For a storage vendor the cloud is an antithesis: NetApp's Anil Valluri

Most data leaks are happening from the organisations that are supposed to protect user data, says Anil Valluri

How has NetApp’s journey from being a storage provider to being a hybrid cloud data services and data management company been?

We went through a strategic shift over the past two to three years to position ourselves as a cloud company. After close to 25 years, we could foresee the impact cloud would have on the industry. The industry was also being impacted by the penetration of advanced smartphones and increasing uptake of data. At the end of the day, we are defined by the data value we have in terms of banking, security and our identity. Looking at the changes around us, we too needed to align ourselves with the business needs of our clients.
 

Sometimes change is counter intuitive. While cloud was becoming very big, for a storage vendor, cloud would be an antithesis. The question before us was: If everybody is going to migrate to cloud then who is going to buy storage? But we saw an opportunity here because digital transformation is not just about cloud. It is a mix of what a particular company has in terms of infrastructure and storage and what it plans to have in the future.

What would be NetApp’s pitch to its cloud consumers?

We told ourselves that NetApp is strong in technology and we need to leverage this to partner with customers as they embark on their digital journey. Basically, digital transformation pertains to three areas: How you get new customers; how you improve product and service offerings; and how you cut costs. So, it is all about improving productivity, cost and the basket of services on offer. And cloud could be central to this whole digital journey. We collaborated with players like Amazon, Microsoft and Google and co-engineered offerings that would assist customers with their digital transformation. 

Are the demands of Indian consumers any different from those you service elsewhere?

In markets outside India, clients will use Amazon and be happy with the cloud service on offer. In India, they also want to talk to Amazon if they need help to understand and use the service. We need to handhold clients here. In this scenario, it is players such as Tata Communications, Sify Technologies that step in to give users the best of both the worlds. NetApp, for one, bridges the gap between the customer requirements of having pure cloud versus hybrid cloud. We do this through our data fabric architecture which gives users the ability to move, locate data to places where it is more economical to store and archive it. We also offer end-to-end encryption services to protect client data.

What are the top technology changes that are impacting the cloud services landscape?

One of the fundamental changes is that users are no more going for custom monolithic applications. Instead, they are going for application as a service model, which is flexible. This also means that sometimes clients will have to let go of customised applications and services and adopt what is available as a standard product in the industry. The second important change relates to the growing popularity of micro services and containers. Organisations are no longer dealing with large monolithic services. People are developing small services that can come together to derive a function on their own. These applications known as micro services and containers can reside in on-premises, in-cloud. Also, the concept of DevOps (development and operations) is becoming popular. It allows users to quickly develop a product or service, test it out, tweak it and discard if it does not fulfill the requirement.

Which industry does your biggest consumer set belong to?

The biggest customer is always going to be the banking sector because that’s where the money is. This is the industry that can potentially touch the entire population and each transaction here has a monetary value. Telecommunications is also a big user of cloud though here the monetary value of transactions is less as the industry itself is going through a lot of cost issues. But cloud is a necessary evil for the telecom segment as it cannot upgrade or move ahead without investing in technology and going for scale. The government is also big on cloud as most of government interactions — be it the Goods and Services Tax or banking — have gone digital. A number of citizen services, too, are now being offered digitally and require cloud support. The health care industry is another potentially big user of cloud.

How have you addressed the security concerns associated with cloud?

Even as we talk about the security issues, the first thing to remember is that when one is connected to the network that is internet, one cannot stay anonymous. One can choose to expose one’s (business or individual) identity selectively but one cannot completely remain anonymous. You got to be identified as to who you are, where you are coming from because of the security issues. You could be a fraudulent user, sabotaging something and therefore the network needs to identify every user. Now, the question is as a user do I want to disclose my income and health details? Those are the kind of controls that the industry needs to have. 
 

The biggest problem is that most of the data leaks are happening from the organisations that are supposed to protect user data. And such breaches stem from malafide intentions and breach of trust. For example, an operator sharing user details with a third party without the user’s permission is a clear violation of privacy rules. Now, this is not a case of data break-in or breach. We have to have strong penal laws to prevent such cases.