I’ve discussed in a number of blog posts, as well as previous episodes of Tech Interviews, the importance of building a data strategy, a strategy that will allow you to architect and deploy a platform to tackle modern data management challenges.

The term “Data Fabric” is an increasingly common way of describing such a strategy, this was something I first heard 3 years ago at NetApp’s annual technical conference Insight, as they introduced their ideas for building a strategy that would start to move them from a storage company to a data management company.

This shift is also in line with what I see in the many businesses I work with, the move from just storing data to using it as something that will enable them to become more data focussed and data-driven organisations.

When NetApp first discussed this three years ago, they where a very different company, accused of living in the past, a traditional storage dinosaur with no place in this modern world, where new storage companies and the ever-growing influence of cloud would destroy a company focussed on selling hardware and of course their operating system Data ONTAP.

But NetApp have changed, today they are moving headlong into a data management future, focussed on allowing their customers to build infrastructures to store data in the most appropriate location at the right time and allowing them to easily move, manage, secure and protect that data, regardless of whether it’s on-prem, a virtual appliance or based in the cloud.

Surely then, as NetApp continue to change, their beloved ONTAP operating system can’t still play a key part in building a data fabric.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and that is the focus of this episode, as I’m joined by Justin Parisi, Senior Technical Marketing Engineer at NetApp and the host of NetApp’s Tech ONTAP podcast.

In this episode, we explore why ONTAP is anything but a legacy bit of technology and how not only is it still relevant, it is right at the core of NetApp’s data fabric future.

We look at the fact that ONTAP is a piece of software and although tied to hardware initially that reliance has gone, allowing ONTAP to be a versatile platform that can be installed on specific hardware, your own hardware or not on hardware at all, installed as a service within a public hyperscale cloud.

We discuss how ONTAP is not about storage but is much more focussed on data services, such as security, protection, efficiency and performance.

This ability to deploy ONTAP anywhere also allows us to ensure we can transfer not only our data easily between locations but also our policies and procedures can easily move with it.

We wrap up looking at some of the features in the latest version of ONTAP and how continuous improvements ensure ONTAP remains at the heart of NetApp’s data fabric strategy and can play a part in yours.

To find out more about ONTAP visit NetApp’s website

You can follow Justin on twitter @NFSDudeAbides

And hear the excellent Tech ONTAP podcast right here – https://soundcloud.com/techontap_podcast

Next week we look at the development of the hyper-converged market, where it is today and how it needs to change, as I discuss some interesting HCI research with Troy Mangum.

To catch that episode why not subscribe, you’ll find Tech Interviews in all the usual podcast places.

Thanks for listening.