TechONTAPPodcast

This week, John Spinks (@jbspinks), aka Mr. SnapCenter, joins us in the studio to discuss the new features in SnapCenter 1.1. We talk about backups, restores, and Oracle, as well as Justin’s visit to Storage Field Day at NetApp headquarters.

This week we bring Wyatt Bennett onto the podcast to talk about the new FlexPod offering. Bennett talks about the automation behind the scenes, and why this solution should be compelling for anyone considering a ROBO (Remote Office/Branch Office) deployment. He also shares his palpable excitement for reducing the complexity associated with converged infrastructure deployments and his not-so-lofty aspirations to make all converged infrastructure deployments deployable by anyone.

This week on the Tech ONTAP Podcast, we welcome NetApp A-Team member Glenn Dekhayser (@gdekhayser) of Red8 to talk about DevOps and NetApp Private Storage as a Service. In this week’s episode we discuss what DevOps is, where it’s going, and if storage administrators will be left behind. We also talk about the use cases for NetApp Private Storage and what the future may hold for NPS.

The hybrid cloud has changed the rules of data management. Data may still be the crown jewels, but it’s only useful when you can put it where it’s needed—and safely. That’s according to Adam Bergh of Netech Corporation and NetApp’s Kelly Hemphill, who talked about the changing face of data management in a hybrid cloud world during NetApp Insight 2015 with the Tech ONTAP Podcast.

Virtual volumes, also known as VVols, are a VMware feature for providing VM granular, policy based storage management. What this means is that as a virtualization administrator you no longer have to track and juggle datastore features and capabilities. You can simply create a policy of the features you want to take advantage of, then rely on the storage provider to ensure that the requested capabilities are used for your virtual machine.

This week on the podcast we have a bit of a homecoming, with our former host, Pete Flecha (@vPedroArrow) joining us. Pete is the Technical Marketing Engineer responsible for VVols integration at VMware, and he does a great job of explaining and elaborating on the value of VVols for everyone.

At NetApp Insight 2015, NetApp Cloud Czar Val Bercovici and Red8’s Glenn Dekhayser shared their thoughts on how cloud has changed the world of DevOps, including what Bercovici calls the “Lean Cloud.” Dekhayser is practice lead in the Office of the CTO at Red8, a leader in designing software-defined data centers and a longtime NetApp partner. Bercovici and Dekhayser cover everything from the basics (What is DevOps?) to cloud economics to workload and data agility.

This week on the Tech ONTAP Podcast, we wrap up February, AKA SolidFire month, with Aaron Patten, virtualization architect for SolidFire. In today’s show, we discuss virtualization, where SolidFire fits into our customer’s environments, and a variety of other things while the third member of our podcast, Andrew Sullivan, travels across the Great White North.

This week we welcome Josh Atwell, Developer Advocate for SolidFire, to the podcast to have a conversation about automation, APIs, PowerShell, and declarative state management. We also talk about how SolidFire’s full-featured API enables administrators, developers, orchestrators, applications, and everyone in-between to quickly and easily provision and manage storage for their needs.

A crisis is an opportunity in disguise. ING DIRECT, Australia learned this firsthand when a competing bank Down Under beat them to market with an iPad app. But instead of rolling over, ING DIRECT regrouped, evaluated their options and transformed their IT infrastructure, essentially putting their whole bank in the cloud.

At NetApp Insight 2015, Ben Issa—ING DIRECT, Australia’s head of IT Strategy—tells the dramatic story of the 15-year-old bank’s rapid reinvention, and how partnerships with NetApp, Cisco and Microsoft made possible the project known as “Zero Touch.” By streamlining the development/test-to-production environment using NetApp’s FlexPod and clustered Data ONTAP, ING DIRECT reduced time to market for their products and services by 50 percent. Tune into this special edition of the Tech ONTAP Podcast to hear more about ING Direct's solution.

Last week, we covered the SolidFire acquisition with NetApp’s Andy Grimes. This week, we are joined by SolidFire employees, Aaron Delp and Amy Lewis, to get their take on the acquisition, as well as Jeremiah Dooley and Andy Banta for a technical deep dive into everything SolidFire. This episode goes into overtime, but is certainly worth the extended listen.