clustered data on tap Is the fact that you can decouple the access from the back-end data? So you can move the actual data blocks themselves between pieces of your array or expansions in the array different nodes and you can leave the front-end access whether it's IP or fiber channel in the same position or vice versa you can move the access the actual access layer off to different nodes Leaving the blocks in place and this allows you a lot of flexibility in doing things like maintenance doing things like upgrades You don't have to take outages anymore. You can move one piece at a time Here's the access portion and we're gonna move it to a new controller And then here's the data blocks that will move behind it to get it onto the new destination disc So it opens up flexibility opens up the ability to change change your mind So so that would be the the differentiator from like from from a that on tap or the CDOT thing provides Is that the kind of flexibility that's not there before right? Yes, okay? So so who are you moving to this type of I mean who are the candidates the use cases for this type of technology? I guess I mean is this a this is a one-size-fits-all or is this all horses for courses thing? well, mainly Well, you can think about in a couple of different ways the people who are having them I guess the most immediate need are those that are have really exploding unstructured data This is happening pretty much across the board in most verticals especially if you do anything with video or with imaging whether they be satellites or cameras or anything like that you find that you're coming in with these large payloads of already deduced already compressed codec type data and it just keeps going up and up and up as the resolutions go up the sizes go up the retentions go up and Really, I think that's the first pass But everyone you know is having this problem in almost all businesses whether it's GIS information municipalities or it is geo information for oil and gas Or like I said security information, you know those types of customers. They're exploding so fast It's really hard to make a storage design That is going to last years and years and years Just go into it understanding that you're gonna have to revisit it at least once a year and Every couple of years you may have to completely rethink it and so being able to change it Without taking the service down to the applications is a great advantage because you can say, you know, I can't see the future forever I can't see 10 years out So I know I can rearrange things buy things decon things and I don't take the apps down, right? so Yeah, so it sounds like There's there's certain the certain use cases certain customers that are gonna be getting this sooner than right sooner rather than later, but it's generally sounds like it's a Potentially a one-size-fits or one-fifth one-size-fits most down the road then yeah, that's been Part of net apps advantage forever since they run the same operating system on all their gear as soon as you can get to 8.2 and the new architecture Then when you can do these migrations and you can upgrade downgrade scale up and scale out So and then you're not changing any access layer Configuration to the applications, which is the most important thing You know, we're here to serve the apps and the apps serve the business So if I can do the maintenance or rearrange things and bring in different disc technologies and never take the app down Then that's a great advantage We can do our jobs in the data center and we can feel comfortable doing the right things and we don't have to keep Getting in front of the business and saying at you can't use that today So so you mentioned that converged is something that you guys really focus strongly on there So what percentage of customers there are are really? Are there implementing converged infrastructure currently running converged infrastructure systems? Probably between a quarter and a third quarter So actually brought have some footprint of it and that they're bringing it in yeah So is there what's what's the percentage that are looking to transition is that what's the movement? Very high over three quarters Everyone we have lots of discussions around what is it and what does it mean to you and your business and What are the advantages and disadvantages and what's hype and what's a buzzword and what's reality and how this can actually help you Run data centers and serve your apps So we're having a lot of conversations with customers about what is it and helping them build architectural roadmaps Because you know, it's you can't just go in and bulldozer data center It's not a very efficient thing to do and so a lot of people are going okay We've got this shining city on a hill that we're trying to get to so how do we get there from here? And how do you piecewise do it in a fashion that's non disruptive both to services and to the budgets? So we're doing a lot of architecture plans with customers on how do you get there from here? And what will you get what advantages will you have every step along the way right right? So what I mean, so what is the what's what's the biggest like little? Like as beacon that you put on that that road to pull them into the convert I mean because they want to get there, but like what how do you explain it to them? You know, how do you what's the way you explain the separation of the hype from the reality on converged? We really talk about how Turning things more towards the business Really at you know being able to change is an important aspect sure So and you don't know if you're gonna have an upper management change or an acquisition or divestiture So basically be prepared for change. So when that change happens Back the back the business down and say talk to me very simply give me very short sentences and nice simple ideas What do you want this application to do? How do you want this service to work and then oh, okay? I'm great now. I have a list of criteria. I will go build configurations to meet those criteria So basically you don't know what the business is gonna throw at you I can't predict three years from now what they're gonna want or who they're gonna buy so the ability to redesign on the fly and Morph to meet those needs Something that started out a year and a half ago as some kind of niche corner service, you know application Yeah, that's really nice. It's now 18 months later and it's exploded. Everyone loves it Well, we didn't really Architect it to be the app of the company and now we need to and being able to do those kinds of things So that's a how we meet what we think converged is is Everything coming together in a flexible fashion so that change another another little buzz wordy a Kind of thing that helps helps customers with or helps anybody with with the adaptability and change and focusing on business Processes rather than infrastructure is the software led infrastructure one's using this terminology now software led networking software led data center What is the customer sentiment around not just the term but the concept is that is that something that your is this Successful terminology we're at resonating with your customers or is this something that they kind of resistant against because it's kind of trendy right now I think it's got a little bit of the buzzword issue to it If we explain it more simply and say we're trying to decouple Configurations and services to the apps from all this big geeky gear in the data center That sends to resonate as a definition for them like oh, what do you mean by software defined? Well, that means I'm meeting your needs I'm doing whatever it is you wanted me to do when you told me about this app But I can go change the big racks of gear and I can do my job and make sure it works Easily it's kind of decoupling those instead of having them being so tightly wound together meaning If we need more performance and we hit some kind of you know design limitation of what we deployed then it's a whole lot of rework It's a whole it's a huge effort and so I think that message resonates with customers and they get that they go Oh, okay. I can understand that so software, you know software design data centers and software design storage and things like that They're really about decoupling those things sure Well Eric, I really appreciate your spout all the time we have today So I wish we could keep going as a very interesting topic and I love getting a kind of a finger on the pulse of Where the market is moving but so if I really appreciate you taking the time and hopefully we'll have time to chat again soon Okay. Thank you very much That was Eric Eisman senior systems architect for the advanced systems group discussing converged infrastructure storage trends and a special thanks to our very own Mark Risen Hopkins for conducting that interview and Fill up on your daily dose of tech news your silicon angle daily roundup is up for you next here on news desk We looked at all the programs out there and identified a