From the 3rd till 5th of December Barcelona was hosting one of the most interesting tech events, NetApp Insight. As my previous blog shows, I’m no rookie to this event but it stays special every time. Now 2 months after the event it’s time to put my experiences on paper and see what announcements made in Barcelona (and the US just a few weeks before) stayed on top of mind for me and our customers.
NetApp United
One of the most spectacular parts of Insight 2018 was being a member of NetApp United. This meant not only having a few perks upfront but also getting the possibility to meet many new people along the way. Starting with a great dinner at the Soho House with fellow United members, the NetApp A-team members and a few execs like founding father Dave Hitz. This was the start of many talks with likely minded techs on multiple topics. We Dutch are known for our cheapness but wanted to share our Sinterklaas treats happily with all cultures. This can’t be done without some chocolade letters.
The rest of the days I attended the Social Media booth multiple times to meet with fellow members and our glorious leader Petya. I was even given the possibility to host a Ask the A-team Whiteboard session about Data Protection and Governance together with A-team member TMAC.
Socializing & certifying
Besides my new friends at NetApp United and the A-Team I had a great time with some old coworkers and partners. The days were packed with sessions, meetings, certification exams and dinners. It was a few days going in and out of the hotel in a few minutes to drop-off the bag with swag and walk to the next meeting. This way I had time to see a bit of the beautiful city of Barcelona which I already knew but never had seen in Christmas decoration! During the 3 days of Insight I was able to do two exams and exited with two new (virtual) badges for NetApp Certified Hybrid Cloud Associate and Administrator. Too bad the line was too long for a third exam so I wasn’t able to give it a try on the NetApp Certified Hybrid Cloud Architect exam. During the Certification Reception, I was able to meet Mr SANta (Steve Botkin) himself.
Announcements
For me personally, the most important announcement is the new Data Fabric. Although the vision behind the Data Fabric isn’t changed that much but now the products are meeting each other to create a true data mobility plane. With NetApp Cloud Data Services it’s possible to host about any workload in the cloud as proven with Databases & ERP with 310k IOPs at 1.5 millisecond latency or File Services with 1200 MB/s at less than 2.0 seconds. This all without giving away the customers data to some cloud only format. All data can be replicated to another cloud provider or the on-premise cloud.
Insight in the performance and health of Cloud Data Services and on-premise solutions as FAS, AFF and HCI can be gained with the new SaaS solution Cloud Insight. For me, this really shows NetApp isn’t the Storage company anymore but a true Cloud company. By embracing the growing list of cloud providers together with state-of-the-art on-premise products NetApp creates a Hybrid Cloud opportunity for our customers while keeping in control of their own data. This data which will be the customers greatest asset. With technology like AI and machine learning, the data can be transformed into information which can give that slight advantage for about any business.
As the 3 days were so packed with sessions it’s impossible to extend on everything in this blogs. I can advise you to start following #NetAppUnited and #NetAppAteam on twitter as we try to share as much interesting content as possible. Most of the sessions at NetApp Insight were recorded and are available with a NetApp SSO account on the following link:
A few fellow United/A-Team members also shared their NetApp Insight 2018 experiences and I can recommend them for a read/listen:
Dive Virtual 
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