As the digital transformation of business gathers speed, information technology shifts from a cost-center item to a potential revenue stream. Speed and security have become key performance factors for memory, as technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence require real-time analysis, and C-suite security fears heighten the demand for data protection.

“If you’re the chief information officer, chief technical officer, infrastructure leader … your goal is to try to deliver that agility, right? Don’t stand in the way of revenue while managing security, managing cost,” said Steve Fingerhut (pictured, right), senior vice president and general manager of the solid state drive and cloud software business units at Toshiba Memory America Inc.

“It is an efficiency equation … you really do need to provide customers with a better way of ensuring that timely information is made available,” added Ravi Pendekanti (pictured, left), senior vice president of server solutions product management and marketing at Dell Technologies Inc.

Fingerhut and Pendekanti spoke with Stu Miniman (@stu) and John Walls (@JohnWalls21), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at the Dell Technologies World event in Las Vegas. They discussed how digital transformation has affected the evolution of memory. (* Disclosure below.)

SSDs make any environment faster

The move to the cloud has increased the demand for solid state drives and flash storage, but any environment will go faster with SSDs, according to Fingerhut. “It’s pretty much the biggest bang for the buck in terms of incremental performance, so what that means is just tremendous growth. There’s inherent efficiencies in the SSDs. … And as you get into machine learning, different types of artificial intelligence, those are certainly counting on the performance of SSDs,” he said.

Fast is important, but recent high-profile data breaches have made security the highest priority for customers. “I don’t think there’s a single day that we can go through any of the trade press without somebody coming out with a security breach maybe, or a security feature. … Customers don’t want to look at just the buzz words; they’re now asking for proof points on, “Hey, what does this really mean in terms of security?” Pendekanti said.

Toshiba and Dell have a strong partnership and work together on solutions for critical issues, such as security. “There’s a lot of engineering to make sure that you have that end-to-end security, and that’s why we work with things like the instant system erase, right? So you can, one button, erase the system in minutes, versus in the past, it might take hours and days,” Fingerhut said.

The two companies are working together on making capabilities — like security — more common, more accessible, and lower cost. “So that’s a major focus area for us going forward,” Fingerhut concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Dell Technologies World 2018 event. (* Disclosure: Toshiba Memory America, Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Toshiba nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE