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- ABOUT
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(US and Canada) Ken Steinhardt, Field Chief Technology Officer, INFINIDAT, speaks with Mark Johnson, Regional VP, Fusion Alliance (and Editorial Board Chair, CDO Magazine), about the change in performance requirements and the need for seamless availability today.
Regarding performance, Steinhardt says that the requirements have changed over the years, especially with the cloud. Whether it's cloud, cloud adjacent, hybrid cloud, or private cloud, the issues have changed. In the early days of computing, however, performance used to be mainly concerned about bandwidth.
He explains that as technology progressed over the decades, things changed rapidly and most good solutions available for most sources in the market today can meet almost all requirements for bandwidth and IOs per second.
Steinhardt cites the example of a car that can run 1,000 miles per hour but the requirement is only 80-90 miles per hour most of the time. Similarly, performance today isn’t only about bandwidth, but also how quickly one can respond to users — the latency.
He explains that IOs per second, bandwidth, and latency are the three legs of performance, but latency is the one that matters most in today’s market. It’s all about response time and the “ever unachievable level of zero latency” or perfection. The providers that continue to get closest to that will have major differentiation in terms of providing added value to customers in the market.
Regarding the changing requirement for availability in the modern digital transformation scenario, Steinhardt says that organizations need to be 100% available forever. Even as technology changes, they need to be able to move to new technology without shutting or slowing anything down. There is a need for nondisruptive operations as they move from today's generation of technology to the next.
In conclusion, he explains that while it might look like an expensive investment initially, moving to higher service levels and abilities will actually reduce costs individually and for the organization.