On Tuesday, John Furrier and the people at SiliconANGLE had an opportunity to hold an open question and answer CrowdChat with Jeremy Burton, EMC Corp.’s President of Products and Marketing, in order to discuss EMC’s #megalaunch, which included updates to EMC Isilon, and enterprise-grade scale-out Data Lake, XtremIO 3.0, its all-flash arrays, and several other new or updated product announcements, all under the banner of “Redefine Possible”.

Among the new products is VMAX3, which will transform the VMAX array from enterprise storage to enterprise data services platform. When asked if this is a new class of platform for the data center, Burton replied:

@vGazza i think so. We went for a big re-architect of VMAX to have it become more than just an … #RedefinePossible http://t.co/p06QxXRcVl

— Jeremy Burton (@jburton) July 8, 2014

It will still be a storage array, Burton explained, but it will also help organizations solve infrastructure sprawl and simplify appliances surrounding enterprise storage.

The CrowdChat participants, including Burton, seemed most excited about the announcement of XtremIO 3.0. Burton described the flash storage as “arguably the hottest segment in storage right now”. The group agreed that it will have significant impact for customers in the flash storage market. Many also suggested EMC’s flash storage innovations, including DSSD, would help revolutionize the landscape of in-memory databases like SAP’s HANA.

I think we’ll get a big lift with SAP when DSSD comes to market. Its a great match for HANA wo… #RedefinePossible http://t.co/K047NCaRXE

— Jeremy Burton (@jburton) July 8, 2014

Burton also commented on EMC’s support for third party arrays:

@chrismevans we now support over 20 different 3rd party arrays – big hump was supporting Cinder … #RedefinePossible http://t.co/VZ2s5MbAVd

— Jeremy Burton (@jburton) July 8, 2014

And he explained that XIO will support replication using VPLEX:

@silvestri_73 both supported today… in fact many customers now purchase XIO with VPLEX. #RedefinePossible http://t.co/y8VlRmZL1r

— Jeremy Burton (@jburton) July 8, 2014

One of the popular topics up for discussion was “data lakes”. The concept refers to Big Data architecture that is data-centered with minimal silos and data is not restrained and can be utilized in any manner necessary. Furrier preferred the term “data ocean”, and many others had their own takes on what would be a better term. Burton even suggested “data landing zone”.

@furrier Agree. I don’t like “data lake” but it seems to be the term people are using. #RedefinePossible http://t.co/7MReRBIfPZ

— Bert Latamore (@BertLatamore) July 8, 2014

You can read a recap of EMC’s #megalanch announcement here. The complete CrowdChat conversation of #RedefinePossible is available below.