NetApp pitches AI-ready legacy data without a rebuild; plans Oracle Cloud service
At its NetApp INSIGHT event, NetApp laid out an "intelligent data infrastructure" strategy that it says lets enterprises make legacy data usable for AI in place, across file, block and object storage, without re-architecting or moving it. SVP of product marketing Jen Prenner said data must be accessible, governed, protected and available, adding that protection is built into every layer, that the company has expanded its Commvault partnership, and that its Console control plane can run locally for disconnected environments. NetApp also announced plans for a fully managed storage service on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure within the next 12 months.
It shows storage vendors positioning existing data as directly AI-usable to defend infrastructure budgets as enterprise AI moves to production, though the payoff is still unproven.
NetApp aims to make legacy data AI-ready without a rebuild
Enterprises sitting on decades of legacy information face a pressing question as artificial intelligence moves from pilots to production: Can that archive become AI-ready data without a costly rebuild of the infrastructure underneath it?
NetApp Inc. is betting it can answer that question with a platform that reaches well beyond its storage roots. The company is framing its intelligent data infrastructure strategy around a simple promise: Make data usable for AI where it already lives, according to Jen Prenner (pictured), senior vice president of product marketing at NetApp.
“For data to be usable for AI, it needs to be accessible, governed, protected, available,” Prenner said. “You need to be able to do that with all that data for your projects without re-architecting the data or moving it.”