 Okay, we're back, this is Dave Vellante and I'm with Stu Miniman, we're with Wikibon.org and this is theCUBE, SiliconANGLE.tv's continuous coverage of Dell Storage Forum. This is our second Dell Storage Forum. Last year we were down in Orlando, really the second Dell Storage Forum where they brought together the equal logic customer bases, the compelling customer bases and of course Dell's own very large install base and we're here with Bob Fine who's the director of your product, marketing for the compelling side of Dell, Bob, welcome to theCUBE. Great, thank you, glad to be here. It's great to see you again. Always good. A lot of good action going on at Dell Storage Forum. A lot of the messaging are things that we've heard in the past from compelling, but they're refined. I mean fluid data architecture, right, that one comes to mind. Sure. How much of that is just sort of, hey, we got this great messaging, let's just bolt it on to Dell versus some kind of fundamental underpinning that is new. So the fluid data, it's not just a message. We have products that meet that objective. We've been doing it for, excuse me, quite a while. For example, some of the technology that we have are data progression is one of those technologies. It's been proven in the market and it does help our customers put the data at the right place, at the right time, at the right cost. Fluid data is more than a marketing message. It's real, it's there. Customers use it today and they use it not just to move data, to move it for the sake of moving. It's really all about lowering cost. When our customers move their data, they're moving it from costly storage to lower cost from a tier one to a tier three. The beauty of this fluid data architecture is that we can do that in the background without impacting performance. In fact, the opposite is true. In most cases, it improves performance because we can free up that expensive tier one resource by putting all that inactive data on tier three. So if costs go down, performance goes up. That's what fluid data is all about, and we do it without the user touching it. I remember the first time we ever had Phil Soren on the cube was at VMworld 2010. Sure. And he was very simple. He said, look, we're just trying to basically bring features that were associated with mainframe class storage down to the regular, everyday, small, medium-sized business. And that's really what Component did. You were the first really to do that. In an architecture that worked solid, people use it, they love it, why did it take the rest of the industry, do you think, so long to come up with a similar concept? A couple reasons. The first and foremost, a lot of the other vendors had an architecture already in place, and it's really difficult when you've got an architecture that's been in place for a while to add that capability. So Component started new from the ground up, and what we did was we built into our code a little bit of extra intelligence, basically using metadata, data about the data. And because we had a ground up architecture, we could build that intelligence into the platform at day one, so we didn't have to go back and try to figure out how to modify it, which would have been really hard. That's why when Component came out of the chute, we had this intelligence, and we could do this right out of the gate and work for customers first time, every time. Now, was that a fundamental design criterion, that whole data progression? Or did it come out of the fact that you guys had some other features that allowed you to do that? You know what I mean? Sure. I mean, sometimes you think of like, you know, waffle. Waffle enables some other capabilities, sort of ripple effect. Was it, did you guys set out to say, okay, we need to have this data compression, so let's design an architecture that can support that, or was it more of a, hey, we have this great, you know, virtualized system and we can do this? First, just to clarify its data progression, I think you said compression. No, no. I said progression. Okay. Just checking. We recognize that we wanted to do a lot of different things that other customer, other vendors couldn't do. In order to do that, you needed more intelligence. So when we first started looking at what are those things we could do to add intelligence, we designed that architecture from the beginning and that enabled data progression. It also enabled us to do snapshots in a different way, also to replicate in a different way. So that extra intelligence gave us the ability to build on a whole set of additional features that came from that initial design. So Bob, talk about that new architecture for tiering and we see even everyone follow on. The next wave appears to be flash. You started to see flash permeating into some of the existing systems. You've also seen new architectures come out with all flash arrays. Sure. I wonder if you can speak to, you know, where Dell sees flash fitting into your existing architecture and is there a need for an all flash architecture? And would that be, you know, an acquisition or a pivot on what you have today? So it's an interesting question. All flash I think is really an indicator that customers are looking for ways to optimize their system. As far as customer demand and all flash, we haven't seen that much. Customers are asking something where we hear from the press or analysts. Now that being said, the technology that we spoke of a few minutes ago, the data progression, it has the intelligence where we could do it. That being said, Dell has made an acquisition, RNA networks, something that's publicly known. And RNA networks does have some very sophisticated software and hardware to enable host caching, to put, effectively, a solid-state drive in the server closer to where the data originally came in. So we have that now part of the Dell technology umbrella. And you will hear from Dell and Dell storage ways to roll out some very, very intelligent ways to leverage host cache in the server. And most likely, you'll see that integrated with other technologies from Compellant. What those are and how we'll do that, that's a future topic. So take us back, you know, five, 10 years ago, where customers saying, hey, we want this ability to progress our data from, you know, expensive disk to less expensive disk. Were they telling you that? Absolutely, customers were faced with just increasing amount of storage. And they said, you know what, I bought all these drives. And the drives they had to buy were very expensive, 15K, tier one, pretty pricey drives. And after the data would sit on those drives for a couple weeks, 30 days, 60 days, they said, no, wait a minute. I had to buy those drives to meet my initial requirement to bring the data in. But now that it sits there, I'm not using it anymore. Why do I have to keep paying those high-speed costs as I expand my system to add more capacity, but I really don't need the performance? Compellant, there's got to be a better way to do it. And that was really the impetus for data progression. So you really were sort of using a mental model of a classical tier one mainframe storage and saying, all right, let's bring this down to the masses. Now, Flash, does it change everything? Or does it just sort of fit right in? In other words, you're starting to see a lot of granularity in the Flash hierarchy. You've got extended memory that's persistent. You've got, Stu mentioned all Flash arrays. You've got the stuff you guys did from RNA, which is this distributed coherent Flash down into the hybrid arrays. So your management system controls the array, right? Is there a higher level of abstraction that has to control that whole entire hierarchy? Interesting question. By using a solid state device or any other new type of drive, it fits the architecture that we have. So we can keep the metadata that we talked about before. And that applies to really any drive technology. We first started shipping solid state drives about two years ago. And one of the ways that we could use them differently at Compellant, we could really divide up the volume and only keep individual blocks that needed to be on the SSD. But the rest of the volume can sit on cheaper disks. So we made it cheaper from the start. And as SSDs evolve and Flash evolves, it's all part of the existing Compellant architecture. We don't see it as very different. It's a natural evolution to our existing architecture. So Bob, you hear a lot of talk in the industry about unified storage. A lot of it comes from the vendor community. Are customers asking you for that? And what's your play there? Customers are looking for unified storage. There's no question. Customers want one platform for both block and file. And a while ago, just over a year ago, Dell purchased Exynet, which is a great file system. And that file system has been implemented on the Power Vault lines. And it is available on the Equalogic line. And over time, you'll see that on the Compellant portfolio as well. OK, so that's a real requirement. That's just not a checkbox. Absolutely. Customers want one system to manage, or not manage, one platform for high performance. And that could be a Compellant today with Flash. Yeah, even you look at virtualization environments. There's lots of cases where there's some pieces of my data that I want on file and others that I need on block. Speaking of virtualization, we've known Compellant since before the acquisition. Pretty early on. And we really saw an acceleration in kind of a tightness of how the Compellant stuff can work with VMware after the acquisition. Can you speak a little bit to the VMware relationship on the Compellant side? Sure, a couple things. The first part is that we are already virtualizing all the storage. So part of Compellant's DNA, if you will, was really to virtualize. So all of the drives in the Compellant architecture, they're all virtualized together. We virtualize other things, such as in our controller, the ports that come in from the server or the ports that go to the drives. All those ports are virtualized. Customers can change from iSCSI to fiber channel, and they'll keep all their logical definitions to the volume. So everything is virtualized. So because we already had that as part of our background, part of our DNA, our legacy, it was pretty intuitive to go into a virtualized operating system. So both for Microsoft and for VMware, we've had a longstanding relationship as part of Compellant. And now through Dell, we were able to extend that. Dell, before Compellant, part of the Equalogic team, had a great relationship with VMware, and that's helped Compellant. So at Compellant, we've been supporting VMware as a partner. Compellant has offered capabilities for SRM, so Recovery Manager. And we also have capabilities for the VAI interface as well. So we're fully certified, fully compatible. And we have a great relationship with VMware as a company and the Alliance team. When you came to Dell, you guys obviously had a big channel presence, all channel. All channel all the time. Which really wasn't Dell's DNA, although they certainly started that transformation. What did you teach Dell about the channel? What did you learn from Dell? Wow, great question. Dell taught us a lot about scale. And at Compellant, we had a great relationship with the channel. In fact, the original DSF, which is C-Drive, started out as a channel event. So we knew a lot there. We knew how to manage a high touch relationship with the channel, deal registration, channel resources, a portal, a configurator, not screwing them. Compellant, never. But anyway. It's happened. Maybe by your other vendor. Yeah, absolutely. You don't have to talk about the channel head fake. It does happen. Well, and in what some storage vendors would do, they would tell the channel, you're my favorite partner. And then if the deal got real big, or if it was at the end of the corner. I'm my favorite partner. It changed. Suddenly the rules changed. Whereas Compellant, we never did that. And so those are some of the things we learned as Compellant that we brought to Dell. But again, Dell really taught us about scale. An event of this size, we never could have done that as Compellant. And to extend the reach that Dell has around the world, again, we never could have done that as Compellant. So it's been great bi-directionally. We've learned, and they've learned from us. So Bob, you participated in probably one of the greatest wealth creations within storage ever. When you look at Ecologic, Left Hand, Data Domain, 3-par, Compellant, Isilon. All massive acquisitions. Yes. And do you feel like, and all around, not all, but many around virtualization. Certainly you guys and some of the others. Do you feel that the flash marketplace will be as exciting? Or do you think that it's over-hyped? Again, Dave, guys, great, great questions. So whether customers want an all-flash array today is really not the question. But what we've seen over the years in the disk drive industry, where we've been part of for many, many years is our hair shows. Things change, and things change really quite fast. Yeah, they sure do. So it used to be a big drive 10, 15 years ago. Today is nothing. And flash has that potential. But I think we'll always see a mix of flash and rotating media. Flash is a high performance, relatively low capacity, as a tier one, tier zero. And then we'll see rotating media for deep archives, high capacity, low cost. I think the tool always exists. But absolutely, we are in the dawn of something new now, where flash will have a bigger and bigger role over the next few years. It certainly feels that way. So given that, our belief is that it's going to be more of a software intensive requirement from an innovation standpoint to manage that extending. So again, I'm asking, really Bob finds opinion, not necessarily representation of Dell, because you've seen a lot of changes in the storage business. Absolutely. Do you think that there's an opportunity for somebody to emerge and say the veritas of flash? You know what I mean by that? So somebody who manages that whole software stack and brings a level of heterogeneity to the table, but rich function. Or will it be more of a sort of appliance-centric, device-centric model? Yeah, Dave, and if I can just add on that, you talk about how much capacity is flashed. This is changing. I mean, I just got a note. A terabyte of SSD in a MacBook Pro now. So I've heard applications. Fusion IO is putting VDI in the server. And if I can have a terabyte, my MacBook, I'm going to have that much in my phone soon. So it's absolutely changing and changing quickly. How fast and who wins is to be determined. I think we've got a better economy right now in an economic environment that will foster startups and VCs. We went through that wave. You mentioned some of the great innovators that were acquired. And we're looking forward to seeing the next wave of innovators come to market. But that aside from an end-user standpoint, they don't want individual point products. They're still going to want a solution. And we'll just have to look at how that works together between point solutions and vendors like Dell that can put all those pieces together. Looking forward to see how that rolls out over the next few years. What's happening in the Minneapolis scene these days, the Minnesota scene, right? I mean, Phil used to always say, oh, it's actually an advantage for us because we can get talent. There's a former CDC, IBM, DNA. What's happening? Give us an update on the region. So the region is still pretty hot, so to speak, not temperature-wise. This time of year. For 60 days. Well, yes, it was warm. But that was about it. Tomorrow's going to be in the 40s, which is interesting. But anyway, the talent pool in Minneapolis has been great with file system companies that came out of there. Silicon Graphics developed their file system. Sun had a file system. Companies like Storage Tech, Network Systems. Wasn't Cray out of there, too? Cray was out of the area, so it's been a great, great talent pool, and it's really helped the Dell team grow. We've grown significantly in the Minnesota area, and we look forward to continuing to growing even further. Excellent. All right, so break out the telescope, or maybe just the binoculars. What do you see for the future of storage and the future of Dell storage? From a Dell storage perspective, we've recently brought in quite a bit of outside IP to the Dell mix. And our goal over the next few years is to bring those together. The customer problems really haven't changed. They're dealing with data growth and complexity, and as their business grows. And actually, if anything, what's changed is their environments are more cost constrained. They have fewer IT resources. They need something simpler, more scalable, more automatic, something that's more flexible and dynamic that they can work with that solves all their needs. They don't want vendor A storage to do one solution. Vendor B, vendor C, et cetera. They want something that spans all their problems, and that's where we can help at Dell by bringing in the technology that we've already acquired, integrating it, continuing to evolve. We'll succeed at Dell when we can do that successfully, and that's part of our plan. How do you approach the cloud? What's your bumper sticker or angle in the cloud? Cloud is real. Cloud is absolutely real. A couple years ago, if I went to a storage conference, I would have been skeptical of the cloud. I thought it's just another name for a network. But it's true, customers are, like I said a moment ago, customers are looking to simplify. And if the cloud helps them offload storage or offload resources, then it's a great way to do that. Dell is part of that. Dell has a number of different ways that we help our customers with the cloud. We have data centers in Iraq that have been part of our existing programs. Dell also has- That's in a rack. Yes, in a rack, in the Middle East. Not a country, no. To say, new outsourcing trends. You heard it here first on theCUBE. We're not allowed to sell there, as far as I can tell. We'd have to cut this off if I was. The other kind of in a rack, not- Anyway, you get the idea. But it is completely together in a system. How about that? Well, let's not use the rack word. But anyway, that is part of our solution. We also have channel partners that are trained on the cloud. We have other solutions to archive and provide data to the cloud, a variety of resources. So the cloud is real, and it will continue to grow. So what is the storage for the cloud? I mean, you see block storage in the cloud? There's file storage in the cloud? There's object in the storage in the cloud? You guys have all of the above? So the answer is yes. Dell has storage for the cloud. Different environments are looking for different ways to implement that together. Some of them will want flash, object, block, file, et cetera, et cetera. And we have solutions across the full portfolio. So again, the cloud is almost a euphemism for I want easier to manage, easier to scale, lower cost storage. And that's what the cloud's all about. We were talking about unified before. And you mentioned some futures around the exonet coming in and bringing that unifying capability. Do you see object as being part of that, or is object so different that it sort of needs to be treated differently? The use cases for object are slightly different. Customer is looking for a slightly different type of application, a little bit outside the normal block or file like you said. Archiving maybe? Exactly, exactly. Dell's had a number of products for object. We have a platform in that area, and it's been very, very popular. We made some significant announcements six months ago with that platform where we included compression and Ddupe from the Ocarina technology. Some great software partners that are in that area. So yes, that applies as well. All right, we'll give you the last word. Anything else you want to leave us with here? Dell Storage Forum. You guys got a lot of action going on this week. You just gave a super secret, double secret presentation. Triple secret. Triple secret. We talked about the Middle East, all together. Is there a connection? None that I'm aware of. So I guess to wrap it up by saying the, because you asked a lot about directional questions from the past relative to the future, being in an event like this is really quite different. The first event like this, it used to be called C Drive, where we had maybe 30, 40 partners there, total people, not a number of partners each with multiple people. So if you look at that change over the last five, six years, the change has been quite dynamic and pretty significant. To see an event this large is pretty exciting as well, and it shows what's going on in the storage space. If you're a vendor, which we are, that can bring in technologies that customers want, that it's affordable, that it's easy to use, that helps them solve their business problems, those vendors will succeed. And when they succeed, you get great events like this and opportunities to talk live like this. It's great. Awesome. Well, Bob, thanks for coming on. We couldn't be here without the generous support of Dell and really appreciate you guys having us here. Glad to be part of it. And of course, our other sponsor, Legal Seafood. I don't know if you've been to legal. Not yet, but I will now. Fantastic, right? There's new Legal Seafood just crossed the way. Let's go. Lunch. Legal Harborside, three floors, quite amazing. Father's Day's coming up. I'll come back. So shop.legal.com. They do delivery now over the internet, the gift bags. So can we send? Boston Classic. So a quick setting note to my family in Minnesota. They could send a gift certificate while I'm here and I could get some too. There you go. Or you could bring Lobster's back. Can we take care of that? Lobster's at JR Hook. Yeah, okay. Well, you go there too. I brought it back live. Yeah, those are fun. You should try Legals. Sounds good. All right. Okay, keep it right there. Bob, thanks very much for coming on. Absolutely, guys. It was a pleasure. Really good. Thanks. Update, congratulations on all the progress that you guys are making. Thank you. All right, this is theCUBE. Keep it right there. We'll be back with more from Dell Storage Forum live from Boston.