NetApp dHCI Innovator or Storage Dinosaur
Transcript
all right we're still gonna go at NetApp about this concept of net at being a storage dinosaurs Seek Alpha called them a storage dinosaur I have the VP of engineering on and we're just gonna go right at it what has NetApp done to shed this moniker that they've been attributed to it are they actually innovating or is it a retread of what we've seen from that app over the past 20 years? Stay tuned for this episode of the CTO dose Hey it's Keith Townsend from the CTO Advisor.
You're watching continued coverage of the net app build day event we're here in Boulder Colorado and a joining us is VP of engineering in Anil Gaur. We are going to jump right into the area that you're responsible for HCI SolidFire. I think one of the things that executives questioned when they saw NetApp entering the HCI arena was you know what NetApp is a storage company they don't sell compute. nion. So, Keith let me put this in perspective in the entire industry is going through a transformation digital transformation NetApp is on that journey too.
Many years ago we realized the strategic importance of cloud. We created three business units so we can be very very focused on the cloud business and the strategy is working really really well So, I talked to the founder of that app Dave Hitz maybe about a year year and a half ago at NetApp insight and one of the things you said about the culture of NetAp is that you guys lean into disruption. It's not one of those things you know if you think the cloud is going to eat NetApp business then you lean into cloud and it seems to be with NKS and HCI and HCI kind of leading the cloud management plane that you guys are doing that, However, when I read headlines like the Seeking Alpha headline that says NetApp storage dinosaur what's your reaction to that?
Like what do you see the innovations in Netapp? So you're right so net app has been known as a leader and storage for really really long time and we are bringing all the benefits you know to the cloud now. Cloud is the front and center of our strategy every new feature every new service we build we think cloud first but we don't stop there. We understand that while the industry is moving towards cloud every enterprise is at a very different place in this journey and there are some customers who are just not ready for putting their data or their mission-critical applications on the cloud so while they like all the benefits of the cloud.
But they want to keep it hosted in their own data centers. Our strategy is very unique where we provide a unified view of all the major hyper scalar so if you use our services whether you are on is your Google cloud Amazon Cloud you get the same experience and by the way you have the same experience and abilities on Prem we treat nks on HCI as just another region that can be deployed to. So we bring basically all the simplicity elasticity you know flexibility of cloud to all these hyper scalars and to on-prem customers.
So we had Adam Carter chief architect for HCI on. we've had Rob Ekker the product manager for nks on and they did a really great job of explaining the technology you know why NetApp is doing this I think one of the things that helps to validate that or even test it is to put this thing to the test how big of an effort is HCI at NetApp? We're in the you can you know timing can be debatable the former offices of SolidFire. I feel the vibe of a cloud type company.
However, give me some ideal of scale how big is the organization dedicated towards HCI. HCI is one of the most strategic area for us and this is the fastest growing business. I joined here about a year ago and the team is growing at a crazy pace so it's all about you know dealing with all these challenges and scaling up fast. Our strategy is resonating really well with the customers. As I said before you know people like the benefits of the cloud but they like it on their own data centers so we have this unique proposition that we bring all these benefits on tram where you don't need to worry about security if you care so much you can control.
If your needs grow you can burst into cloud no need to retrain relearn anything again the same UI that you use to kind of scale up down. You can use public cloud for testing bring it back you know to one prime for production deployments. So that's a very unique value prop and we are growing vvery very fast. So we want to and I think I can validate that with some points our sponsor had mentioned that you guys are actually moving some folks out of this space which you guys have a couple of floors here to move more people in so the group is growing out I'll give you guys that but I want to probe I think the organization a little bit work because NetApp has been around for a long time and one of the things that Dave commented on last year was that change can be resistant so you know.
When Dave was active part of the NetApp community he can't he was kind of the cheerleader for cloud is okay it's okay to put on tap on the cloud it's okay to have HCI it will not kill the company. As a big personality like Dave exits the company how do you guys keep that momentum how do you keep that spirit of innovation? So what keeps net up going in a passionate talent that we have we really enjoy disrupting the world and with that see I you know that's one of the recent example I can give we have actually disrupted the industry we have changed the definition of a TI it's high before I was back here a lot of the radical yeah yeah and some of the analysts that did not believe in it they're pleased to see you over the year you know they've created new category and there is a new class disaggregated HCI it is a huge win and the disaggregated HCI allows us to scale independently you know compute and storage which matters a lot at large scale so those are the things where we bring innovation in a different domain but it's the passion it's the technical skills you know when you put them to the challenge solving new problems we have been great at it we have proven over and over.
I'm getting the hook but I'm going to I'm gonna ask you the question about the affair when I first heard the concept lobbed it but when I saw that the NetApp portfolio I don't see mini cannon I don't I didn't see a coherent strategy this is maybe about three three or four years ago update me what were you at with this data fabrics concepts? So data fabric concept born like in cloud a few years ago and today this is very very real we have cloud services the unified view running in public clouds and what.
We are doing what my organization is responsible for is to bring all the benefits of data fabric architecture and concept to on-prem in a seamless way. Where to the end customers it doesn't matter you know where they're running the data or applications. Whether it's all about you know scaling; whether it's about backups recovery data tearing because you know at large scale if you keep everything together at one place can be very very expensive so all those things put together including disaster recovery it's a very unique you know strategy that offers.
I'm looking forward to the build day live videos and having Alastair and team put this concept to the test. we had Robert Ekker on earlier and he talked through how a developer would experience in N KS and not have to actually see the behind the scenes and and use it in the native way that they can and how operators can still use Ontap and the things that they love well we'll see well I'd love to hear your feedback comment in the section below or you can hit me up on twitter at CTOAdvisor of course only there you can find both me and Anil.
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