SiliconANGLE’s theCUBE broadcast live from AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas this week. Aaron Petersen, the senior vice president of product management for IO dropped by to talk about how AWS’s dominant presence in the cloud computing market is not necessarily the death knell so many are predicting for the traditional data storage warehouse market.

IO, with a focus on SDS data center builds, offers an integrated product that brings together hardware and software for their clients. Speaking to IOs large data center, located in Arizona, Petersen stated, “Amazon says the data center is going away. For medium and large enterprises, it’s not going anywhere.”

His claim is backed, he says, due to two verifiable trends in the market. Customers are still asking for traditional data center hosting. The second trend shows many enterprises are opting to build their own. IO offers the ability for their customers to do one or the other or a combination of the two.

“While we see cloud and we see cloud taking off, we also know that there will always be the opportunity for a hybrid solution. There are many reasons for the need for a hybrid solution. Data sovereignty is a big, big deal for companies out there.

“Our model allows them to control their data in a safe and cost effective fashion.”

Software-optimized business model

IO, with their data center technology, assists their customers in defining a standard data center, implementing it quickly and efficiently. The software-optimized data centers allow them to control their data like they control other items in the stack.

The future of IO rests on the almost certain premise that data is going to be king. Petersen cites the appetite for Big Data for applications and social media. “We’re approaching Big Data from a data center standpoint.”

IO currently has over 30BN rows of data specific to the operation of their data center. The company’s applied intelligence group is culling that data to determine the value, predictive modeling and where they can get value from that data. Their intent is to then offer their insight to their customers.

Bridging gaps in the data center

Petersen believes this Big Data insight will be what ultimately connects IT with the enterprise operation. He paints a visual picture of the two being on opposite sides of a flowing river. What is needed for optimal operation of a company is that bridge.

Petersen and IO feel well positioned for what they believe will be a growing need for sovereign data centers. This, he claims, is especially true due to the mobile market and its command of the industry in terms of efficiencies. “With the density of a data center and emerging technologies, we will see significant consolidation in the data center for the amount of compute and energy required.”

According to Furrier, Amazon is winning with regard to the trend toward public cloud and IaaS. He inquired of Petersen on what steps will need to be taken, if there are even any, that can bring IT into this next generation of data center. “Does Amazon convert the enterprise or does the enterprise convert to Amazon?”

In response, Petersen talked about the general mindset of IT guys. “First off, IT guys are control freaks. And second of all, the IT guys have the ‘not invented here’ syndrome.” He follows this up by stating he is, in fact, an IT guy himself. History has shown this to be true, however. When you consider the amount of investment in previous software and applications, it’s clear to see why there is institutional resistance to new technologies.

“I think it’s going to need to be a generational thing. There were managers and decision makers that did not let go of the mainframe. It’s going to be the same way with IT. However, I think as the generation gets used to never storing a file on their hard drive or machine, never having information for themselves but storing everything outside…once we see those people and they start proliferating IT, I think you will see IT go that direction,” Petersen stated.

While many attendees of this year’s re:Invent conference have been excited by the advancements being made, Petersen, in his suggestion to Furrier of what the summarizing bumper sticker should say, was far more even-keeled: Significant Growth; Plenty of Opportunity. But They’re Not Gonna Get Everything!