Episode 413: AI and Data Modernization

AI success starts with data. As organizations race to deploy AI initiatives, many discover that the biggest challenges aren't GPUs or models—they're data governance, data quality, compliance, and managing information across hybrid environments. In this episode of the Tech ONTAP Podcast, Justin Parisi is joined by Ahmed Al-Nabhani, Senior Solutions Engineer at NetApp, to discuss how enterprises across the GCC region are modernizing their data infrastructure to support AI at scale.

In this episode, Arindam Banerjee and Jeff Baxter join us to discuss disaggregated ONTAP, also known as AFX. We discuss how disaggregated ONTAP separates storage compute from storage capacity, allowing customers to scale performance and capacity independently. This architecture is designed for modern workloads such as AI, machine learning, EDA, media and entertainment, and large-scale unstructured data environments.

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.