NetApp 3.0

Innovation is easy.  Particularly when you have limited scope and no installed base to carry forward.  On the other hand continuous innovation, delivering compounding value to a growing market at every turn, is not only hard - it is highly risky.  So much so that there are startlingly few companies who have survived such ambitions of repeated innovation – along with the difficult transitions involved.

Last week’s historic announcement prompted me to examine several key attributes which set “innovation survivors” apart from the litany of failures.

Culture – NetApp 0.0

Being named the #1 Best Place to Work by Fortune Magazine earlier this year exposed a lot of staffing-related NetApp virtues.  However, one of the most overlooked yet critical aspects of NetApp’s award-winning culture is the welcoming and open nature of the company.  Without this NetApp cultural trait, we would never have grown so far beyond our early Unix file-serving niche.

The first critical innovation transition NetApp successfully navigated was creating the industry’s original Multi-Protocol storage appliance.  Doing so required that we embrace the Windows mentality into our engineering, sales, marketing and support organizations.  Those of you who have been in this industry long enough to remember will appreciate how challenging that was, given the religious wars between the Unix and Windows camps of that era.

Focus – NetApp 1.0

Recognizing the value of a single management interface for both SAN & NAS requirements via Unified Storage proved not only to be truly trend-setting in the enterprise storage marketplace back in 2002, but is today emerging as an essential requirement for highly scalable shared infrastructure deployments – such as those supporting successful (i.e. flexible, resilient and efficient) Cloud Computing environments.

It’s easy to grow a product family via new distinct offerings for every requirement.  Block storage arrays (SAN), file serving gateways (NAS), object storage for archiving (CAS) and Cloud (COS) represent one product strategy.  Unfortunately there are no economies of (Cloud) scale with this approach, as each of these distinct architectures require different planning and operational approaches – leading to unacceptable inefficiencies while restricting flexibility.

Vision – NetApp 2.0

Adding additional protocols to the same storage appliance pushed the boundaries of filesystem engineering in the 90’s.  Building upon that value by enhancing the system to deliver Truly Unified Storage via natively integrated block storage support required vision that continues to pay dividends today.  To that end, look for native object interfaces from NetApp in the not too distant future.

Policy-based automation for Unified Scalable Storage further compounds the value of NetApp’s continued innovation.  Going forward it’s important to look beyond the controller for dramatic and powerful new storage and data management functionality.  Primitive storage controllers will give way to powerful primitives implemented as storage controllers – forming part of a rich system of storage and data management services available in the Cloud.

Leadership – NetApp 3.0

The founders of NetApp regularly attest to the pivotal role played by Dan Warmenhoven in lifting NetApp out of our early startup phase and forming the influential Fortune 1000 Enterprise Storage leader we are today.  I have personally been influenced by Dan (and Tom Mendoza) in powerful and memorable ways which those who know me have probably heard me share over a drink or two :)  I am grateful to Dan in many ways for the wonderful career he has helped me enjoy in my 11+ years at NetApp.

Looking forward (as we are paid to do in the Office of the CTO), I am extremely excited to see Tom Georgens take the helm at NetApp.  I must be weird since I was able to instantly relate to Tom after meeting him, and over past four years I have gained enormous respect for his ability to appreciate and thrive in NetApp’s culture, focus and vision.

Under the pace of unrelenting evolution brought about by continuous innovation, the IT landscape is undergoing unprecedented change, volatility and risk.  Now is the perfect time to have Tom tap NetApp’s culture, focus & vision to lead us on the next phase of our Journey!

Comments

[StorageServices]

I've observed a lot of simplicity and scalability from NetApp for conventional NAS/SAN storage over the years. Am anxious to see & hear more about your object storage plans.

When will we see more in that arena?

[Shark]

NetApp seems to have mastered the business art of organic growth by successfully extending the Data ONTAP & WAFL franchises into important new markets. Will you continue to do that in the Cloud Era? Or will this be the opportunity for NetApp to acquire your way to success?

[David Magda]

Will the interfaces have support for T10's OSD protocol?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_storage_device

[Dan Brown]

Object-based storage is the next generation for this market and it makes sense for NetApp. This is the opportunity for NetApp to move to the position of handling all unstructured data from traditional files (legacy) to objects (future). It is only logical that this is the way things will go given the volume of unstructured data being created and stored as well as the need to maintain context for all those files. It's good to see more entries into the object storage segment; it's what's for dinner.