Despite the popularity of cloud object storage, file storage’s more structured data repositories are still swinging it in the enterprise. Google Cloud Platform just moved to beef up its file options, striking up a bidirectional partnership with 26-year-old storage legacy NetApp Inc. to integrate each other’s services and provide customers flexible storage options.

The story is a bit complicated. NetApp’s operating system ONTAP actually lives in the Amazon Web Services Inc. cloud. Cloud resources make up the body and blood of the company’s storage and data management solutions.

“Did you ever think you’d hear NetApp say, ‘We’re a cloud-first company’?” said Anthony Lye (pictured), senior vice president and general manager of the Cloud Data Services Business Unit at NetApp.

In fact, NetApp is cloud-first now, and it is going harder in that direction with a new Google LLC partnership. Google Cloud has tapped NetApp to provide file storage services to its customers. The two companies are also engineering new offerings that combine file storage with Google’s artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

Lye spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Google Cloud Next event in San Francisco. They discussed the enduring draw of file storage and Google and NetApp’s deep service integrations. (* Disclosure below.)

File storage files into cloud, AI, ML

“Object is a very sort of descriptive storage protocol, but it’s not as fast as file,” Lye said. Certain use cases — oil and gas seismic data, computer-aided design and manufacturing apps, for example — demand file. Customers would rather not do the difficult work of translating them over to object, he added.

“There are distinct advantages to file that I think the cloud companies have realized they need to win the enterprise business,” Lye stated.

NetApp is using Google’s application programmer interface to integrate with the Google cloud. “We want our application code to tell the cloud what to do and how to do it. Everything behind our cloud business is API first,” Lye said.

Google is selling NetApp file storage to its cloud customers. “The experience is completely native to the console. We encapsulate all of the permissions, access control lists. It looks and feels exactly like any native Google service,” Lye concluded.

NetApp is working on additional deep integrations with Google services — including BigQuery and Spanner — and vice versa. “There’s a huge opportunity for people to bring file-based data into Google Cloud and take advantage of AI and ML.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Google Cloud Next 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