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 development. 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 position 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 development, positioning the corporate on the forefront of the evolving HPC and AI panorama.
VDURA is a knowledge 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 knowledge sturdiness at scale. The platform is adaptable for deployment in on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments, providing storage options for data-intensive purposes 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 method to innovation within the knowledge storage trade?
Probably 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. Attaining this requires not solely a strong technical understanding of every layer, but in addition 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 method to innovation within the trade.
What impressed the transition from Panasas to VDURA, and the way does the rebranding replicate the corporate’s present imaginative and prescient and objectives?
The transition from Panasas to VDURA displays a pure evolution of our firm’s mission to fulfill the altering wants of AI and HPC purposes. Whereas we’re pleased with Panasas’ legacy as a pioneer in parallel file methods, it turned clear that the way forward for knowledge infrastructure required a brand new method—one which emphasizes flexibility, sturdiness, and ease. VDURA represents this subsequent chapter. The identify itself—combining “velocity” and “sturdiness”—encapsulates our concentrate on delivering quick, dependable, and cost-effective storage options which are vital to fashionable AI-driven workloads. Our rebranding additionally marks a strategic shift to a software-first mannequin, permitting VDURA to supply broader {hardware} selections and extra tailor-made options for our prospects. By decoupling our software program from proprietary {hardware}, we’re creating new alternatives for patrons to attain the 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 vital and rising hole in knowledge infrastructure for AI and HPC workloads: balancing excessive efficiency with enterprise-grade sturdiness. As AI-driven purposes proceed to evolve, knowledge platforms should deal with huge volumes of numerous knowledge whereas guaranteeing reliability, scalability, and seamless entry. Our platform builds on the muse of Panasas’ parallel NAS know-how, incorporating important developments similar to a totally 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 skill to unify a number of storage media inside a single structure, offering the pliability to steadiness value and efficiency primarily based on buyer wants. The platform’s emphasis on scalability, sturdiness, and ease ensures organizations can meet the more and more demanding necessities of recent AI and HPC purposes whereas optimizing their knowledge infrastructure investments.
What does “sturdiness” imply within the context of recent knowledge storage, and why is it more and more vital for AI-driven workloads?
Sturdiness in fashionable knowledge storage ensures that knowledge stays intact, uncorrupted, and retrievable even after sudden occasions like outages or {hardware} failures. For AI-driven workloads, sturdiness is vital attributable to frequent checkpointing, huge knowledge writing, and the reliance on correct datasets for mannequin coaching. VDURA prioritizes sturdiness by multi-layered knowledge safety, together with erasure coding and hybrid storage architectures that steadiness efficiency and sturdiness. This ensures that organizations can preserve knowledge integrity whereas scaling their infrastructure. With out sturdiness, even the quickest methods threat knowledge loss, which might compromise insights and result in expensive disruptions.
The VDURA Information Platform emphasizes scalability and ease for AI and HPC purposes. How do you see these components reshaping the way forward for knowledge infrastructure?
As AI and HPC workloads develop extra advanced, organizations want scalable options that scale 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 methods. Scalability is equally vital. VDURA allows organizations to tailor their infrastructure to particular workload wants by using a multi-media storage method—leveraging flash storage for high-speed efficiency and HDD for cost-effective capability. This flexibility permits companies to steadiness efficiency and price whereas sustaining sturdiness and knowledge integrity. By offering intuitive and adaptable options, VDURA empowers organizations to focus extra time and assets 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 trying to scale their AI operations?
VDURA’s integration with the Atlas AI Cluster simplifies and accelerates the deployment of AI factories by offering a totally optimized storage answer 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 gives superior metadata dealing with and enter/output operations per second (IOPS) for quicker knowledge entry. For us at VDURA, this partnership displays our dedication to constructing future-ready knowledge infrastructure that may deal with the huge knowledge calls for of AI purposes. By working carefully with companions like SourceCode and Eviden, we’re guaranteeing that organizations can deploy cutting-edge AI infrastructure quicker and with better 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 knowledge sturdiness throughout their environments. Many organizations wrestle to steadiness efficiency with sturdiness as their workloads develop. VDURA helps deal with these points by providing versatile, scalable storage options that scale back operational bills whereas guaranteeing knowledge integrity for vital purposes.
What traits do you foresee shaping the info storage and HPC markets within the subsequent decade?
Within the subsequent decade, knowledge sturdiness will develop into a key focus for organizations, as the price of knowledge loss or corruption takes heart stage in evaluating infrastructure investments. Companies will shift their priorities from availability to making sure knowledge integrity and persistence over time, recognizing the monetary dangers tied to unreliable methods. VDURA may be very well-positioned to fulfill this demand with sturdy, scalable storage options that assist organizations keep away from the expensive penalties of downtime and knowledge loss.
With VDURA supporting industries like life sciences, vitality, and federal purposes, how do you tailor your options to fulfill 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 vital knowledge 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 knowledge processing and HDD for cost-effective, sturdy storage. Our options additionally deal with key regulatory and operational challenges in these industries by guaranteeing knowledge stays safe, out there, and shielded from 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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