With the shifting landscape of enterprise workload demands, data infrastructure companies face a clear mandate: Evolve to provide unified, AI-ready storage or risk obsolescence.

NetApp Inc. has gained momentum with its AI-ready storage solutions. The key question now is how the company plans to sustain this lead and stay competitive as rivals close the gap.

“NetApp has focused intensely on providing their customers and prospects with solutions for cloud, hybrid and on-premises storage and data management use cases,” said Rob Strechay, principal analyst at theCUBE Research. “I am excited to hear the announcements and how they continue the momentum from earlier in the year and expand on how they help customers address data management and storage for AI.”

The good times at NetApp aren’t without potential challenges. It remains to be seen how the company hopes to avoid the same product and supply chain issues that have plagued other industry players, such as Dell Technologies Inc. Join theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, on Sept. 23 and 24 at NetApp Insight, as our analysts, experts and business leaders explore the growth strategies for continued dominance in AI-ready storage while examining use cases powered by NetApp’s partner ecosystem. (* Disclosure below.)

The push for AI-ready storage: Balancing business objectives with infrastructure dominance

Recent data shows that NetApp has performed positively business-wise. The company’s net income numbers for 2024’s first quarter stands at $248 million, up from $149 million a year ago. Supporting the general uptick is an increase in subscription-based sales, with NetApp’s annual recurring revenue from all-flash storage arrays rising 21%, from $2.8 billion a year ago to $3.4 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2024. The company also reported total billings of $1.45 billion, marking a significant increase from $1.3 billion a year ago.

“We started fiscal 2025 on a high note, delivering strong revenue growth and setting records for first quarter operating margin and earnings per share,” NetApp CEO George Kurian said in response to the earnings report.

Driving the positive cycle is the rising interest in enterprise AI. With its servers, AI-ready storage solutions and cloud-based data management services in tow, NetApp is responding to the high demand for AI hardware and quickening enterprise refresh cycles. It has taken a unified approach, with storage systems optimized for AI workloads and ONTAP to scale across data levels.

“I know you’ve talked to many people here, but the AFF A-Series is our thoroughbred for unified data storage, our high-performance array,” Jeff Baxter, vice president of product marketing at NetApp, said during a recent interview with theCUBE. “The refresh of that line really injects a shot of adrenaline into our mid-range and high-end performance flash system. We’ve optimized it; it’s ready to take on AI workloads and pretty much anything else you want to throw at it.”

NetApp strengthens AI-driven ransomware protection and expands partner ecosystem

NetApp has also worked to bolster the security and resilience standing of its intelligent data infrastructure, with the implementation of autonomous ransomware protection using AI models and tamperproof snapshots.

“A lot of our customers were taking the tools we had built and already building them into cyber vaults,” Baxter said. “And we said, ‘This is amazing; let’s support you. Let’s make it even easier, and let’s make it into a package-up solution so that you have a complete soup-to-nuts reference that can enable you to build this cyber vault and protect against ransomware.’”

No solutions provider is an island. NetApp’s Partner Sphere program is enabling vendors within the ecosystem to wrap services around NetApp’s portfolio to deliver specific outcomes for their customers. The program encompasses traditional go-to-market partners, resellers, distributors and partnerships with industry players such as Nvidia Corp.

“[Partners can] take our amazing product portfolio, wrapped around with the services and all other offerings that we have, to bring to market solutions that can help them deliver customer outcomes and to help them be successful as well,” said Jenni Flinders, senior vice president of the worldwide partner organization at NetApp, in a recent interview with theCUBE. “The partner program allows us to interact with our partners based on their business models and how they want to interact with NetApp — so it’s been a beautiful program.”

TheCUBE event livestream

Don’t miss theCUBE’s coverage of NetApp Insight 2024, from Sept. 23-24. Plus, you can watch theCUBE’s event coverage on-demand after the live event.

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch theCUBE’s coverage of NetApp Insight 2024, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube channel. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s events on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

SiliconANGLE also has analyst deep dives in our Breaking Analysis podcast, available on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify.

Guests

During NetApp Insight 2024, theCUBE Research’s analysts will talk with intelligent data platform experts, storage specialists, analysts and other thought leaders about the market dynamics revolutionizing AI infrastructure.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for NetApp Insight. Neither NetApp, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Image: SiliconANGLE