NetApp Cloud at Cloud Field Day 13

It was an amazing week last week, that was ultimately a few months in the making.  We were back at Cloud Field Day 13, but this time there was something different… for the first time in a long time.

We were there in-person!  Two long years of being isolated on Zoom’s came to an end and for the first time in over 10 years, I actually felt nerves.  Probably not nervousness, but a special kind of anxiety that being isolated for two years ultimately leads to.  I hadn’t been in front of Foskett’s merry band of delegates since November of 2019.  Amazing how fast more than two years have gone by.  I was absolutely enthralled to walk into the room and see familiar faces, and as each delegate walked into the room, I felt myself getting weirdly emotional.  Thank you all for sharing that moment with me.

I missed you.

For the past 5+ years, NetApp has been turning a big ship to focus on delivering our portfolio to cloud, as well as R&D creation and acquisitions to augment and fill technology gaps in the entire portfolio.  What started as our own version of “Lift & Shift” has re-imagined itself into a world of SaaS and managed services that live within the cloud providers, requiring near-zero knowledge of NetApp, ONTAP, or advanced storage configuration.  This is the key takeaway I had hoped people would take away, but I don’t think I did a good job of landing that button, as the end of the presentation got a bit rushed.  It’s something I plan to make a YouTube video about very soon.

Thank you to all of the delegates for challenging me with great questions, and I look forward to seeing you all again next month for STORAGE FIELD DAY!

With that, I’ll leave you with the on-demand replay of my presentation, as well as a 45-minute open forum roundtable that included some demonstration, and joining me on the panel were Adrian de Luca from AWS and Greg Kniereman.