NetApp: Using data to get ahead of the competition
NetApp, the data authority for hybrid cloud, believes astute use of data can make companies more competitive

NetApp: Using data to get ahead of the competition

NetApp, the data authority for hybrid cloud, believes astute use of data can make companies more competitive. Intelligent CIO speaks to Fadi Kanafani, Managing Director, Middle East, Africa and Pakistan, NetApp, about the best ways of doing this.

How can enterprises ensure that data becomes the lifeblood of their Digital Transformation?

Today there are so many industries that revolve around data. Data can allow enterprises to be more competitive, more agile to differentiate their offering to the market, and to be faster to introduce products. So what you do with data will determine your existence in a very competitive world that is very progressive, very dynamic and changing every day if you’re not able to make use of the data points that are around you, you will eventually be put on a sideline.

How can CIOs extract value from their data?

First of all they need to actually have a data strategy. To start with you need to look at classifying your data. What is important? What is less important? What can you keep on premise? What can you put on the cloud?

So this is an engagement strategy that enterprises need to venture into to define what is best suited for them. And with NetApp from the outside we play the experts around data management to help enterprises on their journey and determine for them what best suits them along the way and then propose the right architecture to address their overall objectives and allow them to meet their strategy.

Are we going to get to a stage where we’ve got too much data?

Yes. There will be lots of data but the key is to ask ‘now I have that Big Data what do I do with it?’ And that’s why we partner with ecosystem partners in the field to develop the data lakes. Where we can also employ solutions like on-tap AI from NetApp.

That would allow you to do graphical processing of that data which is on a GDU basis, we’ve partnered with Nvidia to help our customers make use of that data. You have to decide what is important data, what is relevant data, and what is data you can just discard. And through having the right foundation for it, with the right analytics around it, you can make sure you are making the best out of the data that you have.

How can CIOs ensure that their data is secure?

There are a lot of companies that talk about security and today it has become vital we keep hearing about the loss of millions and billions of dollars when something gets hacked. When we look at what we offer here at NetApp we ensure that data gets encrypted – not while it is in the server, even over wire, even in the cloud. So even if there is a breach to a particular cloud, NetApp data is always encrypted and it cannot be compromised.

What we do is we encrypt it on a hardware level. It transfers the wire encrypted and lands in the cloud encrypted where we have cloud workloads. This ensures that our customers’ CIOs get peace of mind.

And then what we also do for security to ensure that their services are always up and always online, is if they adopt a multi-cloud strategy we would work with them to have a copy in another cloud, hyperscale or a local provider, whereby if one fails their data is always available. In a split second your data is back up serving your customers and your requirements.

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