When starting up a new company, it’s good to ask what customer needs are not being met. That’s just what Gou Rao, cofounder and CTO of Portworx, Inc., and his partners did when they saw customers looking for a way to move data to commodity infrastructure. The fundamental problem his company, Portworx, solves is allowing people to marry DevOps to their existing commodity infrastructure.

Rao was interviewed by John Furrier (@furrier) and Brian Gracely (@bgracely), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team during DockerCon 2016 in Seattle, Washington.

Container-defined storage

So what is container-defined storage? Rao looks at it this way: “Let’s acknowledge there’s a different way in which we build and deploy software.” It isn’t monolithic. In other words, it’s a way to encompass all the different things that you are doing. Container-defined storage “scales larger, is cloud-native, has an awareness of orchestration, and is DevOps friendly.”

Rao acknowledged that it really couldn’t have been done without the Docker software containerization platform. “I think Docker’s been really good in shining light on how modern people build software in a more modular way,” he said. Without Docker they would have to use legacy architecture, which would make reinventing and ingenuity less valuable.

Straightforward pricing

As for pricing, like most things, customers want it straightforward and easy to understand, Rao said. In this case, the server-based license makes sense. This way a customer knows exactly what they’re getting for what price, without worrying about hidden fees or add-ons.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the DockerCon 2016. Plus, join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting live with theCUBE hosts.

Photo by SiliconANGLE