Flash Memory Summit, Western Digital Keynote Live Blog

03:20PM EDT - Second Keynote for us: Western Digital

03:20PM EDT - These keynotes are thick and fast

03:20PM EDT - Unfortunately they turned the lights on which makes photos of the screens pretty bad

03:21PM EDT - I think someone leaned on the switch and no-one is senior enough to tell someone to turn them off

03:21PM EDT - Talk is called 'The Future of Data Infrastructure'

03:22PM EDT - Phil Bullinger

03:22PM EDT - SVP and GM of Datacenter Systems

03:24PM EDT - Economy is becoming data driven

03:26PM EDT - Moving from records, to communications, to efficiency, to currency

03:26PM EDT - Developed in richness and value

03:26PM EDT - Data is two main things: Big Data and Fast Data

03:26PM EDT - Not just buzzwords, but actual workloads

03:27PM EDT - This is driving a lot of the data processing and infrastructure

03:27PM EDT - The final word is precision

03:28PM EDT - Data Interaction has changed, to create, deliver, transform, and access

03:29PM EDT - Data is pooled and shared by multiple applications

03:29PM EDT - Dynamic workloads are increasing

03:30PM EDT - 45% of compute resources are unused, but 70% report inefficiencies in their storage resources

03:31PM EDT - Demands are around data infrastructure: Scalability, Efficiency, Agility, Performance

03:31PM EDT - Critical to raise efficiency in the datacenter

03:33PM EDT - The future is the Data Infrastructre Revolution

03:34PM EDT - Moving from Converged infrastructure to Composable Infrastructure

03:35PM EDT - Disaggregated compute and storage resources to scale with requirements

03:35PM EDT - Taking the next tep is key

03:36PM EDT - Software infrastructures allows for indepdent resources tiers

03:36PM EDT - Erases the physicality of the barriers between resources

03:36PM EDT - By relying on a fabric environment

03:37PM EDT - 'A very robust solution'

03:37PM EDT - The net takeaway, WD believes that economic advantages are very real

03:37PM EDT - ~50% savings in CapEX, 40% lower TCO verse hyperconverged

03:38PM EDT - WD's vision is built on four pillars: Open Standards, Scalable, Disaggregated, Extensible

03:38PM EDT - Define and refine both software APIs and hardware

03:39PM EDT - Opening up the hardware form factor

03:40PM EDT - Get to a model where resources are physically separate for scalability

03:41PM EDT - systems are composed between a data fabric and a memory fabric

03:41PM EDT - peers come together, no discrete systems

03:41PM EDT - The new 'fabric' device

03:42PM EDT - Controllers speak to a network, not to a host

03:42PM EDT - Fabric-focused systems

03:42PM EDT - Fabric endpoints should be simple devices, and peers of each other

03:43PM EDT - Mix and match

03:44PM EDT - Today introducing OpenFLEX

03:44PM EDT - https://www.anandtech.com/show/13180/western-digital-announces-openflex-architecture-and-nvmeof-storage-devices

03:44PM EDT - A new range of fabric devices

03:45PM EDT - F3000 device and E3000 enclosure - high perf, low latency for fast data: AI, real time analytics, IoT

03:45PM EDT - D3000 Fabric Device: High capacity for big data, batch analytics, machine learning, predictive modeling

03:46PM EDT - Demonstrated on the show floor at the show

03:46PM EDT - 'Don't think about these as a JBOD'

03:46PM EDT - Openflex management API

03:46PM EDT - New API called Kingfish

03:47PM EDT - orchestrating fabric devices as fabric devices

03:47PM EDT - Working with industry to make this an open API to create simplicity at scale

03:47PM EDT - A critical part of the strategy

03:48PM EDT - WD creating their own orchestration layer software

03:48PM EDT - Creating new instances in seconds, optimizing to the unique needs of an application or workload. Built on kingfish

03:49PM EDT - WD OpenFlex: 'committed to an open approach, positioned to accelerate market adoption'

03:49PM EDT - Demos at booth 207

03:50PM EDT - That's a wrap!