Connecting the track to the road through data infrastructure
A championship-winning partnership continues
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Emily Miller
Partnering with a brand as recognizable and world-renowned as Ducati is a real badge of honor for NetApp. That’s why, after 6 successful years together, I’m delighted to announce that we’re extending our sponsorship as Ducati Corse’s Official Data Infrastructure Partner. What NetApp has with Ducati is a partnership in the truest sense: one built on trust, collaboration, and innovation. At the heart of it is a joint passion to maximize the impact of IT technology from the race bikes to the road bikes and to connect the vast number of Ducati fans and riders around the world.
Ducati’s on-track success needs little introduction: Just take its recent record in MotoGP, the world’s premier two-wheel racing series, as an example. Last season saw Ducati secure the Constructors’, Teams’, and Riders’ World Championship titles—what an amazing celebration in Valencia last year! But beyond the shiny trophies and champagne moments, Ducati’s commitment to the track holds a much bigger purpose. As Massimiliano Bertei, Chief Technology Officer of Ducati Motor Holding explains, “Of course we love winning races, but what’s as important is how that helps us continuously improve our road bikes.”
Using data insights to improve its bikes
I remember my first visit to the Ducati Motor Holding facility in Bologna in 2018. I was so impressed with their craftsman approach on the line—much is still done by hand that complements key automated processes to produce each custom road bike for its future owner. At my first MotoGP race, it was incredible to see how the insights from the track have influenced the development of bikes for the commercial market—starting in the 1940s and continuing till today.
To achieve this development, Ducati needs to be able to push the boundaries of IT innovation, not just to help it reach the top of the podium, but to translate its data insights directly to the factory floor. This kind of progress requires a data infrastructure that is both intelligent and flexible. And that’s where NetApp steps in.
As Bertei explains, “One of our biggest business challenges is to make our data available, anywhere and anytime, to give us the security, speed, and agility we need to win both on and off the track. Thanks to NetApp technology, Ducati can reduce prototype development time and increase speed to market by 30%.”
Unified storage in the data center
NetApp has played a significant role in modernizing Ducati’s data center, providing unified data storage to store and manage Ducati’s mission-critical data. Thanks to NetApp, Ducati has been able to manage data more efficiently, simplify backup and disaster recovery, and save costs through integrated tiering across all environments.
The “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” mantra has never rung so true as it does with Ducati. It’s a great point of pride for NetApp to play a pivotal role in delivering the data to enable this process, and the extension of this partnership is a true reflection of the trust each places in the other. Bertei summarized it best: “That is why NetApp is Ducati Corse’s Official Data Infrastructure Partner!”
Emily Miller
Emily leads Brand Experience for NetApp. She’s focused on driving NetApp’s reputation as a cloud storage leader in the market through brand and content strategy, creative leadership, sponsorship programs and digital/live experiences. With experience on both client and agency side, from small start-up to global conglomerate, Emily brings a down-to-earth approach combined with creativity and humor to get things done. She has a BA in History from Yale and an MBA from the UC Berkeley/Haas School of Business.
