

DataCentric
NAND Research
Welcome to the DataCentric podcast, where we delve into the latest developments in information technology, offering insights into its intricate workings and broader implications.
Hosted by Steve McDowell, Senior Analyst at NAND Research, our podcast explores new technologies, influential trends, and provides expert commentary on the forward trajectory of the technology industry.
Join us as we navigate the complex landscape of IT. Whether you're an industry professional or simply curious about the future of technology, DataCentric is your trusted source for informed discourse and forward-thinking analysis.
Hosted by Steve McDowell, Senior Analyst at NAND Research, our podcast explores new technologies, influential trends, and provides expert commentary on the forward trajectory of the technology industry.
Join us as we navigate the complex landscape of IT. Whether you're an industry professional or simply curious about the future of technology, DataCentric is your trusted source for informed discourse and forward-thinking analysis.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Feb 23, 2023 • 39min
Keeping your Data Center Cool with 2-Phase Immersion Cooling
Increasing datacenter density while managing HVAC and electrical costs is a hard problem, especially as processor and GPU vendors continue to push solutions that run hotter and consume more energy than ever before. This has pushed us into the age of liquid cooling. While Direct-2-Chip liquid cooling has become an acceptable alternative to the traditional air-cooled datacenter, cooling technology has evolved. The state-of-the-art is now 2-Phase Immersion Cooling, where servers are housed in an enclosure full of a dialelectric fluid that removes the heat, all without fans or heatsinks. It's a remarkable technology.
In this episode, hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell talk to the Mears Group, a Quanta Services company, about its approach to 2-Phase Immersion Cooling which is just coming to market. Joining the podcast are Todd Richard, senior vice president at Mears, and Trent Edwards, executive vice president of Mears.
The group talk about what 2-Phase Immersion Cooling is, how it has benefits both within the datacenter at the edge, and what differentiates Mears. Special Guest: Matt Kimball.

Feb 16, 2023 • 45min
Taming Digital Transformation: A Conversation with Persistent Systems' Dominique Bastos
Digital Transformation is full of promise, and full of challenges. One of the biggest challenges is around cloud – when to use, and to what extent. This week’s podcast has hosts Matt Kimball & Steve McDowell speaking with Dominique Bastos, Senior Vice President at Persistent Systems.
In this episode, Dominique talks about what she sees with enterprise customers undergoing digital transformation, and how to find an on-prem/off-prem balance that drives best results for the business.
Equally interesting is Dominique’s perspective as a woman’s journey through the tech ranks – from engineer to executive.
Tune in for what may be our most interesting podcast yet!
Dominique’s profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominiquebastos/
Persistent Systems: https://www.persistent.com/Special Guests: Dominique Bastos and Matt Kimball.

Jan 26, 2023 • 32min
Taming the MultiCloud Problem, with Nutanix's Lee Caswell
There aren't many solutions that can tame the multi-cloud management problem, but Nutanix is one of them.
In this episode, hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell have a wide-ranging conversation with Nutanix's Lee Caswell about the challenges that face IT administrators and architects in 2023.Special Guests: Lee Caswell and Matt Kimball.

Jan 5, 2023 • 38min
HPE and Nutanix Expand the Potential of Greenlake & as-a-service offerings
Hosts Steve McDowell and Matt Kimball, principal analysts at Moor Insights & Strategy, kick off the new year with a conversation with both Nutanix and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Joining the podcast is HPE's Mark Maguire and Nutanix's Aaron Delp.
Nutanix and HPE are at forefront of IT modernization & digital transformation, helping customers globally deliver business critical apps in more efficient and cost-effective way with certified solutions that come with freedom of choice (flexibility of deployment and choice of consumption model).
The guys talk about how to solve real world customer problems, where traditional infratructure is too costly, time consuming and complex; public cloud is not the panacea. Nutanix and HPE deliver a new way to operate and pay for infrastructure: delivering on the promise of the cloud, not the cost of the cloud, across key workloads and regulated industries:Special Guests: Aaron Delp, Mark Maguire, and Matt Kimball.

Oct 30, 2022 • 27min
Inside MySQL Heatwave: A Conversation with Oracle's Nipun Agarwal
MySQL is the most popular open source database in the world. Oracle's new MySQL Heatwave makes MySQL the only cloud service with a built-in, high performance, in-memory query accelerator—HeatWave.
In this episode, hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell, principal analysts at Moor Insights & Strategy, catch up with Oracle's Nipun Agarwal, Oracle's SVP of MySQL and Heatwave, at the recent Oracle OpenWorld event to about what it all means.
This is wide-ranging conversation about the history of MySQL, where it plays well, and how Oracle MySQL HeatWave brings added value to the MySQL ecosystem. Special Guests: Matt Kimball and Nipun Agarwal.

Sep 6, 2022 • 50min
Exploring Edge Computing, with Stratus's Jason Andersen.
It's all about Edge Computing as hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell, principal analysts at Moor Insights & Strategy, welcome Jason Andersen, VP of Strategy and Product Management at Stratus.
Jason brings Matt & Steve up-to-speed on what’s happening in the world of edge computing in a wide-ranging conversation about standards (or the lack of), the evolution of edge architectures, the fragmented edge market, the colliding worlds of IT & OT, and how Stratus helps its customers navigate through this confusing world.
There is a whole lot packed into this hour-long discussion, but it's invaluable for anyone working in edge today.
00:00 Kick-it Off
01:25 Catching up with Strategy: Product updates, SGH Acquisition
03:57 Pivoting from Fault-Tolerance to the Edge
08:48 It’s all about Resilience!
11:00 How edge is evolving
13:00 Fragmentation at the edge
16:21 Containerization & Cloud-Native at the edge
20:48 Simplifying the edge control-plane while delivering QoS
23:20 Revisiting 2 Different Worlds as IT & OT Converge
30:10 Security at the Edge
37:22 General attitudes impacting edge deployments
41:14 Where’s Stratus focused in the near-term?
45:14 Importance of the overall solution stack
50:11 Wrapping-Up
50:26 Done Special Guest: Jason Andersen.

Jul 14, 2022 • 46min
Smart Buildings are a Big Data Problem, with Embue CTO Larry Genovesi
Buildings are becoming intelligent in ways that aren't always obvious, but that can make a huge difference to both tenants and property managers alike. Intelligent buildings are the epitome of the modern edge-to-cloud story, blending together process control, SaaS, and big data analytics to solve very practical problems.
Nobody knows this space better than this week's guest, CTO and co-founder of Embue, Larry Genovesi. Larry, who has a long 20+ year history with hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell, has spent his career solving interesting but non-obvious problems.
Embue is Larry's latest venture, bringing bottom-line impacting intelligence into multi-tenent real-estate via its air ducts (quite literally). This episode talks about the real-world implications and challenges of solving practical problems at the edge.
00:00 Spiffy Theme Song & Intro
03:00 Who is Embue?
10:53 What's interesting about smart buildings and HVAC systems?
18:47 Edge is an operational problem, not a data problem.
26:00 Special considerations for making buildings smart.
28:22 Not your normal tech market: selling technology into the facilities management space.
31:14 Challenges of recruiting tech talent into a specialized engineering segment.
37:13 Intersection of Edge, SaaS, and IT: how do you create a new kind of environment?
40:41 What's next in this space, and for Embue?
45:59 Spiffy Outro Music. Special Guest: Larry Genovesi.

Jun 3, 2022 • 33min
Cyber-Security at the Edge
Nowhere is cybersecurity more critical than at an enterprise's edge, yet that's also an area with multiple owners and different approaches to the problem. It's a complicated environment.
Gary Cohen, senior editor at CFE Media, joins hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell to give us his perspective. CFE Media focuses heavily on tracking the trends influencing the edge.
This is a wide-ranging conversation that touches on IT vs OT, cybersecurity, and even a little baseball & Morrissey. Tune in!
00:00 Kick Off
01:02 Gary's history with the Chicago Cubs
05:00 Who is CFE Media?
07:00 The complexities of Edge: IT and OT
12:39 Cyber-Security at the Edge
20:23 Supply Chain Concerns
24:07 How does CFE Media engage with edge-focused audiences?
27:40 Cyber-Security Commonalities between IT & OT
29:25 A Conversation about Morrissey
31:08 Wrapping up.
32:44 The end. Special Guest: Gary Cohen.

May 16, 2022 • 36min
Modern Data Architecture: A Look at NoSQL & Couchbase
Data is more critical, more abundant, and less structured than at any point in history. The attributes and uses of data are shifting, stressing traditional relational database management tools that we've come to rely on. NoSQL promises one answer to modern data management.
Couchbase's VP of Product & Solution Marketing, Jeff Morris, joins hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell, principal analysts at Moor Insights & Strategy, to talk us through the technology, where its best deployed, and how Couchbase plays in the space.
00:00 Show Open
00:03 Matt's Foolishness
00:45 Let's Talk about NoSQL
01:20 Introduce CouchBase VP Solutions & Product Marketing, Jeff Morris
02:46 How has data management evolved over the past decade?
05:39 Is there a performance hit when moving away from traditional RDMS?
07:54 Optimal use-cases for NoSQL databases
15:45 CouchBase Mobile & Devices
19:53 Is NoSQL a 'big lift' for IT practitioners?
24:44 Capella: CouchBase-as-a-Service
30:33 SQL & NoSQL, a Peaceful Co-Existance?
32:24 Where is CouchBase Focused over the next 12-18 months?
34:37 Wrapping Up.
35:43 The End!Special Guest: Jeff Morris.

May 5, 2022 • 25min
The Changing Face of Cyber-Security
There is nothing more critical to IT administrators (and their bosses!) than cyber-security and data protection. Old methods of securing our infrastructure are no longer as effective as they once were. Instead, we're moving into an era of AI-based decisions about what data and traffic to let in, and keep out, of our networks.
Hillstone Networks is a strong innovator in this space. In this episode HIllstone's Tim Liu and Gary Wang join hosts Matt Kimball and Steve McDowell to help us understand the evolving nature of cyber-security.
00:00 Kick it off
00:20 Who is Hillstone?
01:06 Application-aware Security
02:37 Using AI and Machine Learning to enhance security
08:05 How has the treat landscape evolved over the past few years?
10:00 Protecting data in the cloud
13:30 Security Kubernetes & container-based workflows
13:58 Who are Hillstone's customers?
16:33 What's next for Hillstone & cyber-security in general?
23:00 Evolving threat landscape
24:54 Wrapping up
25:19 It's over!Special Guests: Gary Wang and Tim Liu.