Tech ONTAP Podcast

Did you know there's a way to stripe large files across multiple nodes in a NetApp ONTAP cluster now? NetApp TME John Lantz drops by to drop some knowledge on Advanced Capacity Balancing!

This week, NetApp FlexCache TME drops in to discuss the latest information around the sparse caching feature for NFS and SMB workloads - FlexCache.

The NetApp A-Team drops by to chat about the NetApp launch announcements for February 2025. Listen as we cover updates to the ASA platform, new hardware models, BlueXP improvements and more!

The healthcare industry has long been known for its cautious approach to technology, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced a dramatic shift. In this episode, Scott Charles from T-Systems (scott.charles@tsystems.com), and Brian O'Mahony from NetApp (omahony@netapp.com), break down how the healthcare sector has evolved in response to the pandemic and the role technology plays in this transformation.

This week, the NetApp A-Team joins us to discuss the latest NetApp hardware announcements, including the new A90 platform, as well as some new BlueXP additions!

This week on the Tech ONTAP podcast, Adam Gale joins us to discuss the new EU AI regulations and how they may impact you and your business.

Sifting through millions of files to filter out PII, compliance violations, or other sensitive data is a huge burden for many organizations. BlueXP Classification from NetApp provides a way to simplify those tasks and make regulatory compliance more of a molehill than a mountain. Ben Kesten joins us to discuss how BlueXP Classification is changing the way you manage your data.

Electronic Design Automation (EDA) is the industry that powers the innovations to technology we utilize everyday by making smaller, more powerful microchips for use in our cell phones, smart devices, self-driving cars, laptops and more. EDA requires a massive amount of compute and storage at a rapidly growing scale that most datacenters simply cannot keep up with in a cost effective manner. Usually, by the time a new datacenter is finished, it's already too small. That is why more and more EDA vendors and chip makers are turning to the cloud for their workflows. Microsoft's Global Black Belt for EDA - Andy Chan - and NetApp's EDA expert Michael Johnson, join us to discuss how Azure NetApp Files is an ideal solution for EDA workloads.

DataDobi provides world class migration and data analytics software that works seamlessly with NetApp ONTAP - both on-prem and in the cloud. Danny Esposito from DataDobi joins us to tell us all about DataDobi, StorageMap and more.

SnapCenter 5.0 brought with it a ton of new features and functionality, and NetApp Solutions Architect Artie Noel joins us to discuss how exactly SnapCenter 5.0 can benefit your backup and recovery use cases.

Asianometry is a newsletter and podcast channel started by a gentleman named Jon who became disillusioned with Silicon Valley and moved to Asia, started making videos about Asia, economics and the EDA industry. Jon from Asianometry joins us to discuss his podcast and the EDA industry in general.

Brands define how people think about companies, so it's not only important to get it right, but to stay current and not be afraid to switch it up when necessary. NetApp recently pivoted their brand to position Intelligent Data Infrastructure and we invited NetApp's VP of Marketing, Emily Miller, as well as two NetApp celebrities - Phoebe Goh and Matt Watts!

While it may feel like AI/ML are simply tech buzzwords, the influence on enterprises and their products is unquestionable. As a result, many companies are making significant investments in AI/ML and betting on its success. NetApp recently announced greater dedication towards AI/ML and we invited the AI team at NetApp to tell us all about it.

While generative AI is getting all the press in recent years, the practical use cases for AI, Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing have grown exponentially - particularly in the Healthcare and Life Sciences verticals. Brian O'Mahony and Tony Chidiac stop by to tell us all about the current state of AI in Healthcare.

Object storage is gaining more and more of a foothold in an ever evolving cloud storage world and NetApp StorageGRID is delivering more functionality to address the growing demands. Vishnu Vardhan joins us to discuss the latest release of StorageGRID.

A lot goes into making a car, and even more data is used. That data has to go somewhere, and oftentimes, it goes on NetApp storage - whether on-prem or in the cloud. Tilman Schroeder, NetApp's automotive industry expert, joins us to discuss how NetApp helps drive the automotive industry.

Security is one of the most important - and most complex - concepts to address when dealing with any aspect of IT. This becomes much more apparent in the cloud, which is why using a managed service makes a lot of sense, particularly for small to medium businesses that do not have the money or expertise to manage their own security. Scott McCrady of SolCyber joins us to discuss how SolCyber provides managed security for the cloud.

SnapCenter is NetApp's flagship application driven backup and restore offering that provides data protection for databases such as SQL, Oracle, SAP and more. The latest release of SnapCenter also provides better cloud integration, including support for volumes as a service offerings such as Azure NetApp Files. Join us as we discuss the new SnapCenter 5.0 release and all it delivers.

NetApp's ONTAP software design - with its multi-tenant Storage Virtual Machines, nondisruptive operations, integrated backup and replication, scale out approach - lends itself well to cloud deployments. Opti9Tech understands this, which is why, as a managed cloud provider, they use ONTAP and its features to deliver leading cloud services to their customers. Opti9Tech CTO Sagi Brody joins us to talk about how Opti9Tech helps you manage cloud without having to manage cloud.

Databases traditionally are run in on-premises data centers, but as they scale larger and larger and require more performance, admins need to start evaluating whether to purchase new hardware to manage or move to a lease-based model in the cloud. Amazon FSxN for NetApp ONTAP offers a way for database adminstrators to confidently move their workloads to the cloud without sacrificing performance or the feature-richness of NetApp ONTAP. Semion Mazor and Pedro Fernandes join us to discuss how Amazon FSxN for NetApp ONTAP improves the life of database administrators considering a move to the cloud.

Ever wonder how the chips in your phones, TVs, cars and appliances are made? Well, a lot goes into those and in this episode, NetApp's resident Electronic Design Automation expert Michael Johnson tells us about the processes, challenges and basics of the EDA chip manufacturing industry.

Another fall brings another new ONTAP release here at NetApp and this one is chock full of new features to better improve your NetApp experience. Keith Aasen joins us to break it all down and explain what's new.

This week, a former director of IT at Naughty Dog - Justin Monast - stops by to discuss how NetApp ONTAP powered some of the most influential games in gaming history.

When you have a Kubernetes cluster that your applications depend on to stay online, you have to seriously consider how you plan on recovering in the case a disaster strikes. Ransomware, power failures, cloud region outages all can wreak havoc on Kubernetes clusters. NetApp Astra helps mitigate disasters with strong backup, recovery and replication technology backed by NetApp ONTAP and SnapMirror. Dean Steadman and Luis Rico from the NetApp Astra team join us to discuss the latest updates for NetApp Astra in version 23.10.

The more healthcare companies start to digitize their records, the more they realize they need more capacity to do it, but they don't always have the resources to manage it. That's where the cloud comes in. The Amazon AWS FSx NetApp offering provides a plethora of features that help enable EHR workloads to perform better, save space and provide a viable and efficient disaster recovery plan with immutable backups for better protection against ransomware. NetApp healthcare expert Brian O'Mahony and AWS healthcare SME Randy Seamans join us to chat about all the benefits of ONTAP, AWS and FSxN for EHR workloads.

This week, we go over the newest additions to ONTAP in the latest release with Keith Aasen. Join us as we discuss the new guarantee program, autonomous ransomware updates and much more!

IT admins are raised on skepticism and there's an entire security philosophy centered around distrust, right? So, so when you start talking about managed services and what we like in the cloud and what we see in the cloud, you start to run into a lot of IT admins that simply do not like it. And we've invited one. Melissa Palmer (also known as vMiss) joins us to tell us all about her cloud skepticism and how Azure VMware Solution with Azure NetApp Files helped her see the light about the usefulness of cloud.

NetApp BlueXP delivers a unified experience for storage and data services across on-premises and cloud environments. It enables operational simplicity through the power of AIOps, with the flexible consumption parameters and integrated protection required for today's cloud-led world. And now, BlueXP offers a more complete solution for backup and recovery in your cloud deployments. NetApp's Semion Mazor joins us to discuss how BlueXP Backup and Recovery is improving life for backup admins.

Postgres is a popular open source database that powers applications for companies such as Atlassian and DoorDash due to its cost, performance and versatility. But what if you could make Postgres perform better? Pganalyze gives you visibility into your Postgres database deployments and its queries to make suggestions for improvements, tuning and maintenance. Pganlyze CEO and founder Lukas Fittl joins us to discuss all the ins and outs of Postgres, as well as how pganalyze makes life better for the Postgres database admin.

Medical imaging is a prevalent cog in the healthcare industry. Millions of images can be stored in a single location and provide use cases not just in radiology, X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, and EKGs, but also for post-op wounds, dermatology and more. Medical imaging is being extended into more use cases, such as digital pathology, where slides are scanned for later analysis. These millions of images have to be stored somewhere, and more and more hospitals are looking toward the cloud to provide that data storage - specifically AWS FSx using NetApp ONTAP storage. In this episode, Sasha Paegle of AWS and Kim Garriott of NetApp talk about the Amazon FSxN cloud solution for Medical Imaging.

Jetstream Software offers one of the premiere backup and recovery options for VMware in the cloud and we invited Dennis Bray to tell us all about it. Dennis really knows his stuff, which is why he uses Azure NetApp Files for his customer demos. We've got a good partnership with NetApp and back to this idea of using cloud based technologies and trying to help with cost efficiency, resource utilization, efficiency and the like. When Azure NetApp Files became available with the Azure VMware solution, then it was natural for us, right? Here's a way now that the customer can scale the storage that they require for this DR, or for just for production for that matter, but we're thinking about DR. They can scale the storage for that private cloud without having to add additional AVS notes, right? So from our perspective, and likely the customer and NetApp's perspective, there's real value here. - Dennis Bray, Jetstream Software Azure VMware Solution with Azure NetApp Files is a proven cloud solution - a first party service within Microsoft's Azure ecosystem, which is why customers feel secure in using it for their enterprise NAS workloads.

When dealing with storing data in the cloud, trust becomes a critical component for customers - especially ones in the financial sector. If you can't trust the solution you've chosen, then you'll always be looking over your shoulder. Azure NetApp Files is a proven cloud solution - a first party service within Microsoft's Azure ecosystem, which is why customers feel secure in using it for their enterprise NAS workloads. In this episode, we talk to a customer (Mark Sahadeo) in that industry about how they're using Azure NetApp Files for their Azure VMware Solution workloads.

The shift to remote work in the past few years has caused enterprises to re-think how they handle virtualization infrastructure. Do they continue to offer it on-prem, where they have to manage all the hardware and software components and deal with access from multiple locations across the globe? Or do they move to a managed service that is flexible, scalable and able to be offered in multiple cloud regions? Azure VMware Solutions provides a robust way to handle the increasing requirements for organizations in the cloud while keeping costs manageable. LeRoy Vanek of Baptist Health of South Florida joins us to come speak about why they chose the service and how it has been performing for them so far.

Site reliability engineers for cloud providers are the oil that makes the cloud engine run smoothly. They're responsible for the management and automation of the cloud resource backend. One of the challenges of automation isn't just about automating tasks, but about automating the tasks in the right, most efficient way. If your initial approach is flawed, then you've wasted time and will have to re-architect everything later on down the road. Argonaut's founder Surya Oruganti joins us to discuss how his product can help SREs automate the cloud in the right way to save time and money down the line.

A Spot instance is a cost effective way to provision storage because you give cloud providers control over when the instance's resources can be reclaimed. But what if you want the cost savings without worrying if your mission critical applications will be shut down at any given moment? Spot Elastigroup uses machine learning and cloud trends to help predict when a spot VM instance will be removed and will reallocate resources as needed, as well as help you manage scale as your applications require more (or less) compute - all without your admins needing to babysit the workloads. Yarden Kesari and Carl Gridley of Spot by NetApp join us to describe how Spot Elastigroup works and how it can help you save money in the cloud while simplifying your day to day operations.

!!WARNING: DEEP SYSADMIN CUTS AHEAD!! Back in the early 2000s, if you were a sysadmin that had to set up desktops or servers, you probably used Norton Ghost to create images. When virtualization became big, that process moved to creating VM templates. But there was still often a lot of manual intervention in these tasks - password setting, BIOS updates, vCenter installations and more. As the IT world moves more and more towards automating software tasks, what about automating infrastructure provisioning? Sure, there's cloud, but what if you're still on-prem? This week, Rob Hirschfeld of RackN joins us to discuss how RackN helps automate the previously un-automate-able.

Incident response in enterprise IT environments is a time critical task, where any delays can mean potential loss of revenue. When dealing with the cloud, incident response takes on a whole new set of challenges, as most of the infrastructure involved is outside of your administrators reach. At that point, you're looking at mitigating the risk by addressing incidents at the application layer. With Spot Connect, you can put more of that infrastructure power into your administrator's hands and automate incident responses for faster, more effective resolution of issues, which frees up your staff to create better architectures. In this episode, Prasen Shelar of Spot by NetApp joins us to talk about how Spot Connect can revolutionize your incident response workflows.

There's an old saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But what if it could be better? What if "fixing it" simply means "improving it"? Or - even better - letting someone else handle it so you have more time to take care of the numerous other tasks in your job? That's what the cloud is for, and in this Tech ONTAP Podcast episode, NetApp DeveloperAdvocate Shon Harris drops by to discuss the past, present and future of CloudOps and how it compares to all the other ops floating around out there in the IT-o-sphere and how Spot by NetApp can help improve the lives of DevOps engineers.

Kubernetes does a great job at autoscaling for applications. But when you run Kubernetes in the cloud, auto scaling might not always be so great - especially if it doesn't scale back down. Spot by NetApp features Ocean - a way to address runaway cloud costs associated with Kubernetes deployments. This week, Zak Harabedian stops by to discuss Spot Ocean and how it can positively impact your Azure Kubernetes Service deployments.

On April Fools' Day, you stay on your guard to avoid being pranked. In IT, you always want to test before releasing something into production to avoid any surprises. That methodology extends into other places, including the US military. Every year, the Navy and Marines conduct experimental training exercises to test field deployment readiness called Trident Warrior. And in even years, Trident Warrior combines with other allied nations RIMPAC forces to conduct these tests. NetApp was able to participate in these exercises recently and Eddie Huerta, Frank Alcantar and Dan Holmay join us to discuss their experience and how NetApp ONTAP helps enhance the US Public Sector's storage needs.

Did you know that over 3 billion people play video games? That's nearly 50% of the world's population! And if you've ever played a video game (which, statistically, you have), you've probably played something that was built using Perforce, which is *the* source code versioning software that nearly all the major game developers use. With the increase of online gaming and global distribution of game studios, the cloud is becoming a critical component in game development and delivery. As a result, cloud service providers are offering "as a service" products for applications like Perforce, Unreal Engine and more. Ravi Prakash joins us this week to discuss Perforce and how NetApp ONTAP is enhancing the cloud experience for game developers on-prem and in the cloud.

If you've ever worked an IT support job and had to do on-call rotations, you probably know how noisy things can get with alerts and events - especially when they get sent to your phone or work device. I can recall rolling out of bed at 3AM to the sound of alerts on my phone, only to realize that most of the alarms were either false positives or things that were not high urgency. That gets old fast, and you start to tune the alerts out. Naturally, that's when the big outage happens and your boss wonders why you didn't respond quickly enough. That gets even more complicated when you are dealing with infrastructure that you don't even own - such as the cloud. Good luck tracking down where the problem is in your environment or where a potential security vulnerability might be hiding out. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. NetApp Spot Security aims to simplify your cloud security monitoring by providing a single interface to monitor multiple clouds, notify you of potential misconfiguration issues that might lead to breaches, filter out noisy events so that you only get the important alerts, and much more. Spot Security PM Isma Rizvi joins us to tell us all about what's new with Spot Security in the Spring 2023 release!

Did you know that Google created Tensorflow and Kubernetes? Or that Solaris invented NFS? That Amazon created S3? Or that Uber created Apache Spark Horovod? Some of the key technologies that companies use today were originally created by businesses trying to solve their own internal challenges. In this episode of the Tech ONTAP Podcast, NetApp TME Rick Huang and Solutions Architect Ken Hillier join us to discuss Rick's new blog on using NetApp AI with Apache Spark Horovod for deep learning and inference use cases.

Before the war in Ukraine started, a rash of cybersecurity incidents started to crop up - particularly in the Ukrainian financial sector and against government websites. This created a substantial amount of chaos with the day to day operations in Ukraine, and a week later, Russia invaded. In the wake of these and other cyber attacks against critical infrastructure across the globe, countries are starting to realize that data security is a vital part of national security. This week on the podcast, NetApp's Adam Gale joins us to discuss a new set of regulations around cyber security, data protection and more called the Digital Operational Resiliency Act (DORA).

What's in a name? When people say the words "cyber resiliency," what do you do? Do you cringe at the buzzy-ness of the term? Do you pause and think, "do we have yet another term to worry about?" Or, do you realize that cyber resiliency is just a way to describe all the best practices we need to use when ensuring data protection, security and recovery in our enterprise IT environments. In this case, buzzy-ness is just business. In this episode, AJ Casamento of Brocade and Ant Tyrell of NetApp join us to discuss how NetApp and Brocade are teaming up to help you get the best overall results for your cyber resiliency plans.

When I was a kid, my room was often a mess. Clothes on the floor, toys everywhere. My mom would try to stay on me to keep it clean, but it was mostly a losing battle for her. What usually inspired me to clean up, however, was when I couldn't find something. Then I knew it was time to take inventory and get a bit more organized (for the time being, at least). Data management isn't much different - especially with large unstructured data lakes. Not only are there potentially millions - or billions - of files, but much of that data is redundant, unnecessary or obsolete. The problem is, if you haven't been keeping your data sets clean, you are now stuck with the arduous task of finding out what is in your data. This week on the podcast, Cecile Kellam and Michael Landau join me to discuss how Cloud Data Sense can quickly and easily help you find out what is in your data, with the end goal of tidying up your messy data sets.

ChatGPT is the latest in a series of AI tools available to help people get their work done, but can it help you manage your Kubernetes cluster? Natan Yellin from the Robusta Open Source project joins us to help us find out!

Artificial Intelligence. Blockchain. ChatGPT. Remote working. What do all of these things have in common? They're technology disruptors that businesses are having to learn to navigate and integrate into their day to day operations, each with their own unique challenges and benefits. They're also all pieces of a bigger digital transformation puzzle. This week, Kamales Lardi joins us to discuss her book "The Human Side of Digital Business Transformation" as well as what digital transformation means to people in uncertain times.

This week, Semion Mazor and Cecile Kellam join us to discuss the new addition to BlueXP Cloud Backup - FlexGroup volumes! Now you can backup, index and restore your high file count environments at a better speed, efficiency and simplify restores with search functionality.

This week on the podcast, Jaap van Duijvenbode joins us to talk all about Cloud Volumes Edge Cache and how you can use it for remote and edge locations for better localization of data sets instead of having to move terabytes of data around when you need it.

This week on the podcast, Jason Klotzer of Google and Kim Garriott of NetApp join me to discuss the new Google Cloud Medical Imaging Suite offering!