Transcript of online chat with Jim Rothnie. Sept. 27, 2000
Wed Sep 27 12:03:25 2000 emc_host {public msg} Welcome to EMC.com's chat with Jim Rothnie, our Senior Vice President of Product Management. Over the next hour, Dr. Rothnie (Jim) will take your questions on the intersection of storage and optical networking and the market opportunities the convergence is creating.
12:07:22 2000 alexe {question presented} Am interested in hearing Jim's perception of the competitive landscape (eg Network Appliance, Sun) as it relates to storage and optical networking market opportunities.
12:11:30 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} The storage market is huge and opportunity rich. We're attacking all sectors. NTAP sells NAS appliances primarily for departmental use. EMC's NAS product Celerra is designed for enterprise scale use, as such it is designed to scale to large size to be very highly available and to use SAN storage for its data -- thereby giving users the ability to effectively manage, protect and share their storage resources...
12:12:32 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} As far as Sun is concerned, they are mainly competing with our CLARiiON product line -- with product features similar to ones that CLARiiON introduced 5 years ago.
12:13:24 2000 lurking {question presented} What is the connection between storage and networking.
12:13:44 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} Storage is no longer deployed as a peripheral device behind individual computer systems. It is now being deployed as a separate infrastructure connected via a network to servers and other consumers of information. Hence networking is now completely interwoven with storage. Tomorrow's technology will weave them ever closer together.
12:15:02 2000 scoobie {question presented} 5. Yesterday Mike Ruettgers talked about the "Content Big Bang." Could you explain what he was talking about?
12:15:22 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} The Content Big Bang is the enormous explosion of information volumes - 50-100 fold over the first half of this decade -- which will appear on the Internet due to enormous improvements in the economics of storing and accessing information.
12:18:21 2000 atlunch {question presented} What does DWDM have to do with storage?
12:18:41 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} DWDM (dense wave-division multiplexing) provides a cost-effective way to extend a SAN (and almost any other kind of network) by sharing strands of dark fiber among many applications. For example, in NYC many financial services companies are using DWDM to implement our remote mirroring product (SRDF) across the Hudson River to disaster recovery sites in NJ. DWDM makes this kind of implementation highly cost effective.
12:22:04 2000 emcatnplusi {question presented} With this "content big bang" how much storage do you think will ship in, say 2005?
12:22:24 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} I expect at least 10,000 petabytes (a petabyte is 1000 terabytes) in enterprise storage systems to ship in 2005.
12:25:09 2000 ecoquinco {question presented} EMC talks a lot about openness and interoperability. I know the Symmetrix can connect to a range of different server platforms, but can and does it connect and interoperate with storage equipment for other vendors in the same environment?
12:25:29 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} The issue for interoperability with between storage systems involves connections between fibre channel switches and storage devices as well as direct movement between disk based systems and tape. EMC's fibre channel switching products support standard fibre fabric protocols and hence can be connected to storage products that obey these protocols. In addition our EDM product moves data directly from Symmetrix to a broad variety of tape libraries.
12:27:24 2000 rex {question presented} How do EMC's products compare to Network Appliance's?
12:27:44 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} EMC's NAS product family, called Celerra, is focused on enterprise applications of network attached storage. As such it is designed to be highly scalable and available (14 independent data movers with load balancing and fail-over capabilities). Celerra file servers do not actually have any internal storage but rather they connect to a SAN to get access to the required storage resources. In that way they gain the advantages in scaling, manageability, and very high availability that a well implemented SAN provides.
12:30:59 2000 emcmademerich {question presented} I've followed EMC for years now. My question is simple: Will fiber channel or IP be the winner in SAN?
12:31:19 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} The answer is 'Yes' to both methods. Fibre Channel is today's preferred transport medium for storage area networks. In the future (2-4 years), IP/GigEthernet will provide another effective transport medium for SANs. Both will prosper.
12:33:17 2000 emcatnplusi {question presented} How far apart can a server be from its storage with these new optical networking technologies?
12:33:37 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} These new DWDM products allow servers and storage to be spread throughout a metropolitan area -- about 100km apart.
12:34:21 2000 emcatnplusi {question presented} Jim, I read about your TNNT view of the storage world in 2005 -- please tell me more about Information Plants and about the information generated by individuals in the future.
12:34:41 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} One of the points in my TNNT talk is that in a world of "free and infinite bandwidth" information will tend to be stored in very large repositories, "information plants". Some of the data in these plants will be "mass access data" -- movies, books, magazines, etc., but most will be individual data, basically the digital wake of everybody, info on our product purchases, medical info (MRIs etc), photos, videos, etc., etc. Think in terms of 100GB for every individual every year.
12:36:47 2000 emcatnplusi {question presented} Where is all this data coming from?
12:37:07 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} The data comes from the digitization of everything. As the digital revolution continues to unfold, everyone of us leaves an enormous digital wake, from the products we purchase, the medical records (like MRIs) we create, the photos we take, etc., etc. Think in terms of 100GB per person per year.
12:38:42 2000 emc_host {public msg} Feel free to submit your questions.
12:39:53 2000 mab {question presented} When do you see optical networking taking off. There is a lot of talk about "dark fiber," when will it be lit?
12:40:13 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} It's taking off today. There is a huge amount of DWDM and related equipment being installed in 2000. Applications that will consume all that dark fiber are coming on line every day. For us the exciting thing is that consuming the dark fiber implies consuming storage because it's all about access to information.
12:41:32 2000 emcatnplusi {question presented} How far can a disaster recovery site be from the production site using SRDF?
12:41:52 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} The two sites can be hundreds of miles apart. There are thousands of customers around the world using SRDF for disaster recovery with distances ranging from campuses (a mile or so) up to hundreds. Customers also use SRDF to replicate databases over thousands of miles.
12:42:41 2000 tharp {question presented} What is the size of the market today and how big do you see it getting?
12:43:01 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} EMC's market opportunity in 2000 is about $44B going to $78B in 2003. Note that this includes enterprise storage, mid-range storage, NAS, storage software, fibre channel switches, and services. EMC is the only company that addresses all of these markets. We see this growing to well over $100B in 2005.
12:45:05 2000 emcatnplusi {question presented} If storage was a baseball game, what inning are we in?
12:45:25 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} Looks like we're in the first inning Pedro is on the mound and Nomar leads off the next inning. That's for the Red Sox fans. Seriously, the game has just begun. Our job over the last few years has been to assemble an all star team. And we're playing pretty well.
12:46:35 2000 mab {question presented} Do you see this Big Bang driving the service provider market as well?
12:46:55 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} Yes I do. Service providers play a key role in allowing small and medium sized businesses who cannot practically hire and manage an IT staff to nevertheless have a first class IT operation. From our point of view the key impact of service providers is to aggregate demand into large repositories which can be effectively served.
12:49:14 2000 mab {question presented} Does wireless technology fit in with this big bang?
12:49:34 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} Yes it does. In two ways. Wireless increases the accessibility of information - a lot - and hence creates more demand for on-line info. Second, the wireless providers themselves consume a ton of storage to service, support, and market advanced services to their customers.
12:51:26 2000 ecoquinco {question presented} about tommy's terabyte...where will tommy and other digital consumers store their personal/family data?
12:51:46 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} Generally they will use internet-based common repositories -- information plants -- because it allows them access to these objects wherever they are and allows them to selectively share them with their friends and family members around the world. Of course it is imperative that privacy be assured for these services to prosper.
12:54:12 2000 dblack {question presented} With so many companies now talking about storage, what makes EMC positioned to stay in the lead going forward? I know you dusted IBM, STK, HP and just about everyone else who has attempted to challenge you but it seems that there are so many upstart companies tracking you now -- what are you doing about it?
12:54:32 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} Over the next 5 years EMC will spend $10B (that's right ten billion dollars) on R&D. That's an order of magnitude more than the next closest player in the storage market. If we spend this wisely we will extend our lead over everybody.
12:55:02 2000 emcatnplusi {question presented} Tell Mike Ruettgers he looked good in this week's edition of BusinessWeek. It was nice to see him riding on the first horse of the new economy.
12:55:22 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} I'll tell Mike.
12:58:03 2000 ecoquinco {question presented} There's no doubt optical networks will greatly improve speed of delivery of content. Will Storage servers play a role in speed up content delivery?
12:58:23 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} High speed storage systems are essential to providing high speed content delivery. Every millisecond of delay at the storage system delays delivery to the end user. These systems will be heavily loaded its essential that they can perform well at large scale.
13:00:59 2000 eddy {question presented} Is the optical trend taking off primarily in the US or is it worldwide? Same players globally?
13:01:19 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} The optical trend is going gangbusters in the US, Europe, and Japan. The same equipment and software suppliers are involved all around the world. The service providers are usually local to the region.
13:04:38 2000 ottok {question presented} How does your software strategy fit into the optical world? Also, are you working with Cisco, Nortel and/or Lucent?
13:04:58 2000 jim_rothnie {public msg} We are working with Nortel, Cisco, and Lucent every day. We are working closely with them in interoperability testing and R&D. Software is key to all of this. Customers need the tools to manage the entire information access infrastructure effectively and economically. Lots of our R&D dollars are aimed at providing the tools customers need to do this well.
13:05:52 2000 itguru {question presented} I tell everyone that no company is more focused than EMC. I see nothing in the marketplace that compares to your product, service or passion, frankly. Keep up the good work.
13:05:55 2000 emc_host {public msg} Thanks for joining us today. We will have the full transcript online later today.
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