Building the future of DevOps with ONTAP Pub/Sub
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Greg Keller
DevOps is the heart of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), responsible for building scalable, highly efficient, and composable storage services that meet customers’ needs no matter where they are in their digital transformation journey. Automation is a crucial piece of this journey because customers need to be able to optimize various data sources for faster and smarter decision making.
Calling APIs to collect the data isn’t the solution, because that data could be stale, inaccurate, or unavailable, and the overhead to retrieve it is costly. Not optimizing data leads to missed opportunities — or worse, preventable issues discovered too late that cause interruptions to a customer’s service, negatively impacting their business.
We refuse to let that happen at NetApp. Here’s how.
NetApp ONTAP Pub/Sub
Cue NetApp® ONTAP® Pub/Sub, which allows automation to move away from monolithic, stateful implementations to scalable, flexible, container-based architectures. These digital environments demand high-performing, message-based data sources that use a subscription model, eliminating the need to poll for data in an infinitely large lake of information.
ONTAP Pub/Sub simplifies the creation and deployment of cloud-scale automation and enable DevOps to subscribe to system-level data in an ONTAP system such as ONTAP Cloud Volumes Service. In the future, it will be available across all ONTAP based data management engines. The subscription will seamlessly deliver messages from the ONTAP system to the application. And it will enable near-real-time responses to changes in the environment, which changes the complexion of applications.
For example, suppose that a volume is created without enabling the appropriate Snapshot™ copies and data encryption to protect from ransomware attacks, which are incredibly costly for businesses. An application can be developed leveraging ONTAP Pub/Sub, which can sense that the volume creation does not meet the expected security policy, and the cloud application quickly executes the repair. Subsequently, the owner or system administrator can be notified of the issue—and most importantly, they have the peace of mind of knowing that it has already been addressed.
Leading with innovation
Innovation is the DNA of engineering at NetApp, and ONTAP Pub/Sub is another cutting-edge example of the creativity and capabilities we deliver to help our customers. ONTAP Pub/Sub enables DevOps to automate the management of ONTAP storage clusters to unlimited levels of scale in hybrid data centers. This is the beginning of a journey that will drive ONTAP technology into a multitude of opportunities – the diversity of outcomes will be breathtaking. I’m proud and humbled to be working with this team that’s driving meaningful, easy-to-use solutions for customers across DevOps, AIOps, and more.
Greg Keller
Greg Keller is vice president of Engineering for the ONTAP SAN and Systems Group. He supports the delivery of key technologies for Cloud Volumes Service, Cloud Volumes ONTAP, and AFF and FAS data management appliances. He has responsibility for strategy and development of ONTAP SAN products, file system features including storage efficiency; data center networking; security features including key and certificate management, IPsec, and on-disk encryption; self-healing and autonomous support capabilities; and advanced licensing features of the ONTAP software. He leads teams in Research Triangle Park NC, Pittsburgh PA, Sunnyvale CA, and Bangalore, India.
Greg is also heavily involved in NetApp Global Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging efforts, with a primary focus on hiring diverse talent and establishing relationships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). He is a member of the board of directors of Advancing Minorities’ Interest in Engineering (AMIE). He was also recognized at the 2021 Virtual National Diversity & Leadership Conference with a DEI Champion Award.
