Nothing in the technology world can ever be guaranteed, but industry trends and customer preferences reveal a roadmap for where the enterprise computing car is headed. And the driver of that car will be data, the information that every business wants to capture, analyze and use in the pursuit of ultimate success.

“There will be very large amounts of data being analyzed in near real time to meet needs for business,” said Mark Bregman (pictured), senior vice president and chief technology officer at NetApp Inc.

Bregman visited the set of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio, and spoke with co-hosts Rebecca Knight (@knightrm) and Peter Burris (@plburris) during the NetApp Insight event in Berlin, Germany. They discussed the implications of managing larger amounts of information, the ability for data to determine processes, and a customized data management future similar to ride-sharing. (* Disclosure below.)

Storage acquisition to provide near-memory speed

Data growth was a primary factor in NetApp’s decision to acquire the storage memory software startup Plexistor Ltd last May. The acquisition gave NetApp technology that can deliver non-volatile storage at near-memory speed, an important component when dealing with increasingly large amounts of data.

“You’re seeing storage impinge on the compute system,” said Bregman, as he described the need for growing amounts of data to be analyzed in real time. “Our announcement of the Plexistor acquisition is how we’re getting there.”

There are also new implications for characteristics of the data itself. As data carries much more metadata along for the ride, it has the ability to become “self-aware,” capable of executing rules regarding access and identification. This will ultimately lead to architectures where the data drives the processing, according to Bregman.

“As data becomes more self-aware, the data, as it passes through, will determine what processes will get executed on it,” Bregman explained. “It’s very robust and much more scalable.”

The evolution of smarter data may also soon be accompanied by a ride-sharing type of model, where users pick only the instances they want and which meet their needs. Serverless computing, a “pay-as-you-go” model without the cloud administration burden, is an example of this.

“It’s like Uber. … I get charged for the work, going from point A to point B, not for the amount of time,” Bregman said. “What we’re seeing with virtual solutions is they are becoming more specialized.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of NetApp Insight Berlin. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the NetApp Insight Berlin event. Neither NetApp Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE