Infosmack

This episode of the podcast is our monthly review of the tech world. Future monthly reviews will also include a wider scope of data centre and enterprise tech topics.  This month we discuss - How to innovate and keep driving technology at big tech companies (RD vs Spin-off/Spin-in vs acquisition….) Do small MS Exchange customers care about performance or just ease of use and reliability Kaminario's recent destruction of just about all previous SPC-1 results EMC finally rev'd Networker to version 8 STECs continued poor performance This episode is based around Ray Lucchesi's monthly Storage inteligence newletter. Thanks to Ray again for his insightful and constructive participation in the show

In this podcast Nigel and Rick are joined by Larry Freeman a.k.a Dr Dedupe from NetApp. This show follows up on the recent Data ONTAP 8.1.1 Does One Size Really Fit All where we discussed some of the new features in ONTAP 8.1.1 and specifically Cluster Mode. In this podcast the following subjects are discussed (plus more) How NetApp makes its strategic decisions Iron out some of the outstanding questions from the last ONTAP podcast Dig deeper in to cluster mode and its relevance The future of Data Centers and Storage Larry's self published book - The Evolution of the Storage Brain Larry also runs the Storage Brain website Enjoy the show.

This weeks show sees Hans Deleenheer joins Nigel as co-host, as they quiz Alex Kramer from the HP Virtual Connect Engineering team. This show gets under the hood with the HP Virtual Connect technology as well as discussing the recently announced Direct Connect to 3PAR configuration, which is being referred to by many as flattening the SAN. Topics covered include - Description of Virtual Connect and how it works Why did HP decide to develop Virtual Connect Is Virtual Connect a network switch (or network bridge if you're a networking purist) Slicing and dicing NICs HBAs and CNAs Who tends to manage Virtual Connect Where does FCoE fit in Quality (or lack of quality) of firmware Pros and Cons of connecting direct from Virtual Connect to 3PAR storage arrays Enjoy the show!

In todays podcast Nigel is joined again by Ray Lucchesi of Silverton Consulting to review Rays monthly Storage News Letter. The main focus of the show is NetApp's Data ONTAP 8.1.1, with a focus on what this brings for the much hyped but slow to mature Cluster Mode (c-mode). Other topics include - Dell Being a blogger vs being an analyst (Ray is both) Is Data ONTAP a dinosaur Have NetApp taken their eye off the ball while developing Cluster Mode Are NetApp behind the competition with regards to tiering and flash options Data ONTAP Edge Mode Infinite Volumes Immortal Clusters A quick update on SPECSFS2008 submissions Enjoy the show. The next show will be a deep dive in to HP Virtual Connect.

In this show Nigel is joined by Ray Lucchesi of Silverton Consulting. Ray has spent his life in storage and is a real grey beard when it comes to storage technology. Ray puts out a monthly newsletter covering interesting things that have happened in the world of storage, as well as a roundup of some of the latest benchmark and performance news.  In this show, Nigel and Ray discuss items from Rays newsletter, including - Is there any point to benchmarks Which benchmarks are good and which are not so good What Ray has found interesting from the world of performance benchmarks in the last few weeks IBM XIV - is it midrange or enterprise and how does it fair in SPC-2 benchmarks Why dont we see flash array vendors submitting SPC benchmarks Why doesn't EMC submit SPC benchmarks Once a month the Deep Dive podcast will review Rays newsletter, covering the most interesting technical news from the storage world

On this weeks show, Rick and Nigel are joined by Mark Twomey, aka Storagezilla, as they get the opinions of an EMC insider on the biggest announcements of EMC World. While Mark set's a new record for word count on the podcast, he brings quality as well as quantity, and gives honest opinions. Major topics from the show include - Isilon and the features contained in the Mavericks release of OneFS. Will it eat VNX's lunch VMAX Federated Tiered Storage. Is it just a copy of HDS controller based virtualisation VNX mark II and VNX mark III XtremIO and where it will sit within the EMC portfolio and the emerging flash array market Also discussed - What it's like being a vendor at major tech events such as EMC World Films and TV shows that might appeal to techie folks

In this weeks show Rick and Nigel discuss the recent EMC World event with industry veteran Howard Marks. The discussion covers things such as - Does EMC go overboard with marketing VMAX Federated Tiered Storage (FTS) Isilon VNX Data Domain EMC building their own servers The impact of XtremiO within EMC and the wider enterprise technology market

This Deep Dive episode of the podcast is lined up with the release of the Pure Storage FlashArray. In this episode, Nigel and Rick put the Pure Storage FlashArray under the microscope with the aid of Stephen Foskett (Gestalt IT, TechFieldDay and organiser of the Solid State Storage Symposium) and Matt Kixmoeller (VP of Products at Pure Storage). This is a great episode that gets under the hood of the recently announced FlashArray, as well as explaining why flash memory is revolutionizing the storage world, literally leaving legacy array architectures in the dust. If you want to know why flash is changing all the rules and may be want to impress the girls with your knowledge of how inline deduplication really does work with flash then you need to listen! Some of the topics discussed include - How inline deduplication is possible because of flash memory How flash memory changes most of the accepted rules of storage array design Scale out architectures vs dual controller architectures Why consumer grade MLC and TLC flash will win Differences between Tier 0 and Tier 1 markets

This weeks show sees the return of Marc Farley. Marc returns as a guest to the show he co-founded. Marc talks about - His addiction to start-ups How he got in to tech and not rock music How much he loves the storage industry What he's doing at storsimple How they hook in to the cloud What storsimple are all about What life was like at HP, 3PAR and Equaligoc What motivates startups Enjoy the show

This weeks show is a cracker. In the show, Nigel and Rick chill out on the luxurious couches at Infosmack towers with technology legend Barry Whyte (IBM) and talk all things technology. It’s a really laid back show with the guys just picking Barry’s brains. Some topics o converstaion include - What got the guys in to technology Classical computers such as - Commodore 64 Commodore VIC-20 Sinclair ZX Spectrum BBC Micro Is it really all that cool working in high tech What are cool technologies of the future going to be What its like working at IBM Enjoy the sho

In this episode of the Infosmack Deep Dive podcast Rick and Nigel sit down with Michael Hay, VP o Product Planning at Hitachi Data Systems (HDS).  Michael is an American living and working in Japan and as such has a unique perspective on Japanese culture and the role of the tech industry in Japan. Some topics of dicussion incldue - Content Delivery Networks Metro distance storage tiering Solid State Storage, including EMC VFCache Combining Intel and FPGAs As well as the technical stuff, other topics include - What do you carry in your laptop bag Seeing the future and seeing the past Shinkansen (The Japanese Bullet Train) The uniquely Japanese ATM experience Getting drugs in Japan Japanese Toilets Wasabi Enjoy the sho

In this show, Nigel Poulton and Rick Vanover host Camden (Cam) Ford of Xsigo (pronounced zee-go, or see-go). Camden is the director of product management at Xsigo Systems and a bit of a nutty professor when it comes to networking . Xsigo are makers of data center fabric solutions to consolidate I/O. This is analogous to consolidation of servers with x86 virtualization, and Xsigo wants to do that with your I/O. Some points discussed: · Port consolidation strategies · Core infrastructure lifecycles · Virtualization and utilization · Connectivity options for port consolidation Nigel and Rick put Cam on the hot seat for tough questions such as cost and competition as well as realistically who converged I/O fits in today’s datacenters. Is their future bright and do you see a fit for your port reduction strategies? Tune in to see

This show is a cracker! Just the right level of technical detail and a topic that could be a game changer in the future of storage… Hosts Nigel Poulton and Rick Vanover are joined by a couple of real techies – Joe Foster, Distinguished Technologist at HP Tim Symons, Principal Engineer from PMC Sierra The topic of discussion is SCSI Express and the wider picture of unleashing the power o solid state storage. Taking off the shackles that exist in todays servers and storage arrays that currently hold it back. Some of the topics discussed include – Bringing SCSI further in to the 21st century Bringing RAID controllers in to the 21st century Bringing hot plug capability to PCIe Placing SSD closer to the CPU in storage arrays (no more hanging of legacy back end loops and stacks) Does $/IOP cut the mustard SCSI Express versus NVM Express (with an obvious bias to SCSI Express) Some but kissing of the T10 standards bodies Rant about PCI Special Interest Group

In this weeks Christmas Cracker, Nigel and Rick are joined by Dr Garth Gibson, a true legend of the computing world! Dr Gibson is best known as one of the co-inventors of RAID technology - a technology known to all in the computing industry and still an key foundational technology of the modern computing world.  Among many other contributions to the industry, Garth is the founder and CTO of Panasas, a leading high performance parallel storage company.  And now, he can add to his already impressive resume that he has been a guest on Infosmack! During the show the following topics were covered - Future of RAID What the "I" in RAID stands for Future of Solid State Storage Future of magnetic recording media Sub-LUN Tiering Commodity HW with smarts in Software The rise of less and less reliable technology Parallel NFS (pNFS) Panasas Technology predictions for 2012 Tons of other cool stuff We recommend that listeners buckle themselves up before listening to this show as Dr Gibson has a brain the size of a planet and Nigel and Rick attempted to raid his brain (pun intended) in under an hour! Nigel and Rick would like to thank Garth for not embarrassing them with his clearly superior knowledge and brain power

Last week Nigel hooked up with former podcasting washup deadbeat ass kissing loser old friend and Infosmack legend Greg Knieriemen at HP Discover in Vienna. Nigel and Greg hooked up with Senior VP of HP Storage David Scott to shoot a joint Infosmack/Nekkid Tech podcast.  On the show they talk all things storage and all things HP. Among the questions, was whether or not if David were to bump in to his peers, from the likes of EMC and NetApp, whether he'd like smack them in the teeth and then when they're on the ground put the boot in.  If you want to know the answer you'll have to listen...... We think you'll like the intro