The Future of Hybrid Cloud: Focus on Hyperscalers

The following article was written by Mark Chadwick at NetApp.

There's a lot of hype around the cloud, and for good reason. Where there's smoke, there's fire; and where there's cloud, there's impact.

Over the past year, NetApp has announced several innovations that lay out a groundbreaking roadmap for the future of hybrid cloud, and the impact on our customers and partners is huge. NetApp is all in for hybrid cloud, intensifying our partnerships with hyperscalers and bringing even more value to our partners for the long run.

Customers may be early in their cloud journey and still deciding what migration to the cloud will look like for their enterprise, or they may have already begun development and design. Either way, the journey is not finished. Hybrid cloud and its impact on businesses is fast-tracking growth by modernizing data management and optimizing workloads. It's never been easier to unleash the power of the cloud.

Let's look at some of the top takeaways from recent news that sets up customers and partners for cloud success well into the future. The recent cadence of innovation from NetApp will continue to curve upward. The sky's the limit, and our partners are key to future success.

What's the hype about hybrid cloud?

We've reached a pivotal time when it's no longer possible to distinguish between in the cloud and on premises, and hybrid cloud is driving digital transformation. If companies were not digitizing before, they are now. Keeping up with the changing times demands fast, accessible, and affordable data management.

A united approach to data management takes customers seamlessly from data center to cloud, saving time and money and eliminating data silos. In a service model where data centers are no longer the center for data, storage needs to be without boundaries. Administrated everywhere, it really is anytime, anywhere data.

NetApp is helping our partners extend their customers' business data to the cloud by accelerating migration easily and securely. We accomplish this thanks to our strong partnerships and long-time relationships with hyperscalers.

Hyperfocused on hyperscalers all the way to the cloud

In a past session, Adam Selipsky, CEO of AWS, and George Kurian, CEO of NetApp, shared information about our collaboration and exciting news about Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP. This is a huge advance for customers, who can now unlock the best of their cloud and use NetApp® technology natively on AWS. Instead of guest storage on Amazon, NetApp is now a fully featured environment that can extend into the cloud from storage and data services; 83% of our installed base can benefit from this service.

The timing is critical. We are seeing an escalated pace of digital transformation, which started before the pandemic but has accelerated due to a surge in the use of digital services and remote work. Today's environment requires fast and secure access to data across all industries globally.

Customers are thinking more than ever about how their business is changing and what role the cloud will play in their future. According to Adam Selipsky, "The big dominating thing right now is the accelerated pace of digital transformation. This trend has been going on and building momentum for a number of years, but we've really seen during the pandemic over the past year and a half a dramatic acceleration of that." George Kurian says, "We share that commitment to put customers first, wherever they are on their cloud journey. It's one reason we're so excited about the expansion of our partnership with the launch of Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP. It's a game changer and an industry first that we proudly worked on with your team side by side. For the first time, the full set of ONTAP features and APIs that thousands of NetApp customers know and love is available on AWS. It's never been easier to unleash the power of the cloud."

FSx for ONTAP helps customers from all sectors make that move and figure out what their strategy is, including which on-premises workloads need to move to the cloud.

The perfect blend of cloud and data center strategies

Once customers have made the move from data center to cloud, the journey continues by simplifying management with an operating system that works across clouds and in the data center.

True application modernization is achieved by bringing together the best parts of on-premises and cloud technologies and making both as uncomplicated as possible. As lines blur between cloud and on premises, NetApp ONTAP® data management software allows applications to thrive in data centers, with Amazon, Azure, Google Cloud—whatever customers need.

Embracing CloudOps to simplify and automate

While working closely with our partners these past 18 months, I have witnessed firsthand the pandemic-driven push to the cloud. Optimization is top of mind for all customers as they experience challenges around managing costs. Using more cloud at less cost, driving innovation, and offering solutions that are trusted by leading hyperscalers are a few of the ways in which NetApp is helping our customers and partners to tackle this challenge.

CloudOps and Spot by NetApp® are hot topics right now with partners, and they are key components of our cloud strategy. We're having exciting conversations and mapping out journeys to help guide optimization by using a programmatic approach, delivering savings of up to 90% on digital estates. We're moving beyond the development and design of cloud migration to optimize for the best experience with the greatest value.

If you're interested in hearing more about how NetApp can help unlock your profitability and modernize with the cloud, check out my recent webcast with Lee Howard, director of engineering, Strategic Partners, NetApp.

I look forward to helping grow your business faster.