Ken Claffey is the CEO of VDURA, brings intensive expertise in high-performance computing (HPC) and storage, having held govt roles at Seagate, Xyratex, Adaptec, and Eurologic. At Seagate, he led the Enterprise storage division, driving product innovation and market progress. At Xyratex, he helped scale the corporate into a number one OEM supplier and constructed the ClusterStor HPC storage enterprise, which powered 40% of the world’s high supercomputers earlier than its acquisition by Cray/HPE. He additionally performed a key function within the sale of Xyratex to Seagate and has held management positions throughout product, operations, gross sales, and engineering.
As CEO of VDURA, Ken leverages his trade experience to drive innovation and progress, positioning the corporate on the forefront of the evolving HPC and AI panorama.
VDURA is an information storage and administration platform designed to assist AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. Using a shared-nothing scale-out structure, it goals to mix excessive efficiency with information sturdiness at scale. The platform is adaptable for deployment in on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, providing storage options for data-intensive functions whereas emphasizing reliability and ease of use for enterprise operation.
You’ve had a exceptional profession spanning management roles at Seagate, Xyratex, Adaptec, and Eurologic. What are some pivotal moments that formed your strategy to innovation within the information storage trade?
Essentially the most pivotal second of my profession was beginning the HPC enterprise at Xyratex, the place we created the world’s first HPC storage equipment optimized from the uncooked system degree to each layer of the software program stack. This included the {hardware} platform, the working system, the native file system, the parallel file system, networking, and even the consumer software program. That have formed my perception within the significance of deeply optimizing each layer to maximise infrastructure effectivity. Reaching this requires not solely a strong technical understanding of every layer, but additionally a grasp of the underlying enterprise drivers. All through my profession, I’ve been constructing and refining this distinctive mixture of technical and enterprise insights, which continues to tell my strategy to innovation within the trade.
What impressed the transition from Panasas to VDURA, and the way does the rebranding mirror the corporate’s present imaginative and prescient and targets?
The transition from Panasas to VDURA displays a pure evolution of our firm’s mission to satisfy the altering wants of AI and HPC functions. Whereas we’re happy with Panasas’ legacy as a pioneer in parallel file techniques, it turned clear that the way forward for information infrastructure required a brand new strategy—one which emphasizes flexibility, sturdiness, and ease. VDURA represents this subsequent chapter. The title itself—combining “velocity” and “sturdiness”—encapsulates our deal with delivering quick, dependable, and cost-effective storage options which can be important to trendy AI-driven workloads. Our rebranding additionally marks a strategic shift to a software-first mannequin, permitting VDURA to supply broader {hardware} decisions and extra tailor-made options for our clients. By decoupling our software program from proprietary {hardware}, we’re creating new alternatives for patrons to realize the very best efficiency and resilience throughout any deployment.
Are you able to share the story behind the creation of the VDURA Information Platform and the important thing challenges you aimed to deal with within the AI and HPC panorama?
The VDURA Information Platform was developed to deal with a important and rising hole in information infrastructure for AI and HPC workloads: balancing excessive efficiency with enterprise-grade sturdiness. As AI-driven functions proceed to evolve, information platforms should deal with huge volumes of numerous information whereas guaranteeing reliability, scalability, and seamless entry. Our platform builds on the muse of Panasas’ parallel NAS expertise, incorporating vital developments similar to a completely parallel, microservices-based structure and our proprietary VeLO (Velocity Layered Operations) and VPOD (Virtualized Protected Object System) applied sciences. These improvements ship unmatched effectivity and sturdiness throughout hybrid, cloud-native, and on-premises environments, supporting numerous workloads from GPU-intensive AI coaching to billions of small file operations. What units VDURA aside is our means to unify a number of storage media inside a single structure, offering the pliability to stability price and efficiency based mostly on buyer wants. The platform’s emphasis on scalability, sturdiness, and ease ensures organizations can meet the more and more demanding necessities of contemporary AI and HPC functions whereas optimizing their information infrastructure investments.
What does “sturdiness” imply within the context of contemporary information storage, and why is it more and more important for AI-driven workloads?
Sturdiness in trendy information storage ensures that information stays intact, uncorrupted, and retrievable even after surprising occasions like outages or {hardware} failures. For AI-driven workloads, sturdiness is important attributable to frequent checkpointing, huge information writing, and the reliance on correct datasets for mannequin coaching. VDURA prioritizes sturdiness by way of multi-layered information safety, together with erasure coding and hybrid storage architectures that stability efficiency and sturdiness. This ensures that organizations can preserve information integrity whereas scaling their infrastructure. With out sturdiness, even the quickest techniques threat information loss, which might compromise insights and result in pricey disruptions.
The VDURA Information Platform emphasizes scalability and ease for AI and HPC functions. How do you see these parts reshaping the way forward for information infrastructure?
As AI and HPC workloads develop extra advanced, organizations want scalable options that cut back operational overhead with out compromising efficiency or reliability. VDURA’s Information Platform emphasizes simplicity by providing a unified structure that eliminates the necessity to handle disparate techniques. Scalability is equally important. VDURA allows organizations to tailor their infrastructure to particular workload wants by using a multi-media storage strategy—leveraging flash storage for high-speed efficiency and HDD for cost-effective capability. This flexibility permits companies to stability efficiency and price whereas sustaining sturdiness and information integrity. By offering intuitive and adaptable options, VDURA empowers organizations to focus extra time and sources on advancing their AI and HPC initiatives, quite than managing storage complexity.
How does VDURA’s integration with options just like the Atlas AI Cluster improve the capabilities of organizations seeking to scale their AI operations?
VDURA’s integration with the Atlas AI Cluster simplifies and accelerates the deployment of AI factories by offering a completely optimized storage resolution tailor-made to the wants of AI workloads. The Atlas AI Cluster incorporates high-bandwidth, low-latency networking, NVIDIA’s Grace Hopper Superchips, and VDURA’s AI-optimized Information Platform, which provides superior metadata dealing with and enter/output operations per second (IOPS) for quicker information entry. For us at VDURA, this partnership displays our dedication to constructing future-ready information infrastructure that may deal with the large information calls for of AI functions. By working intently with companions like SourceCode and Eviden, we’re guaranteeing that organizations can deploy cutting-edge AI infrastructure quicker and with larger confidence.
What are the largest challenges organizations face in adopting AI and HPC applied sciences, and the way is VDURA serving to to beat them?
Adopting AI and HPC applied sciences presents a number of challenges round scaling infrastructure, managing prices, and guaranteeing information sturdiness throughout their environments. Many organizations wrestle to stability efficiency with sturdiness as their workloads develop. VDURA helps tackle these points by providing versatile, scalable storage options that cut back operational bills whereas guaranteeing information integrity for important functions.
What developments do you foresee shaping the info storage and HPC markets within the subsequent decade?
Within the subsequent decade, information sturdiness will grow to be a key focus for organizations, as the price of information loss or corruption takes heart stage in evaluating infrastructure investments. Companies will shift their priorities from availability to making sure information integrity and persistence over time, recognizing the monetary dangers tied to unreliable techniques. VDURA could be very well-positioned to satisfy this demand with sturdy, scalable storage options that assist organizations keep away from the pricey penalties of downtime and information loss.
With VDURA supporting industries like life sciences, vitality, and federal functions, how do you tailor your options to satisfy the distinctive calls for of those sectors?
VDURA tailors its options to the distinctive calls for of those industries by specializing in flexibility, sturdiness, and efficiency. These sectors generate huge volumes of important information that require each high-speed entry and long-term integrity. Our hybrid storage structure permits organizations to optimize for each efficiency and capability—utilizing flash storage for real-time information processing and HDD for cost-effective, sturdy storage. Our options additionally tackle key regulatory and operational challenges in these industries by guaranteeing information stays safe, accessible, and protected against loss or corruption. As our software program is decoupled from {hardware}, we give organizations the pliability to decide on the infrastructure that most closely fits their workload, enabling them to scale and adapt as their wants evolve.
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