During the NetApp Insight 2017 conference NetApp made many announcements regarding new software products that truly define their data fabric story and vision. The software-defined data management system that will allow data flow to all products on premise, to cloud and back. NetApp is no longer just a storage company.
Here are my top 3 take-aways from this year’s Insight:
- The release of ONTAP 9.3 was announced. This new version promises to deliver more IOPS, lower latency and increase storage capacity through de-duplication – can’t wait to see that in action.
2. NetApp also announced their partnership with Microsoft to provide cloud services through Azure. Finally! It will integrate with other Azure services to include analytics, SQL server and SAP Hana for Azure. Great things are coming from this partnership.
3. The SolidFire acquisition has continuously had positive impacts with the ongoing development projects at NetApp. With its all-flash array storage, SolidFire brings a whole host of options with the software defined storage and HCI platforms. Looking forward to see where they go next.
NetApp’s data fabric is not just a product or a piece of software, it’s a strategy. It ties together multi-cloud environments and provides a data management software platform that can run on the latest infrastructure technologies; such as, SSD, NVRAM, NVMe, HCI and CI. NetApp is able to provide real solutions to struggling customers running out of storage that actually fit their needs, instead of just selling another storage box. Good things are happening with NetApp. They are in a great position to impact the market. I, for one, am excited to see where they land!
I’d also like to commend the way that NetApp moved forward with the conference in a way that honored the victims of the Las Vegas shooting that took place beforehand. The moment of silence, direction for ways to contribute to response teams and support to Vegas by staying were all appreciated.