Communication networks connect us through space, but storage connects us through time. This paraphrasing of Tom Coughlin’s comment summarizes the purpose of the ViodiTV real-time conversation, memorialized in the above video. Coughlin, president of Coughlin Associates, is an expert on the data storage market, while Josh Barstow, EVP of Corporate Strategy & Business Development for OpenVault brings decades of experience on the communications side of the business, both as an operator and supplier.

Coughlin recently penned a Forbes article that suggested the Covid-19 pandemic could have ripple effects on the memory market. He cited OpenVault’s statistics regarding the growth of broadband. Barstow called this event a perfect storm of demand and confirmed that the most recent statistics, pulled April 1st, 2020 indicate the continued growth of the upstream of up to 100% and downstream by up to 30%, respectively, compared to the beginning of March.

From an application perspective, Barstow is seeing growth in specific applications such as

• Up to 50% increase in VPN traffic 
• 200% increase in VoIP and video conference
• WiFi offload is up 25%

Coughlin points out that the shutdown is forcing society to learn new tools, such as the 8×8 video conferencing service that was used to capture the above video. He also points out how critical video is to communications and not talking over each other. Seeing each other makes a difference. 

Looking at the bigger picture, Coughlin struck a hopeful note in his closing comments,

“Things like this can help us to grow stronger and to grow better and to improve our capabilities….I am hoping that we learn from this and we are better people and develop our technology so we are better able to deal with situations like this in the future.” 

Barstow concurred with Coughlin and said,

“This (Covid-19 pandemic) is something that people couldn’t plan for….What it does allow us to still communicate and stay in touch and be focused is some really good technology. ….People will be a little less cautious about using it (technology)  and more comfortable in using it.”

Barstow alluded to the idea that technology could actually improve the quality of life. And reading the recent report on the 50% reduction in car fatalities/injuries (PDF), seeing the virtually pollution-free, blue sky, and hearing the birds chirp in Silicon Valley, one has to thank the technology and the people behind it for keeping us connected and our memories stored. 

Video Highlights:

• 05:35 – Background of how OpenVault collects data
• 07:20 – Upstream data up to 100% and flattened to 70-90% 
• 08:26 – Downstream growing by up to 30%
• 10:25 – What is the typical upstream data rate?
• 12:16 – How could we have a conversation without talking 5G?
• 14:02 – Where is the data center edge? Tom explains the edge pseudo-pod
• 16:24 – Scaling resolution/bit-rate to reduced demand – is it happening in the U.S.
• 18:15 – YouTube and Netflix caching to reduced mid-mile demand
• 20:08 – Data centers in a box for cell towers
• 21:04 – Peer-to-Peer data centers & Aluvio 
• 24:11 – Will we go back to our old ways?
• 26:51 – Telecommunications infrastructure could see an increase due to the demand
• 30:45 – Some unintended benefits of the shutdown – less pollution, less traffic, fewer vibrations