Persistent technology for persistent business

[EzmeralExperts]

This new blog by Dr. Tom Bradicich, Hewlett Packard Fellow, HPE, explains how the skilled use of containers and microservices can bring the genius of both cloud optimality and statefulness to an app — and looks at how HPE Ezmeral has done it. 

Have you ever been interrupted while working on a complex task, and lost your place requiring you to recreate and rebuild your thinking up to the point of interruption? This recreation is needed because a subsequent process step can be wholly dependent on the state and context of a previous step, but the previous step’s state is now forgotten.

Analogously, global IT infrastructures can be replete with this interdependency of state. My work in industrial software and the manufacturing industry exposes me to many “stateful” databases and deterministic and legacy apps, which must remember their previous actions and data before continuing.

However, “stateless” (not remembering much) cloud native apps have achieved celebrity status today. Such apps with temporal and transitory data afford great app portability, lower infrastructure deployment, and ease of updates. Redeveloping existing stateful apps to become stateless for optimal cloud platform operation, can consume inordinate time and money. But a skilled use of containers and microservices can bring statefulness to an app, achieving the genius of the AND — that is, both cloud optimality AND statefulness.

In the domain of data management, the creators of the HPE Ezmeral software have done this AND.

When I meet with industrial and manufacturing customers, there is keen interest in HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric’s distributed data store and storage containers for persistent states. This is because the expansive reach of a single global name space, coupled with the efficiencies of persistence, is a potent combination for a distributed enterprise.

For example, consider real time parts flow monitoring and product quality assurance with telemetry data on the manufacturing plant floor. Deterministic apps process data from a plurality of sources, protocols, and formats — from enterprise data centers, multiple clouds, and edge and IoT sensors and actuators.

Mounted volumes for keeping these data, app, and storage states can be easily added to databases within the Ezmeral Data Fabric’s persistence layer. In turn, the simultaneous data replication to multiple targets and sites supports IT driven process stability, upon cluster migrations and power down/outage events.

When I walked onto the plant floor of a major auto manufacturer, the head of manufacturing IT asked me, “I have a large back order, can you help me produce more cars rolling off our line each day?”

Doing the math, it was easy to quantify potential top line revenue increases — and improved customer satisfaction, as they drive away in their new cars. More uninterrupted products rolling off the manufacturing line is essential in meeting customer demand and recognizing revenue. The technology persistence in the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric can help enable business persistence, just like this.

Learn more about HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric here.

Or access it as a fully managed service. Sign up for the HPE Early Access program and get hands-on experience with HPE GreenLake for Data Fabric before it's released. 

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Meet Dr. Tom Bradidich, HPE Fellow

Dr. Tom Bradicich began his career at IBM serving as an IBM Fellow, Server CTO, R&D VP, and Distinguished Engineer. He led teams to conceive and develop the new product categories of private on-premises clouds, Converged Systems/HCI, predictive analytics SW for Windows™, ad Converged Edge Systems. Tom cofounded several industry standards, and was elected to the IBM Academy of Technology. While at National Instruments, an industrial OT company, he served as a NI Fellow, leading teams to pioneer today’s modern OT/IT convergence, industrial systems reliability, and big analog data™ solutions.

Tom was named CRN’s Top 100 Executives and Top 25 Disrupters for 3 years, was named a Top IoT Influencer by Onalytica, IoT Czar of the Year by IoT Innovator, Top IIoT Influencer by CB Tech. He was inducted into the NC State University Alumni Hall of Fame, and received the IBM Chairman’s Award.

Currently, Tom is an HPE Fellow, heading marketing initiatives such as HPE solutions stacks, developing and delivering marketing collateral, sales training, and innovative partner GTM programs. He has held various roles at HPE such as GM & VP of the Servers and Edge Systems & SW BU with P&L responsibility, which was HPE’s fastest growing BU. As VP of Server Engineering, and HPE Edge & IoT SW Labs Director, Tom led teams to conceive and launch HPE’s first Edge/IoT corporate strategy, the new product category Converged Edge Systems, Edge as-a-Service SW, and industrial data management SW.

Throughout his career, Tom and his teams developed, launched, and sold dozens of SW and systems products, receiving many analyst, media, and industry awards. He holds several US patents, was executive sponsor for the IBM Women’s Inventors Network, and currently advises financial and industry analysts. Tom served on the Board of Directors of Aspen Technology, a public industrial AI SW company, and the advisory boards of three SW and silicon chip start-ups. He frequently delivers keynotes and media interviews, is an advisor to womenincloud.com, University of Florida Advisory Board and Diversity Committee, and founded the charity www.sockrelief.com.