March 16, 2025 • 36 mins
Data storage technologies continue to evolve to keep pace with massive data creation. In this episode, SNIA experts discuss the innovations, challenges, and importance of data storage solutions and standards to handle ever-growing digital demands. Tune in to learn about the fundamental aspects of storage technologies and how SNIA and the industry are addressing data storage—from SSDs and HDDs—to cutting-edge solutions like DNA data storage as our experts discuss:
• Introduction to the SNIA community and its objectives
• Emphasis on the significance of data storage in today's technology landscape
• Overview of key storage technologies: SSDs, HDDs, and archival solutions
• Exploration of the "save-discard dilemma" impacting data management
• Insights into storage needs driven by autonomous vehicles and AI applications
SNIA is an industry organization that develops global standards and delivers vendor-neutral education on technologies related to data. In these interviews, SNIA experts on data cover a wide range of topics on both established and emerging technologies.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
All right, welcome everybody to the SNEA Experts on
Data podcast.
My name is Eric Wright.
I'm the chief podcaster here atthe SNEA EOD and also the
co-founder of GTM Delta.
I'm excited by the group we'vegot.
Today we're talking about thedata focus areas.
If you've been following theseries, it's a great way to
break down everything across thewhole SNEA tech community
(00:29):
ecosystem and content and ideasto the marketplace and how we
can really bring people acrossthese different data focus areas
and different practice areas toreally understand who does what
(00:51):
.
And we actually very quicklyfind out that we all do amazing
things.
And speaking of amazing things,here's my amazing group.
So I'll start with a quickround table.
Jason, you want to lead us outand tell us?
Give a quick intro yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, hello everyone.
My name is Jason Molgaard.
I'm a principal storagesolutions architect at Soladyne.
I work in a pathfinding andadvanced development group and
do a lot of work with SNEA, andI'm very excited to be here
today.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
All right.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Dave, I'm Dave Lansman.
I'm a distinguished engineer atWestern Digital.
I'm also on the SNEA board andI do a lot of work in SNEA
committees, things like that andI'm a background as a system
architect and a standards guy.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Fantastic.
And last but very certainly notleast, Craig, let's bring you
to the group here.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
So, excuse me, my name is Craig Carlson.
I work for AMD as a storage andnetworking architect in the
data center strategy group.
My relationship to CINEA I'vebeen on the technical council
for a number of years.
Relationship to SNEA I've beenon the technical council for a
number of years.
I've been in the storageindustry for even longer,
probably 25 years doingdifferent types of storage fiber
(02:11):
channel, ethernet, networkingbased storage, things like that
and I'm happy to be hereFantastic.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I often wonder every time I talk to I'm an old, I've
been around this thing a longtime Whenever we have a storage
team, I've never met a.
I've been in storage for twoyears Like we need to get a
fresh batch.
I'm sure there's a lot of themout there, but maybe I'm just
talking to the wrong means.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
It's a problem.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
It is a problem.
Well, that's actually.
I tell you, it's not, it's justan doing with SNEA is really
important, because a lot ofpeople don't even know the
opportunities there.
So, you know, based on that,Craig, you've obviously seen
really cool changes in your timewith SNEA.
And let's talk about what storeis, because that's really the
center of this one today is thestore data focus area, and I
(03:01):
think the best you can tell uswhat it is and what it covers.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Well it comes down to , if you look at the SNEA areas
of focus, the primary job ofstorage and everything that
we're doing is to store the data, of course, and there is a lot
of work that goes into makingsure that data is stored
(03:29):
correctly and stored in a waythat you can actually read it
back and it's not justwrite-only.
That's probably one of thebiggest concerns that any
storage architect has is thatthe data gets to the storage
device and returns in the sameform with all the bits intact.
Any of us who have been doingthis for a long time have spent
(03:52):
many, many hours working to makesure that's the case, and we
have kind of a victim of our ownsuccess, to the point where
people don't think about storageor the store portion because it
works so well these days.
Your data goes on the drive.
You know that drive has whoknows how many billions of bits
(04:15):
on it these days, or trillionsof bits on it these days, and
when you ask for it it comesback off, and so you know we're
kind of a victim of our ownsuccess and the fact that this
stuff works so well.
It wasn't always like that.
I've, you know, going back inmy early years, you weren't
always guaranteed to get yourdata back, which you know would
upset people, but we don't havethat situation today.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, people get a little funny about that.
It's like backup.
You always say like I've got agreat backup product.
I'm like, yeah, is it a goodrestore product?
That's the I need.
The data has to come back.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah, and backups are one of the ones.
That's the biggest area whereyou know, no matter who you
think, it is always check yourbackup.
Amen to that, and you know asfar as, like the, where SNEA
(05:16):
comes in in this, craig, whatare some of the sort of
milestones that SNEA aims for?
When we think of, you know, astore as a data focus area, well
, you know, it's really the coreaspect of SNEA and so really,
if you look at every other,pretty much all the other
components go to that storecomponent in some form or
another.
You know, and SNEA has a widerange of different areas we
(05:41):
operate in that make that work,all the way from, you know, the
actual protocols that go intothe devices to the.
If you look at the SSFcommittee which is working with
the form factors and moving thebits, so SNIA has this very wide
range of technologies which gointo making the store component
(06:07):
function.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
And I think that's probably a good chance where we
can dive into some of theinterest areas and specific
technologies that we have.
So I think, dave, do you wantto walk us through Because I
know you did a great write upthat helped us to understand.
I was like, wow, there's a lotin here.
(06:31):
So if you want to tell us whatare the different technologies
that we're touching and also,you know, a real sort of
snapshot of why these arecritical pieces of what we have
going forward, of why these arecritical pieces of what we have
going forward.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Sure, so yeah, in the store area we have a number of
interest areas like non-volatilememory zone storage, dna data
storage.
There's others, and you knowSNIA looks across all of these
interest areas because we needto look across the whole range
where data is stored, both fromthe very hot, rapidly or
(07:16):
frequently accessed layer,non-volatile memory typically
SSDs to cooler tier of storagewith HDD and finally to slower
and larger tiers of storagearchival, where media such as
tape have been used historicallyand now some new media types
(07:39):
are being looked at.
So the reason these are allcritical is due to different
cost performance tradeoffsrelated to how the data is being
stored and used and critically,especially in the colder
archival tiers, how much data isbeing stored, and we'll all
come back to that.
(07:59):
So in the SSD layer, data iswritten and read very frequently
and it's read at randomaddresses across the storage
address space, and performanceand latency are really the
(08:30):
critical characteristics in thestorage tier, whereas cost and
capacity relative to the othertiers is a bit less important.
So in the SSD layer we're veryperformance sensitive and we
make performance sensitiveoptimizations such as flexible
data placement.
It's a standard that's evolvedin NVMe and we're always trying
to optimize the performance ofSSDs and lower their wear.
So we touch the NBM layer, theSSD layer, there.
(08:50):
If we go to the HDD layer, wewrite data at a much more
leisurely pace, but we stillneed access to that data
relatively frequently.
So we want the access latencyenabled by HDs.
But we also want maximumcapacity.
So one of the means of gaininghigher capacity in HDDs is
(09:12):
something called shingledmagnetic recording, or SMR Now
in SMR drives, to maximizecapacity.
This is how we maximizecapacity.
We write data in slightlyoverlapping physical tracks on
the media.
It's like shingles on a roof,which is why it's called shingle
magnetic recording.
So the tradeoff for SMR density, however, is that the data must
(09:38):
be written to these drivessequentially.
So, unlike SSDs, where we'redoing a lot of random writes and
reads, no-transcript, and thehost applications and file
(10:03):
systems that talk to SMR driveshave to effectively manage these
zones and, whereas on SSDs orclassic random access devices,
they manage small blocks orsectors.
So zone storage to come back toit, which is one of our
interest areas, is a set ofstandards for how drives, how
(10:24):
storage, the character, the wayin which zone storage is used.
Now for archival tiers.
(10:45):
Getting to another interestarea, we talked about DNA data
storage or tape or other things.
So in archival tiers, the datais written and read much less
frequently than the HDD layer,and it may even be stored
off-site, right.
So the key attribute of storagein this tier is not real-time
access, but it's the overallcost of the storage, power,
(11:10):
density and endurance over time.
So tape has occupied thearchival layer in storage for
decades.
However, in the realm ofarchival storage, we're facing
today what I call thesave-discard dilemma, and that
dilemma is that humanity isdigitizing all forms of
(11:32):
information at ever greaterrates and we wish to save all of
that data because of the valuethat may be extracted from it,
either now or in the future.
And the ability to extract datais especially true with the
advent of AI and ML techniques,so we can search patterns and
(11:54):
data.
So we have this, you know,mountains of data.
We want to be able to search itand we have better tools to do
so.
The problem is the amount ofdata is becoming so large that
with today's storagetechnologies from SSDs to HDDs,
even to tapes it's getting toocostly, so we're forced to
discard some of the data due tocost.
(12:14):
So hence the save-discarddilemma.
So it's because of thesave-discard dilemma that
storage architects are lookingfor new media types for archival
storage, and this is why SNIAgot into the DNA data storage
arena.
Dna data storage is one of thepotential new media types to be
(12:38):
able to play at this archivalmedia layer, and there are other
media types, whether they'receramic or glass, that people
are looking at, I guess.
In summary, I'd say that all ofthe areas of interest that are
shown in SNEA's store area areabout optimizing the layers of
(13:00):
the storage hierarchy, bothwithin each layer and between
the layers, so we have anoptimal solution up and down the
stack.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
You mentioned AI and new use cases that come up,
because what's happening is whatwe would just say we're going
to put this stuff away.
It's there for the supposedseven-year cycle.
While we keep data, we send itoff to an Iron Mountain or an
equivalent, and then we bring itback when we need it which is
(13:34):
hopefully never and then it getsdestroyed and it just seems to
live in this indeterminate spacelike Schrodinger's data.
And then now we're saying, well, wait a minute, we need to
bring that data back because weneed to train LLMs, we need to
digitize it and marry it to OCRdata that we're pulling with new
client information.
So we're finding new ways touse old data which is sitting on
(13:56):
old media or or just, you know,diverse media.
So I think that's probably whythese standards being developed
as a cohesive industry group soimportant, because everybody
writing software now or writingbuilding hardware now to
consolidate the stuff or bringit back.
(14:18):
If you don't know what it camefrom and we don't standardize on
that, then it's the Wild West.
And you know we saw whathappened even to VHS and beta.
It was 50-50.
Never seen a beta machine afterthat.
Dvd, hd DVD you know there weretwo standards and one wins.
That's right.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, and you know it's not just the standards are
critically important.
It's not just the standards,though, like when you talk about
long-term archival, which isonly part of the picture.
We have cold archives, warmarchives, et cetera.
Right, cold archives, warmarchives, et cetera right.
But when you're talking aboutvery cold archives, you have the
problem of if I pull this databack after 100 years, do I still
(15:03):
have the reader?
How do I do that?
Or do I have to do fixitychecks, or how do I ensure that
the data stays reliable in themedia over 100 years?
So there's many aspects to thelong-term archival storage
problem that need to be lookedat when we think about things,
(15:26):
new media types that are notmagnetic tape or not HDDs, et
cetera, so DNA glass, some ofthese other medias are really
interesting in respect to withrespect to some of these
long-term archival problems.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, and otherwise we end up I saw silo, I know
what happens.
You end up having to go waydown to find somebody who has an
old computer to plug that thinginto, right, but that's it.
You know this, the fact thatmedia is changing, and even the
reuse or the extension of thedurability.
So there's original durabilityand then we're making
(16:06):
innovations in power consumption, in the way we write data, the
way we organize it before itgets there, so that even the
original estimated durability isactually getting lengthened by
a lot of the work that's beingdone by folks in this community
where, you know, I've been toldover and over again.
You know, get get your data offthat hard drive, it's just
going to eventually die.
Well, I've got a lot of old harddrives and a lot of old usb
(16:28):
sticks and they seem to all bethere as long as I keep, you
know, keep the weather right.
But as far as people go, whoare the people that can really
benefit from being involved whenlooking at store as a data
focus area?
I know all of you have probablygot different ideas on this,
(16:49):
jason, I'll start with you, justbecause I've left you out so
far.
But who are the personas andtitles and kinds of folks that
you find that are gettingbenefit from being a part of
this.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Sure, I'll start with one.
I think storage architects, forsure, and IT architects those
people who are building up thesystems in data centers to store
all this data at the variouslevels that Dave described
centers to store all this dataat the various levels that Dave
described they need to be awareof all of the new technologies
and not just what is the specstate, but actually how do I use
(17:23):
it.
And that's where a lot of thework comes in.
Snea is how to take, forexample, dave mentioned flexible
data placement.
Great, you can go read the spec, but how do you actually deploy
that?
How do you make it work in yourenvironment or the environment
you're trying to create, or youknow thinking of archival.
(17:45):
So you know, maybe DNA is notthe direction you're going today
, but it's good to be aware ofthat because it's probably a
direction you're going to bepursuing later in, you know, as
the technology continues toadvance and mature, and so
having that knowledge of notonly how to do things today and
(18:05):
where are things going tomorrowis going to make your
implementation of a storagesystem, you know, not only
functioning today butfuture-proof for the next
generation.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Craig, what have you seen, especially again as you've
been participating in a lot ofthese twigs and you've gone
between many and seen manydifferent companies and folks
joining the group to drive thisstuff?
Speaker 4 (18:35):
joining the group to drive this stuff.
Well, you see, a lot of youknow a lot of these companies
are coming in from a competitivebackground and they still get
together because it's animportant thing to have
interoperability for theindustry and for the customers.
And so, you see, a lot of youknow it's.
(18:55):
It's kind of, in some ways,making standards is kind of like
making sausage you, you, you,you, you, you, you like the
results, but but sometimes itcan be kind of messy and and
that's a lot of what you seewhen you, when you go to some of
these standards bodies, um, youknow the, uh, the politics and
and and and the things that gointo it, and hopefully at the
(19:18):
end of the day you come out witha good standard.
And that's really the goal thateverybody has in these groups is
to make sure that you know notonly are their own interests
covered, but the interests ofthe industry as the whole have
to be also covered as well, andto make sure that the customer
(19:39):
is put first.
You know, I've seen some groupsthat that doesn't happen and
then you don't get a good result.
So really, you know, you needto have that mindset of.
You know we're here for theindustry, you're here for the
customer.
Most groups do work that way.
So for the most part, most ofthese groups do work pretty well
.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, good old OSI Layer 8.
It always stinks in.
This is one of the communitiesthat I find in talking with
folks from IEEE and IETF.
These are tricky groups to gettogether and come to agreement
on, but, as we know, we movefaster together.
For sure we're we're like aPeloton of innovation.
(20:19):
So, uh, dave, what's yourexperience been as far as folks
that you've maybe even beensurprised by how much they can
benefit by understanding the?
Speaker 3 (20:41):
the, the store data focus.
Well, I I mean, I think anybodywho's involved in computing
tasks of any kind in computersystems Storage is central to
that.
So, whether it's, you know,university librarians, national
archivists, scientific computingcenters, you know, any user
(21:06):
that has to manage a lot of datahas to deal with store.
So it's just a universalcurrency of our industry.
It's a little boring in someways, but it's really quite
interesting from a technologyperspective, even if it's boring
at a high level.
And one thing I wanted to talkabout it's not also Craig was
(21:33):
talking about emphasizingstandards again I wanted to talk
about it's not also Craig wastalking about emphasizing
standards again.
But I wanted to pick up onsomething Jason said about what
SNIAA does in particular interms of using storage.
Like, if you take somethinglike flexible data placement,
which was a standard developedin NVMe, but the data placement
(21:54):
there's a lot of ways it's inthe name of flexible data
placement that it's flexible andso what kind of granularity do
you use when you set up yourstorage to play?
You know the bins that you putyour storage in, things like
that, and how do you optimize asa system?
And there's different tradeoffsfor different use cases.
So what SNIA does a lot of isdiving into the use cases and
(22:18):
how people use storage and applythese standards and come up
with ways, kind ofmeta-standards, of how the
ecosystem can apply all thisstuff in ways that will be, you
know, meaningful andinteroperable.
So that's another big thingthat Cia does.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
And, I think, the collaboration opportunity too,
the fact that this also tiesinto secure right.
So data that will be at rest inan archival format.
How do we effectively encrypt?
Decrypt like safe storage?
There's many, many things andthose same people are in the
same community.
So big difference.
When I was a practitioner comingup even just in sysadmin and
(23:02):
systems architecture the factthat I was looking around and
all I saw was people on my teamI was like, why aren't we
sitting beside the networkpeople or the storage team?
And when we did that, thecollaboration was so much better
.
And then we architected withthat in mind, and I think that's
the other thing too.
Is that the fact that as wethink of each new development,
(23:23):
it's like who else can I taphere in this incredible group of
folks and group of companiesthat can probably save me some
time, because they've likelygone down the road, or at least,
and we find out that otherpeople could be collaborating
and moving faster, but moving.
Let me tell you one of thethings I saw automotive storage.
Now, this is cool.
Automotive data storage.
(23:44):
I, uh, we forget that.
All these cars with this LIDARand all this good stuff.
There's a.
There's some non-persistent andprobably persistent stories
that's rolling around.
So what's happening there?
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Well, I think that's a great question and actually a
lot is the answer and it's goingto grow.
There's obviously all thiseffort in the industry, in the
auto industry, to haveautonomous vehicles, and the
amount of data required for thattype of autonomous vehicle is
phenomenal.
You know it isn't just do Ihave access to the GPS it's.
(24:23):
You would need very precisemapping data on where roads are
on the vehicle's drive, right inthe vehicle.
It's, in fact, called a datacenter on wheels, in terms of
not only the compute performanceand also the amount of storage
capacity needed to store this tothe tune of, you know,
terabytes of storage in the caris kind of the direction things
(24:45):
are going, you know, today.
Maybe it's not quite you knowthe number of terabytes yet, but
it's increasing right.
There's a lot of goals in termsof, you know, storing the you
know black box data you knowwhat happened right up to an
accident or the telemetry dataof the car what's is it
performing correctly?
(25:06):
You know what are thediagnostics and that's only
going to grow.
And especially, as you you know, move more into autonomous
vehicles.
You, or even with AI, as itrelates to autonomous vehicles,
you have to have documentationstored on the car.
How did the car make to reach adecision that it was OK to go
(25:27):
through this, this trafficintersection, for example?
Was something wrong with the AIor did it do the right thing?
For example, was somethingwrong with the AI or did it do
the right thing?
You know, because you know,some days there's going to be an
incident, I'm sure, and there'sgoing to be legal discussions
and court cases, and if youdon't have the data, then you're
certainly going to have aproblem, but those who have the
(25:48):
data are going to be able tosupport.
Hey, my autonomous vehicle didthe right thing or didn't,
whatever the case may be, but alot of growth in that area,
which side of the airplane?
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Right, right.
Exactly Half of the transactionis unfortunately going the
wrong way Right.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Very good point.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
But just think of that.
Like, how many times have anyof us gone on a like even just
as silly as going on a trip?
And you, like I go I was in theshenandoah, you know mountains,
going hiking and they warn youthey're like I'll download your
maps because otherwise you'regonna head into a spot and
there's no access, the cellphone is useless, so it's wild,
(26:29):
and that's a small thing becauseI'm in control of everything
else.
But what if it was?
a system controlling.
That required that data to bereal time.
And how do then we reconnectand resync so it even goes
beyond not just store, buttransport, right?
So now it's like how do we movedata between these systems
again?
Well, look at that another datafocus area, like there's a lot
(26:52):
of this stuff that comestogether.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
So sorry, Jason, keep going.
No, please do.
I mean you're.
What you're saying isabsolutely correct, and it's
because of that latency of thecell phone that you have to have
the data stored locally, andthat's going to be.
Those are very large files thatare going to be stored on your
car.
And just, for example and itisn't just cars, right, we think
of autonomous vehicles becausethat's in the news.
(27:15):
But what about autonomoustractors or trucks or those
kinds of things?
It's a similar kind of thing.
It's some kind of an autonomousvehicle that's going to need a
lot of storage illustration ofthe intersectionality of all
these layers and interest areasis that when Jason was talking
(27:39):
about the.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
AI part of this.
With autonomous vehicles, thetraining data for the models is
notoriously large and gettinglarger.
And not only that, but I'vebeen talking to people recently
that you have to if you want todo that forensic analysis after
the crash or you went, you knowit went through the internet,
ran the red light, or whatever.
You have to keep the model dataaround for as long as there's
(28:05):
any car of that model on theroad, which means you, you have
to, you know you have to savethis stuff a long time, which
kind of which segues into thearchival storage problem.
It's like not only are wecreating a bunch of data or
massive amounts of data, we haveto save more and more of it.
So it's anyway, just a point.
(28:27):
I thought, of as I was listeningto Jason.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
We will be talking.
You know, I've been talkingsince the 80s about a paperless
society, and now we're going tobe talking about, no, no more
spinning plates, it's all goingto be NVRAM and SSD.
And it was like but all ofthese generations have to
continue to live on.
And it's also a bit of likeJevons paradox or Jevons paradox
(28:50):
, where once we make somethingso economical to use, it will
rise in popularity and it's likethe storage that we thought was
going to go away.
All of a sudden it's like oh,it's incredibly valuable to have
this.
You know, I remember even seeinghsm systems like the fact that
you could automatically defersome data down to a lower tier,
(29:12):
to cheaper storage, and this waslike an incredible, magical
thing in the 90s and we justtake for granted, like that's,
you just expect it, you know.
But now it's coming to s3 and toother technologies.
They're like they'rerediscovering the problems we
had with previous generations oftechnology and media.
(29:33):
And then, as that idea comesforward again, it's like well,
let's not reinvent the wheel,let's look to the standard of
the wheel and the people thatbuilt the bloody wheel Cause
they're all in this room with meand and we can do what's next,
by knowing how we got to here.
So that's my people go toschool and learn what a learn,
(29:55):
what f-sock is.
The moment you see that, thatthat thing come up and you just
the fear enters your soul oflike I hope this hard drive
comes back.
Let me tell you, uh, f-sock.
I replaced one letter in thatword a lot of times and it was
yeah you never think that it'sgoing to come out positive.
So there's a lot of crossing offingers, and we can't cross our
(30:16):
fingers when it's ai poweredlearning ai powered active.
You know movement in intechnology and buses and trucks
and everything and planes.
So yeah, I'm it's wild, sosorry I took far too much just
enjoying the room ofintelligence that I'm surrounded
(30:36):
by here.
So for folks that did want toconnect, obviously I would
encourage anybody as apractitioner.
Take a look at SNEA.
Go to SNEAorg.
Lots of great information there.
Websites continue to getupdated.
We've got events coming up.
We've got SDC, we've gotregional events.
There's a lot of ways you caninteract with the community.
These podcasts are all over theplace.
(30:57):
So we're on YouTube.
We're on every podcast app youwould like, and then there's
also all the previous SNEAevents.
A lot of the videos are onYouTube so that you can get to
them through the site and thenas a company, it just makes
sense.
I've seen brand new startupsthat came up with an idea that
is no relationship to physicalstorage, but I bring them to the
(31:19):
room and they realize they'retalking to software engineers
who built these HPC platformsand they're like oh wow, I just
realized I see this use case andthey learn something like, ah,
we aren't really just a cloudcompany, we're a cloud company
that has to understand storageRight and it all comes together.
So, for folks that did want toreach you, what's the best way
(31:41):
to do that?
We'll start from the top, jason.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Probably you know I do a lot of things in SNEA.
In fact I'm probably on severalSNEA webpages.
You can certainly look me upthere.
I'm going to be at the regionalSDC, Denver that you mentioned,
and also SDC in September, sohappy to connect with anybody at
either of those events.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Fantastic and Dave.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
You can find me at SNEA.
Probably the most active thingI'm involved in at snea right
now is the dna data storagealliance, so I'm the co-chair of
that and you can find me there.
You can, of course, uh find meat uh davelandsman at wccom, my
corporate, uh corporate address.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
So fantastic, yeah, and we've got.
We met with uh, we, we had apodcast with the DNA some DNA
storage folks.
It was really, really cool todive into that.
We've talked about SaaS andspace.
I'm the luckiest podcasteralive.
This is the greatest job ever.
Craig, give me a quick wrap.
Why should somebody care aboutstore and and why is this data
(32:51):
focus area?
You know an important piece ofthe puzzle, and then, of course,
give yourself a shout out onthe way out.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
Sure.
So, obviously, as we touched onthe store area, or storage, is
the key component with Forcenia,and we're not anything if we're
not actually storing the data.
So, you know, if you look atall the different ranges of
(33:22):
types of storage archival,short-term, long-term,
persistent you know SNIA doeswork with all of those and you
know there's very interestingthings going on.
We we you mentioned the, uh,the graybeards.
We do would love to have somenew people come in, uh, the
people who are coming out ofcollege.
(33:43):
Don't forget about storage.
It's a very interesting, um, uh, field of discipline.
Um, you know it may not alwaysget the get, the um, the uh, the
attention, but it's alwaysthere.
That's the thing about storageit's always there and every
system requires it, and so, ifyou're looking for an
(34:03):
interesting area to explore,storage is a good one.
And, having said that, I thinkall of us would say you know the
careers that we've had havebeen very interesting it's.
You know technology is alwaysinteresting and when you, when
you add in something that'ssomething that's impacts people
(34:25):
and impacts systems as much asstorage does, that you know you
have a higher bar that you'relooking at as well.
As far as how to reach me.
I think you wanted me to get alittle bit of information on
that.
As Jason mentioned, I also ampart of the TNIA TC.
I'll be at the STC eventscoming up.
(34:48):
I'm also on the NVME board ofdirectors so you can reach me
through NVME as well, and youknow I tend to be at a lot of
the conferences so you canalways find me there.
I'll send out, I'll tell you myemail, even though probably
nobody will probably remember it.
It's craigcarlson at amdcom andyou're always willing to, or
(35:12):
welcome to, reach out to me atthat as well.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
You're always welcome to reach out to me at that as
well.
Fantastic, and yeah, the eventsare great.
It's a huge opportunity.
And while storage may sound notas exciting as some of the
other things, let me tell you,as the saying in marketing goes,
just rub some AI on it andyou're going to find out real
fast.
(35:34):
What you are about to hit isthe real problem.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Ai is not a come on, you don't want to scare the
engineers away with too much ofthat marketing, but definitely
that the the impact of storageon the future of ai is not
insignificant.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
It's we're, we're, all you know.
We love watching them pullthings out of you know fancy
kitchens and put them on, andthe fine folks of the GPU makers
are bringing new things, but inthe end, where does that data
live?
Right here, so get on into SNEA, or else you're going to be
(36:14):
left out in the cold, all right.
Well, thank you all for joiningtoday.
And again for folks, do headover to the SNEA Experts on Data
podcast Hit subscribe in yourfavorite app and I'll even say
smash that like button or dowhatever you're supposed to do,
whatever the Zoomers tell us todo on YouTube.
But get to an event and lookingforward to hopefully catching
up IRL with all you fine folksand thanks very much for your
(36:35):
time today.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
Thank you, thank you.
All right, welcome everybody to the SNEA Experts on
Data podcast.
My name is Eric Wright.
I'm the chief podcaster here atthe SNEA EOD and also the
co-founder of GTM Delta.
I'm excited by the group we'vegot.
Today we're talking about thedata focus areas.
If you've been following theseries, it's a great way to
break down everything across thewhole SNEA tech community
(00:29):
ecosystem and content and ideasto the marketplace and how we
can really bring people acrossthese different data focus areas
and different practice areas toreally understand who does what
(00:51):
.
And we actually very quicklyfind out that we all do amazing
things.
And speaking of amazing things,here's my amazing group.
So I'll start with a quickround table.
Jason, you want to lead us outand tell us?
Give a quick intro yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, hello everyone.
My name is Jason Molgaard.
I'm a principal storagesolutions architect at Soladyne.
I work in a pathfinding andadvanced development group and
do a lot of work with SNEA, andI'm very excited to be here
today.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
All right.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Dave, I'm Dave Lansman.
I'm a distinguished engineer atWestern Digital.
I'm also on the SNEA board andI do a lot of work in SNEA
committees, things like that andI'm a background as a system
architect and a standards guy.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Fantastic.
And last but very certainly notleast, Craig, let's bring you
to the group here.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
So, excuse me, my name is Craig Carlson.
I work for AMD as a storage andnetworking architect in the
data center strategy group.
My relationship to CINEA I'vebeen on the technical council
for a number of years.
Relationship to SNEA I've beenon the technical council for a
number of years.
I've been in the storageindustry for even longer,
probably 25 years doingdifferent types of storage fiber
(02:11):
channel, ethernet, networkingbased storage, things like that
and I'm happy to be hereFantastic.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I often wonder every time I talk to I'm an old, I've
been around this thing a longtime Whenever we have a storage
team, I've never met a.
I've been in storage for twoyears Like we need to get a
fresh batch.
I'm sure there's a lot of themout there, but maybe I'm just
talking to the wrong means.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
It's a problem.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
It is a problem.
Well, that's actually.
I tell you, it's not, it's justan doing with SNEA is really
important, because a lot ofpeople don't even know the
opportunities there.
So, you know, based on that,Craig, you've obviously seen
really cool changes in your timewith SNEA.
And let's talk about what storeis, because that's really the
center of this one today is thestore data focus area, and I
(03:01):
think the best you can tell uswhat it is and what it covers.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Well it comes down to , if you look at the SNEA areas
of focus, the primary job ofstorage and everything that
we're doing is to store the data, of course, and there is a lot
of work that goes into makingsure that data is stored
(03:29):
correctly and stored in a waythat you can actually read it
back and it's not justwrite-only.
That's probably one of thebiggest concerns that any
storage architect has is thatthe data gets to the storage
device and returns in the sameform with all the bits intact.
Any of us who have been doingthis for a long time have spent
(03:52):
many, many hours working to makesure that's the case, and we
have kind of a victim of our ownsuccess, to the point where
people don't think about storageor the store portion because it
works so well these days.
Your data goes on the drive.
You know that drive has whoknows how many billions of bits
(04:15):
on it these days, or trillionsof bits on it these days, and
when you ask for it it comesback off, and so you know we're
kind of a victim of our ownsuccess and the fact that this
stuff works so well.
It wasn't always like that.
I've, you know, going back inmy early years, you weren't
always guaranteed to get yourdata back, which you know would
upset people, but we don't havethat situation today.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, people get a little funny about that.
It's like backup.
You always say like I've got agreat backup product.
I'm like, yeah, is it a goodrestore product?
That's the I need.
The data has to come back.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Yeah, and backups are one of the ones.
That's the biggest area whereyou know, no matter who you
think, it is always check yourbackup.
Amen to that, and you know asfar as, like the, where SNEA
(05:16):
comes in in this, craig, whatare some of the sort of
milestones that SNEA aims for?
When we think of, you know, astore as a data focus area, well
, you know, it's really the coreaspect of SNEA and so really,
if you look at every other,pretty much all the other
components go to that storecomponent in some form or
another.
You know, and SNEA has a widerange of different areas we
(05:41):
operate in that make that work,all the way from, you know, the
actual protocols that go intothe devices to the.
If you look at the SSFcommittee which is working with
the form factors and moving thebits, so SNIA has this very wide
range of technologies which gointo making the store component
(06:07):
function.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
And I think that's probably a good chance where we
can dive into some of theinterest areas and specific
technologies that we have.
So I think, dave, do you wantto walk us through Because I
know you did a great write upthat helped us to understand.
I was like, wow, there's a lotin here.
(06:31):
So if you want to tell us whatare the different technologies
that we're touching and also,you know, a real sort of
snapshot of why these arecritical pieces of what we have
going forward, of why these arecritical pieces of what we have
going forward.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Sure, so yeah, in the store area we have a number of
interest areas like non-volatilememory zone storage, dna data
storage.
There's others, and you knowSNIA looks across all of these
interest areas because we needto look across the whole range
where data is stored, both fromthe very hot, rapidly or
(07:16):
frequently accessed layer,non-volatile memory typically
SSDs to cooler tier of storagewith HDD and finally to slower
and larger tiers of storagearchival, where media such as
tape have been used historicallyand now some new media types
(07:39):
are being looked at.
So the reason these are allcritical is due to different
cost performance tradeoffsrelated to how the data is being
stored and used and critically,especially in the colder
archival tiers, how much data isbeing stored, and we'll all
come back to that.
(07:59):
So in the SSD layer, data iswritten and read very frequently
and it's read at randomaddresses across the storage
address space, and performanceand latency are really the
(08:30):
critical characteristics in thestorage tier, whereas cost and
capacity relative to the othertiers is a bit less important.
So in the SSD layer we're veryperformance sensitive and we
make performance sensitiveoptimizations such as flexible
data placement.
It's a standard that's evolvedin NVMe and we're always trying
to optimize the performance ofSSDs and lower their wear.
So we touch the NBM layer, theSSD layer, there.
(08:50):
If we go to the HDD layer, wewrite data at a much more
leisurely pace, but we stillneed access to that data
relatively frequently.
So we want the access latencyenabled by HDs.
But we also want maximumcapacity.
So one of the means of gaininghigher capacity in HDDs is
(09:12):
something called shingledmagnetic recording, or SMR Now
in SMR drives, to maximizecapacity.
This is how we maximizecapacity.
We write data in slightlyoverlapping physical tracks on
the media.
It's like shingles on a roof,which is why it's called shingle
magnetic recording.
So the tradeoff for SMR density, however, is that the data must
(09:38):
be written to these drivessequentially.
So, unlike SSDs, where we'redoing a lot of random writes and
reads, no-transcript, and thehost applications and file
(10:03):
systems that talk to SMR driveshave to effectively manage these
zones and, whereas on SSDs orclassic random access devices,
they manage small blocks orsectors.
So zone storage to come back toit, which is one of our
interest areas, is a set ofstandards for how drives, how
(10:24):
storage, the character, the wayin which zone storage is used.
Now for archival tiers.
(10:45):
Getting to another interestarea, we talked about DNA data
storage or tape or other things.
So in archival tiers, the datais written and read much less
frequently than the HDD layer,and it may even be stored
off-site, right.
So the key attribute of storagein this tier is not real-time
access, but it's the overallcost of the storage, power,
(11:10):
density and endurance over time.
So tape has occupied thearchival layer in storage for
decades.
However, in the realm ofarchival storage, we're facing
today what I call thesave-discard dilemma, and that
dilemma is that humanity isdigitizing all forms of
(11:32):
information at ever greaterrates and we wish to save all of
that data because of the valuethat may be extracted from it,
either now or in the future.
And the ability to extract datais especially true with the
advent of AI and ML techniques,so we can search patterns and
(11:54):
data.
So we have this, you know,mountains of data.
We want to be able to search itand we have better tools to do
so.
The problem is the amount ofdata is becoming so large that
with today's storagetechnologies from SSDs to HDDs,
even to tapes it's getting toocostly, so we're forced to
discard some of the data due tocost.
(12:14):
So hence the save-discarddilemma.
So it's because of thesave-discard dilemma that
storage architects are lookingfor new media types for archival
storage, and this is why SNIAgot into the DNA data storage
arena.
Dna data storage is one of thepotential new media types to be
(12:38):
able to play at this archivalmedia layer, and there are other
media types, whether they'receramic or glass, that people
are looking at, I guess.
In summary, I'd say that all ofthe areas of interest that are
shown in SNEA's store area areabout optimizing the layers of
(13:00):
the storage hierarchy, bothwithin each layer and between
the layers, so we have anoptimal solution up and down the
stack.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
You mentioned AI and new use cases that come up,
because what's happening is whatwe would just say we're going
to put this stuff away.
It's there for the supposedseven-year cycle.
While we keep data, we send itoff to an Iron Mountain or an
equivalent, and then we bring itback when we need it which is
(13:34):
hopefully never and then it getsdestroyed and it just seems to
live in this indeterminate spacelike Schrodinger's data.
And then now we're saying, well, wait a minute, we need to
bring that data back because weneed to train LLMs, we need to
digitize it and marry it to OCRdata that we're pulling with new
client information.
So we're finding new ways touse old data which is sitting on
(13:56):
old media or or just, you know,diverse media.
So I think that's probably whythese standards being developed
as a cohesive industry group soimportant, because everybody
writing software now or writingbuilding hardware now to
consolidate the stuff or bringit back.
(14:18):
If you don't know what it camefrom and we don't standardize on
that, then it's the Wild West.
And you know we saw whathappened even to VHS and beta.
It was 50-50.
Never seen a beta machine afterthat.
Dvd, hd DVD you know there weretwo standards and one wins.
That's right.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, and you know it's not just the standards are
critically important.
It's not just the standards,though, like when you talk about
long-term archival, which isonly part of the picture.
We have cold archives, warmarchives, et cetera.
Right, cold archives, warmarchives, et cetera right.
But when you're talking aboutvery cold archives, you have the
problem of if I pull this databack after 100 years, do I still
(15:03):
have the reader?
How do I do that?
Or do I have to do fixitychecks, or how do I ensure that
the data stays reliable in themedia over 100 years?
So there's many aspects to thelong-term archival storage
problem that need to be lookedat when we think about things,
(15:26):
new media types that are notmagnetic tape or not HDDs, et
cetera, so DNA glass, some ofthese other medias are really
interesting in respect to withrespect to some of these
long-term archival problems.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, and otherwise we end up I saw silo, I know
what happens.
You end up having to go waydown to find somebody who has an
old computer to plug that thinginto, right, but that's it.
You know this, the fact thatmedia is changing, and even the
reuse or the extension of thedurability.
So there's original durabilityand then we're making
(16:06):
innovations in power consumption, in the way we write data, the
way we organize it before itgets there, so that even the
original estimated durability isactually getting lengthened by
a lot of the work that's beingdone by folks in this community
where, you know, I've been toldover and over again.
You know, get get your data offthat hard drive, it's just
going to eventually die.
Well, I've got a lot of old harddrives and a lot of old usb
(16:28):
sticks and they seem to all bethere as long as I keep, you
know, keep the weather right.
But as far as people go, whoare the people that can really
benefit from being involved whenlooking at store as a data
focus area?
I know all of you have probablygot different ideas on this,
(16:49):
jason, I'll start with you, justbecause I've left you out so
far.
But who are the personas andtitles and kinds of folks that
you find that are gettingbenefit from being a part of
this.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Sure, I'll start with one.
I think storage architects, forsure, and IT architects those
people who are building up thesystems in data centers to store
all this data at the variouslevels that Dave described
centers to store all this dataat the various levels that Dave
described they need to be awareof all of the new technologies
and not just what is the specstate, but actually how do I use
(17:23):
it.
And that's where a lot of thework comes in.
Snea is how to take, forexample, dave mentioned flexible
data placement.
Great, you can go read the spec, but how do you actually deploy
that?
How do you make it work in yourenvironment or the environment
you're trying to create, or youknow thinking of archival.
(17:45):
So you know, maybe DNA is notthe direction you're going today
, but it's good to be aware ofthat because it's probably a
direction you're going to bepursuing later in, you know, as
the technology continues toadvance and mature, and so
having that knowledge of notonly how to do things today and
(18:05):
where are things going tomorrowis going to make your
implementation of a storagesystem, you know, not only
functioning today butfuture-proof for the next
generation.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Craig, what have you seen, especially again as you've
been participating in a lot ofthese twigs and you've gone
between many and seen manydifferent companies and folks
joining the group to drive thisstuff?
Speaker 4 (18:35):
joining the group to drive this stuff.
Well, you see, a lot of youknow a lot of these companies
are coming in from a competitivebackground and they still get
together because it's animportant thing to have
interoperability for theindustry and for the customers.
And so, you see, a lot of youknow it's.
(18:55):
It's kind of, in some ways,making standards is kind of like
making sausage you, you, you,you, you, you, you like the
results, but but sometimes itcan be kind of messy and and
that's a lot of what you seewhen you, when you go to some of
these standards bodies, um, youknow the, uh, the politics and
and and and the things that gointo it, and hopefully at the
(19:18):
end of the day you come out witha good standard.
And that's really the goal thateverybody has in these groups is
to make sure that you know notonly are their own interests
covered, but the interests ofthe industry as the whole have
to be also covered as well, andto make sure that the customer
(19:39):
is put first.
You know, I've seen some groupsthat that doesn't happen and
then you don't get a good result.
So really, you know, you needto have that mindset of.
You know we're here for theindustry, you're here for the
customer.
Most groups do work that way.
So for the most part, most ofthese groups do work pretty well
.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, good old OSI Layer 8.
It always stinks in.
This is one of the communitiesthat I find in talking with
folks from IEEE and IETF.
These are tricky groups to gettogether and come to agreement
on, but, as we know, we movefaster together.
For sure we're we're like aPeloton of innovation.
(20:19):
So, uh, dave, what's yourexperience been as far as folks
that you've maybe even beensurprised by how much they can
benefit by understanding the?
Speaker 3 (20:41):
the, the store data focus.
Well, I I mean, I think anybodywho's involved in computing
tasks of any kind in computersystems Storage is central to
that.
So, whether it's, you know,university librarians, national
archivists, scientific computingcenters, you know, any user
(21:06):
that has to manage a lot of datahas to deal with store.
So it's just a universalcurrency of our industry.
It's a little boring in someways, but it's really quite
interesting from a technologyperspective, even if it's boring
at a high level.
And one thing I wanted to talkabout it's not also Craig was
(21:33):
talking about emphasizingstandards again I wanted to talk
about it's not also Craig wastalking about emphasizing
standards again.
But I wanted to pick up onsomething Jason said about what
SNIAA does in particular interms of using storage.
Like, if you take somethinglike flexible data placement,
which was a standard developedin NVMe, but the data placement
(21:54):
there's a lot of ways it's inthe name of flexible data
placement that it's flexible andso what kind of granularity do
you use when you set up yourstorage to play?
You know the bins that you putyour storage in, things like
that, and how do you optimize asa system?
And there's different tradeoffsfor different use cases.
So what SNIA does a lot of isdiving into the use cases and
(22:18):
how people use storage and applythese standards and come up
with ways, kind ofmeta-standards, of how the
ecosystem can apply all thisstuff in ways that will be, you
know, meaningful andinteroperable.
So that's another big thingthat Cia does.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
And, I think, the collaboration opportunity too,
the fact that this also tiesinto secure right.
So data that will be at rest inan archival format.
How do we effectively encrypt?
Decrypt like safe storage?
There's many, many things andthose same people are in the
same community.
So big difference.
When I was a practitioner comingup even just in sysadmin and
(23:02):
systems architecture the factthat I was looking around and
all I saw was people on my teamI was like, why aren't we
sitting beside the networkpeople or the storage team?
And when we did that, thecollaboration was so much better
.
And then we architected withthat in mind, and I think that's
the other thing too.
Is that the fact that as wethink of each new development,
(23:23):
it's like who else can I taphere in this incredible group of
folks and group of companiesthat can probably save me some
time, because they've likelygone down the road, or at least,
and we find out that otherpeople could be collaborating
and moving faster, but moving.
Let me tell you one of thethings I saw automotive storage.
Now, this is cool.
Automotive data storage.
(23:44):
I, uh, we forget that.
All these cars with this LIDARand all this good stuff.
There's a.
There's some non-persistent andprobably persistent stories
that's rolling around.
So what's happening there?
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Well, I think that's a great question and actually a
lot is the answer and it's goingto grow.
There's obviously all thiseffort in the industry, in the
auto industry, to haveautonomous vehicles, and the
amount of data required for thattype of autonomous vehicle is
phenomenal.
You know it isn't just do Ihave access to the GPS it's.
(24:23):
You would need very precisemapping data on where roads are
on the vehicle's drive, right inthe vehicle.
It's, in fact, called a datacenter on wheels, in terms of
not only the compute performanceand also the amount of storage
capacity needed to store this tothe tune of, you know,
terabytes of storage in the caris kind of the direction things
(24:45):
are going, you know, today.
Maybe it's not quite you knowthe number of terabytes yet, but
it's increasing right.
There's a lot of goals in termsof, you know, storing the you
know black box data you knowwhat happened right up to an
accident or the telemetry dataof the car what's is it
performing correctly?
(25:06):
You know what are thediagnostics and that's only
going to grow.
And especially, as you you know, move more into autonomous
vehicles.
You, or even with AI, as itrelates to autonomous vehicles,
you have to have documentationstored on the car.
How did the car make to reach adecision that it was OK to go
(25:27):
through this, this trafficintersection, for example?
Was something wrong with the AIor did it do the right thing?
For example, was somethingwrong with the AI or did it do
the right thing?
You know, because you know,some days there's going to be an
incident, I'm sure, and there'sgoing to be legal discussions
and court cases, and if youdon't have the data, then you're
certainly going to have aproblem, but those who have the
(25:48):
data are going to be able tosupport.
Hey, my autonomous vehicle didthe right thing or didn't,
whatever the case may be, but alot of growth in that area,
which side of the airplane?
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Right, right.
Exactly Half of the transactionis unfortunately going the
wrong way Right.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Very good point.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
But just think of that.
Like, how many times have anyof us gone on a like even just
as silly as going on a trip?
And you, like I go I was in theshenandoah, you know mountains,
going hiking and they warn youthey're like I'll download your
maps because otherwise you'regonna head into a spot and
there's no access, the cellphone is useless, so it's wild,
(26:29):
and that's a small thing becauseI'm in control of everything
else.
But what if it was?
a system controlling.
That required that data to bereal time.
And how do then we reconnectand resync so it even goes
beyond not just store, buttransport, right?
So now it's like how do we movedata between these systems
again?
Well, look at that another datafocus area, like there's a lot
(26:52):
of this stuff that comestogether.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
So sorry, Jason, keep going.
No, please do.
I mean you're.
What you're saying isabsolutely correct, and it's
because of that latency of thecell phone that you have to have
the data stored locally, andthat's going to be.
Those are very large files thatare going to be stored on your
car.
And just, for example and itisn't just cars, right, we think
of autonomous vehicles becausethat's in the news.
(27:15):
But what about autonomoustractors or trucks or those
kinds of things?
It's a similar kind of thing.
It's some kind of an autonomousvehicle that's going to need a
lot of storage illustration ofthe intersectionality of all
these layers and interest areasis that when Jason was talking
(27:39):
about the.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
AI part of this.
With autonomous vehicles, thetraining data for the models is
notoriously large and gettinglarger.
And not only that, but I'vebeen talking to people recently
that you have to if you want todo that forensic analysis after
the crash or you went, you knowit went through the internet,
ran the red light, or whatever.
You have to keep the model dataaround for as long as there's
(28:05):
any car of that model on theroad, which means you, you have
to, you know you have to savethis stuff a long time, which
kind of which segues into thearchival storage problem.
It's like not only are wecreating a bunch of data or
massive amounts of data, we haveto save more and more of it.
So it's anyway, just a point.
(28:27):
I thought, of as I was listeningto Jason.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
We will be talking.
You know, I've been talkingsince the 80s about a paperless
society, and now we're going tobe talking about, no, no more
spinning plates, it's all goingto be NVRAM and SSD.
And it was like but all ofthese generations have to
continue to live on.
And it's also a bit of likeJevons paradox or Jevons paradox
(28:50):
, where once we make somethingso economical to use, it will
rise in popularity and it's likethe storage that we thought was
going to go away.
All of a sudden it's like oh,it's incredibly valuable to have
this.
You know, I remember even seeinghsm systems like the fact that
you could automatically defersome data down to a lower tier,
(29:12):
to cheaper storage, and this waslike an incredible, magical
thing in the 90s and we justtake for granted, like that's,
you just expect it, you know.
But now it's coming to s3 and toother technologies.
They're like they'rerediscovering the problems we
had with previous generations oftechnology and media.
(29:33):
And then, as that idea comesforward again, it's like well,
let's not reinvent the wheel,let's look to the standard of
the wheel and the people thatbuilt the bloody wheel Cause
they're all in this room with meand and we can do what's next,
by knowing how we got to here.
So that's my people go toschool and learn what a learn,
(29:55):
what f-sock is.
The moment you see that, thatthat thing come up and you just
the fear enters your soul oflike I hope this hard drive
comes back.
Let me tell you, uh, f-sock.
I replaced one letter in thatword a lot of times and it was
yeah you never think that it'sgoing to come out positive.
So there's a lot of crossing offingers, and we can't cross our
(30:16):
fingers when it's ai poweredlearning ai powered active.
You know movement in intechnology and buses and trucks
and everything and planes.
So yeah, I'm it's wild, sosorry I took far too much just
enjoying the room ofintelligence that I'm surrounded
(30:36):
by here.
So for folks that did want toconnect, obviously I would
encourage anybody as apractitioner.
Take a look at SNEA.
Go to SNEAorg.
Lots of great information there.
Websites continue to getupdated.
We've got events coming up.
We've got SDC, we've gotregional events.
There's a lot of ways you caninteract with the community.
These podcasts are all over theplace.
(30:57):
So we're on YouTube.
We're on every podcast app youwould like, and then there's
also all the previous SNEAevents.
A lot of the videos are onYouTube so that you can get to
them through the site and thenas a company, it just makes
sense.
I've seen brand new startupsthat came up with an idea that
is no relationship to physicalstorage, but I bring them to the
(31:19):
room and they realize they'retalking to software engineers
who built these HPC platformsand they're like oh wow, I just
realized I see this use case andthey learn something like, ah,
we aren't really just a cloudcompany, we're a cloud company
that has to understand storageRight and it all comes together.
So, for folks that did want toreach you, what's the best way
(31:41):
to do that?
We'll start from the top, jason.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Probably you know I do a lot of things in SNEA.
In fact I'm probably on severalSNEA webpages.
You can certainly look me upthere.
I'm going to be at the regionalSDC, Denver that you mentioned,
and also SDC in September, sohappy to connect with anybody at
either of those events.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Fantastic and Dave.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
You can find me at SNEA.
Probably the most active thingI'm involved in at snea right
now is the dna data storagealliance, so I'm the co-chair of
that and you can find me there.
You can, of course, uh find meat uh davelandsman at wccom, my
corporate, uh corporate address.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
So fantastic, yeah, and we've got.
We met with uh, we, we had apodcast with the DNA some DNA
storage folks.
It was really, really cool todive into that.
We've talked about SaaS andspace.
I'm the luckiest podcasteralive.
This is the greatest job ever.
Craig, give me a quick wrap.
Why should somebody care aboutstore and and why is this data
(32:51):
focus area?
You know an important piece ofthe puzzle, and then, of course,
give yourself a shout out onthe way out.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
Sure.
So, obviously, as we touched onthe store area, or storage, is
the key component with Forcenia,and we're not anything if we're
not actually storing the data.
So, you know, if you look atall the different ranges of
(33:22):
types of storage archival,short-term, long-term,
persistent you know SNIA doeswork with all of those and you
know there's very interestingthings going on.
We we you mentioned the, uh,the graybeards.
We do would love to have somenew people come in, uh, the
people who are coming out ofcollege.
(33:43):
Don't forget about storage.
It's a very interesting, um, uh, field of discipline.
Um, you know it may not alwaysget the get, the um, the uh, the
attention, but it's alwaysthere.
That's the thing about storageit's always there and every
system requires it, and so, ifyou're looking for an
(34:03):
interesting area to explore,storage is a good one.
And, having said that, I thinkall of us would say you know the
careers that we've had havebeen very interesting it's.
You know technology is alwaysinteresting and when you, when
you add in something that'ssomething that's impacts people
(34:25):
and impacts systems as much asstorage does, that you know you
have a higher bar that you'relooking at as well.
As far as how to reach me.
I think you wanted me to get alittle bit of information on
that.
As Jason mentioned, I also ampart of the TNIA TC.
I'll be at the STC eventscoming up.
(34:48):
I'm also on the NVME board ofdirectors so you can reach me
through NVME as well, and youknow I tend to be at a lot of
the conferences so you canalways find me there.
I'll send out, I'll tell you myemail, even though probably
nobody will probably remember it.
It's craigcarlson at amdcom andyou're always willing to, or
(35:12):
welcome to, reach out to me atthat as well.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
You're always welcome to reach out to me at that as
well.
Fantastic, and yeah, the eventsare great.
It's a huge opportunity.
And while storage may sound notas exciting as some of the
other things, let me tell you,as the saying in marketing goes,
just rub some AI on it andyou're going to find out real
fast.
(35:34):
What you are about to hit isthe real problem.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Ai is not a come on, you don't want to scare the
engineers away with too much ofthat marketing, but definitely
that the the impact of storageon the future of ai is not
insignificant.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
It's we're, we're, all you know.
We love watching them pullthings out of you know fancy
kitchens and put them on, andthe fine folks of the GPU makers
are bringing new things, but inthe end, where does that data
live?
Right here, so get on into SNEA, or else you're going to be
(36:14):
left out in the cold, all right.
Well, thank you all for joiningtoday.
And again for folks, do headover to the SNEA Experts on Data
podcast Hit subscribe in yourfavorite app and I'll even say
smash that like button or dowhatever you're supposed to do,
whatever the Zoomers tell us todo on YouTube.
But get to an event and lookingforward to hopefully catching
up IRL with all you fine folksand thanks very much for your
(36:35):
time today.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
Thank you, thank you.
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