At the NetApp INSIGHT™ 2019 conference, I did a brief interview with CRNtv host Diana Blass, during which I said that NetApp was the “best-kept secret in tech.”
The week after NetApp INSIGHT, I was back in Las Vegas, attending Cisco Partner Summit. As I was walking through the convention center, Diana beelined over to me to say hello. It was great to see her, and we got to talking about NetApp INSIGHT. She asked what I had thought of our quick interview. I paused, then realized that while I was very happy with the interview, I had more of the “why” behind my comment. And I realized that, in hindsight, I would have spent more time discussing that “why.” At that moment, this blog post was born.
We’ve heard that data is the new oil and that being a data visionary is essential to unlock the trapped value of data and to drive better, faster business outcomes; improved operational efficiency; and more. We have chief data officers and chief transformation officers. And in the majority of cases, we have deployment scenarios that span private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid multicloud environments.
NetApp is a company that’s in the middle of its own transformation. Internally, NetApp is doing exactly what it’s asking its customers to do: build a data fabric to improve portability, operational efficiency, time to value, and freedom and flexibility of choice. And NetApp is doing better than ever with respect to innovation, strategic vision, and clear leadership.
John is Vice President of Engineering at General Datatech, LLC (GDT) and is located in Palo Alto, California. John has more than 30 years of experience in technology and a background focused on enterprise and infrastructure architecture, large scale systems engineering, strategic planning and technology management. In these roles, John designed and implemented and led teams delivering complex systems in demanding, mission-critical, large-scale, enterprise and cloud environments. At GDT, John focuses on strategic direction, evaluating emerging technologies, trends, and practices in order to enable customers to accelerate their transformations and the modernization of their technical and operational models. Prior to joining GDT, John held executive, architecture and management roles at Integrated Archive Systems, Symantec, Solectron (now part of Flex), Madge Networks and Elsevier MDL.