As the cloud becomes a increasingly prevalent tech solutions, many companies are asking how a converged infrastructure is still relevant? Turns out, there is no easy answer. NetApp Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. are two companies that are helping customers continue to see the relevance of a converged infrastructure through the innovations of software in a multicloud world.

“Those of us that’ve been in the industry long enough and have a couple of gray hairs know that there are very few transitions that are really absolute in the business,” said Russell Fishman (pictured, right), director of product management, converged infrastructure, at NetApp. “Cloud has fundamentally changed customers’ expectations of what they want on-prem, [but] they recognize the need on-prem. We live in a hybrid world.”

Fishman and Keith Barto (pictured, left), director of global industry solutions and alliances at NetApp, spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Cisco Live event in Orlando, Florida. They discussed the needs of customers in a multicloud world. (* Disclosure below.)

Finding the right tool for the job using cloud and on-prem

The dichotomy between cloud and on-premises solutions is a false one, according to Fishman. “A lot of people pronounce that it’s gonna be this way or that way, and the reality is, it’s something in between,” he said. “And that’s fine, because cloud is just another tool in the toolbox, and you don’t want to hit every nail with the same hammer. You want to find the right tool for the right job.”

Both NetApp and Cisco have partnered to bring about innovative solutions that can combine cloud with on-prem solutions, including FlexPod Managed Private Cloud, which will help companies leverage cloud on-prem, and the NetApp Converged Systems Advisor software, which helps businesses analyze their multi-data centers.

“We wanted to make that as easy as possible so that from a single dashboard, you can see all of those things, you can diagnose it quickly, you can get those email alerts and notifications,” said Barto, describing Converged Systems Advisor.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Cisco Live event. (* Disclosure: NetApp Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither NetApp nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE