Storage Unpacked 266 – Architectural Choices in Storage System Design

In this episode, Chris discusses the options available to storage system vendors when building modern storage appliances, with Bill Basinas, Senior Director, Product Marketing at Infinidat. The conversation derives from an observation on architectural choices, following the move to AMD processors from Intel for the latest G4 systems built by Infinidat. AMD offers a greater core count per processor compared to Intel, allowing Infinidat to move to single socket designs, while gaining improvements from PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 memory.

Ultimately, this discussion highlights how modern storage system design can take standardised components and build flexible architectures, implementing most features in software. For Infinidat, that could mean expanding its range of solutions for smaller enterprise requirements, or building out products specifically for Edge use cases.

Although Bill did not reveal any future plans, the implication is clear – watch this space for future evolution of the InfiniBox architecture to a wider and more varied set of hardwaree configurations.

Elapsed Time: 00:37:13

Timeline

• 00:00:00 – Intros
• 00:01:15 – How do vendors choose the hardware components for storage systems?
• 00:02:30 – What are the main (storage) technology challenges for customers?
• 00:04:08 – Customers want predictable data features
• 00:05:55 – Capacity demand continues to grow relentlessly
• 00:07:30 – Infinidat features are built into software
• 00:09:35 – Most AI requirements wil run on existing performance storage
• 00:11:20 – Modern hardware provides significant flexibility for system design
• 00:15:00 – AMD gives access to single and high core-count processors
• 00:16:10 – PCIe 5.0 provides for faster SSDs and power efficiency
• 00:18:46 – Infinidat has introduced smaller form-factor solutions
• 00:21:32 – Multiple cores will always get used!
• 00:25:53 – Infinidat G4 architecture provides for in-place controller upgrades
• 00:28:22 – Storage arrays should become more “virtual”
• 00:34:10 – Data services implementations are very different between vendors
• 00:35:55 – Hybrid architecture still has value in the Infinidat world
• 00:36:20 – Wrap Up

Related Podcasts & Blogs

• Storage Unpacked 258 – Introducing Infinidat G4, InfuzeOS 8 and InfiniSafe ACP
• #202 – Enterprise Storage Consolidation with Phil Bullinger from Infinidat
• Infinidat adds customer value with SSA Express and improved SSA capacity

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