NetApp Insight — My Top Takeaways

NetApp Insight is NetApp’s annual technical eco-system conference. NetApp invites partners, alliances and customers to hear about its vision and new tech offerings, see product demos, meet NetApp product teams, listen to customer testimonials and more…

This was my 7th time attending — this time representing TeraSky, a NetApp Gold Partner. In comparison to previous Insight events, this year was modest in terms of conference extravaganza, but it was extremely content-rich, with software offerings updates and integration best-practices. Unsurprisingly, key sessions focused on Kubernetes, AI, DevOps, Cloud and HCI. I chose to spend my time at sessions about the first three.

AI

I attended a couple of sessions discussing NetApp integration with Nvidia DGX solutions, as TeraSky partners with Nvidia as well.

My favorite session was a partner forum, in which a NetApp partner presented his experience deploying complete solutions based on NetApp & Nvidia. He referenced architecture at customer data centers and the challenges involved, best practices raised etc.

Two things made this session my favorite:

1. Session technical level- Since this session was designed to facilitate an open discussion with NetApp’s product team, partners and customers, the technical level was very high.
2. Get a feel for the market- It seems I was the only partner in the audience (besides the presenter) to have real-life experience with AI deployments, and the opportunities we meet in the field are similar.

Container Persistent Storage – Trident

Trident is a plugin maintained as an open source project that enables direct integration of Docker & Kubernetes with NetApp’s storage portfolio, including OnTap AFF/FAS/Select/Cloud solutions, E-Series and Element OS. It utilizes NetApp’s multi-protocol approach and allows it to integrate over file protocol (NFS) or block (iSCSI).

The tight & simple integration allowed NetApp techies to flood the breakout sessions with demos. The most memorable one included their new NKS – NetApp Kubernetes Service — based on their newly acquired Stackpoint technology.

DevOps

The DevOps sessions covered many eco-systems – including Ansible, vRA/vRO, and PowerShell. The NetApp Service Level Manager (NSLM) session presented the new software’s integration with vRO (vRealize Orchestrator), common workflows for day0/1 operation, and included a demo. The software is worth exploring if you’re looking to automate storage provisioning, as part of the virtualized environment automation.

In Summary

I could write endlessly about updates and technologies that were discussed and demonstrated .

Attending such events always excites me, as it allows direct and open interactions with experts.

No doubt, the event provided valuable insights, and combined both business & pleasure – Barcelona together with long time colleagues after all…

TeraSky and I will be more than happy to share with you more insights by NetApp Insights. Feel free to contact us.