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Cloud|ONTAP

Kim Stevenson

December 10, 2020

NetApp scored #1 in multiple use cases in “Gartner’s 2020 Critical Capabilities for Solid-State Arrays” and “Critical Capabilities for Hybrid Array Storage Systems”

Evaluating a vendor for your storage needs can be overwhelming! There are so many factors to consider: Is the vendor experienced in your industry? Do their products have simple cloud-like manageability? Are they reliable, scalable, storage efficient, and perform well? Do they have a history of innovation and strong customer support? And importantly, do they have a straightforward, consistent cloud connectivity story because we all know a hybrid enterprise will deliver your company the most value.

Earlier this month, analyst firm Gartner published its annual report, "2020 Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage." Again, NetApp was named a Leader based on our ability to execute and completeness of vision. We believe this is due to our portfolio of solutions' robust capabilities and innovation, driven by our data fabric strategy.

This past week, Gartner published its companion reports, "Gartner 2020 Critical Capabilities for Solid-State Arrays" and "Gartner 2020 Critical Capabilities for Hybrid Array Storage Systems." In reading these reports, you’ll see that these reports go a step deeper that the Magic Quadrant report. These reports examine the storage vendors' technical capabilities and how their product capabilities perform against the most demanding workloads.

Again, NetApp received the highest scores in most of the reports' customer use cases, including the critical workload areas of server virtualization and VDI, containers, and application consolidation. As an enterprise consumer of these technologies, when you evaluate the IT infrastructure needed to support these workloads, it's imperative to gauge the vendor's complete capabilities, including its extensive history of innovation, reliability, and on-going support, as well as who has a comprehensive, future-proof ecosystem.

Ideally, you would choose a vendor that can handle your essential workloads from a single data center to a global enterprise. Only NetApp can assure a future-proof, cloud-connected data center that simplifies your hybrid environment and lets you embrace the best-of-cloud services with a common ONTAP SW solution.

We believe the way NetApp has shown up in these Gartner Critical Capabilities reports is a testament to our product management and engineering team. A big thanks to these teams for their continued focus on innovation and reliability in building the world's best storage solutions! Our latest version of ONTAP, v9.8, released this past October, continues that rich history. Cloud-like simplicity in our management enhances decision making for your IT staff. Improvements in strengthened security, intelligent cloud connectivity, and greater storage efficiency add to the already heightened value and reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) of a NetApp solution.

Our 28+ years of experience in the storage and data center business have been built on continuous innovations. And at the center of it all is ONTAP, the world's leading storage operating system that spans from the enterprise data center to the world's biggest clouds.

Leading companies across the world's most established and transformative industries look to NetApp to solve their expanding workload challenges. They chose NetApp because of our leadership across flash, hybrid-flash arrays, object, private clouds, hybrid clouds, and of course, the public clouds to meet their increasing workload needs.

When we set out to solve customer workload and business challenges, we leverage our knowledge and experiences to build storage solutions that can power, drive, and accelerate their business transformation. Having a well-regarded firm such as Gartner validate our work, only reinforces we are on the right path.

Kim

_{Gartner 2020 Critical Capabilities for Solid-State Arrays; Jeff Vogel, Roger Cox, Joseph Unsworth, Santhosh Rao; Published December 1, 2020; Gartner 2020 Critical Capabilities for Hybrid Array Storage Systems; Santhosh Rao, Roger Cox, Joseph Unsworth, Jeff Vogel; Published December 1, 2020}

_{Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.}

Kim Stevenson

Kim Stevenson is Senior Vice President and General Manager of NetApp’s Foundational Data Services Business Unit (FDSBU), our largest business unit and helping to lead the charge into a new technology era. Kim most recently served as a senior executive with Lenovo as Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Data Center Group. With diverse experience spanning finance, services, and marketing, COO and CIO leadership roles at Intel, IBM, EDS, and HPE, and having served on numerous boards of directors for leading tech innovators, Kim brings a truly unique and well-rounded perspective to NetApp. She uses this diverse experience to tackle the business challenges customers care about most and simplify the overall IT experience for a world that is growing only more complex. Kim has won numerous awards including Silicon Valley Business Journal's Best CIO and Evanta Top 10 Breakaway Leader, Huffington Post's Most Social CIO as well as the CIO 100 award by CIO.com. She was named the Woman of Excellence Digital Trailblazer by the National Association of Female Executives (NAFE). In 2015, she won the Forbes CIO Innovation Award. Currently serving on the board of Boston Private Financial Holdings, Inc. and Skyworks Solutions Inc., Kim holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science degree from Northeastern University. In her free time, Kim is an avid tennis player and enjoys kayaking and paddle boarding.

View all Posts by Kim Stevenson

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