Last summer, Lino Telera attended his first Cloud Field Day. While the presenting companies showed off a vast array of products, platforms and solutions, for Lino the overall theme came down to being more dynamic with data across the cloud. He gives his impressions of all the presenters, from HPE’s Nimble Cloud Volumes to Nirmata’s SaaS solution to close the gap between developers and sysadmin.
Is NetApp Becoming A Service Provider?
In this post, Chris Evans makes the argument that NetApp has fundamentally changed as a company, from a single product and platform to full on data management. As an example, he points to their Cloud Orchestrator service.
Accelerating Workloads with NetApp Plexistor
Chris Evans was surprised to learn that NetApp had acquired Plexistor, a company he had first seen at Storage Field Day in 2016. He thinks NetApp got a bargain in the acquisition, getting a storage class memory solution in their Plexistor SCM. Chris gives a quick overview how this could fit into NetApp’s portfolio.
TFD14 – NetApp
Larry Smith Jr. takes a look at the open source initiatives from NetApp, as presented at Tech Field Day earlier this year. This reflects a change in focus from the company. Previously seen as a pure storage company, their embrace of open source and DevOps culture through thePub marks a decidedly different company. Larry was particularly impressed by their NetApp Docker Volume Plugin, moving into the world of container storage management.
TFD14 – NetApp
Earlier this year, Larry Smith Jr saw NetApp present at Tech Field Day. The company presented their work with open source projects to further their relevance to the DevOps community, centered around their thePub initiative. Larry found it an impressive change in tone from a company mostly known for storage arrays.
NetApp at DockerCon – What’s that about then?
For Ian Sanderson, he thought of NetApp as just another storage vendor. After seeing their Tech Field Day Extra presentation from DockerCon EU, he’s definitely changed his tune! He was impressed with the company’s efforts to fully support containers across their product portfolio, as well as putting in lots of open source code via The Pub.
Why the hybrid IT control plane is destined for the public cloud
Cloud growth is exploding, but analysts have shown that compared to a traditional data center, it can be much more expensive in the long haul. That’s why Keith Townsend things a hybrid IT approach will allow organizations to leverage the agility of the cloud without the cost associated with a complete migration. Keith takes a look at some SaaS-based data center control planes from Platform9, Skyport Systems, and HPE to compare their strategies for hybrid IT management.
A tale of two storage companies – NetApp and Vantara (HDS-Insight Grp-Pentahoo)
Ray Lucchesi heard competing visions from storage companies in transitions recently. At Insight, NetApp presented themselves as the data service provider for IT and a willingness to embrace the cloud. The newly created Hitachi Vantara’s philosophy is based around the move to IoT. Ray lays out each company’s goals, it’s problem with customers, and who is ultimately right in with these divergent approaches.
NetApp SolidFire HCI – Scale what you want, when you want
Mike Preston is less concerned whether NetApp’s recently announced hyperconverged infrastructure solution is “true” HCI as much as he cares if their blend of software and hardware can help him solve problems. To that effect, Mike gives his thoughts on the overall solution. He found the solutions uniquely scalable, which when combined with SolidFire QoS and “automation sauce” makes for an intriguing offering, no matter how you classify it.
Netapp‘s SolidFire HCI Overview
Roger Lund reviews NetApp’s presentation from Tech Field Day Extra at VMworld. At the event, they went into a deep dive of their new hyperconverged infrastructure solution, which gives organizations simple provisioning while allowing them to scale compute and storage independently.
The Thing About NetApp HCI Is …
NetApp went into details on their new hyperconverged infrastructure offering during their Tech Field Day Extra at VMworld. Dan Frith gives his thought on their entrant into this crowded market. He doesn’t bother with the semantics of whether this is “true” HCI. Instead he notes that NetApp impressively builds on their SolidFire storage solution to build an offering that offers the ability to scale compute and storage independently with easy provisioning expected from HCI.
NetApp at a Crossroads
In light of their Cloud Field Day presentation, Eric Shanks knows that NetApp is at a crossroads as a company. Their traditional image as a storage vendor will have to shift as NetApp begins to adapt the cloud and move into more cloud focussed products. Eric says, however, that this will be particularly difficult for a company as large as NetApp to accomplish swiftly. After all, they cannot simply abandon all of their older products and revenue streams. But with new hires and determination, NetApp is looking to be a player in the cloud market and despite anything else, NetApp will be a very different company in the next few years.
NetApp and Rubrik, a David and Goliath situation? Part Three
In the final installment of his Cloud Field Day comparison between Rubrik and NetApp, Ben Kepes comes to the conclusion that both companies are in a good, but different, position to guarantee their future. Rubrik has none of the constraints around existing revenue streams, sales force motion or customer expectations that NetApp has, making it a much more agile player, while NetApp has deep relationships with the world’s largest enterprises giving it a leg up in the industry. Despite this, Ben ultimately decides that “if NetApp realizes both the opportunity and the threat, this battle is theirs to lose – they have the pedigree, the existing market share, the cash reserves and the brand recognition to pull one out of the bag and guarantee their future.”
NetApp and Rubrik, a David and Goliath situation? Part Two
As part of his series comparing and contrasting NetApp and Rubrik, Ben Kepes talks about Rubrik’s meteoric rise to fame from backup vendor startup to data management powerhouse. Ben believes that Rubrik “has amassed cash, a stellar crew and, perhaps most importantly, a unique point in time when change is ramping up.” This has led Rubrik to a position where they can build something of real substance, and Ben looks forward to what they have in store.
Cloud Field Day 2: Event Summary
Bryan Krausen recaps Cloud Field Day, giving a quick review of each company’s presentation and relaying his thoughts on the event as a whole. He enjoyed most of the presentations, but found that each of the three days of the event had a different theme, from startups to industry giants. Bryan is thankful to have had the opportunity to attend Cloud Field Day and looks forward to more Field Day events in the future.
NetApp Still Figuring Out How To Cloud
Justin Warren reflects on NetApp’s Cloud Field Day presentation, writing that they are looking to reinvent themselves as the industry moves towards the cloud. NetApp acknowledges that their old business ventures are just not where growth is and are moving towards a more service oriented business with higher margins. What worries Justin, however, is that NetApp’s products are just not compelling anymore.
NetApp and Rubrik, a David and Goliath situation? Part One
Ben Kepes writes about the differences he saw between NetApp and Rubrik at Cloud Field Day. Ben notes that NetApp has long had financial pressure not to innovate, even if that innovation helps NetApp ensure its long term survival. Now, however, with their acquisition of SolidFire and their appointment of Mark Bregman as CTO, Ben sees NetApp as moving towards a focus on innovation. This is a move in the right direction, but NetApp still might be falling behind its innovative competitors.
NetApp at Cloud Field Day
Theresa Miller was thoroughly impressed by the NetApp team and their passion for technology at Cloud Field Day. She points out that NetApp has long been a storage giant, but this passion for technology makes it clear that they plan to be a player in the growing cloud market. They already manage over 240 petabytes of cloud data today, along with offering tools like AltaVault, NetApp CloudSync, and ONTAP, so Theresa is anticipating good things to come in NetApp’s future.
Is there still a need for specialized administrators?
Mike Preston asks the question, “is the storage admin dead?” in response to Andy Banta’s NetApp SolidFire presentation at Storage Field Day. He talks storage provisioning and performance as well as quality of service before praising NetApp SolidFire for having “taken some very difficult and complex tasks and turned them into a simple policy.”
Cloud Field Day 2 Preview: NetApp
Julian Wood previews NetApp in preparation for their Cloud Field Day presentation. He gives a quick history and talks about NetApp’s expansion into cloud. He is interested to see what the storage giant will offer in the cloud realm.
