Storage Field Day saw the return of Keith Townsend to the delegate ranks. In this post, he takes a look at what NetApp presented at the event. They showed their Network Data as a Service, which indexes all of the metadata stored in the system, allowing for basic analytics and an easily searchable data lake. Given NetApp’s breadth across Tier 1 and backup storage platforms, Keith sees some intriguing possibilities.
Monitoring Customer Data With Machine Learning
Justin Warren wrote up this piece looking at how IT companies are using machine learning to better monitor customer data. He specifically cites HPE’s InfoSight and NetApp’s Active IQ interesting examples, the latter of which he saw at Tech Field Day last month. He notes that collecting and processing information across customers allows Active IQ to notice systemic issues earlier.
Podcast #3 – Chris & Matt Review the SFD18 Presenters
In this podcast episode, Chris Evan and Matt Leib did an off the cuff rundown of the Storage Field Day presenters. The event was jam packed with interesting IT companies, and the two do a great job of running through what stood out from Cohesity, Datera, IBM, NetApp, StorPool, VAST Data WekaIO and Western Digital.
NetApp Active IQ – A Logical Next Step in Maintenance
Nathaniel Avery wrote up his thoughts on NetApp’s Active IQ, something he saw quite a bit about at Tech Field Day earlier this month. This service offers configuration suggestions based on a massive dataset of anonymized data the company collects on deployments, which are then processed by machine learning algorithms to look for larger trends. Active IQ also lets customers compare configuration efficiencies with similar customers, which is key to making sure you’re getting the most for your money. Throwing around terms like ML made Nathaniel a little skeptical, but he came away impressed by the capabilities.
Storage Field Day 18 – It’s as Intense as Storage Field Day Gets
It’s hard to believe it, but Storage Field Day next week will be Max Mortillaro’s 7th such event. It’s hard to image having one without him around the delegate table. Despite the prospect of jet lag and a little information overload, he’s excited to hear from the full roster of presenting companies on tap. Be sure to tune into the event live stream to catch all the presentations along with Max.
MAX Data: Optimising Application Performance With SCM
Chris Evans digs into NetApp’s MAX Data, a tiered storage solution that comes from the company’s acquisition of Plexistor back in 2017. Chris sees this as a must watch technology for 2019, even if he still needs to see some solid performance data before making a final judgement. To learn more about how MAX Data can “really exploit the potential of SCM and technologies like Intel Optane”, be sure to watch their presentation from Tech Field Day at NetApp Insight.
TechField Day 18 – Day 1 With Datera, NetApp and VMware
Ed Horley was one of the delegates that made his way down to Austin for Tech Field Day last week. The event had a full roster of prominent IT companies. In this post, Ed focuses on what he heard on day one of the event, with presentations from Datera, NetApp, and VMware. For him, the three companies showed varying approaches on how to differentiate their solutions based on how they are handling data analytics. These differences in approaches were illuminating in how each pitched their value to the delegates.
NetApp to Showcase Active IQ at Tech Field Day 18
NetApp was one of the presenters in Austin for Tech Field Day last week. In this post, Rip Wilson gives a preview of what was discussed at the event. The presentation focused on NetApp’s vision for data science, delving deep into their Active IQ intelligence platform. Be sure to catch the full video of their presentation for the full deep dive experience.
TFD18 Prep: NetApp
Justin Warren wrote up a look at NetApp prior to their presentation at Tech Field Day in Austin last week. He outlines the moves NetApp has made to be relevant in the cloud, and why perhaps we’re still waiting to see revenues catch up to their technological change. That’s the context he had in mind ahead of their presentation at Tech Field Day. Be sure to watch their entire presentation on our full event video to judge for yourself.
NetApp buys into Kubernetes Orchestration with StackPointCloud
Chris Evans breaks down the reasons behind NetApp’s recent acquisition of StackPointCloud. The company gained a management Kubernetes provider that works across clouds. Now they are using it to run their own NetApp Kubernetes service. This is another vital step for the company from transforming from selling storage hardware and software into a storage service provider.
NetApp Data Fabric: A la Hybrid Cloud! – An update from NetApp Insight 2018
Chan Ekanayake attending Tech Field Day Extra at NetApp Insight 2018, and in this post shares his thoughts on NetApp’s announcements around Data Fabric. At Insight, the company showed how Data Fabric is moving beyond simply being a hybrid cloud solution. Now Data Fabric can provide data portibility across across Edge to Core to Cloud platforms. NetApp also extended the data services available to Data Fabric solutions. Chan thinks the strategy for NetApp is sound, the devil will be in continuing to execute. But he sees NetApp’s willingness to invest and differentiate with software will only serve to their advantage going forward.
Is Pure Play Storage good?
Chin-Fah Heoh has seen a number of pure play storage companies present at Storage Field Day over the years. In this post, he looks at the Gartner Magic Quadrants from 2010 and 2017, looking how the Big 5 storage companies have fared in that time. NetApp remains the only company in the leaders quadrant, with Pure Storage as the notable new kid on the block. But for Chin-Fah, this doesn’t represent the death of pure play storage, rather representative of a changing of the guard.
Live at VMworld Europe 2018: An Update on VMware Strategy and Vision, or VMware is Cool Again
In this post, Max Mortillaro considers the emergence of Kubernetes as a de facto container orchestrator. This can be seen looking at any number of IT companies, including what he saw at Tech Field Day Extra at NetApp Insight 2018. This event saw a lot of coverage around the company’s new NetApp Kubernetes Service, from their recent StackPointCloud acquisition.
73: GreyBeards talk HCI with Gabriel Chapman, Sr. Mgr. Cloud Infrastructure NetApp
This episode of the Greybeards on Storage podcast features a conversation with NetApp’s Senior Manager, Cloud Infrastructure, Gabriel Chapman. Andy presented to hosts Ray Lucchesi and Howard Marks at Tech Field Day Extra at NetApp Insight 2018. They discuss NetApp’s approach to HCI. Their architecture pairs NetApp Solidfire storage nodes with dedicated compute nodes. Their overall approach is less focused with a strict definition of HCI, and more based around being relevant for hybrid cloud infrastructure.
75: GreyBeards talk persistent memory IO with Andy Grimes, Principal Technologist, NetApp
This episode of the Greybeards on Storage podcast features a conversation with NetApp’s Principal Technologist, Andy Grimes. Andy presented to hosts Ray Lucchesi and Howard Marks at Tech Field Day Extra at NetApp Insight 2018, where he presented on MAX Data. This software-defined persistent memory solution comes out of the assets from NetApp’s Plexistor acquisition. They discuss some of the technical details, how it is designed to use emerging persistent memory, and use cases for the enterprise.
NetApp: HCI Stands For “Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure”
Stephen Foskett wrote up his thoughts on NetApp’s HCI as he saw at Tech Field Day Extra at NetApp Insight 2018. Some may quibble if their architecture is “hyperconverged infrastructure”, but for NetApp, that’s beside the point. NetApp was focused on making a true hybrid cloud infrastructure, taking a more functionalist look at what HCI has to be. Stephen sees this as being what will allow NetApp to keep customers in the fold as they move to converged and cloud solutions.
NetApp MAX Data: The Persistence of Memory, Revisited
Max Mortillaro takes a surrealist approach in looking at NetApp MAX Data, something he heard a great deal about at Tech Field Day Extra at NetApp Insight 2018. This is an evolution on the assets NetApp obtained in the Plexistor acquisition, providing a software-defined architecture that leverages persistent memory for data storage. This can use either NVDIMMs or Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory modules. Max was impressed by their tiering scheme in MAX Data, providing a seamless integration for this cutting edge tech into a very traditional stack.
NetApp Insight: Fabrics, Volumes, Insights & more
David Chapa was onboard as a delegate for Tech Field Day Extra at NetApp Insight 2018. At the event, he took away the theme that today’s NetApp is all about being “data driven.” To that effect, about the evolution of NetApp’s Data Fabric, the recently announced Cloud Volume developments, and Cloud Insights. Overall, David found what was announced impressive, but thinks the challenge will be to move from the company’s business-focused solutions and build from there.
What is HCI and really, does it matter?
After attending Tech Field Day Extra at NetApp Insight 2018, Matt Leib has a question. What should HCI stand for, hyperconverged, or hybrid cloud infrastructure. At the event, Matt got to hear from NetApp’s Gabriel Chapman about where and what HCI is actually being used for in the enterprise. Matt found Gabe’s argument that the “traditional” HCI definition isn’t really relevant in today’s enterprise. You can watch the full video of NetApp’s discussion on their appearance page from the event.
NetApp’s Data Fabric Gets Real
At Tech Field Day Extra at NetApp Insight 2018, the delegates got to see NetApp’s vision of Data Fabric come a little bit more into reality. In this piece, Stephen Foskett outlines how the company has taken Data Fabric from more of a marketing formulation into a real set of data services, orchestration, and management solutions. This is all backed by their previous release of Cloud Volumes to make hybrid storage a reality for the unique swath of customers in NetApp’s customer base.
