Flash is changing system design, permanently. At Wikibon, we liken today’s systems design to a military convoy, where the entire convoy must decelerate to allow the slowest vehicle to keep up. That slowest vehicle in systems today is spinning disk.

For nearly two decades we’ve seen function move out of the host into the storage array (e.g. snapshots, migration, replication, etc.). With the advent of a lower cost, persistent semiconductor medium, we’re seeing function move back toward the host.

• How fast will this migration occur?
• How will database and application design change as a result?
• What will the impact be on corporate productivity?
• Where is this transformation happening?
• Where will flash reside – in the server, in the storage array, in all flash systems, in hybrids – and why?
• How will the storage hierarchy change as the result of flash?
• How is competition changing?
• Where do hyperscale, open source, cloud and software-led infrastructure fit?
• What about pricing – isn’t flash too expensive to be widely adopted
• What about competition between the Whales, the Barracuda and the Minnows?

We’ll address these and your questions today on the #flashahead FlashCUBE, broadcast live in a first ever bi-coastal production of theCUBE.

Tweet your questions and comments to @dvellante, @stu, @wikibon, @dfloyer, @furrier.

Here’s the current schedule – All times EST:

1. 2:00 – 2:10 Introduction to the Flash FlashCUBE
2. 2:10 – 2:25 Vellante, Floyer & Furrier
3. 2:25 – 2:50 Brian Bulkowski – CEO Aerospike
4. 2:50 – 3:00 Steve Mills – SVP IBM
5. 3:00 – 3:20 Don Basile – CEO of Violin
6. 3:20 – 3:30 Karim Abdullah – IT Practitioner Sprint
7. 3:30 – 3:45 Inhi Cho Suh – IBM Information Management – VP
8. 3:45 – 3:55 Vincent HSU – CTO IBM Storage
9. 3:55 – 4:10 Krishna Nathan – VP Storage Systems Dev
10. 4:10 – 4:25 Brad McCredie – VP & IBM Fellow
11. 4:25 – 4:55 Gary Orenstein – SVP Products Fusion-io
12. 4:55 – 5:25 Scott Dietzen – CEO, Pure Storage
13. 5:25 – 5:35 Laura Guio – VP IBM
14. 5:35 – 5:50 Bob Bruce – VP Vion
15. 5:50 – 6:05 Colin Parris – VP Power Systems – IBM
16. 6:05 – 6:20 Steve Kenniston – The Storage Alchemist
17. 6:20 – 6:30 WRAPUP – VELLANTE

Watch live and participate on Twitter with the hashtag #flashahead.