NetApp innovating on core technology

BANGALORE, INDIA: Storage and data management solutions provider, NetApp said it is continuing to innovate on the core – DataOntap to roll out advanced virtualisation and data management technologies.

“We (NetApp) are working on the customer problems and driving the next generation data centre.  We are building on that (DataOnTap), innovating on that and integrating it with the other layers,” Rich Clifton, senior vice president and general manager, Virtualization and Grid Infrastructures Business Units, NetApp in a discussion with CIOL.

The company is working on enhancing its de-duplication technology, which virtualises multiple copies of data. “Many times people end up storing the same things over and over again. In large databases, with copies after copies—which results in a lot of redundancy. How wonderful it would be if you could deal with by turning on and off a switch. It’s all about using very less disk to solve a large problem, “said Clifton.

Interoperability is another area of investment for NetApp, which has many engineers from Bangalore working on the SAN interoperability matrix. The level of interoperability achieved is up to 90 percent, which includes most of the major vendors with the exception certain Japanese companies with a comparatively small market share, according to Clifton.

NetApp is looking to drive storage solutions for a virtualized server environment and is focusing on helping its customers virtualise their entire environment, which includes storage, server, the network and the entire components. 

Read detailed interview with Rich Clifton on trends, drivers and adoption of virtualisation technologies