Host-based SSD controller array startup Pliops has a new CEO – Ido Bukspan coming from Nvidia.
Pliops, founded in Israel in 2017, has built its XDP (eXtreme Data Processor) to offload and accelerate low-level storage stack processing from a host x86 server. The XDP has added code to run RocksDB storage IO faster and also to function as a RAID controller. It’s sold to hyperscaler and near-hyperscaler customers with thousands of servers for whom extra performance means more cores can run application code.
Co-founder and former CEO Uri Beitler said: “I am very proud of Pliops’ achievements to date and am excited to work closely with Ido, who has an impressive track record. I have no doubt that Ido will successfully lead Pliops forward and help implement our product roadmap and integrations with our customers.”
Beitler becomes chief strategy and business development officer. He’ll develop strategic partnerships and create new business opportunities.
Bukspan was SVP of Chip Design at Nvidia, joining in 2019 when Nvidia bought his then-employer Mellanox for $6.9 billion. He spent more almost 20 years at Mellanox.
There are hundreds of employees in Nvidia’s Chip Design operation and we’re told Bukspan led it to impressive results. Nvidia said it was expanding its chip operations in Israel in January 2022. It aimed to develop new processors and recruit hundreds of engineers. Bukspan has walked away from this, the world’s foremost GPU and AI hardware supplier, to join the much smaller Pliops, with just over 100 employees.
The startup’s chairman, co-founder Aryeh Mergi, said: “In his position as CEO, Uri built and led Pliops from the day it was established to many outstanding achievements. Now, in bringing on Ido, we are adding someone with substantial experience in our target markets, and I have no doubt that the impressive career Ido built at Nvidia and his leadership capabilities will help Pliops accelerate its current positive momentum to increase growth and expansion into additional markets.”
Pliops has been associated with running its software on Nvidia’s BlueField DPUs. Perhaps Bukspan will help bring this to fruition. Pliops is also partnering with IaaS provider phoenixNAP to offer petabyte-scale Redis clusters to users with in-memory-class performance. We can look forward to more of such partnerships as Beitler gets busy.
