Silk Blog

Time to Face Facts: Retailers are Becoming Tech Companies | Silk

Simon Palmer — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:30:10 GMT

Have you ever noticed how shopping has evolved from a simple trip to the store to a fully immersive, tech-infused experience? Today’s consumers are seeking personalized shopping encounters that seamlessly blend the physical with the digital. Rather than merely selling products, retailers must now adopt the mindset of technology companies to meet these evolving demands. In this blog post, we’ll explore some innovative retailers leading the charge and delve into the compelling reasons why retailers need to embrace technology.

The Top Microsoft Ignite Takeaways: AI-First Infrastructure, Data Lakes, and the Future of Enterprise Data

julie.rubin@silk.us (Julie Rubin) — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:30:09 GMT

Microsoft Ignite made one thing unmistakably clear: we’re entering the era of the AI-first enterprise. Every product, every workload, and every piece of infrastructure is being reshaped around AI acceleration. Whether you’re building customer-facing applications, running mission-critical databases, or storing decades of historical data, the expectations around speed, flexibility, and scale have completely changed.

Big Endian Conversion While Migrating to Azure | Silk

BJ Lachance — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:30:08 GMT

One of the most ‘untouchables’ of the ‘untouchable’ workloads are AIX and Solaris hosted. These are the traditional ‘Big Iron Unix’ go-to platforms for large enterprise workloads. Each is based on a company specific RISC Chip: Power PC in the case of IBM and Sparc for Sun. AIX and Solaris are the correlated Unix OSes for each. A good number of high value, high activity on-premise workloads are still running on these RISC based commercial Unix platforms. These ‘classic’ 64-bit RISC chip-based Unix operating systems are nearly identical to Linux (or rather Linux is nearly functionally identical to them as they pre-date it). But they are of a different word byte order.

Throughput vs IOPS: Navigating Cloud Performance in 2024 | Silk

Silk — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:30:07 GMT

As businesses continue their digital transformations, cloud migration remains a critical priority. Whether you’re an emerging cloud-native startup or a well-established company transitioning legacy systems, optimizing cloud performance is crucial. Key cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud have enabled companies to scale faster than ever. However, with increased scalability comes the challenge of ensuring high-performance operations. In this landscape, two fundamental metrics—Throughput and IOPS—are essential to understand for ensuring top-tier cloud performance.

How Franciscan Health is Using Silk to Revolutionize Patient Care | Silk

julie.rubin@silk.us (Julie Rubin) — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:30:06 GMT

Franciscan Health, a 12-hospital system serving communities from Indianapolis to Chicago, is leveraging cutting-edge technology to enhance its operations and patient care. Known for its commitment to innovation, Franciscan has embraced telemedicine, virtual care, and advanced analytics to better serve patients wherever they are. Central to this transformation is its strategic partnership with Silk, whose software-defined cloud storage platform has enabled Franciscan to optimize its data infrastructure.

Real-Time AI Inference on AWS: Fix the Data Bottleneck with Silk

Isabella Richard — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:30:05 GMT

If you listened to Jensen Huang’s recent interview on Stratechery, one thing is abundantly clear: AI has officially crossed the threshold from experimental to operational.

What is Cloud Performance? | Silk

Silk — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:30:04 GMT

Cloud performance refers to how well your applications, workloads and databases operate on the cloud. Your underlying cloud infrastructure should support your business objectives. In today’s digital age, speed matters. On the cloud, performance is everything. Cloud performance allows you to remain competitive as a business.

Cloud Storage for AI: Key Considerations, Options, and Best Choice | Silk

julie.rubin@silk.us (Julie Rubin) — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:30:03 GMT

Artificial intelligence (AI) is only as good as the data it runs on. Whether you’re training massive language models, fine-tuning predictive algorithms, or running real-time inference, your data needs a home that can keep up. That’s where cloud storage for AI comes in. Choosing the right storage isn’t just about capacity — it’s about speed, scalability, integration, and cost-effectiveness.

5 Challenges of Migrating Oracle Workloads to Azure | Silk

Silk — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:30:02 GMT

The Oracle database is widely used around the globe for mission-critical applications and migrating Oracle workloads to the public cloud requires significant planning and testing. This blog examines the 5 challenges of migrating Oracle database workloads to Microsoft Azure and how to solve them.

Unlocking Database Performance: Tips for Optimization | Silk

Silk — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:30:01 GMT

Data is at the core of every business application. Because of this, database performance optimization is crucial for you and your team. Optimization begins with setting your primary goals (e.g. 95th percentile <10ms query response) and then looking at what tuning can impact that goal or KPI. Cloud database performance is a set of trade-offs between performance, efficiency, and costs.