How is NetApp Inc. not only alive, but lavishing in revenue growth as a storage company in 2018? By picking its battles, steering clear of far-out waters, and diving deep into storage as data management.

“There is absolutely always going to be a place out there for a best-of-breed story,” said Bruce Shaw (pictured), senior director of global alliances and industry solutions at NetApp.

The shift toward data-first infrastructure models and applications is making its mark on storage. Best-of-breed storage now means data-intelligent storage optimized for machine learning and artificial intelligence use cases. Thanks to its toiling in the data management ditches over the last two years, NetApp is now the fastest-growing flash storage provider, Shaw added.

Shaw spoke to Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at the VeeamOn event in Chicago. They discussed NetApp’s market strategy and the role of storage in AI and hybrid cloud. (* Disclosure below.)

Partner popularity contest

NetApp is coming into its own in the hybrid cloud model where speeding data across a data fabric is critical for AI applications. “It’s not that we’re just another storage company storing the telemetry data off of a car for AI,” Shaw said. “We’re putting it into a format and a form that’s usable quickly, efficiently, real-time, where Tesla can go make a decision on the car right now — not days, weeks, months from now.”

And NetApp’s tight, tunneled focus on the evolution of storage makes it an attractive partner to other technology vendors, according to Shaw. “I took over running the strategic alliances at the beginning of January, and my dance card’s full,” he said. “I can’t believe the number of folks that are calling up wanting to partner.”

This is directly due to not sticking green fingers into compute, networking and what-have-you; companies in those domains can fold in NetApp services without worrying about feeding a hungry competitor, Shaw explained.

On the other hand, its data-management angle also blends well with some partners in similar spaces, like disaster-recovery company Veeam Software Inc.. The two have struck an original equipment manufacturer agreement through which they will offer each other’s products. NetApp just announced its E-Series hybrid, mixed-workload storage arrays, which have Veeam technology built in, Shaw stated.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the VeeamOn event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for VeeamOn 2018. Neither Veeam Software Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE