NetApp Inc.’s latest product moves illustrate the realization that, when it comes to meeting customer needs in a hybrid world, it’s all about choice.

The storage solutions company recently announced new cloud-based services that offer customers choice of on-premises or cloud infrastructure. NetApp also launched a service that automates Kubernetes deployment within a hyperconverged infrastructure platform.

The latest announcements from NetApp follow the rollout of hybrid platforms by major cloud providers.

“AWS is doing Outposts, Google is doing Anthos, Azure is doing Azure Stack, and the good thing is we are actually playing with all of them,” said Jonsi Stefansson (pictured, right), chief technology officer and vice president of cloud services at NetApp. “From our point of view, it is really important that we start tying all of the infrastructure-related services into the application layer so you’re actually managing everything from that layer and down.”

Stefansson spoke with Stu Miniman (@stu), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and guest host Corey Quinn (@QuinnyPig) during the AWS Summit in NYC. He was joined by Jeff Dickey (pictured, left), chief technologist of cloud and data services at NetApp, and they discussed new Kubernetes solutions and NetApp’s focus on data management in hybrid environments (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Improving app access to data

The Kubernetes announcement from NetApp is designed to address the challenge of providing a way for applications to access data regardless of what platform the orchestration tool runs on. NetApp Data Fabric offers a way for information-technology organizations to move data to the right place at the most appropriate time.

“We’re bringing the apps to the data and the data to the apps,” Dickey said. “There’s a lot of choice now.”

The Kubernetes and hybrid cloud news highlight NetApp’s move to a software-defined approach for data management and enhancements it has made to ONTAP.

“We are focused more on the data management capabilities of ONTAP than the actual storage system or the performance of the operating system,” Stefansson said. “We can actually reap the benefits of Kubernetes when it comes to high availability, replication, auto scaling, and self-healing. That’s truly our focus.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Summit NYC event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Summit NYC. Neither NetApp, the sponsor for this segment, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE