Full Transcript for Faster, Smarter, Modular: The Future According to CDM with Ron Mann

what we want to do here is support the actual IT elements. 62 00:04:05,109 --> 00:04:07,172 So we want to put IT in modules. 63 00:04:07,172 --> 00:04:14,452 and ship them as configured systems that you can basically put anywhere, especially for the edge, as you hear a lot about things like that. 64 00:04:14,452 --> 00:04:20,692 And that actually started back in the compact days and HP days, so we were starting to do that. 65 00:04:20,772 --> 00:04:24,292 But it's kind of evolved now to become more of a thing. 66 00:04:24,292 --> 00:04:35,052 so, yeah, we'll do a power module and things like that to support the IT modules, but we're really here to support IT modularization, both lower, mid-tier power ranges, all the 67 00:04:35,052 --> 00:04:36,072 way up to AI. 68 00:04:36,982 --> 00:04:45,540 Okay, then so tell me a little bit more about like who you serve and just get into the company a little bit deeper. 69 00:04:46,628 --> 00:04:49,289 So we have a lot of interesting uh customers. 70 00:04:49,289 --> 00:04:56,253 uh We deal a lot with the, what I call the IT, uh original equipment manufacturers, OEMs. 71 00:04:56,253 --> 00:05:01,376 They're interested in selling their IT and they want to be able to put what I call the wrapper around that. 72 00:05:01,376 --> 00:05:04,038 And modularization is a good way of doing that. 73 00:05:04,038 --> 00:05:09,280 And they don't want to focus on the modules because they want to focus on the storage and the servers and the AI and all that. 74 00:05:09,280 --> 00:05:16,130 So looking for trusted partners to help put together that final solution who do it for a living, right? 75 00:05:16,130 --> 00:05:21,184 And that's interesting because when I was doing this at Compaq, that's the way I did the business. 76 00:05:21,184 --> 00:05:26,107 We didn't want to develop UPSs and create a whole team to do UPSs. 77 00:05:26,107 --> 00:05:28,559 We would go hire a company that was expert in that. 78 00:05:28,559 --> 00:05:30,770 We'd say, here's our spec or here's our requirements. 79 00:05:30,770 --> 00:05:32,712 Can you build to this type of thing? 80 00:05:32,712 --> 00:05:41,758 And it was a great partnership because you think about it, know, at the time, HPE Compaq had a huge channel, but they needed certain support elements that just weren't out there 81 00:05:41,758 --> 00:05:44,557 yet, you know, because we were developing servers that were... 82 00:05:44,557 --> 00:05:46,458 six, nine, 18 months out. 83 00:05:46,458 --> 00:05:50,363 We knew what the requirements were going to be and there wasn't the right support structure. 84 00:05:50,363 --> 00:05:53,296 So I take that same philosophy now and say, okay, Mr. 85 00:05:53,296 --> 00:05:54,898 ITOEM, what are you coming up with? 86 00:05:54,898 --> 00:05:56,129 What are you doing? 87 00:05:56,129 --> 00:06:00,043 And how can we make sure that our infrastructure supports that when it 88 00:06:01,204 --> 00:06:04,631 So when you say modular, what exactly do you mean? 89 00:06:05,781 --> 00:06:15,035 In my terms, modular is basically anything that's done in a factory that can be shipped to the site and commissioned or installed at the site. 90 00:06:15,035 --> 00:06:21,508 So you'd want to do as much as you can in the factory environment versus the field because it saves you time and money. 91 00:06:21,548 --> 00:06:30,788 On average, uh you can save anywhere from 30 to 50 % doing modular in both time and cost if you plan it correctly. 92 00:06:30,788 --> 00:06:31,288 Right. 93 00:06:31,288 --> 00:06:33,888 And so, and so think about the advantages of manufacturing. 94 00:06:33,888 --> 00:06:37,008 You have standard processes, standard quality controls. 95 00:06:37,008 --> 00:06:42,508 There's a lot of standardization you can put into these systems and solutions that when they get to the site, then you're just hooking it up. 96 00:06:42,508 --> 00:06:44,328 Think about how much time you spend. 97 00:06:44,468 --> 00:06:45,288 I'll give an example. 98 00:06:45,288 --> 00:06:48,008 Let's say you're doing something simple like a pump skid. 99 00:06:48,008 --> 00:06:48,248 All right. 100 00:06:48,248 --> 00:06:51,488 Say there's five pumps on this pump skid. 101 00:06:51,488 --> 00:06:53,828 Traditionally, you'd have those pumps delivered to the site. 102 00:06:53,828 --> 00:06:57,588 You'd have a electrician and a plumber come out and they'd hook up each individual one. 103 00:06:57,588 --> 00:06:59,556 If I can put five of those on a skid. 104 00:06:59,556 --> 00:07:07,036 and it's all hooked up and plumbed up and ready to go, then all I'm doing is connecting that skid when it gets to the site, all five pumps, well then I've saved all sorts of time 105 00:07:07,036 --> 00:07:08,516 and effort for everybody. 106 00:07:08,696 --> 00:07:17,416 And that's really the essence of what modular is, is how to make it more cost effective for both the field installation and what you can do in the factory. 107 00:07:18,344 --> 00:07:22,801 So what would you say that really changed the game in Modular? 108 00:07:23,300 --> 00:07:26,580 Oh, AI, no doubt about it. 109 00:07:26,600 --> 00:07:36,480 One of the things, and I've been doing modules a long time, and when we were first doing this back in the day, and the reason why we started doing it is it was kind of an 110 00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:36,920 evolution. 111 00:07:36,920 --> 00:07:40,240 Because you think about it, when you first started doing racks, what would happen? 112 00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:48,260 You'd go to the data center site, the rack would be delivered empty, all these server boxes would come, and storage boxes and whatever else, and you'd integrate all that on 113 00:07:48,260 --> 00:07:49,157 site, right? 114 00:07:49,157 --> 00:07:55,457 So we got the interesting idea at Compact, say, okay, what if we integrate that in the rack and shipped it all integrated and fully connected? 115 00:07:55,457 -->

00:07:58,457 Now you have a rack full of stuff all ready to go. 116 00:07:58,457 --> 00:07:59,897 And so we made that a business. 117 00:07:59,897 --> 00:08:02,297 We called it Compact Factory Express and it was very successful. 118 00:08:02,297 --> 00:08:07,097 We had developed a rack that you can move around, you know, like on small little wheels. 119 00:08:07,097 --> 00:08:09,557 And there was a lot of design and development going into that. 120 00:08:09,557 --> 00:08:12,357 And then we got into, well, gee whiz, we can do it for a rack. 121 00:08:12,357 --> 00:08:13,777 What about a row of them? 122 00:08:13,777 --> 00:08:15,497 That's where the modularization came in. 123 00:08:15,497 --> 00:08:17,657 We put them in an IT module, right? 124 00:08:17,886 --> 00:08:19,767 And it was a fairly successful. 125 00:08:19,767 --> 00:08:25,798 sold a lot of that stuff to a lot of the big hyperscale guys at the time who were really expanding quickly and they needed a quick way to get to market. 126 00:08:25,918 --> 00:08:34,281 But what uh made it interesting for us is the fact that we could do all that again in a factory environment and get it out the door that way. 127 00:08:34,281 --> 00:08:42,903 So that kind of led to what we're doing now and why we like to integrate this stuff kind of uh in that format. 128 00:08:42,903 --> 00:08:45,884 But that kind of started the whole thing with uh 129 00:08:45,956 --> 00:08:47,276 of how far you can take it. 130 00:08:47,276 --> 00:08:57,236 Now, what happened on the power side was that what we realized was when you start most data centers today, I'm sorry, let me go back. 131 00:08:57,236 --> 00:09:07,676 Most data centers say three or four or five years ago before AI, pre-AI, where typically a rack of IT was 10 kilowatts, I like to talk about kilowatts or watts per rack. 132 00:09:07,676 --> 00:09:13,604 So most data center racks are 10 kilowatts per or lower per rack, right, on average, which meant 133 00:09:13,604 --> 00:09:18,244 that all data centers for the last 30 years were designed to handle that kind of a load. 134 00:09:18,304 --> 00:09:21,204 And so really the IT was taken out of the equation, right? 135 00:09:21,204 --> 00:09:22,844 So all data centers could handle that kind of load. 136 00:09:22,844 --> 00:09:30,924 And oh, if you did have a 20 kilowatt rack or you had some application that required that, well, in-row cooling came in, rear door heat exchangers came in. 137 00:09:30,924 --> 00:09:39,184 There are ways to do what they call spot level cooling to bring that load from 20 or 30 kilowatts back down to 10 so the data center could take the rest of the heat. 138 00:09:39,184 --> 00:09:40,864 And it worked great for years. 139 00:09:40,864 --> 00:09:43,364 And I remember having these discussions. 140 00:09:43,453 --> 00:09:48,965 at different forums probably 10 years ago about how, you know, it's going to get up to 20 and 30 and 40 kilowatts a rack. 141 00:09:48,965 --> 00:09:50,518 It's going to change the game. 142 00:09:50,619 --> 00:09:53,161 And it never did as fast as I thought. 143 00:09:53,161 --> 00:09:57,434 And the reason why was because the IT guys kept getting very innovative. 144 00:09:57,434 --> 00:10:04,770 They kept finding better ways to cool stuff with fans and heat sinks and better utilization of power efficiency and things like that. 145 00:10:04,770 --> 00:10:09,434 So basically it kind of took the data center having to change out of the equation, right? 146 00:10:09,434 --> 00:10:12,566 And what we found when we were doing this back in the day is that 147 00:10:13,028 --> 00:10:19,208 To make modular cost effective, you typically had to be above 22 kilowatts a rack. 148 00:10:19,388 --> 00:10:23,108 And that made it more cost effective to be in a module than it did in a data center. 149 00:10:23,448 --> 00:10:26,228 I could go either way if it was below that, right? 150 00:10:26,708 --> 00:10:28,268 But, okay, fine. 151 00:10:28,268 --> 00:10:29,388 And so things were starting creeping up. 152 00:10:29,388 --> 00:10:30,928 All of a sudden here comes AI. 153 00:10:31,888 --> 00:10:35,628 135, 125 kilowatts a rack going up higher, right? 154 00:10:35,668 --> 00:10:36,828 Totally changed the game. 155 00:10:36,828 --> 00:10:41,308 There is not a traditional data center on the planet that could support that kind of heat load, right? 156 00:10:41,308 --> 00:10:42,188 And so that... 157 00:10:42,188 --> 00:10:43,448 made a lot of sense for modules. 158 00:10:43,448 --> 00:10:45,790 Because you think about what you're doing in a data center environment. 159 00:10:45,790 --> 00:10:55,037 uh If you and I are in a conference room, and say it's built for say 20 people, just me and you there, the AC could go out and we may not know it for an hour or two because it's 160 00:10:55,037 --> 00:10:56,068 over provisioned, right? 161 00:10:56,068 --> 00:10:59,099 There's more cooling capacity in that room than us. 162 00:10:59,160 --> 00:11:00,761 Consider us being IT relics. 163 00:11:00,761 --> 00:11:08,516 If you and I are in a car and we're driving in the Houston heat, the AC goes out of the car, we're going to know it very quickly because the air is cooling us. 164 00:11:08,516 --> 00:11:09,727 It's not cooling anything else. 165 00:11:09,727 --> 00:11:11,714 And that's really the concept of a module. 166 00:11:11,714 --> 00:11:15,484 It's cooling exactly what it needs to cool, which is the IT, so it's more efficient. 167 00:11:15,484 --> 00:11:18,742 You're not cooling a lot of extra space, and that's what makes it efficient. 168 00:11:18,742 --> 00:11:19,774 uh 169 00:11:19,774 --> 00:11:24,953 So how does uh CDM do modular differently or different from others? 170 00:11:25,838 --> 00:11:26,528 Good question. 171 00:11:26,528 --> 00:11:38,414 uh The way I kind of look at it is uh not to begrudge anybody out there, what I see at least today, what most

modular providers do is they take, OK, I build these type of 172 00:11:38,414 --> 00:11:40,115 infrastructure solutions for data centers. 173 00:11:40,115 --> 00:11:43,947 How can I put them in a box and use it in a modular format, right? 174 00:11:43,947 --> 00:11:45,978 My in-row cooling, whatever I'm doing. 175 00:11:45,978 --> 00:11:51,170 And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but it's basically taking a known application or a known 176 00:11:51,257 --> 00:11:57,759 technique and you're just basically putting it in a different type of uh a box or a different type of form factor. 177 00:11:57,819 --> 00:11:59,318 I have never looked at it that way. 178 00:11:59,318 --> 00:12:05,761 Well, how we look at it at CDM is because of our IT background, we look at it from an application perspective. 179 00:12:05,761 --> 00:12:09,922 No one's in the data center business just because people want to sell hardware. 180 00:12:09,922 --> 00:12:11,817 Someone's trying to run an application. 181 00:12:11,817 --> 00:12:16,864 An application requires IT hardware, which requires the infrastructure around it to support it. 182 00:12:16,864 --> 00:12:19,004 And so we always look at it from that perspective. 183 00:12:19,076 --> 00:12:28,036 So what we want to do in our applications is to be as efficient as we can with cooling and power, no over or under provisioning so that you don't, so you can match it up. 184 00:12:28,036 --> 00:12:34,396 As an example, a lot of times you'll get to some of these module guys and they'll say, okay, here's my solution is 500 kilowatts as an example. 185 00:12:34,396 --> 00:12:34,956 Well, I don't need that. 186 00:12:34,956 --> 00:12:35,756 I need 300. 187 00:12:35,756 --> 00:12:37,096 Sorry, this is what we got. 188 00:12:37,096 --> 00:12:43,736 I can match the cooling and power to your 300 and you're not going to be over or under provisioned because of how we do our design work. 189 00:12:43,736 --> 00:12:48,706 And you got to keep in mind, we've been doing this for a long time, probably longer than most people have done it. 190 00:12:48,706 --> 00:12:50,328 So we know what works and what doesn't. 191 00:12:50,328 --> 00:12:54,143 So we're not using the customer as the guinea pig. 192 00:12:54,143 --> 00:12:56,736 know, hey, we just got in the modular space last year. 193 00:12:56,736 --> 00:12:59,340 You you're our second or third customer. 194 00:12:59,340 --> 00:13:00,011 We're still learning. 195 00:13:00,011 --> 00:13:02,734 You you don't get that from us because we know what works and what doesn't. 196 00:13:02,734 --> 00:13:07,740 What we're focusing on is the performance of the architecture to support what your application is. 197 00:13:08,428 --> 00:13:09,780 Got it, got it. 198 00:13:10,122 --> 00:13:18,119 So where are you seeing the hottest demand and maybe give us a couple of use cases where the edge makes the most sense. 199 00:13:18,681 --> 00:13:19,741 You know, it's interesting. 200 00:13:19,741 --> 00:13:24,215 uh You hear a lot about learning and AI learning, right? 201 00:13:24,215 --> 00:13:25,412 All the big guys are doing it. 202 00:13:25,412 --> 00:13:27,427 These big bloated data centers. 203 00:13:27,427 --> 00:13:39,375 You look at the Nvidia, like NBL72 platform, and they put a lot of information out there on how that's supported and what's the best way to support it, because it's so dense. 204 00:13:39,415 --> 00:13:41,877 And so that's a big one. 205 00:13:41,877 --> 00:13:46,361 uh What we try to do in our space, uh 206 00:13:46,361 --> 00:13:59,321 from this perspective is we try to look at it a little bit differently is again, it gets back to the application and what we're trying to support, but it's really about the 207 00:13:59,321 --> 00:14:02,993 application and what's the best way to support the end to end. 208 00:14:02,993 --> 00:14:06,996 So I don't know if that answered the question thoroughly or not, but that's kind how I look at it. 209 00:14:07,136 --> 00:14:08,510 Yeah, no, that makes sense. 210 00:14:08,510 --> 00:14:13,506 How do you see modular data centers enabling inference workloads at the edge? 211 00:14:13,506 --> 00:14:15,357 Okay, so the inference side's interesting. 212 00:14:15,357 --> 00:14:18,437 yeah, to answer that question a little bit better. 213 00:14:18,437 --> 00:14:23,359 eh What we try to do is, when we first looked at this, we looked at learning what was going on. 214 00:14:23,359 --> 00:14:25,680 We said, okay, there's a lot of people doing that. 215 00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:27,100 We've got a module that support that. 216 00:14:27,100 --> 00:14:28,760 We call it our learning module. 217 00:14:28,760 --> 00:14:31,781 You can do anywhere from 1.5 to three megawatts. 218 00:14:31,821 --> 00:14:34,679 And then we started looking at, okay, well, where's inference going? 219 00:14:34,679 --> 00:14:36,282 What's inference mean? 220 00:14:36,523 --> 00:14:41,514 And inference is interesting to me because if you go back a few years and people talk about the cloud. 221 00:14:41,828 --> 00:14:43,608 And everybody asks, what is the cloud? 222 00:14:43,608 --> 00:14:47,508 And you'd hear four different answers from four different people, what the cloud meant, right? 223 00:14:47,508 --> 00:14:49,588 And in first, I kind of put in that bucket. 224 00:14:49,628 --> 00:14:52,008 the reason why I do is just because it's unknown. 225 00:14:52,348 --> 00:14:55,628 I wouldn't call it the wild, wild west, but there's a lot of, it's a new market. 226 00:14:55,628 --> 00:14:57,228 It's emerging market, right? 227 00:14:57,228 --> 00:15:00,608 And I think inference has a lot of interesting applications. 228 00:15:00,608 --> 00:15:03,908 So that's where we're seeing a lot of the growth is in inference. 229 00:15:04,168 --> 00:15:08,252 And what I mean by that is it's not, it's AI, but it's not. 230 00:15:08,398 --> 00:15:14,892 Say for example, if you

look at the NVIDIA's NVL72 platform, I think it's eight AI racks and eight network racks, right? 231 00:15:14,892 --> 00:15:17,334 It makes up that solution for learning. 232 00:15:17,334 --> 00:15:22,618 What we're finding in Ference is people need one AI rack or two AI racks and a couple of network racks. 233 00:15:22,618 --> 00:15:28,222 So it's still high density per rack, 130 plus, but it's not a lot of them, right? 234 00:15:28,222 --> 00:15:30,003 And they want to put them in different locations. 235 00:15:30,003 --> 00:15:34,406 uh Edge is all about, people ask what a hedge is all the time. 236 00:15:34,406 --> 00:15:36,047 And it really depends again who you talk to. 237 00:15:36,047 --> 00:15:37,848 If I talk to a large, 238 00:15:37,925 --> 00:15:44,025 hyperscale guy, he might say, well, my edge data center is 50 megawatts, right? 239 00:15:44,365 --> 00:15:54,545 If you talk to a guy who's trying to do, I don't know, automated driving, it might be half a megawatt, 300 kilowatts, right, an edge. 240 00:15:54,545 --> 00:16:03,045 But really what it's all about is edge is all about removing latency, getting the source as close as you can to the customer so you don't have any latency, right? 241 00:16:03,045 --> 00:16:07,214 An example I like to use is if you're using one of the maps, 242 00:16:07,214 --> 00:16:13,981 Google Maps, whatever you use, Microsoft Maps, you don't want to find out free access to go, you should exit it because your data was late getting there, right? 243 00:16:13,981 --> 00:16:15,713 So that's really what it's all about. 244 00:16:15,713 --> 00:16:19,135 And so people are finding exactly right. 245 00:16:19,376 --> 00:16:24,821 And so that's what you're trying to, you're trying to really get that stuff set up in a way that makes sense. 246 00:16:24,822 --> 00:16:26,583 And so that's where we see a lot of uses. 247 00:16:26,583 --> 00:16:31,780 And the other thing that's coming up is people are trying to find and utilize stranded power, right? 248 00:16:31,780 --> 00:16:34,300 which is another big thing on AI data center. 249 00:16:34,300 --> 00:16:35,540 think about that. 250 00:16:35,540 --> 00:16:41,680 If you've got a stranded power of two or three megawatts here or there, put a little AI module there, right? 251 00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:43,020 And use that power. 252 00:16:43,020 --> 00:16:52,040 I've got some customers who are talking to us about, hey, I've got my data center, it's full, I can't put any more IT in it without building more on it, but I've got five 253 00:16:52,040 --> 00:16:54,740 megawatts of stranded power I can't use. 254 00:16:54,860 --> 00:16:56,060 Perfect for a module. 255 00:16:56,660 --> 00:16:57,440 And we can put them anywhere. 256 00:16:57,440 --> 00:16:59,982 We can put them on roofs, we can put them on parking lots. 257 00:16:59,982 --> 00:17:02,967 put them just you know name it we put them there so. 258 00:17:03,754 --> 00:17:07,877 So talent is a big, really hot topic in our industry right now. 259 00:17:07,877 --> 00:17:12,020 And the talent gaps, we just don't have enough people. 260 00:17:12,020 --> 00:17:19,726 What are you feeling with CDM when it comes to being able to get the people that you need? 261 00:17:20,260 --> 00:17:21,361 It's getting tougher. 262 00:17:21,361 --> 00:17:22,261 I won't deny it. 263 00:17:22,261 --> 00:17:26,654 uh We've kind of got a little bit of a two-edged sword in the modular space. 264 00:17:26,654 --> 00:17:29,172 First off, there's not a lot of people who understand modular. 265 00:17:29,172 --> 00:17:31,566 It's still fairly new, right? 266 00:17:31,686 --> 00:17:34,578 And uh especially IT modularization, right? 267 00:17:34,578 --> 00:17:37,950 It's one thing if you're doing an electrical skid, okay, now I'm taking these components. 268 00:17:37,950 --> 00:17:41,412 Instead of putting them individually in the data server, I'm going put them on a skid and ship them out. 269 00:17:41,412 --> 00:17:43,613 It's the same basic stuff. 270 00:17:43,613 --> 00:17:49,497 In the IT modularization, there's a little bit more uh skill sets and differentiation to it. 271 00:17:49,497 --> 00:17:58,160 how you do the cooling, how you stand that way, how you handle backup, how you handle redundancy, all this stuff uh in a very small form factor, right? 272 00:17:58,320 --> 00:18:02,492 That's the other thing about modularization is that one thing affects five others, right? 273 00:18:02,492 --> 00:18:03,983 I gotta change this because it doesn't work. 274 00:18:03,983 --> 00:18:08,044 Well, then you just change five other things to make that thing fit because it's so compact. 275 00:18:08,044 --> 00:18:10,545 And so that's kind of skill sets really hard to find. 276 00:18:10,545 --> 00:18:18,434 uh What I look for is the experience in a certain field like electrician, uh 277 00:18:18,434 --> 00:18:22,746 It could be plumbing, could be general assembly type stuff. 278 00:18:22,746 --> 00:18:31,770 And then are they, do they have the aptitude to kind of think out of the box on how to apply stuff versus just the way they're doing it, right? 279 00:18:31,770 --> 00:18:32,610 And I've seen both. 280 00:18:32,610 --> 00:18:39,463 I've seen really great electricians, master electricians, they make great supervisors on the floor because they really know how to get stuff done. 281 00:18:39,463 --> 00:18:41,524 They're used to multitasking and all that. 282 00:18:41,524 --> 00:18:45,764 But you got to have to make sure that you get the one that can kind of see out of the box and go, yeah. 283 00:18:45,764 --> 00:18:50,844 That's the way the building code works, but this is not a building per se, it's an electronic device. 284 00:18:50,844 --> 00:18:55,844 So you have to be a little bit more flexible with how you think about how you apply this stuff. 285 00:18:55,844 --> 00:18:57,468 And that's really what I look for. 286 00:18:58,014 -->

00:19:00,009 So what do your training programs look like? 287 00:19:00,009 --> 00:19:00,971 Is it formal? 288 00:19:00,971 --> 00:19:02,584 Is it informal? 289 00:19:03,330 --> 00:19:04,641 Right now it's informal. 290 00:19:04,641 --> 00:19:12,507 It's more about, you when you're in a young company like we are, it's, you know, I also look for people who can do multitasking, right? 291 00:19:12,507 --> 00:19:14,308 There's no such thing as a single task. 292 00:19:14,308 --> 00:19:20,973 I think as you get bigger, you want that, but I look for people who can wear four or five different hats, you know, and then okay with it. 293 00:19:20,973 --> 00:19:25,726 I mean, it's an industry, I mean, it's a very good and exciting time to be in the industry. 294 00:19:25,726 --> 00:19:31,205 I don't know there's how many times where you could actually change the industry, uh the way we're doing it. 295 00:19:31,205 --> 00:19:32,845 But you have to have the right mindset. 296 00:19:32,845 --> 00:19:39,085 What I try to do is that I want people who come to work for CDM to be happy to be here. 297 00:19:39,085 --> 00:19:44,065 And what I mean by that is when you wake up on a Sunday morning, you're not going, oh gosh, got to go work tomorrow. 298 00:19:44,425 --> 00:19:49,645 I want to think, oh my God, one more day of family and friends that I got to get back to work, got this to do that. 299 00:19:49,645 --> 00:19:53,045 I want to be excited about doing that because you spend a lot of time there, right? 300 00:19:53,045 --> 00:19:57,105 A lot of it has to do with the atmosphere that you create, the environment that you create. 301 00:19:57,205 --> 00:20:00,463 And also, I think giving people the bandwidth 302 00:20:00,463 --> 00:20:02,474 to make decisions, you know? 303 00:20:02,474 --> 00:20:04,556 I am by no means a micromanager. 304 00:20:04,556 --> 00:20:10,156 My job is to get the right people in the right place and remove roadblocks to make them successful, right? 305 00:20:10,156 --> 00:20:14,603 And I'll give you an example of what I mean by what I call a good employee and an exemplary employee. 306 00:20:14,603 --> 00:20:17,885 And that example would be, let's say I give you a task. 307 00:20:17,885 --> 00:20:22,789 I say, okay, ABC, we need to look at ABC and see which one works best, all right? 308 00:20:22,789 --> 00:20:28,052 And you come back you go look at ABC, you come back and say, okay, Ron, I looked at ABC, now I'm really gonna work. 309 00:20:28,068 --> 00:20:32,048 based on my analysis, and you did a really good job on the analysis, what's next, right? 310 00:20:32,048 --> 00:20:32,868 That's a good employee. 311 00:20:32,868 --> 00:20:35,768 You've actually fulfilled what I asked you to do. 312 00:20:35,968 --> 00:20:42,828 An exemplary employee would come back and say, you know, Ron, I looked at ABC, none of are gonna work, but I talked to Joe down the hall, he thought D might work. 313 00:20:42,828 --> 00:20:44,428 Look at this, what do you think? 314 00:20:44,428 --> 00:20:45,228 That's the difference. 315 00:20:45,228 --> 00:20:47,688 That's what I look for, is that kind of employee. 316 00:20:47,810 --> 00:20:49,491 Wow, I love that analogy. 317 00:20:49,491 --> 00:20:56,173 And what you said about uh one person wearing multiple hats is actually a future trend in our industry. 318 00:20:56,173 --> 00:21:04,197 So if you look, you're gonna see each role is gonna have multiple tasks that they do, not just one. 319 00:21:04,197 --> 00:21:08,899 So that's gonna happen all over the industry and we're gonna see it soon. 320 00:21:08,899 --> 00:21:11,020 So what's next for CDM? 321 00:21:11,020 --> 00:21:17,542 Next 24 months, let's say, what bets are you making for growth, for opportunities? 322 00:21:18,308 --> 00:21:20,908 Well, you know, we're going to continue on our trend. 323 00:21:21,008 --> 00:21:23,768 Half the battle on this stuff is this. 324 00:21:23,768 --> 00:21:25,508 I mean that in a nice way. 325 00:21:25,968 --> 00:21:27,108 It's competitive battle. 326 00:21:27,108 --> 00:21:28,488 It's a lot of people out there. 327 00:21:28,488 --> 00:21:36,868 Anytime you have a market like this is growing, and I think it's like 19 % CAGR over the next five years, this market, you're going to have a lot of people entering the business. 328 00:21:36,868 --> 00:21:39,428 And there's going be a lot of people coming in. 329 00:21:39,428 --> 00:21:41,788 It'll be interesting to see who's still here in five years. 330 00:21:41,788 --> 00:21:45,408 But what we're trying to do is really develop those partnerships and relationships. 331 00:21:45,688 --> 00:21:48,252 Because I really think that's the opportunity is 332 00:21:48,289 --> 00:21:58,943 is working with the ITOEMs, working with the NVIDIAs and the DELs and the HPs of the world and these different uh industrial manufacturers to build the batteries and the PDUs and 333 00:21:58,943 --> 00:22:00,179 the power distribution. 334 00:22:00,179 --> 00:22:01,520 And because it's an ecosystem. 335 00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:08,725 And what we discovered even years ago when we were doing this at Compaq is that there's no one company that can do it all. 336 00:22:08,725 --> 00:22:10,607 You have to have partnerships. 337 00:22:10,607 --> 00:22:14,510 And so we're looking for those long-term partnerships that can help us develop that solution. 338 00:22:14,510 --> 00:22:17,476 So I really think over time the solution is going to change. 339 00:22:17,476 --> 00:22:21,276 how we're doing modularization today is not going to be the way it's going to be tomorrow. 340 00:22:21,276 --> 00:22:23,176 And I'll use just a simple example. 341 00:22:23,176 --> 00:22:30,776 If you look at what we're doing today, we're taking a box, which is a computer, we're putting it in another box, which is a rack, we're that in another box, which is a module 342 00:22:30,776 --> 00:22:31,816 or a data

center. 343 00:22:31,816 --> 00:22:33,836 So it's a box in a box in a box. 344 00:22:33,836 --> 00:22:34,916 Why are we doing that? 345 00:22:34,916 --> 00:22:39,336 We're doing that because the server came from the desktops and it was a box, right? 346 00:22:39,336 --> 00:22:43,172 But over time, think about if you can start eliminating those boxes, you start doing... 347 00:22:43,172 --> 00:22:51,272 Some of the things that the server guys did in the early days with the blade servers where you have things that plug into different components and you could kind of remove some of 348 00:22:51,272 --> 00:22:53,732 that infrastructure and simplify it, right? 349 00:22:53,732 --> 00:22:55,872 Especially as the power density goes up. 350 00:22:55,872 --> 00:22:57,532 I think that's where it's going to go. 351 00:22:57,532 --> 00:23:02,592 But I think again, it's a system of partnerships who have expertise in those areas. 352 00:23:02,592 --> 00:23:05,192 You hear a lot about 800 volt DC, right? 353 00:23:05,192 --> 00:23:08,692 That's being talked about a lot for better, more efficient power distribution. 354 00:23:08,692 --> 00:23:10,876 Well, that takes time to develop, right? 355 00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:13,400 And so I think what you're going to see is a step function. 356 00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,340 And so what's up for us is we're going to sell today what we've got. 357 00:23:16,340 --> 00:23:24,700 We've got some very good solutions, but we want to innovate with the industry and be able to innovate as fast as the IT guys. 358 00:23:24,700 --> 00:23:31,740 And I think that's the paradigm shift is that no longer can the data center become static and the IT guys just do what they do and you just go with the data center. 359 00:23:31,740 --> 00:23:39,660 You have to be able to change with the IT as the IT comes out, as they go higher density, as they need different types of cooling and power requirements. 360 00:23:39,829 --> 00:23:47,559 then the infrastructure, the opportunity for us in this side of the space is to innovate with them and become their new best friends. 361 00:23:48,619 --> 00:23:49,320 I love it, Ron. 362 00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:52,455 How do we reach you learn more about CDM? 363 00:23:53,038 --> 00:23:57,852 So we are at CDmodular.com, I think CD-modular.com on our website. 364 00:23:57,852 --> 00:24:00,835 And you can get all the information there on what we're doing, how we're doing it. 365 00:24:00,835 --> 00:24:05,618 ah You can reach out to me, Ron, at CD-modular.com as well. 366 00:24:05,819 --> 00:24:08,281 But yeah, it's all there on the website. 367 00:24:08,281 --> 00:24:13,626 We are going to a lot of different shows and speaking at lot of different events, so you can kind of see us there too. 368 00:24:13,626 --> 00:24:18,350 ah So we'll be at Gartner in uh December, so we'll be there. 369 00:24:18,350 --> 00:24:20,952 If anybody wants to come chat, we'll be there for that. 370 00:24:21,230 --> 00:24:25,273 You know, just uh different venues like that, but we're more happy to hear from you. 371 00:24:25,273 --> 00:24:28,448 even if we don't, you know, there's not a fit right now for business. 372 00:24:28,448 --> 00:24:35,955 I'm more than happy to talk about where Modular is going or what we can do, what you need to be cognizant of if you're looking at these types of solutions. 373 00:24:36,183 --> 00:24:37,865 Thank you, Ron, for coming on the show. 374 00:24:37,865 --> 00:24:39,151 I've learned a lot. 375 00:24:40,023 --> 00:24:40,677 Well, no problem. 376 00:24:40,677 --> 00:24:41,811 I really enjoyed it. 377 00:24:42,325 --> 00:24:43,465 You take care. 378 00:24:43,758 --> 00:24:44,658 Thank you. 379 00:24:47,284 --> 00:24:49,412 Alrighty, that was awesome!