Stephen Manley, CTO of the Core Technologies group at EMC Corp., is dedicated to helping customers simplify workloads and reduce costs wherever possible. A few years ago, when storage technology shifted from tapes to disks, it simplified a lot of processes in the backup space. Today, according to Manley in an interview with theCUBE during EMC World 2015, that transformation is happening in the move from disks to flash.

“Instead of having to do a lot of work configuring disk systems and trying to balance your performance …. I plug in flash, and you know what? It’s fast. And if I need more fast, I plug in more flash. And it just works,” Manley said. This enables new workloads and reduces investment dramatically.

Security backups

Not only are there fewer backups lying around, but the ones that do exist can be used for other things — even including security, Manley said.

“We’ve got customers all around the world now that are looking at things like, how do I leverage my, say, backup metadata to better manage my security? So in the wake of some of the break-ins that have happened, can my backup tell me when I’m getting an unusual number of, say, deletions or modifications on a certain dataset? Because that could very well be indicative of an attack.” When integrated, these systems can support each other to prevent leaks.

Integration costs a problem

But when it comes to simplifying and integrating legacy systems with newer components, Manley admits that integration costs can be a problem. He acknowledges that many customers can’t start from scratch, so his question is: “How do I evolve you from where you are, getting each step along the way that allows you to get some ROI?”

By starting small, with a hybrid flash array, for example, customers aren’t just ripping out systems and hoping the new ones work. Instead, Manley emphasizes, “Each step improves your world.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of EMC World 2015.