TechONTAPPodcast

Backup isn’t just about copies anymore—it’s about resilience, efficiency, and simplicity at scale. From ransomware concerns to long-term retention and multi-cloud complexity, traditional backup approaches are struggling to keep up. In this episode of the Tech ONTAP Podcast, host Justin Parisi is joined by Manohar Kulkarni and Ebin Kadavy to explore how NetApp Backup and Recovery is redefining data protection with a modern, SaaS-based approach. In this episode, you’ll learn: • 🔐 How NetApp delivers secure 3-2-1 backup with long-term retention for databases, VMs, and NAS workloads • ☁️ Why a fully managed service eliminates upgrade headaches and reduces operational risk • ⚡ How snapshot-based backups provide faster RPO/RTO, space efficiency, and near-instant recovery • 🛡️ How security is built in with encryption, outbound-only connectivity, and ransomware-ready architecture • 📊 What visibility you get with dashboards, efficiency metrics, and scaling to 20,000+ VMs per agent • 🔄 How to migrate from SnapCenter with a seamless, one-click transition Whether you’re protecting enterprise databases, virtualized environments, or planning for long-term compliance, this episode breaks down how to simplify backup while improving performance and security.

When moving data into or out of the cloud, the real cost isn’t storage, but latency, egress fees, and lost flexibility. For instance, if you spin up AI workloads in one cloud and inference in another, what happens when your data can’t move fast enough to keep GPUs busy? What’s the cost? These are the challenges enterprises are running into right now as hybrid, multi-cloud, and AI architectures collide. On the latest Tech ONTAP Podcast, Justin Parisi is joined by Glenn Dekheyser (Equinix) to unpack why private interconnectivity and data movement are now as critical as storage and compute.

As artificial intelligence reshapes cybersecurity, organizations are being forced to rethink data sovereignty, trust, and resilience. In this episode, we sit down with Adam Gale, Field CTO for Cybersecurity and AI at NetApp, to explore how AI, security, and geopolitics are colliding in today’s digital infrastructure. This conversation goes beyond theory to discuss real-world challenges and decisions organizations are facing right now. \In this episode, we cover: • How AI is being used in modern cybersecurity • Why “human in the loop” still matters for critical decisions • What data sovereignty really means—and why it’s not one-size-fits-all • The role of encryption and key ownership in protecting data • Real-world examples of dark sites, resilience, and infrastructure disruptions • Why trust and transparency are essential in security platforms With AI accelerating and regulations evolving worldwide, data sovereignty is no longer just a compliance issue—it’s becoming a strategic and board-level concern.

This week on the Tech ONTAP Podcast, we sit down with global AI and digital transformation strategist Kamales Lardi to explore one of the most important conversations in modern IT: how to adopt AI responsibly, ethically, and effectively in the enterprise — with data at the core. While AI capabilities continue to expand, most organizations still struggle with real-world implementation, scaling beyond pilots, and building trust within the business. Kamales shares why AI strategy must start with people, data governance, and business outcomes — not just tools and hype.

🚀 This week on the Tech ONTAP Podcast: We’re talking all things StorageGRID 12.0 — and this release is a game changer for AI and data-driven workloads. We are joined by Vishnu Vardhan and Morgan Mears to unpack how StorageGRID is evolving into an AI-ready object storage powerhouse. Here’s what’s new in StorageGRID 12.0 👇 💾 Bucket Branches – Think Git for data. Instantly create space-efficient dataset copies for AI/ML training, testing, and version control. ⚡ Caching Load Balancers – Bring data closer to compute with up to 1.2PB of local cache for high-performance AI pipelines. 📈 Scalability & Smarter Metadata – Handle hundreds of billions of objects with ease. ☁️ Flexible Deployment – Run StorageGRID your way: appliance, container, or virtualized. Whether you’re building data lakes, training large language models, or managing global datasets, StorageGRID 12.0 helps you scale with performance, simplicity, and efficiency.

🚀 This week on the Tech ONTAP Podcast: NetApp Docs goes AI! We sit down with Aksel Davis, Grant Glass, Jen Kaufman, and Adam Newton to explore how NetApp is transforming documentation—from static PDFs to a living, searchable, AI-powered ecosystem. 💡 Topics we cover: • The shift from closed XML systems to GitHub + open standards • How generative AI powers Doc the Owl, our chatbot trained on 120K+ NetApp documents • Making documentation more accurate, agile, and accessible in 9 languages • Future possibilities: AI-driven authoring tools, in-product assistance, and cross-dataset intelligence Whether you’re a NetApp customer, partner, or just curious about how AI reshapes technical documentation, this episode is packed with insights.

We’re diving deep into AI at scale with NetApp experts Bobby Oomen and David Arnette. From NVIDIA SuperPod (think AI factories powering massive LLM training) to FlexPod solutions that bring inference into everyday enterprise workloads, we unpack what’s happening at the cutting edge of AI infrastructure. You’ll hear how NetApp and NVIDIA are collaborating to solve one of AI’s biggest challenges—data management—with tools like SnapMirror, FlexCache, and FlexClone. We also explore why inference is becoming just as important (if not more) than training, and what that shift means for enterprises looking to integrate AI into their operations. Whether you’re curious about NVIDIA Cloud Partner (NCP) offerings, KV cache innovations, or how Cisco and NetApp are pushing FlexPod into the AI era, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss. Tune in to learn how enterprises can scale AI securely, efficiently, and flexibly—with NetApp at the core.

Managing large amounts of data can be challenging, especially when you also have to manage the storage system where the data lives. So to make life easier for storage administrators, NetApp offers a data ops toolkit that can offload some of the work associated with storage management. On this Tech ONTAP Podcast episode, we welcome the creator of the toolkit, Michael Oglesby, to talk about the latest updates and where best to use it.

The NetApp Customer Proof of Concept lab is a place where prospective NetApp customers can "kick the tires" on real NetApp hardware, with their own workloads, before purchasing. This try and buy approach is a game changer for anyone looking to move to a new storage platform. This week, the CPOC team tells us all about how they do things in this inaugural video edition of the Tech ONTAP podcast!

Did you know there's a way to stripe large files across multiple nodes in a NetApp ONTAP cluster now? NetApp TME John Lantz drops by to drop some knowledge on Advanced Capacity Balancing!

This week, NetApp FlexCache TME drops in to discuss the latest information around the sparse caching feature for NFS and SMB workloads - FlexCache.

The NetApp A-Team drops by to chat about the NetApp launch announcements for February 2025. Listen as we cover updates to the ASA platform, new hardware models, BlueXP improvements and more!

The healthcare industry has long been known for its cautious approach to technology, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced a dramatic shift. In this episode, Scott Charles from T-Systems ([email protected]), and Brian O’Mahony from NetApp ([email protected]), break down how the healthcare sector has evolved in response to the pandemic and the role technology plays in this transformation.

This week, the NetApp A-Team joins us to discuss the latest NetApp hardware announcements, including the new A90 platform, as well as some new BlueXP additions!

This week on the Tech ONTAP podcast, Adam Gale joins us to discuss the new EU AI regulations and how they may impact you and your business.

Sifting through millions of files to filter out PII, compliance violations, or other sensitive data is a huge burden for many organizations. BlueXP Classification from NetApp provides a way to simplify those tasks and make regulatory compliance more of a molehill than a mountain. Ben Kesten joins us to discuss how BlueXP Classification is changing the way you manage your data.

Electronic Design Automation (EDA) is the industry that powers the innovations to technology we utilize everyday by making smaller, more powerful microchips for use in our cell phones, smart devices, self-driving cars, laptops and more. EDA requires a massive amount of compute and storage at a rapidly growing scale that most datacenters simply cannot keep up with in a cost effective manner. Usually, by the time a new datacenter is finished, it's already too small. That is why more and more EDA vendors and chip makers are turning to the cloud for their workflows. Microsoft's Global Black Belt for EDA - Andy Chan - and NetApp's EDA expert Michael Johnson, join us to discuss how Azure NetApp Files is an ideal solution for EDA workloads.

DataDobi provides world class migration and data analytics software that works seamlessly with NetApp ONTAP - both on-prem and in the cloud. Danny Esposito from DataDobi joins us to tell us all about DataDobi, StorageMap and more.

SnapCenter 5.0 brought with it a ton of new features and functionality, and NetApp Solutions Architect Artie Noel joins us to discuss how exactly SnapCenter 5.0 can benefit your backup and recovery use cases.

Asianometry is a newsletter and podcast channel started by a gentleman named Jon who became disillusioned with Silicon Valley and moved to Asia, started making videos about Asia, economics and the EDA industry. Jon from Asianometry joins us to discuss his podcast and the EDA industry in general.

Brands define how people think about companies, so it's not only important to get it right, but to stay current and not be afraid to switch it up when necessary. NetApp recently pivoted their brand to position Intelligent Data Infrastructure and we invited NetApp's VP of Marketing, Emily Miller, as well as two NetApp celebrities - Phoebe Goh and Matt Watts!

While it may feel like AI/ML are simply tech buzzwords, the influence on enterprises and their products is unquestionable. As a result, many companies are making significant investments in AI/ML and betting on its success. NetApp recently announced greater dedication towards AI/ML and we invited the AI team at NetApp to tell us all about it.

While generative AI is getting all the press in recent years, the practical use cases for AI, Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing have grown exponentially - particularly in the Healthcare and Life Sciences verticals. Brian O'Mahony and Tony Chidiac stop by to tell us all about the current state of AI in Healthcare.

Object storage is gaining more and more of a foothold in an ever evolving cloud storage world and NetApp StorageGRID is delivering more functionality to address the growing demands. Vishnu Vardhan joins us to discuss the latest release of StorageGRID.

A lot goes into making a car, and even more data is used. That data has to go somewhere, and oftentimes, it goes on NetApp storage - whether on-prem or in the cloud. Tilman Schroeder, NetApp's automotive industry expert, joins us to discuss how NetApp helps drive the automotive industry.

Security is one of the most important - and most complex - concepts to address when dealing with any aspect of IT. This becomes much more apparent in the cloud, which is why using a managed service makes a lot of sense, particularly for small to medium businesses that do not have the money or expertise to manage their own security. Scott McCrady of SolCyber joins us to discuss how SolCyber provides managed security for the cloud.

SnapCenter is NetApp's flagship application driven backup and restore offering that provides data protection for databases such as SQL, Oracle, SAP and more. The latest release of SnapCenter also provides better cloud integration, including support for volumes as a service offerings such as Azure NetApp Files. Join us as we discuss the new SnapCenter 5.0 release and all it delivers.

NetApp's ONTAP software design - with its multi-tenant Storage Virtual Machines, nondisruptive operations, integrated backup and replication, scale out approach - lends itself well to cloud deployments. Opti9Tech understands this, which is why, as a managed cloud provider, they use ONTAP and its features to deliver leading cloud services to their customers. Opti9Tech CTO Sagi Brody joins us to talk about how Opti9Tech helps you manage cloud without having to manage cloud.

Databases traditionally are run in on-premises data centers, but as they scale larger and larger and require more performance, admins need to start evaluating whether to purchase new hardware to manage or move to a lease-based model in the cloud. Amazon FSxN for NetApp ONTAP offers a way for database adminstrators to confidently move their workloads to the cloud without sacrificing performance or the feature-richness of NetApp ONTAP. Semion Mazor and Pedro Fernandes join us to discuss how Amazon FSxN for NetApp ONTAP improves the life of database administrators considering a move to the cloud.

Ever wonder how the chips in your phones, TVs, cars and appliances are made? Well, a lot goes into those and in this episode, NetApp's resident Electronic Design Automation expert Michael Johnson tells us about the processes, challenges and basics of the EDA chip manufacturing industry.

Another fall brings another new ONTAP release here at NetApp and this one is chock full of new features to better improve your NetApp experience. Keith Aasen joins us to break it all down and explain what's new.

This week, a former director of IT at Naughty Dog - Justin Monast - stops by to discuss how NetApp ONTAP powered some of the most influential games in gaming history.

When you have a Kubernetes cluster that your applications depend on to stay online, you have to seriously consider how you plan on recovering in the case a disaster strikes. Ransomware, power failures, cloud region outages all can wreak havoc on Kubernetes clusters. NetApp Astra helps mitigate disasters with strong backup, recovery and replication technology backed by NetApp ONTAP and SnapMirror. Dean Steadman and Luis Rico from the NetApp Astra team join us to discuss the latest updates for NetApp Astra in version 23.10.

The more healthcare companies start to digitize their records, the more they realize they need more capacity to do it, but they don't always have the resources to manage it. That's where the cloud comes in. The Amazon AWS FSx NetApp offering provides a plethora of features that help enable EHR workloads to perform better, save space and provide a viable and efficient disaster recovery plan with immutable backups for better protection against ransomware. NetApp healthcare expert Brian O'Mahony and AWS healthcare SME Randy Seamans join us to chat about all the benefits of ONTAP, AWS and FSxN for EHR workloads.

This week, we go over the newest additions to ONTAP in the latest release with Keith Aasen. Join us as we discuss the new guarantee program, autonomous ransomware updates and much more!

IT admins are raised on skepticism and there's an entire security philosophy centered around distrust, right? So, so when you start talking about managed services and what we like in the cloud and what we see in the cloud, you start to run into a lot of IT admins that simply do not like it. And we've invited one. Melissa Palmer (also known as vMiss) joins us to tell us all about her cloud skepticism and how Azure VMware Solution with Azure NetApp Files helped her see the light about the usefulness of cloud.

NetApp BlueXP delivers a unified experience for storage and data services across on-premises and cloud environments. It enables operational simplicity through the power of AIOps, with the flexible consumption parameters and integrated protection required for today’s cloud-led world. And now, BlueXP offers a more complete solution for backup and recovery in your cloud deployments. NetApp's Semion Mazor joins us to discuss how BlueXP Backup and Recovery is improving life for backup admins.

Postgres is a popular open source database that powers applications for companies such as Atlassian and DoorDash due to its cost, performance and versatility. But what if you could make Postgres perform better? Pganalyze gives you visibility into your Postgres database deployments and its queries to make suggestions for improvements, tuning and maintenance. Pganlyze CEO and founder Lukas Fittl joins us to discuss all the ins and outs of Postgres, as well as how pganalyze makes life better for the Postgres database admin.

Medical imaging is a prevalent cog in the healthcare industry. Millions of images can be stored in a single location and provide use cases not just in radiology, X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, and EKGs, but also for post-op wounds, dermatology and more. Medical imaging is being extended into more use cases, such as digital pathology, where slides are scanned for later analysis. These millions of images have to be stored somewhere, and more and more hospitals are looking toward the cloud to provide that data storage - specifically AWS FSx using NetApp ONTAP storage. In this episode, Sasha Paegle of AWS and Kim Garriott of NetApp talk about the Amazon FSxN cloud solution for Medical Imaging.

Jetstream Software offers one of the premiere backup and recovery options for VMware in the cloud and we invited Dennis Bray to tell us all about it. Dennis really knows his stuff, which is why he uses Azure NetApp Files for his customer demos. We've got a good partnership with NetApp and back to this idea of using cloud based technologies and trying to help with cost efficiency, resource utilization, efficiency and the like. When Azure NetApp Files became available with the Azure VMware solution, then it was natural for us, right? Here's a way now that the customer can scale the storage that they require for this DR, or for just for production for that matter, but we're thinking about DR. They can scale the storage for that private cloud without having to add additional AVS notes, right? So from our perspective, and likely the customer and NetApp's perspective, there's real value here. - Dennis Bray, Jetstream Software Azure VMware Solution with Azure NetApp Files is a proven cloud solution - a first party service within Microsoft's Azure ecosystem, which is why customers feel secure in using it for their enterprise NAS workloads.

When dealing with storing data in the cloud, trust becomes a critical component for customers - especially ones in the financial sector. If you can't trust the solution you've chosen, then you'll always be looking over your shoulder. Azure NetApp Files is a proven cloud solution - a first party service within Microsoft's Azure ecosystem, which is why customers feel secure in using it for their enterprise NAS workloads. In this episode, we talk to a customer (Mark Sahadeo) in that industry about how they're using Azure NetApp Files for their Azure VMware Solution workloads.

The shift to remote work in the past few years has caused enterprises to re-think how they handle virtualization infrastructure. Do they continue to offer it on-prem, where they have to manage all the hardware and software components and deal with access from multiple locations across the globe? Or do they move to a managed service that is flexible, scalable and able to be offered in multiple cloud regions? Azure VMware Solutions provides a robust way to handle the increasing requirements for organizations in the cloud while keeping costs manageable. LeRoy Vanek of Baptist Health of South Florida joins us to come speak about why they chose the service and how it has been performing for them so far.

Site reliability engineers for cloud providers are the oil that makes the cloud engine run smoothly. They're responsible for the management and automation of the cloud resource backend. One of the challenges of automation isn't just about automating tasks, but about automating the tasks in the right, most efficient way. If your initial approach is flawed, then you've wasted time and will have to re-architect everything later on down the road. Argonaut's founder Surya Oruganti joins us to discuss how his product can help SREs automate the cloud in the right way to save time and money down the line.

A Spot instance is a cost effective way to provision storage because you give cloud providers control over when the instance's resources can be reclaimed. But what if you want the cost savings without worrying if your mission critical applications will be shut down at any given moment? Spot Elastigroup uses machine learning and cloud trends to help predict when a spot VM instance will be removed and will reallocate resources as needed, as well as help you manage scale as your applications require more (or less) compute - all without your admins needing to babysit the workloads. Yarden Kesari and Carl Gridley of Spot by NetApp join us to describe how Spot Elastigroup works and how it can help you save money in the cloud while simplifying your day to day operations.

!!WARNING: DEEP SYSADMIN CUTS AHEAD!! Back in the early 2000s, if you were a sysadmin that had to set up desktops or servers, you probably used Norton Ghost to create images. When virtualization became big, that process moved to creating VM templates. But there was still often a lot of manual intervention in these tasks - password setting, BIOS updates, vCenter installations and more. As the IT world moves more and more towards automating software tasks, what about automating infrastructure provisioning? Sure, there's cloud, but what if you're still on-prem? This week, Rob Hirschfeld of RackN joins us to discuss how RackN helps automate the previously un-automate-able.

Incident response in enterprise IT environments is a time critical task, where any delays can mean potential loss of revenue. When dealing with the cloud, incident response takes on a whole new set of challenges, as most of the infrastructure involved is outside of your administrators reach. At that point, you're looking at mitigating the risk by addressing incidents at the application layer. With Spot Connect, you can put more of that infrastructure power into your administrator's hands and automate incident responses for faster, more effective resolution of issues, which frees up your staff to create better architectures. In this episode, Prasen Shelar of Spot by NetApp joins us to talk about how Spot Connect can revolutionize your incident response workflows.

There's an old saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But what if it could be better? What if "fixing it" simply means "improving it"? Or - even better - letting someone else handle it so you have more time to take care of the numerous other tasks in your job? That's what the cloud is for, and in this Tech ONTAP Podcast episode, NetApp DeveloperAdvocate Shon Harris drops by to discuss the past, present and future of CloudOps and how it compares to all the other ops floating around out there in the IT-o-sphere and how Spot by NetApp can help improve the lives of DevOps engineers.

Kubernetes does a great job at autoscaling for applications. But when you run Kubernetes in the cloud, auto scaling might not always be so great - especially if it doesn't scale back down. Spot by NetApp features Ocean - a way to address runaway cloud costs associated with Kubernetes deployments. This week, Zak Harabedian stops by to discuss Spot Ocean and how it can positively impact your Azure Kubernetes Service deployments.

On April Fools' Day, you stay on your guard to avoid being pranked. In IT, you always want to test before releasing something into production to avoid any surprises. That methodology extends into other places, including the US military. Every year, the Navy and Marines conduct experimental training exercises to test field deployment readiness called Trident Warrior. And in even years, Trident Warrior combines with other allied nations RIMPAC forces to conduct these tests. NetApp was able to participate in these exercises recently and Eddie Huerta, Frank Alcantar and Dan Holmay join us to discuss their experience and how NetApp ONTAP helps enhance the US Public Sector's storage needs.