NetApp, Inc. competes in the data-storage devices industry, and it’s been incorporating cloud storage into its services as well. Some questioned this move, asking, “Why move storage into the Cloud? They’re competition.” NetApp doesn’t believe that’s the truth and has worked with Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) to incorporate more cloud capabilities.

Phil Brotherton, VP of Data Fabric Group at NetApp, sat down at Amazon re:Invent 2015 with cohosts John Furrier and Stu Miniman of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team.

Virtual concept

“The more software-defined storage moves on, the more you’ll think about managing your data in kind of a virtual concept,” said Brotherton. People are going to move to Amazon, on-premise solutions, and those types of ideas.

“Data is heavy. It has gravity, so it’s never easy to move it,” admitted Brotherton. Still, he sees Amazon as an open platform that is going to help people think through these data-moving and storage issues.

Data fabric opportunity

NetApp’s solution is its clustered Data ONTAP. It’s a fully virtualized storage management operating system that’s very efficient. NetApp can run it on many different appliances like VMware and Amazon. Then NetApp starts adding services and building a fabric of data solutions and services. Brotherton compares it to the Apple model. It’s about providing products and services that all begin to create a fabric that work together and supplement each other effectively.

“The business of storage in the next 10 years is going to become the business of managing data,” said Brotherton. “Flash to disk to cloud. That’s the storage story.”

Stay tuned for the full interview video, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Amazon re:Invent 2015. Also, join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting with theCUBE hosts.

Photo by SiliconANGLE