Steve McDowell  0:03  
Hey, welcome to another DataCentric podcast, Matt. 

Matt Kimball  0:06  
Hey, Steve, how are you doing, buddy? Who is our guest? You might be asking. I know, why don't you tell us. 

Steve McDowell  0:13  
So we've been talking a lot about the rise of edge and pushing enterprises infrastructure out of the data center or extending the data center, not just the cloud, but the edge. Our guest is Scott Hamilton.. it's familiar because we follow Western Digital. He's Senior Director of Product Management marketing, for Western Digital platforms, business unit, and the platform's business unit. He'll tell us about it. But they do a lot of things that aren't just storage. And very recently, about a month ago, they announced they announced a new, a new set of edge offerings that are very, you know, one is a little bit mainstream, but the other is extremely ruggedized and militarized. Scott's going to talk about well, let's just tune in and let you listen to what Scott's gonna talk. 

So hi, Scott, welcome. Welcome to the podcast. I'll let you introduce yourself. what's what's your role at Western Digital? 

Scott Hamilton  1:13  
Nice thing first, great to spend some time with you. So yes, my name is Scott Hamilton and I Product Marketing for Western Digital's platforms business yet. What some platforms business unit that that's more than just storage? And? Yeah, that's a great question. So platforms business unit, obviously, we've got two device business units, we have the SSD and the HDD, business units that you're very familiar with. Take those devices for certain customers and integrate those devices, and provides them differentiated solutions. So we've got some bugs j boss, we have specialized servers, one of which we're going to talk about today, you'll start in server, and then we also have some CDI solutions for the composable disaggregated. Infrastructure market. 

Steve McDowell  2:07  
Oh, actually, you know what I said we were going to talk about edge. Can I ask you about? Can I ask you about the composable infrastructure space a little bit? First? You have open flex, right? You've had open flex there for a while? How is that going? Is that a segment of the market? That's, that remains interesting. 

Scott Hamilton  2:25  
Absolutely, absolutely. We we first entered this market in about 2018, we launched made a couple of big splashes at FMS 2018, when architecture, an open API, and also products, and it's really been an interesting journey. It was all kind of seeding, you know, the future of data infrastructures. And I think it's taken a bit of time to your point, or what you encouraged. But we're, we're seeing this really starts to come to fruition where people are, you know, they're looking at NVMe, they're looking at the standardization of NVMe over Fabrics. And they're looking to get the benefits of, you know, accelerated shared storage, and being able to take those resources and provide greater flexibility for different environments and use cases. Okay, yeah. And I think you're right, I think it's a market. That's, it's still launching, in a sense, right. But as we, as we look at how it is, you know, all it, all IT infrastructure now seems to be software defined. And we're continuing that trend. And I think products like open flex, just kind of slot right in there. So it's good to see there. What I really wanted to talk about today is, is edge computing. So I spent a lot of time looking at, looking at it infrastructure architecture, and talking to it practitioners about, you know, what they're thinking about what they're concerned about what's going to change their job in terms of how they think about delivering it services to their customers, which are the businesses, right that they support. But, you know, edge is interesting, because it moves processing closer to where data is generated. But that also makes edge as much or more of a data problem, I think, because it does compute and networking. How's Western Digital, looking at the space? That's a great question. And I would agree, you know, we've got from a device perspective, we have a significant presence from, you know, the cloud or enterprise data center all the way up to the device edge, if you will. From the platform's perspective, no surprise that we've got presence in both enterprise and cloud data centers with various access fees. And then with the advent of trying to get, as you said, at the extreme means the data and the processing and the user, the user could be people, it could be things, getting those closer together. We've seen edge data centers pop up all over, right? We all have. And then what, what the ultrastar edge, which we'll be talking about, does extend that even further and brings a potential thought of like experience, but maybe in some non traditional environments, maybe not your traditional data center, you know, centralized or edge, what makes it what makes it different at the edge? How does edge? How do I think about edge differently than than I do? My data center storage. It's, it's kind of a microcosm of that it's trying to bring compute and storage all together to be able to enable new use cases, ai ml, in a variety of different markets, and avoid the otherwise the latency that you would have at data capture. I mean, data has been captured everywhere. And to avoid the latency of data capture, transit, transitioning that to the centralized cloud, and then back, I mean, that could be too late in many instances. So it's a it's kind of a microcosm of both like experience in some interesting environments that no doubt we'll talk about,

Steve McDowell  6:17  
You said an interesting thing there, which was AI at the edge. And as we look at the proliferation of edge devices, and what's happening there it you know, the ability to do inference, and training, the ability to do inference and reinforcement learning and things like that, at the edge are introducing some really exciting use cases. Does the rise of AI impact what you're delivering? Are these machines? We're about to talk about AI capable? 

Scott Hamilton  6:50  
Yeah, absolutely. You know, like I said, it's a mix of more traditional compute GPU, and then storage. And it's kind of a blend of that we can get into some of the specifics, but it's really some of the AI real time analytics, the inference that you're talking about, some of those things are driving, you know, this, this cloud edge, if you will. And I think the more and more of those applications become prevalent, I think we'll see this, this edge just continue to expand. Let's, let's let's get a little more specific, right and drill down a little bit. So about a month ago, you guys Western Digital, announced that you were extending your existing ultrastar storage server line to the edge and you announced a couple of flavors. ultrastar, what you're calling ultrastar edge. But this is more than just storage, right? What is it? What is it that ultrastar edge is delivering? It's delivering storage, as you just noted, it's all NVMe, about 16 terabytes of flash storage. It also includes dual CPUs, with an aggregate capability of 40 cores. And also includes a GPU, a T for for AI ml tasks, and of course, network connection. And then we'll get into as we evolve the discussion, we'll get into the two different flavors that you just alluded to. Well, let's let's talk about let's jump right there. It's like one thing that caught my eye, right, because I'm, uh, you know, I think every x engineer gets geeked out by kind of ruggedized, militarized industrial Civ ultra storage, Mr. Right, which is a really intense package as your description is militarized, and ruggedized. Are you seeing a lot of demand for these environmentally resilient form factors? Yeah, we actually are. And we, quite candidly, we were pretty explicit in making that sort of positioning and understanding of it in both ruggedized and militarized. I think you and I've been around the block a bit. And I think we've seen a variety of devices that, you know, have been ruggedized to some degree. And, you know, that's, that's great. It provides some protection, I carry a bunch of devices. And, you know, it can be kind of clumsy at times. And so having a little ruggedization never hurts, right. But we're also seeing some much harsher environments than kind of what your typical ruggedization might require, whether it be the military, or even if it was, you know, scientific exploration for energy or environmental research, etc. Where you're going to be exposed to much harsher environments, right, whether it be shocking vibe, whether it be thermals, or temperature, etc. And then the military part of it just raises the bar, if you will, to just another level. 

Steve McDowell  9:54  
Yeah, so you touched on a couple of really interesting use cases right around energy exploration and scientific.. I think military we can kind of we can kind of conceptualize, right. we all we all know what happens in the military, especially some of the places where those operations are happening today. But in the commercial sector, right, do you have some favorite, favorite use cases or customer stories of where they're deploying ?

Scott Hamilton  10:18  
I mean, maybe a little early for storage, but these sorts of these sorts of solutions. Absolutely, it is early. So it'll be interesting to see the breadth as we continue this journey, but certainly when we think about factories or industrial sort of IoT, manufacturing, and warehousing, any anywhere now, where the benefit of real time sort of analytics and things as we talked about earlier will come to play. 5g is also pretty motivational, right, in terms of, you know, fleet management and or transportation, autonomous vehicles. So there are a variety of things that we think will come to fruition, a bit more on that commercial side, if you will, different than some of the scientific and militarized applications. So I'll just start anyway, this is a beefy package, right, in terms of the specs that you just laid out, is there is their call for, you know, edge solutions, maybe in a smaller, more compact package with less capabilities? Or is this is this for, you know, WD thinks there's a sweet spot? Well, we think there's a sweet spot here. But your point is a good one. As you know, as we look at the edge, and I think this is an evolving journey, and marketplace, I think we're actually engaged with a variety of customers that are looking for a variety of alternatives. As much as we might like a one size fits all, I just don't think that that's necessarily the case. You see the edges, because it's fairly early. It's somewhat bifurcated in different industries and segments. And there's some purpose built there. So what we tried to do with the ultrastar edge, is be able to provide a balance of that CPU, GPU and storage to meet a variety of use cases. But we are seeing in it, like I said, engaging with customers that maybe want smaller form factor, maybe less capacity, more GPU, a few different, a few different configurations. So I think we'll see that under the ultrastar edge family as we go forward. 

Steve McDowell  12:34  
Okay, and just on the commercial side of specific verticals, or application types, do you think are seeing more traction than others? I know, for the ruggedized, you know, he gave a couple of examples. But, you know, just kind of looking over Western Digital's customer base, and I'm sure you're talking to your customers, you know, is there a hotspot for interest here? Or is it just, you know, kind of kind of general set of capabilities needed and these locations? 

Scott Hamilton  12:58  
I think there's a general set, but I do think that we're going to see prevalence in some of the industrial or some of the, you know, transportation, autonomous vehicles. I think, even in m&a if you think about, you know, a lot of times there's capture, but the will to do some capture and, and some compute, you know, rather than transport it all back somewhere. I think there's applicability and business opportunity there as well. 

Steve McDowell  13:28  
So M&E is a good one. And that's not one I've thought about. But if you think about the amount of data that's being captured, right on on a TV or movie production, especially as we're rolling forward toward 8k, in this rapidly evolving space, and edge is honestly I think one of the most, most exciting areas of it. Looking forward right at I think, you know, ultrastar edge edge Mr. are giving Western or Western Digital, a great platform on which to build. But what are customers asking for? Maybe not just a WD but of the industry? What are we what are we not delivering to the edge that you think we should be right? Where are you focused?

Unknown Speaker  14:05  
Well, when it comes to servers, we're focused on some specialized servers. I mean, if you think about we have a unique opportunity, because we've got a platform expertise and a wealth of device expertise. So we're looking at unique opportunities for collective customers that we can solve some problems that perhaps haven't been solved. And so, you know, this started with as I alluded to earlier, we have presence within more traditional data centers, whether it be enterprise or and then as the edge data centers have moved out. Then many of our customers then said, Well, we need some transport devices. That's how this journey first began. And not everybody has their own equivalent of a Amazon snowball example So we started that journey, but then with, you know, new applications and use cases. And as we discussed earlier, you don't have the luxury to transport the data in certain applications and use cases. So then they wanted a, you know, an all in one, if you will edge and compute some combination, to be able to provide that data processing there as opposed to just capture or moving data from side to side. So, some of those customers that are very familiar with us devices, obviously, in platforms, they said, Hey, can you help us fill this gap for us both in the commercial space? And in the, in the military space? Right? Okay. I'll circle back to capabilities because it's a gap in my knowledge. What's an IT administrator, I'm deploying one of the solutions on the on the on the edge? What's the software experience look like? Does this look like just another server and I put my software load on there are you delivering as Western Digital delivering capabilities on top of this, that might get the edge friendly and address some of the manageability quirks that happen at the edge? That's a great question. And focus is to provide the platform. So we partner we either have our customers that then put their cloud software on top of the platform, and then provide the overall solution as a service are now offering to their end users. And or we partner with select system integrators that also effectively do the same sort of thing, Steve, is on the platform, and then we partner either with the customer that we sell to that then provides the cloud services. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. You know, you're enabling your channel partners. And and, you know, edge is a is a play is a little bit different from traditional enterprise IT and that it's a very channel driven, it's a very hard driven still kind of world, right? Where you doing all of these solutions that are based around verticals and things like that. So I think it makes a lot of sense to deliver a solution like this that's looking at a platform on which that they can deliver their solution, if I understand you correctly. Yes, he talked about some of the segments that we look for there, you know, there are certain size that are very proficient, and influential in those different segments. So it's, you know, rather than us have to be everything to everybody. We can either sell to our, you know, our cloud customers, and Xs peas are those that size, and then they can leverage their expertise, and then provide the service offering. Extra. 

Steve McDowell  17:52  
Hey, so I'm going to let you ask yourself the last question. So what what did we not touch on in the space that you wish we had? Would that not ask you that I should have? 

Scott Hamilton  18:04  
Well, maybe it's a bit more of a double click, you know, it's a little bit of what's differentiated about the platform. Like I said, a lot of people can put a server together and meet certain conditions or environments. On the commercial side, we've, obviously we've done all of that. And it can be deployed in a variety of ways they can go into that traditional edge data center, we've got a transportable case, that's more of a commercial case. It just makes it easy for different sorts of use cases. On the militarized side, that's, that's really raising the bar. Because in those sorts of use cases and applications, many of which they will never know about you and I writewhat sort of vehicles they'll be deployed on, and what sort of environments still, truly experience could be an analogy degree. But what we've done there is we've made something not only that's ruggedized. But if you think about, you know, mission critical services, services like that, sometimes you won't be connected. Oftentimes, you don't want to be connected, right? Because it's covered. And so basically, what we've done with these new standards or mediums, no standards is not only we made something rugged, you can undergo more shock and vibration and thermals. But we've suppressed the emissions, whether it be radiative or conductive, so then, things can be super covert. So now you've got whether you're connected or not. And these can be clustered in places you've got this many, many cloud like experience. That is, like I said, it's not in a traditional data center and it may be somewhat transitory. And you're delivering this in a Is it a two year or four year package. The commercial's a 2U, and the ruggedized unit, is it really.. It's a good question. I guess I haven't really thought about it. Because it's it's not really recommendable, the one that's ruggedized, because it's all self contained. It's tamper evident, and it's got all that suppression and protection. 

Steve McDowell  20:17  
Sure, yeah. I'm looking at a picture of it now. And we'll put, we'll put links to this in the show notes. So you can see it as well. But yeah, it's a it's a big, rectangular piece of plastic. I think that's plastic. 

Scott Hamilton  20:31  
Yeah, it's very rugged. And then, you know, we basically did do that suppression. I mean, think about, you know, both of us being former engineers, you alluded to that before, it effectively has a Faraday cage around it, and other electronics to suppress the 3d they haven't conducted emissions. Oh, okay. Okay. into that regard. It's like I said, this is not for the faint of heart. 

Steve McDowell  20:54  
Yeah, I missed that on the spec sheet. So you got a Faraday cage wrapped up in there? And I'm guessing, vibration dampening as well. 

Scott Hamilton  21:03  
Absolutely. Yeah. That's less critical, I think today than it was a decade ago with all NVMe. Right, you don't have any spinning parts in here. But you got bands, I'm guessing and some other mechanical pieces? Well, like I said, some of the vehicles are sea based, or, you know, like I said, who knows. So they come, they encounter some pretty harsh environments and vibe. 

Steve McDowell  21:26  
So I think that's a good place to wrap up started just as a, you know, edge. Again, I think edge is one of the most fascinating sectors of it. And what you're delivering here, I think, is tremendous platform on which to go and build solutions. So I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to us. 

Scott Hamilton  21:47  
Thank you very much, Steve. We're definitely excited about this, and happy to share where we're going with you on this. 

Steve McDowell  21:55  
So that was interesting Matt. And that's..

Matt Kimball  21:58  
You know, I have to tell you, when I think traditionally think of Western Digital, you know, obviously you think, you know, storage, so on and so forth. And being a server guy, I didn't realize how deep their portfolio was. 

Steve McDowell  22:16  
Yeah, no, it is. And what I really liked, in a way to think about Western Digital and kind of the grand scheme of things is, they're making platforms that are very SI and channel friendly. Right? They're, they're, you know, while traditional OEMs might bring a little bit of bias to the solution. What Western Digital is delivering is kind of an open platform that the sides can then layer on their vertical specific solutions, like, you know, is especially in a market like edge where every application and workload seems to be a little bit different. In a very SI heavy market, I think that makes a lot of sense. 

Matt Kimball  22:54  
Yes. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. That's where the, for the players in the market is. And you're right for those. For those verticals, they rely very heavily on those trusted integrators and true Value Added resellers, like true bars to deliver a tailored solution, so that's a smart approach for them. 

Steve McDowell  23:16  
It really is. Now, I think the best value add that you and I can deliver to our listeners right now is to let them go. And let's just end this podcast right now.

Matt Kimball  23:26  
Are you ready Stevie? Are you gonna sing us out? Joy we had fun. We had seasons... Take it away Stevie

Transcribed by https://otter.ai