In this episode, Chris talks to Sharad Kumar, Field CTO at Qlik about the value of good-quality data when developing AI solutions. Much of the current discussion around AI and large-language models (LLMs) is focused on the infrastructure and the significant expense needed to build and train generative AI. However, as the revelation of DeepSeek shows, the industry trend will see models commoditise and become cheaper to train and run.

If infrastructure and software become quickly affordable, what is the differentiator for businesses? The answer is clearly their data. Data has value to an enterprise, but only if it is in an acceptable format. That means being of high quality and in terms of how Qlik operates, a trusted resource.

During the conversation, Sharad explains the six metrics of the Talend Trust Score, a methodology that measures the value of data based on Diversity, Timeliness, Accuracy, Security, Discoverability and Consumability. He explains how the Trust Score is calculated, but more importantly, how businesses can build a framework to continually improve the quality and value of their data resources.

More information on Qlik can be found on the company website – here. Sharad mentions the user conference taking place in May, details of which can be found here. Finally, Sharad references the Qlik LinkedIn page, which can be found here.

Elapsed Time: 00:47:47

• 00:00:00 – Introductions
• 00:01:46 – Data is the value piece within AI, not infrastructure
• 00:02:27 – What is occurring within the AI market?
• 00:04:25 – The future will be a mix of AI model types and sizes
• 00:05:20 – Will businesses build or buy models?
• 00:07:10 – How will agentic AI architectures work?
• 00:10:30 – Customers need to focus on data quality
• 00:12:44 – Both training and RAG data needs to be high quality
• 00:14:40 – Agentic AI wil be intent-driven
• 00:16:43 – What does good data look like within an enterprise?
• 00:19:28 – Qlik has a 6-dimensional trust score
• 00:26:11 – How do customers calculate their trust score?
• 00:30:09 – Is AI driving better data quality?
• 00:34:51 – Qlik can help customers develop a data improvement programme
• 00:37:36 – Qlik brings “product thinking” to data
• 00:38:56 – Where are businesses on the AI journey?
• 00:41:12 – How is improving data quality driving improving AI benefits?
• 00:42:26 – AI could be applied to fix data quality problems

Copyright (c) 2016-2025 Unpacked Network. No reproduction or re-use without permission. Podcast episode #ggc2

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

• 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

• 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

Copyright (c) 2016-2025 Unpacked Network. No reproduction or re-use without permission. Podcast episode #e4dr

In this episode, Chris discusses the enduring benefits of centralised storage, particularly with reference to storage virtualisation, with Dan Kogan, VP of Enterprise Growth and Solutions and Cody Hosterman, Senior Director of Product Management, both from Pure Storage.

Centralised or shared storage has been around for over 30 years, providing efficiencies in infrastructure and operational management. In the virtualisation context, centralisation provides the ability to abstract workloads from the hypervisor and add flexibility and data management features to a centrally managed platform. Vendors, such as Pure Storage, have invested resources in making centralised storage efficient, while also providing significant security benefits that couldn’t be achieved with an HCI model.

Although this discussion was intended to focus on centralisation, the ultimate conclusion of the conversation is to realise that centralised storage is a precursor to storage-as-a-service. This is where the industry is headed, whether using on-premises or public cloud infrastructure.

Elapsed Time: 00:35:34

• 00:00:00 – Intros
• 00:01:17 – Shared or Centralised Storage has become a perpetual feature of the data centre
• 00:02:00 – Where did centralised storage come from?
• 00:03:03 – VMware introduced compute efficiencies, centralised storage does the same
• 00:05:20 – Centralised storage now incorporates block, file and object protocols
• 00:07:10 – HCI was probably the biggest “challenge” to centralised storage
• 00:13:04 – Centralisation is bringing additional consolidation benefits
• 00:15:55 – Centralisation provides significant operational benefits
• 00:17:36 – Integrated storage (HCI) is inherently insecure compared to centralised storage
• 00:22:31 – Data mobility is a key requirement of modern enterprises
• 00:29:11 – Centralised storage is driving us towards storage-as-a-service.
• 00:31:10 – Storage is becoming an “endpoint”
• 00:32:31 – Wrap Up

• Analysis: Storage vendors assist in the optimisation of VMware workloads

Copyright (c) 2016-2024 Unpacked Network. No reproduction or re-use without permission. Podcast episode #jjr3

In this episode, Chris is in conversation with Jeb Horton, SVP Global Services at Hitachi Vantara, discussing the capabilities of Hitachi Vantara’s Global Services offerings, which deliver infrastructure management and infrastructure as a service to its customers.

In addition to EverFlex, Hitachi Vantara has a long history of managed services capabilities that span more than just outsourced storage. As Jeb explains, the company also manages storage infrastructure from other vendors, in addition to non-storage systems.

The interesting aspect of this discussion is the complex nature of the interaction between customers and Hitachi. Solutions offerings aren’t merely “transactional”, but have a human aspect and are tailored to meeting the specific goals of the customer. This conversation explores some of the nuances of working with customers to transfer the burden of infrastructure management to Hitachi, enabling businesses to focus on more strategic opportunities.

To learn more about Hitachi Vantara check out the Infrastructure as a Service section on the Hitachi website – https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/services/infrastructure-as-a-service.

Elapsed Time: 00:48:02

• 00:00:00 – Intros
• 00:01:43 – What is “Infrastructure as a Service”?
• 00:03:25 – What else to customers want from a service (other than cost saving)?
• 00:05:20 – Public cloud has increased the appetite for service-based consumption
• 00:06:24 – What is the core of the Hitachi Vantara services offering?
• 00:07:14 – Hitachi added automation into a “services platform”
• 00:10:26 – The human aspect involves skills but also relationships
• 00:12:20 – A service contract involves a detailed commercial model
• 00:13:51 – Service also means service levels and agreements
• 00:16:53 – Cloud is transactional, what is Hitachi’s “value add”?
• 00:19:45 – Data has value, which is the focus of service offerings
• 00:22:26 – How does Hitachi help government institutions?
• 00:26:50 – What sort of data issues does Hitachi deal with?
• 00:28:33 – Data and AI will be a key issue to manage
• 00:30:40 – How does the engagement process work with Hitachi (and what is EverFlex)?
• 00:37:15 – What are real-world examples of Hitachi customers and requirements?
• 00:46:51 – Wrap Up

• Hitachi Vantara Microsite
• Storage Unpacked 260 – Hitachi VSP One Updates with Dan McConnell
• Storage Unpacked 254 – Announcing VSP One and Hitachi Vantara Reorganisation

Copyright (c) 2016-2024 Unpacked Network. No reproduction or re-use without permission. Podcast episode #4d3x

In this recording, Chris talks to Subbiah Sundaram, SVP of Products at HYCU, Inc. about the 2024 edition of the HYCU State of SaaS Data Resilience Report. The report surveys customers to understand the gaps in perceived and actual data protection for SaaS platforms and the results are quite surprising. Subbiah walks through the top four findings, covering the understanding of the pervasive nature of SaaS in modern business, perceptions of data protection and the unexpected risks created by SaaS platforms.

HYCU provides a robust and comprehensive approach to SaaS data protection, called R-Graph, part of R-Cloud. We’ve covered these products in previous podcasts, shown in the related content section below. We recommend downloading the report, which can be found here – The State of SaaS Data Resilience in 2024. Details on R-Graph can be found here – R-Graph.

Elapsed Time: 00:39:59

• 00:00:00 – Intros
• 00:01:39 – What is the SaaS Resiliency Report for 2024?
• 00:02:23 – There are over 35,000 global SaaS applications
• 00:04:11 – SaaS has become embedded in business process
• 00:05:02 – Businesses underestimate SaaS applications by 10x
• 00:06:29 – Businesses don’t realise SaaS data isn’t protected like on-premises
• 00:09:20 – 61% of data breaches occur through SaaS platforms
• 00:13:40 – Businesses assume cloud platforms protect their data
• 00:15:18 – The reasons for data restoration are multi-fold and business related
• 00:17:47 – 75% of critical infrastructure (identity management) was not being protected
• 00:19:21 – All credentials management systems operate slightly differently
• 00:22:30 – Business process creates historical security exceptions
• 00:26:09 – use R-Graph to discover your application dependencies
• 00:27:42 – Protect your identity management systems
• 00:31:09 – R-Cloud enables anyone to add data integrations for backup
• 00:32:26 – Protect your endpoints, protect your data, protect your customer data
• 00:34:18 – Where does SaaS data protection go next? Tracking behaviour
• 00:37:14 – R-Cloud can be used for cross-environment data seeding
• 00:39:12 – Wrap Up

• Data Unpacked 006 – Introducing HYCU R-Cloud
• Data Unpacked 004 – Reflections on Data Management, Security & Protection With HYCU CEO Simon Taylor
• Research Note: HYCU extends SaaS Integration with R-Scout and Generative AI
• HYCU expands SaaS and IaaS backup with protection for AWS Infrastructure as Code
• HYCU tackles the SaaS data protection challenge with the announcement of R-Cloud

Copyright (c) 2016-2024 Unpacked Network. No reproduction or re-use without permission. Podcast episode #vcxz

In this podcast episode, Chris is in conversation with Jeffries Briginshaw (Head of EMEA Government Relations at NetApp) and Adam Gale (CTO for AI & Cyber Security, NetApp) discussing the EU AI Act and the regulation of artificial intelligence across the world. The EU AI Act is an early introduction into the regulation of the use of AI by businesses within their engagements and interactions with customers. As explained in this conversation, there are classifications of AI types and within that, restrictions on what businesses are permitted to implement based on those categorisations. Some AI usage will be banned, while others will require human intervention and close monitoring.

How should your business engage with AI and ensure compliance with the act? Listen to the discussion for more details. As mentioned in the recording, for details on what NetApp can offer, point your favourite browser to https://www.netapp.com/artificial-intelligence/ to learn more.

Elapsed Time: 00:52:17

• 00:00:00 – Intros
• 00:01:19 – Why should we be regulating AI?
• 00:02:30 – What will the impacts of AI be on personal and work life?
• 00:03:55 – What if we get regulation wrong?
• 00:05:30 – What happens if AI goes wrong, such as data poisoning?
• 00:09:04 – Existing EU/UK law has been successful at regulation (GDPR)
• 00:10:25 – What is the EU AI Act?
• 00:11:46 – “Prohibited Practices” will be banned from 2025
• 00:14:00 – How will the use of business in AI be regulated?
• 00:18:05 – The EU AI Act appears to focus on protection for individuals
• 00:20:56 – EU citizens are broadly positive to AI – if it is successfully regulated
• 00:21:52 – Compliance has an overhead – in terms of hard costs (developers)
• 00:25:20 – What are the penalties for not complying with the EU AI Act?
• 00:29:50 – What about the rest of the world – the US and elsewhere?
• 00:35:10 – Could we see “cross-border” complexity?
• 00:37:40 – What are the technology implications for AI regulation?
• 00:40:07 – Should businesses be demonstrating their AI compliance?
• 00:44:03 – What does NetApp offer customers to help AI compliance?
• 00:47:38 – AI will require a “big red stop button”
• 00:50:00 – Wrap Up

Copyright (c) 2016-2024 Unpacked Network. No reproduction or re-use without permission. Podcast episode #dfsx

In this podcast episode, Chris discusses the platform update announcements from Pure Accelerate 2024 with Prakash Darji, VP and GM of the Digital Experience BU at Pure Storage. The new features focus on usability and operational enhancements, including AI-based features and support for AI workloads. Highlighted in this discussion are:

• Fusion automation enhancements for fleet management and individual arrays
• New Generative AI Copilot for storage to provide querying capabilities and advice
• Evergreen//One for AI – an AI-level tier of Storage-as-a-Service
• NVIDIA SuperPOD Ethernet Certification
• Secure application Workspaces using Portworx
• Cyber Recovery and Resilience SLAs
• Security Assessment SLA
• AI-Powered Anomaly Detection enhancements
• Site Rebalance SLA
• AI-Powered Reserve Expansion recommendations

As the list shows, there are lots of new updates to make the management and operation of a Pure Storage fleet more efficient and easy. As Prakash explains the reasoning behind the features, it is clear that AI is being used to deliver simplicity, while the platform will provide support for customers wanting to build AI-focused workloads.

To learn more, follow the news from Pure Accelerate 2024 here (link). Prakash mentions two blog posts, which can be found here – Ransomware is a Darwinian Problem That Will Never Be Solved and Editorial: Why Centralised Storage Refuses to Go Away.

Elapsed Time: 00:38:33

• 00:00:00 – Intros
• 00:00:51 – It’s not all about AI!
• 00:01:34 – What changes have been announced to the Pure Storage platform?
• 00:02:37 – New features include cybersecurity enhancements and simplicity of management
• 00:03:30 – How do we manage systems at scale?
• 00:04:27 – Applications need policy management
• 00:05:08 – Fusion has been enhanced to enable array or fleet management at the same time
• 00:08:10 – Pure is introducing a GenAI Copilot in preview
• 00:12:19 – Evergreen now has an AI storage-as-a-service tier
• 00:14:00 – Pay for performance and capacity is a feature of Evergreen
• 00:15:55 – SuperPod certification for Ethernet is coming to Pure Storage arrays
• 00:16:40 – There must be many Jensen clones
• 00:18:27 – Pure is introducing secure application workspaces using Portworx
• 00:22:32 – New cybersecurity features include a security assessment for configuration settings
• 00:23:19 – There is also a security SLA for fixing and certificating security settings
• 00:24:01 – The AI Copilot will also recommend security improvements
• 00:24:32 – Anomaly detection is now performance-based, looking at typical profiles
• 00:30:45 – Reserve expansion recommendation is now AI-powered
• 00:31:55 – Reserve commit across sites can now be rebalanced once per year
• 00:33:40 – It’s easy for storage to become fragmented between sites
• 00:36:27 – When will the new features be made available?
• 00:37:45 – Wrap Up

• Storage Unpacked 259 – Sustainable Storage in the World of AI with Shawn Rosemarin
• Storage Unpacked 257 – The Future of Data Storage in the Enterprise
• Storage Unpacked 252 – A Vision of Storage Future with Coz from Pure Storage
• Storage Unpacked 251 – Modernising Storage as a Service with Prakash Darji
• Pure Storage Microsite
• X-Ray: Pure Storage, Inc.

Copyright (c) 2016-2024 Unpacked Network. No reproduction or re-use without permission. Podcast episode #

In this podcast episode, Chris catches up with Dan McConnell, Senior VP for Product Management at Hitachi Vantara. The company recently announced VSP One Block, a new mid-range appliance for block storage. This follows on from two product announcements in April, which we covered in this Research Note, and the restructuring of Hitachi Vantara announced towards the end of last year (see this Research Note).

Dan discusses VSP One Block, an appliance that targets mid-range storage requirements. He also covers VSP One SDS, a software-defined solution which runs in AWS and on-premises. The third product announcement covers file, with VSP One File, the latest iteration of the technology that came from the BlueArc acquisition over a decade ago.

You can find out more about the Block Storage Appliance here (link and here). Details on the VSP One SDS announcement can be found here (link), which includes details on VSP One File.

Elapsed Time: 00:15:29

• 00:00:00 – Intros
• 00:01:18 – April 2024 announcement – VSP One SDS & VSP File
• 00:02:00 – Hitachi blog products use SVOS
• 00:03:13 – VSP one SDS is scale-out
• 00:03:51 – VSP File is the evolution of previous file-based products
• 00:05:16 – The VSP One family introduces consistent management & hybrid support
• 00:06:24 – EverFlex introduces multiple consumption models
• 00:08:30 – VSP Block 20 is the next generation mid-range storage array
• 00:10:10 – Dynamic Carbon Reduction optimises power usage by workload demand
• 00:12:03 – What comes next?
• 00:13:15 – Cloud storage products shouldn’t be a “lift and shift”
• 00:14:47 – Wrap Up

• Research Note: Hitachi Vantara VSP One reaches GA
• Research Note: Hitachi Vantara reorganises and announces VSP One Platform
• Hitachi Vantara Microsite
• X-Ray: Hitachi Vantara
• Storage Unpacked 254 – Announcing VSP One and Hitachi Vantara Reorganisation with Gary Lyng

Copyright (c) 2016-2024 Unpacked Network. No reproduction or re-use without permission. Podcast episode #4dcx