Why modern infrastructure should run itself

Autonomous operations and consumption-based services are transforming IT infrastructure. Here’s a pattern I see constantly: IT teams buried in operational work, struggling with disconnected tools and frustrated by legacy infrastructure. Days spent just keeping the lights on — managing hardware, patching software, troubleshooting routine issues — with little room left for strategic innovation.

But keeping the lights on is no longer enough, because the mandate for IT has changed. In response to spiraling data volumes, the rise of AI, advancing ransomware threats, and the availability of as-a-service infrastructure, we’re witnessing a dramatic shift in enterprise IT strategy. Organizations are embracing data platforms that deliver AI-powered automation, consumption-based models, and outcome-driven SLAs.

From our perspective, the Gartner^® 2026 Strategic Roadmap for Storage highlights this shift — and sees it accelerating. By 2028, Gartner expects that 33% of enterprise storage administration tasks will be governed by IT SLA outcomes and automated with policy-driven management. That’s up from less than 5% today.

Let’s walk through what this means for your organization and see how you can leverage infrastructure modernization to accelerate growth, secure your business, and sharpen your competitive advantage.

Legacy infrastructure puts a drag on everything. Fragmented systems are more costly, more labor-intensive, and they compound the complexity of hybrid environments. Infrastructure inefficiencies result in slower response times, unacceptable security vulnerabilities, and an inability to scale when you need to.

In short, enterprise storage is too often siloed, complex, and expensive to manage. If you’re still relying on rigid legacy architectures, you’re missing out on the flexibility that modern, data-intensive applications demand.

We see forward-thinking enterprises already moving to a platform-based model — one where intelligent data infrastructure provides autonomous, outcome-driven services rather than a collection of disparate hardware to be managed.

In this model, infrastructure decisions are governed by intelligent data management and business-aligned SLAs, not technical specs. Storage utilization is consumption-based, and multi-protocol workloads consolidate onto unified platforms that span on-premises and cloud environments. AI workloads leverage the same hybrid platform to accelerate training, inferencing, and agentic AI. IT teams shift from managing point solutions to managing outcomes.

Cyber-resilience is critical to this new infrastructure model. By 2029, Gartner expects 100% of enterprise storage products will extend their capabilities beyond recovery from cyber events to include active defenses — up from 20% in early 2025.

By moving to a platform-centric intelligent data infrastructure model, you can:

• Automate repetitive tasks: Offload routine administration — like provisioning storage, balancing workloads, and discovering and preparing data for AI — to intelligent software.
• Improve decision-making: Use AI-driven insights to predict capacity needs and catch performance bottlenecks before they impact users. 
• Optimize price-performance: Control flash costs by flexibly matching workload performance and capacity needs with performance and cost-optimized flash and hybrid/HDD infrastructure options.
• Streamline management: Integrate storage and compute into a unified control plane with visibility across hybrid multicloud environments.

Organizations that reach this state will enjoy intelligent storage environments that are self-optimizing, inherently secure, AI-ready, and aligned to business priorities. Those that don't will remain stuck in a manual reactive mode — spending resources on hardware management while competitors pull ahead.

To advance your own modernization agenda, we recommend focusing on three key areas that we feel align with the conclusions of the Gartner report and deliver maximum business value for your organization:

• Adopt SLA-based outcomes

Stop buying storage based on hardware specs alone. Instead, focus on outcomes and SLAs — what the infrastructure actually achieves for your business. Whether that’s productivity, availability, or new AI workflows, measure what matters. Look for as-a-service options, so you consume infrastructure according to your needs — on-demand or capex, on-prem or in the cloud.

• Prioritize cyber resilience

Slash your threat exposure by mandating non-negotiable cyber resilience SLAs. Focus on active defense: real-time threat detection, rapid recovery, and data exfiltration detection. Look for a platform with data classification that automatically identifies sensitive data, recommends and implements protection policies, and enables recovery for priority workloads first.

• Embrace autonomous storage

Refocus your IT teams on outcomes, not hardware. AI-based automation can handle threshold events and routine decisions autonomously — reducing overhead and shifting your team from reactive maintenance to proactive management.

Real-world impact

Organizations that have made this shift are already seeing results.

Take Lumus Imaging. When legacy infrastructure couldn’t keep pace with AI-powered diagnostics, Lumus moved to modern, all-flash storage solutions. The result: 10x faster diagnostics, up to $10 million saved, and seamless real-time access to patient data. By removing infrastructure bottlenecks, they didn’t just improve IT metrics — they improved patient outcomes.

When a cloud migration created severe storage latency, Infor shifted to a fully managed, consumption-based storage service with built-in data efficiency and automated operations. Within a week, the team had provisioned and integrated the solution — without dedicated storage specialists. Now Infor enjoys 100% data availability, up to 65% lower storage costs, and scalability that requires no ongoing fine-tuning.

NetApp has been building toward a platform-based future for years. With an intelligent data infrastructure approach that delivers unified, multi-protocol data services, autonomous operations, and unmatched cyber-resilience across hybrid multicloud environments, the NetApp data platform radically streamlines IT operations while accelerating enterprise transformation.

The Gartner 2026 roadmap describes where enterprise storage needs to go. NetApp is already there — and ready to help you make the shift.

Discover more:

• Read the 2026 Strategic Roadmap for Storage from Gartner
• Discover NetApp^® Keystone^® storage as a service
• Explore data infrastructure modernization