Catalogic’s CloudCasa Kubernetes app SaaS backup service offering (Cloud Casa by Catalogic) is getting an update. It supports the backup of Persistent Volumes (PVs) without the need for snapshot capabilities, allowing users to handle PVs in environments where traditional snapshot technologies are not supported. It now offers full support for Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters and Azure Government cloud storage. Amazon EKS feature improvements include control of automatic encryption of Kubernetes secrets using customer specified KMS keys, and enhanced backup and restore capabilities for IAM roles and Amazon EC2 launch templates.
…
DataStax announced new features and updates to its AI PaaS, which minimizes hallucinations, with up to 20 percent higher relevance, 74x faster response time, and 9x higher throughput. DataStax supplies its Astra DB database with vector embeddings support as a service. Data preparation and ingestion is one of the biggest challenges when building a GenAI application. Developers are faced with converting massive amounts of existing data, in different formats, into a format suitable for use in retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Unstructured is now natively integrated with Langflow and Astra DB, simplifying complex configuration options and bringing the power of Unstructured’s ingestion pipelines to DataStax users. Developers can easily import multiple PDF files of any size, chunk those files, and using DataStax Vectorize, they can generate the vector embeddings for improved query relevancy.
…
Enterprise and HPC file storage supplier DDN says Dave Whitlock has joined the DDN team as field CTO. He comes from being a principal technologist at Pure Storage, having spent 10 years at the company.
…
Cloud file services content collaboration and governance supplier Egnyte has appointed Prasad Gune as its chief product officer. He comes from being SVP product at global educational technology marketplace supplier Udemy. Egnyte CEO Vineet Jain said: “Gune’s proven track record of developing and implementing successful product strategies positions him to solidify our standing as the industry-leading broad-spectrum intelligent content platform.” Gune replaces the Jan 2024-departed CPO Ramin Farassat.
…
Search company Elastic is adding the GNU Affero General Public License v3 (AGPL) as an option for users to license the free part of the Elasticsearch and Kibana source code that is available under Server Side Public License 1.0 (SSPL 1.0) and Elastic License 2.0 (ELv2). With this Elasticsearch and Kibana will be officially considered open source and enable Elastic’s customers and community to use, modify, redistribute, and collaborate on Elastic’s source code under the AGPL open source license. The addition of AGPL as a license option does not affect existing users working with either SSPL or ELv2, and there will be no change to Elastic’s binary distributions. Similarly, for users building applications or using plugins on Elasticsearch or Kibana, nothing changes — Elastic’s client libraries will continue to be licensed under Apache 2.0. Read a blog and FAQs (here and here) to find out more.
…
InfluxData announced new capabilities for its InfluxDB 3.0 product suite to simplify time series data management at scale. It says there are performance improvements for query concurrency, scaling, and latency, allowing developers to manage large datasets without performance degradation. An an operational dashboard for visual insights into cluster performance and health has been added to the InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated managed service. The self-managed InfluxDB Clustered, deployed on Kubernetes, is now GA, and features decoupled, independently scalable ingest and query tiers. Read a blog about the news here.
…
Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson tells subscribers Japanese 47News reports Kioxia is expecting a record ¥1.6 trillion ($11 billion) revenues for its fy2024 with a circa ¥300 billion ($2.1 billion) operating profit. A spun-off WD NAND/SSD business, based on being Kioxia’s joint-venture partner, would have WD’s current flash revenue run rate of $4.8 billion, much less than the Kioxia forecast. We can’t account for the difference – unless the Kioxia forecast is highly optimistic. Bryson says “a stronger Kioxia could/should support forward NAND development efforts, an area where the JV struggled with BiCS5 and BiCS6 in our view falling behind peers, though we are more optimistic on BiCS8.”
…
File transfer supplier MASV announced a Free Tier providing 10 GB of transfer per month at no charge. The product is full featured and self-serve. Media pros can get started building file transfer workflows in minutes. Above 10 GB, customers may choose pay-as-you-go or committed use plans.
…
Micron is shipping 12-high 36 GB HBM3E chips to customers for qualification. They feature a chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging design, and have significantly lower power consumption than competitors’ HBM3E 8-high 24 GB chips, a 50 percent increase in capacity over current HBM3E offerings, and provide more than 1.2 TBps of memory bandwidth with more than 9.2 Gbitps of pin speed, enabling lightning-fast data access for AI accelerators, supercomputers and datacenters.
…
Graph database and analytics supplier Neo4j announced a new Aura console with GenAI co-pilot as a unifying hub to administer, manage, ingest, model, and visualize data across all of Neo4j’s offerings and tools. There is a NeoDash no/low-code interactive dashboard builder so users can create maps, graphs, bar and line charts, tables, and other visual items. A self-serve offering, Neo4j AuraDB Business Critical comes at a 20 percent+ lower price point than Neo4j’s traditional AuraDB Enterprise offering. Neo4j can now process 15X more real-time data within each cluster without compromising on latency or performance. It is providing enterprise control, audit, and compliance capabilities that include Customer Managed Encryption Keys that the customer owns, controls, and uses to encrypt and protect their data; and Security Log Forwarding enabling customers to stream and audit security logs in real-time. Neo4j achieved SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA compliance earlier this year, with additional certifications here.
…
NetApp has appointed Gus Shahin as its new EVP of Business Technology and Operations. Shahin will lead critical business operations providing a solid foundation for accelerating growth and fostering cross-functional execution across four key company pillars – Information Technology, Operations, Global Security, and Enterprise Process Excellence. He is a 24-year Flextronics vet, most recently serving as its CIO and President of Business Process for the Global Business Services team.
…
OWC (Other World Computing) announced that its Atlas CFexpress 4.0 Type B Memory Cards and OWC Envoy Pro Elektron USB-C SSDs have been approved for use by Blackmagic with its Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K. Previous OWC products approved for use with Blackmagic cameras include the OWC Atlas Pro UHS-II V60 and OWC Atlas Ultra UHS-II V90 cards, and the OWC Envoy Pro EX.
…
The Own Company, the SaaS backup business which does continuous backup for Salesforce, is being bought for $1.9 billion in cash… by Salesforce. Founded as OwnBackup in Israel in 2012 by CTO Ariel Berkman, CPO Daniel Gershuni, COO Eran Cohen and EVP Sales Ori Yankelev, the company has raised $507.3 million through 7 funding events, the last two being in 2021 when a staggering $407.5 million was invested in two rounds. Prior to that Own had raised around $100 million in five annual rounds from 2016 to 2020. CEO Sam Gutmann was hired in 2015, the year before the fundraising rounds commenced, and changed the business name to the Own Company in 2023. Own started with customer data backup for Salesforce, then expanded to coverSage Business Cloud Financials, Veeva (life sciences), nCino (financial data), Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM and Power platform, and ServiceNow. The majority of its revenue comes from nearly 7,000 Salesforce customers.
Thee are nearly 20 other SaaS Salesforce backup suppliers. They now get to compete with Salesforce itself; bad news for them. Will other popular SaaS app suppliers buy or build their own customer data backup capabilities?
…
Rebellions is a three-year-old South Korea fabless AI chip startup making an ATOM AI processing chip. It raised $124 million in January and is co-developing a Rebel chip with memory and NAND supplier Samsung. The Rebel chip could run 100 billion parameter LLMs – ATOM runs 7 billion parameter models – and will be built with Samsung’s 4nm process technology and use 4 x 12-hi 36G Samsung HBM3E chips for its on-package 144GB memory. This Rebel quad chip is aimed at inference workloads. Rebellions expects to start chip production in October, shipping product by mid 2025. Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson suggests “inference workloads (outside of hyperscale recommendation engines) are still relatively small, making it difficult to anticipate how that market will develop and which of the new entrants might be better positioned to compete against Nvidia.”
…
Justin Kim, SK hynix head of AI infrastructure, was a keynote speaker at SEMICON TAIWAN, and talked about unleashing AI memory tech possibilities. He said one of the biggest challenges in the AI era is the power shortage. SK hynix is attempting to develop a high-efficiency AI memory that can reduce heat generation by minimizing power consumption in high capacity and high performance with its partners. SK hynix will, by the end of this month, start mass-producing 12 High-stack HBM3E. SK hynix is also developing HBM4 products, using Logic Technology for Base Die. TSMC is involved here. It plans plan to release a 120 TB SSD product. SK hynix is planning to establish a production facility in Indiana, U.S., aiming to begin mass production by 2028.
…
Data warehouser Teradata has promoted Thomas Schröder from VP for Central Europe to VP for Europe. Schröder will be responsible for the go-to-market strategy, sales, and operations in Europe, helping customers unleash AI/ML innovation and drive ROI. His territory includes subsidiaries and market presence across Central, Western, Southern and Eastern Europe as well as the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, and Israel. His CV includes stints at Vodafone Enterprise, the Enterprise and Partner Group of Microsoft Germany, Oracle Hardware Sales, Sun Microsystems, and Philips Business Communications Germany.
…
Parallel HPC filesystem supplier VDURA is partnering Jeskell Systems, an IT systems specialist with nearly two decades of experience serving Federal and commercial clients globally. Jeskell Systems brings to the partnership its extensive experience working with top-tier technology partners, including IBM and Dell Technologies. The partnership will focus on enhancing storage, cyber resilience, automation, and security, ensuring that Federal agencies can confidently pursue their missions with the best technology solutions available. VDURA and Jeskell Systems will be showcasing the latest innovations in data storage and management at SC24. Visit Booth 2209 to learn more and discuss partnership opportunities.
