Weaving infrastructure loci — core, cloud and edge — together is crucial if multicloud is going to mean more than a bunch of stuff in silos dotting the globe. It allows companies to view their data in its entirety and allows them to deploy to the different infrastructure types at their own pace without having to choose one over the other. Add NetApp Inc. to the list of vendors trying to be the Switzerland on this multicloud map.

NetApp is attempting to make itself the “data authority for hybrid cloud,” according to Nancy Hart (pictured, right), the company’s head of marketing and cloud infrastructure.

Hart and Gabe Chapman (pictured, left), senior manager of cloud infrastructure at NetApp, spoke with Lisa Martin (@LuccaZara), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and guest host Justin Warren (@jpwarren), chief analyst at PivotNine Pty Ltd, during the VMworld conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. They discussed what NetApp is bringing to hybrid cloud. (* Disclosure below.)

Amazon gratification on-premises

How is it planning to be the data authority for hybrid cloud? By providing linking and bonding technologies that make data accessible across all infrastructure, one of which is its Data Fabric, according to Hart. Another is its on-premises hyperconverged infrastructure, which is highly public-cloud-connectable.

The company just announced a NetApp verified architecture for VMware Private Cloud on top of its HCI. Covering all bases allows customers to lead with business sense, instead of feeling forced to choose cloud or on-prem, Hart pointed out.

“Enterprises and different departments in those enterprises will make their own transition and go down their own journey to digital transformation in their own time,” she said.

NetApp want’s to take HCI to a new level where it becomes a platform for collapsing silos, accommodating mixed workloads and allowing data to traverse different environments, according to Chapman.

“The same way they would have gone and swiped their credit card with Amazon, when you do that, you don’t care if you’re putting a SQL database, Oracle or whatnot — they’re going to give you the resources that you need. We want to mimic that locally on-prem for customers,” he stated.

This is largely possible through NetApp’s Data Fabric. “The Data Fabric piece is the glue that binds and allows the data mobility and portability across multiple platforms — not only from the edge to the core, but also to the cloud — and kind of gives you that bigger picture,” Chapman concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the VMworld conference. (* Disclosure: NetApp Inc. sponsored this segment, with additional broadcast sponsorship from VMware Inc. NetApp, VMware, and other sponsors do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE