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It's a new year (2021!), which can only mean one thing: Predictions! Hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell, both senior analysts at Moor Insights & Strategy, turn their datacentric focus to the future of the data center and the trends that will be most impactful in 2021. 00:00 Let's start 03:01 Arm-based processors in the cloud: where's it going? Does it impact Arm server adoption? Will there be Arm-based general purpose servers? 14:15 Forget about Arm, what about AMD? Will they hit 15% server share in 2021? 18:15 Intel has had a monopoly in the nascent 3D XPOINT (Intel Optane) business, despite co-inventing the technology with Micron. Does that change in 2021? 20:50 Nutanix gained new private equity backing in 2020, changing CEOs, and positioning itself for.... something... in 2021. One of our hosts think its an HPE acquistion. 25:31 How impactful will the various OEM's as-a-service offerings be in 2021? Let the boys tell you. 30:20 A contrary prediction about the future of Nvidia's quest to absorb Arm 35:37 In-person conferences will come roaring back. Or not. That's it! Tune in wherever you find podcasts.

Digital Transformation is always front and center of every IT organization, but at no point has digital transformation been more critical than now, as we navigate uncertainty on a global scale. To help us understand how IT organizations are treating digital transformation projects as we exit 2020 and enter a new year, hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell (senior technology analysts at Moor Insights & Strategy) welcome an expert in digital transformation. Bipin Sahni is the chief strategy officer for Persistant Systems, a global system integrator and solution provider who helps enterprises of all sizes navigate the waters of digital transformation. This is a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation touching on everything from IT in the time in the time of COVID, data migration, stack modernization, hybrid-cloud and as-a-service adoption, and the emergence of AI in the enterprise. Special Guest: Bipin Sahni.

You can't escape the Edge, but what does it really mean for IT? This is a world where there are limited standards and no "one true way" to deliver solutions, so IT practitioners look to middleware and common tooling to help mangage the complexity. What's working? What isn't? And is there a turf war brewing between IT and OT teams within the enterprise? This episode finds hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell talking to Jim White, the CTO of IOTech Systems, about the trends and technologies that are influencing the evolution of the IoT-driven edge. The guys also talk about some of the pitfalls and challenges faced by IT teams as they take on this challenging new area. Special Guest: Jim White.

As SuperComputing 2020 wraps up, it's a great time to catch up on everything happening in the HPC world. Nobody knows HPC better than Penguin Computing. In this episode of the DataCentric podcast, hosts Matt and Steve are joined by Penguin Computing's Chief Strategy Officer Matt Jacobs, and Penguin's Senior Vice President, Strategic Solutions Group, Kevin Tubbs. The gang talks about hardware abstraction in HPC, hardware complexity and specialization, software-defined architectures, containers, and much, much more. Tune in and you'll leave just a little bit smarter about the world of High Peformance Computing. Special Guests: Kevin Tubbs and Matt Jacobs.

It's KubeCon week, which means that we're all thinking about containers! Containers require a different way of thinking about persistent data, which deeply influences how data protection operates in a cloud-native world. It's really all about intelligent data management. And nobody understands intelligent data management quite like CommVault. CommVault's Global VP of Sales Engineering Don Foster joins hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell to talk about the intersection of data protection and container orchestration. The guys touch on everything from how data protection for containers is differerent from more traditional architectures, to how you integrate containers into an end-to-end DP strategy, to cloud-native backup-as-a-service. It's a great conversation for anyone charged with protecting data in an increasingly container-driven environment. Special Guest: Don Foster.

The events of the past year have taught us a valuable lesson: unexpected change is going to happen, and that change requires IT organizations to quickly respond. Data centers built on a solid foundation of fast, flexible, secure, and resilient infrastructure are the ones poised to adapt and keep the business moving forward. In this episode, Moor Insights & Strategy technology analyst Steve McDowell is joined by a group of storage infrastructure experts to talk about the fundamentals of a flexible cyber-resilient infrastructure. AJ Casamento and Brian Larsen join from Broadcom, while Brian Sherman comes to us from IBM's Storage division. The group talks about cyber-resilient architectures, autonomous infrastructure, and building a fast and flexible storage architecture to support it all. Fibre Channel Gen 7, NVMe-over-FC, Intelligent Storage Systems, tiered storage, disaster recovery... it seems like the group hit on most of the topics that an IT practitioner needs to be aware of as we all look forward to a disruptive future. This episode is sponsored by Broadcom. Special Guests: AJ Casamento, Brian Larsen, and Brian Sherman.Links:IBM Storage SolutionsBroadcom's Broadcade Fibre Channel Networking

Flash storage continues to evolve, with that evolution triggering changes in how we think about and deliver enterprise storage. Andy Walls, IBM Fellow and IBM's CTO for its flash storage products, takes us through the big impactors affecting the flash storage industry, We hit on everything: QLC, NVMe-over-fabric, Server-Class Memory, and much more. 00:00 Introductions 02:07 The role of QLC flash in enterprise storage & overcoming its inherent limitations 12:55 Where does Server Class Memory fit? 17:44 NVMe-over-Fabric changes the interconnect game 21:21 Disaggregated storage: are the days of traditional block storage arrays numbered? 23:55 How is Storage for Mainfames different?, Steve asks from a position of ignorance 26:28 Impactful emerging technologies: CXL bus, Computational Storage, 32:00 Does storage need to change to support Quantum Computing?Special Guest: Andy Walls.

Cloud-native techniques provide a natural way for deliver functionality to the edge and IoT, delivering IT agility where it's needed the most. Arm's Project Cassini brings the IoT industry together with open, collaborative, standards-based initiative to deliver a cloud-native software experience across a secure Arm edge ecosystem. Arm's Vice President of Marketing for IoT, Mohamed Awad, joins hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell to talk about the power of standardized software at the IoT-enabled edge. Special Guest: Mohamed Awad.

It's all about cloud-native and containers as IBM announces a slew of new features and offerings at its annual IBM Tech U event. The announcements included: Spectrum Protect Plus enhancements for containers in production. Spectrum Scale container-native storage access for Red Hat OpenShift. Spectrum Discover now has deeper integration with Red Hat Openshift Container Storage & IBMB Cloud Digest Storage File Access Vmware vSphere 7 support for end-to-end NVMe Increased capacity for SCM in the FlashSystem 7200 & 9200 series IBM also announced a longer-term vision for container-native data management. There's a lot to digest, and IBM's Eric Herzog and Sam Werner join host Steve McDowell to talk through what was announced, and how IBM sees the challenges in today's hybrid-multicloud world. Special Guests: Eric Herzog and Sam Werner.

Containers have been embraced by IT organizations across the board. No longer strictly limited to dev ops and non-production environments, we're starting to see production enterprise applications being deployed into Kubernetes-managed containers. These deployments quickly expose the limitations of the technology. Joining hosts Matt Kimball & Steve McDowell (both analysts at Moor Insights & Strategy) is Diamanti's vice present of product, Brian Walden. Diamanti delivers innovative solutions that help bring both performance and simplicity to Kubernetes-managed workloads, whether on-prem, in the cloud, or spanning the two. This informative conversation delves into some of the challenges of allowing containers to leverage the full power of the underlying hardware. The conversation quickly focuses in on how to overcome these limitations with the use of innovative I/O acceleration technologies, coupled with enhancements to the control & data planes for storage and networking. Combining these technologies and enhancements can help bring the full power of both on-prem and cloud-based resources to a Kubernetes environment. Special Guest: Brian Waldon.

The hyper-scale market is often a leading indicator of broader enterprise data center trends. This is true of software to manage scalability, autonomous management, security, disaggregated storage, and AI/ML. Jay Shenoy, vice president of technology for Hyve, joins hosts Matt Kimball & Steve McDowell (each a senior technology analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy) to talk about what he's seeing in this space. This wide-ranging conversation touches on seemingly everything: an overview of the hyperscale market; the software-defined data center; autonomous infrastructure; disaggregated storage and the increasing adoption of NVMe-over-fabric; the rise of ARM and accelerators; and even the impact of AI/ML in both training and inferernence use cases. It's another great conversation on the rapid evolution of the enterprise data center.Special Guest: Jayarama (Jay) Shenoy.

Our old friend Jonathan Seckler, Dell Technologies Director of Server Marketing, joins hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell (both senior analysts at Moor Insights & Strategy) to talk about the current state of the server market. Jonathan brings us up to speed on the most recent server announcments from Dell, including the the massive storage-centric PowerEdge XE7100 and updates to Dell's OpenManage software. Beyond hardware, the discussion very quickly evolves into the what's driving the future of enterprise infrastructure (hint: it's digital transformation). Jonathan takes us through the customer conversations and research that Dell Technologies has commissioned to better understand how IT infrastructure is changing. It's a great conversation that will help clarify how IT organizations think about enterprise infrastructure, and also how the voice of IT practitioners influence the products that are brought to market. Special Guest: Jonathan Seckler.

Securing the supply chain for enterprise infrastructure is a key element to any comprehensive cyber-security strategy. As cyber-security month kicks off, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announces a new "country of origin" server program that takes things to the next level. John Grosso, who leads the HPE's Global Operations Engineering organization, joins hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell to talk through cyber-security, the criticality of securing the supply chain, and how HPE is stepping up its secure server program with a new "county of origin" program, where servers are assembled and validated in the United States. This one is a fascinating exploration of an area most of us don't think about on a daily basis. Listen in.Special Guest: John Grosso.Links:Matt's Forbes column on HPE's new programs

What is it about HCI that enterprise IT likes so much? On this episode David Wang, HPE's director of storage marketing, drops in to talk to hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell about why HCI is compelling, and how the different flavors of HCI address a range of needs in the enterprise, whether on the edge or in the core. HPE is in an interesting place with HCI. The company has two in-house HCI solutions, dHCI and SimpliVity, and is a major mover of both Nutanix and Vmware VSAN software. How does HPE position them? And what's the right answer for your IT shop? Join us in a wide-ranging and fascinating conversation about HCI's place in the enterprise, and where HPE's dHCI and other solutions fit. A special thank you to Sonal Dave' for helping out with the logistics and, of course, David Wang for joining us!Special Guest: David Wang.Links:HPE's Vmworld 2020 Sessions HPE's dHCI Solution Page

Supercomputing has left the lab and is fast becoming a mainstream enterprise IT capability, whether we're talking about a dedicated compute cluster, or HPC-as-a-service. These capabilities are driving everything from COVID-19 modelling to video-analytics at the retail edge to deliver "frictionless retail". There's nobody better to talk to us about this market than Penguin Computing. Penguin's SVP of Strategic Solutions Kevin Tubbs joins DataCentric hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell to talk about what matters when thinking about technical computing in the enterprise. Special Guest: Kevin Tubbs.

It's been a big couple of weeks of earnings from all of the major enterprise infrastructure market players, including NetApp, Pure Storage, Dell Technologies, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. IBM, Cisco, Lenovo and others all disclosed earlier last month. On the software-defined side, there's Vmware, Nutanix, and a whole lot of Bain Capital. High-end kit is up, mid-range everything (servers & storage) are soft, while as-a-service & software-defined all seem to be solid. Is the IT world shifting? What's it all mean? Technology analysts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell (from Moor Insights & StrategY) delve into it all, on this edition of DataCentric. 00:00 - 18:00 The enterprise infrastructure market. 18:00 - 36:30 Software-defined Infrastructure. Vmwarwe. Nutanix. And a whole lot of Bain Capital. 36:30 - 43:26 Impacts of a more permenant work-from-home world. DataCentric is a registered trademark of Bynum Iron Works.

The server market is rapidly changing. It's less about the speeds and feeds of your hardware, and much more about the capabilities required to support critical workloads. From software-defined to edge, Dell Technologies director of server marketing join Matt Kimball & Steve McDowell in a wide-ranging discussion on the shifting landscape of servers. The group seems to touch on every from the on-going "generational shift" of IT buyers, the cloudification of IT, edge computing, open standards, the impact of COVID-19 on IT, and much, much more. Special Guest: Jonathan Seckler.

Earnings for 2Q have started rolling in, with IBM, AMD, and Intel all early reporters from the Data Center world. There's solid financial news for all three, but each with different industry-level impacts. Hosts Matt Kimball & Steve McDowell, both from Moor Insights & Strategy, talk about what it all means. Intel delivered solid numbers, but were punished by both guidance and disclosure of some execution problems in rolling out its next generation, 7nm, processors. Solid numbers for the quarter none-the-less, with a surprising bright spot in Intel's NSG memory group. AMD, who has become a solid competitor to Intel across nearly every segment, is firing on all cylindars, expecially in the DataCentric Server world. All while IBM seems to be finding its groove with freshman CEO Arvind Krishna, as IBM's Cloud and Red Hat businesses are standouts. IBM Z-series and Storage also remain particularly strong. All of this, and more, on this episode of DataCentric 00:00 - Let's kick it off! 01:21 - Intel Earnings Analysis 20:08 - AMD Earnings Discussion 43:38 - IBM Earnings 57:34 - See you Next Time!

It's a potpourri episode as Moor Insights & Strategy data center analysts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell round-up of the past few week's news: twitter was hacked, Dell Technologies says that it might spin VMware out, ARM gets yet more traction, and does a software-defined datacenter make hardware irrelevant? All this, and more, on this edition of DataCentric. 00:00 - 03:50 Virtual Conference Life 03:51 - 07:23 Twitter is hacked & the popular and tech press have very different spins on the story 07:24 - 14:24 Dell Technologies is "exploring" spinning out VMware: will they? and what's it really mean if they do? 14:25 - 29:35 A hodgepodge of ARM news as Apple announces, AWS Graviton performance numbers start coming out, and more 29:36 - 39:11 How relevant is the hardware platform in today's software defined world? 39:11 - 46:24 Microsoft endorses Citrix for Azure remote desktop. 46:25 - that's all!

Enterprise IT is rapidly moving towards the edge, but what does that really mean? There are extremes to what defines edge. Edge can describe the safe environment of a remote branch office, or maybe the air-conditioned cushiness of a remote telco hut. Then there's the extreme edge, where the lines between IT and OT blur, and anything can go. Jason Andersen, Stratus Technologies' vice president of business line management, joins Moor Insights & Strategy senior technology analysts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell to talk about what edge computing can really mean. If you're wondering how far the reach of IT can (or should) extend out into the wilds of remote infrastructure, then this is the podcast for you. Special Guest: Jason Andersen.