I’m still thinking about Falshblade… announced yesterday, here at Pure Storage //Accelerate event.
Take this with a grain of salt but, looking at the blade, it’s interesting to note that it’s still a Linux based x86 server (standard intel CPU and RAM).
Put another CPU and some more RAM in the blade and you’ll have a great, Flash optimized, Hyper-converged system with an amazingly fast network interconnection. Which also means 0 bottlenecks!
I don’t think about it as a general purpose HCI, like Nutanix or Simplivity. I’m thinking more at it as a much more specialized system, running containers for specific workloads (Like Big Data Analytics for example).
It wouldn’t be the first case, Cohesity, HDS with HSP and Coho are already working on similar solutions in this space… but, again, such a product would be great!
Side note: I really love the Flashblade lights on the bezel… it looks like a Cylon’s eye or KITT of The Knight Rider… depending on your age, I suppose. 😉
Disclaimer: I was personally invited to attend Pure //Accelerate, with Pure Storage covering my travel and accommodation costs. However I was not compensated for my time. I am not required to blog on any content; blog posts are not edited or reviewed by Pure before publication.
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Had just the same thoughts watching the keynote. Hyperconvergence is allready in the hands of storage devellopers, leaving to server manufacturers the bare metal. It will probably turn out that the next generation of appliances will be engineered by storage folks, and all a matter of SDS and flash with cores and RAM sitting as close as possible.