Yesterday we teamed up one more time with storage service provider NetApp in our joint series with The Wikibon Project.  This week’s #NetAppChat covered the topic: “Clustered Storage: Meeting Tomorrow’s Data Storage Needs.”

As we did with the first #NetAppChat, “Where Does Software-Defined Storage Fit Into the IT Renaissance?“, here is a recap of some of the best questions and answers from the virtual event.

• What types of storage challenges do application owners face to support their business critical applications?

As the enterprise space evolves, its storage requirements evolve too.  Addressing the new needs of the enterprise, NetApp recently released Clustered Data ONTAP 8.2, introducing a number of powerful capabilities designed to cut through traditional storage limitations and help IT departments “non-disruptively align the storage infrastructure with changing business and application demands.”

NetApp is going all-in on clustering, a gamble that Wikibon co-founder and chief analyst Dave Vellante says can pay off big time given the rapid adoption of software-led architectures in the enterprise.

Top tweets:

@furrier A1: There are a number of challenges highlighted by explosion in both data capacity and net-n… #NetAppChat http://t.co/OVeGKDpS1g

— Vaughn Stewart (@vStewed) July 15, 2013

@furrierA1:App owners are demanding more today from their storage then ever before. 100% uptime and sc… #NetAppChat http://t.co/RxakrDmtit — Adam Bergh (@ajbergh) July 15, 2013

1/ Age old storage growth; 2/ scale; 3/ management #NetAppChat http://t.co/gshA7d2t5g — Dave Vellante (@dvellante) July 15, 2013

• What are some of the important trends in data storage technologies and storage software for the support of business critical applications?

Scale-out architectures at the enterprise level marks a trend in data storage technologies. The ability to achieve scale-out an architecture and match it to the general purpose IT use case, as opposed to it being siloed in specific verticals, is very helpful. This allows you a lot of flexibility in doing things like maintenance and upgrades. Simply put, you don’t have to put up with outages anymore. Companies like NetApp are being pushed to rethink the data center in regards to how software can improve efficiency because CIOs are moving from builders + operators of applications and data centers to brokers of information services to the enterprise.

Top tweets:

Low latency for data centric mobile applications creates the best user experience. #NetAppChat http://t.co/Ap15ln9fIy

— Alec Furrier (@AlecFurrier) July 15, 2013

A2:A wonderful trend is the increasing number for Validated designs for Tier1 Apps (Oracle, SQL, Excha… #NetAppChat http://t.co/RxakrDmtit

— Adam Bergh (@ajbergh) July 15, 2013

• How does NetApp’s approach to delivering IT agility differ from that of others in the industry?

“For NetApp, automation is critical. It’s easy to move stuff around with NetApp’s architecture but it’s still manual. Running scripts on one box and moving things around to another is no big deal. But when you move to a large environment, scripts don’t scale. When something goes bad you need the system to heal itself. OnCommand is how NetApp will ultimately get there,” writes SiliconANGLE founder John Furrier in a recent Forbes piece.

Top Tweets:

@furrier A7: NetApp’s approach to IT agility is more than just technology — it’s support, ecosystem i… #NetAppChat http://t.co/lGjcTQIwsL — Brian Mitchell (@NetAppGeek) July 15, 2013

The challenge of course is netapp’s greatest strength (1 umbrella) makes it very challenging to serve … #NetAppChat http://t.co/gshA7d2t5g — Dave Vellante (@dvellante) July 15, 2013

• What is NetApp’s vision for the future of data storage? How does this align with application and solution providers?

NetApp is betting big on two things in particular: Clustering and flexibility to move data out of the silo. In addition to both of those, Software-led Infrastructure is a key component of NetApp’s long term innovation roadmap. NetApp is the last pure-play ‘storage company’ standing. Storage as we’ve known it for the past twenty years is over. For NetApp that means it needs to focus on making the best storage product possible, and retain customers through its core competencies. Time is not on its side, and to truly remain a leader in this space NetApp must craft a well-defined Storage-as-a-Platform strategy, Wikbon’s Dave Vellante recommends, and sooner rather than later.

Top tweets:

@furrier A6: Finally, performance. The platform must be able to provide performance. This model is lik… #NetAppChat http://t.co/OVeGKDpS1g

— Vaughn Stewart (@vStewed) July 15, 2013

The idea that flash will never replace disk 100% is something that Netapp is focused on which is reali… #NetAppChat http://t.co/o3BfN6P81X

— John Furrier (@furrier) July 15, 2013

A6: NetApp sees CDoT as defining what it means to have “Software Defined Storage” With EDGE, FAS, and … #NetAppChat http://t.co/RxakrDmtit — Adam Bergh (@ajbergh) July 15, 2013

• How do you see the storage space evolving in the next few years? What do solution providers need to do to keep up?

We’ve made it pretty clear who we see as our Fab Four for the future of Software-Defined Storage. How flash and virtualization play into all of this storage conversation is interesting enough to note as far as storage evolution in the near term.

Top tweets:

A10: Consolidation of vendors (fewer) and virtualization are inescapable trends #NetAppChat http://t.co/hubjrnDpHs

— Bruce Backa (@BruceBacka) July 15, 2013

the future of storage will be the challenge of keeping up with big fast data..in many forms ..#ongoing… #NetAppChat http://t.co/o3BfN6P81X

— John Furrier (@furrier) July 15, 2013

A10: As storage and networks grow in complexity. Workflow automation will become really important for … #NetAppChat http://t.co/XNkRmNir7a

— Ryan Beaty (@rnbeaty) July 15, 2013

@furrier @BruceBacka Storage has and probably will continue to grow faster than carrier bandwidth – pr… #NetAppChat http://t.co/24YCrKtOx0

— David Floyer (@dfloyer) July 15, 2013

See the Storify collection for the full recap of today’s: #NetAppChat.