Transcript: Seagate's Sherman Black: Dense Drives for Enterprise

This transcript is from a PodTech.net podcast at:
http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/1694/seagates-sherman-black-dense-drives-for-enterprise

Sherman Black - Seagate
Michael Johnson - PodTech

Michael Johnson - PodTech
This is Michael Johnson and welcome to another Seagate Podcast. I have on the line with me Sherman Black who is the Senior Vice President and General Manager at Seagate, and today we're going to be talking about some of the new spaces that Seagate will be entering and some of the market forces and ideas that are driving some of the changes in storage. Welcome to the Podcast Mr. Black.

Sherman Black - Seagate
Great to be here Michael, thank you.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
Tell me a little about what's going on there at Seagate. I know there has been a shift now that some smaller form factors, can we talk about some of the issues that are involved in it.

Sherman Black - Seagate
Yeah. We've actually been driving -- working with some of our partnership for the last couple of years, trying to determine, at what point does it make a sense to really start to shrink the footprint of these drives. We pull the trigger on that and we've got that in progress now, and we've couple it, and conjunction with both of form factor and a serial interface to really provide the customer's a path to design some really interesting packaging, and that packaging is delivering things like improved airflow, as well as really enabling them to do a lot better job of server consolidation.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
Now, there's a lot of issues that have been involved in this certainly, every company from companies that make chips, to companies that make any kind of these boxes, power including as a really important factor and this especially becomes important when you're talking about some of the new needs of the network with. You're going to have a large amount of data that you're need to store and then you're going to need to store it all in one place. Can you talk a little bit about some of those power including issues and how that plays a factors, especially when we're talking about the large amounts a data that are going to be sort of needed to be available for some of the new technologies and some of the new net services that are available.

Sherman Black - Seagate
Yeah. Some of the trends we're seeing right now, is and we sit down and work with our partners as they do data center design with the end users, what we're seeing is, is much concern regarding operation cost as we see around acquisition cost. So there's as much focus on what the total cost of ownership is, one say scale up a data center as just the initial cost to do that.

And so, the types of problem we've been trying assist with is looking at basic power consumption and one of the key matrix that our customers are starting to put back to us, a driving matrix is Watts per Gigabyte. So, our efforts to continue to find ways to increase aerial density and really find what is the right combination design points to fill a certain application, for example; Internet data centers are business critical line of products has really tailored to do that and provide those customers with the best total cost of ownership package. Our really finding ways to improve their operating cost in addition to providing the best acquisition cost.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
Now, this is kind of a new territory. I think, it's been emerging territory for a company like Seagate. There's had to be a lot of sort of change in the way that one approaches the idea of what a data center is and how one storing that information. Tell me a little bit about, what some of the needs would be in the network versus , a direct attached storage need and what some of those differences are? And how that's changed?

Sherman Black - Seagate
Let me take, maybe a little different approach in trying they categorize, the types of data centers. For example; a traditional data center for an enterprise office type of environment, the focus was on extreme data integrity and another words you could not a lose a bit, or have any kind of a corruption whatsoever, that's typical for a traditional data center application. So, we've designed our enterprise products to really accommodate that. The thing we've seen emerging here over the last couple of years has been the type of content that the Internet data center are driving is really a lot different than the traditional data centers and these are very rich in terms of media and the types of data integrity and performance attributes are really a lot different than some of our traditional applications we served.

So we try to answer that with our Barracuda PS class, our products I think, we've been able to respond to that both, as I said earlier around operating cost, as well as acquisition cost, but really that totally different approach that we continue to find ways to draft major product lines, to serve the various needs that the tier storage stack.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
So, as we go forward with some of the new needs of the network, more people using a video online, there's a lot of information out there and people are going to be expecting all of this information and all of this data to be kind of flowing at them for free. Now, this seems like this could be a kind of a great opportunity for a company like Seagate. Can you talk a little bit about that storage boom, that's taking place and it's that I guess some of the factors that are driving it on the net?

Sherman Black - Seagate
So, I think we're very excited about some of the usage modes we're seeing today as opposed to some of the more traditional ones. As I said earlier some of the new trends we're seeing around the Internet data centers, the content is extremely rich and by that I mean it's a lot more than just spreadsheets and databases and things like that.

The types of media that are being sent across the Internet really present a tremendous opportunity for Seagate and the disk drive industry, to step up and provide customers a path to not only track to the acquisition's cost, enable these new business models, but also provide something that fits well, withn the ecological concerns of the world going forward and that is a really, a drive that has focused on power reduction and providing the best Watts per Gigabyte usage model as you can and our Barracudas ES drives are really aligned well to that.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
How's a company like Seagate had to think differently about what it does, about the products that it uses, given that the landscape has really changed in just the last three years with the onsite of the video? How was thinking changed internally?

Sherman Black - Seagate
Yeah I think our enterprise organization has always been focused on, number one is; data integrity' and that's not to say that we're not still focused on data integrity, but along with that, our customers were always driving around performance and that's just speed and speed how fast can you move the data? How fast can you access it? As these new applications emerge we find that there're different driving matrix and its really a lot more focus on cost per Gigabyte and Watts per Gigabyte and we actually look at those two driving matrix, then allows you to, if you say that's my priority, you really approach the design of the drive a little differently than you do, on some of the more traditional enterprise opportunities.

And this is really a key market force because it is a just a tremendously quick moving space I think, it still being formed in terms of some of the customers demands, some of the business models, you're seeing some succeed, some fail. And so we're still navigating through that, but the bottom line is, is still moving up into the right on the growth chart and its very attractive market force and one we're well positioned for.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
If looks like to find out a little bit more about the Barracuda ES, classical drives and some of the other things that Seagate has been doing, is there -- can they go to the website?

Sherman Black - Seagate
Absolutely. Go to our website and I think the thing I can tell you the consideration looking for, a drive to run your Internet data center or to serve your tier storage needs, keep in mind Seagate has a tremendous legacy in the enterprise space and we've taken that decades of experience and we apply that to serving this new fast exploding market segment and I think we've got some great products to answer for that.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
And that would be at seagate.com?

Sherman Black - Seagate
That's correct.

Michael Johnson - PodTech
www.seagate.com. Sherman Black is the Senior Vice President and General Manager for Seagate, it's been great talking with you on the Podcast today.

Sherman Black - Seagate
Michael, thank you very much for your time.