And the award goes to…NetApp
Rob McDonald
Recognition is twice as nice
Doesn’t everyone like to be recognized for their accomplishments? The Heisman Trophy recognizes the United States’ most outstanding college football player. The Laureus World Sports Awards is an annual ceremony honoring individuals and teams from the world of sports, along with sporting achievements throughout the year. Last month, NetApp scored #1 in multiple use cases in “Gartner’s 2020 Critical Capabilities for Solid-State Arrays” and “Critical Capabilities for Hybrid Array Storage Systems." And just recently, NetApp was the 2020 BIG Stratus Award for top hybrid cloud provider.
Peer review model is unique
The Stratus Awards are peer reviewed, which means that the entrants are subject to the scrutiny of other experts in the same field to check their validity and evaluate their suitability for award. The Stratus Awards selection relies on industry leaders who volunteer to read, score, and judge nominations. Their model is unique in that judges not only score and rank nominations, they also have the opportunity to share public and private feedback. This feedback allows winners to maximize the third-party acknowledgement of their performance, and all nominees can reflect on how they can improve their overall approach to the market.
Conspicuous by their absence
Most importantly, the other vendors that we normally compete with were not mentioned at all in this annual awards ceremony. Perhaps that’s because NetApp is in a class by itself when it comes to our vision of hybrid cloud solutions for our customers. These awards validate our vision and customer focus: seeing where the market is headed and providing solutions that our customers must have to remain viable. NetApp’s combination of on-premises and cloud solutions offers a unique hybrid cloud capability to the market, and to our customers.Looking ahead:
- 87% of enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy moving forward
- The hybrid cloud market was valued at US$45.70 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach US$128.01 billion by 2025 (CAGR 18.73%)
Delivering on the vision of data fabric and hybrid cloud
Our customers have shown us where they need to go, and we’re delivering on that request. Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, which serves nearly 4 million customers, went through an IT modernization effort, or “reset,” in 2019. That effort has proven timely, because the COVID-19 outbreak required transitioning the workforce to working from home. The ability to shift operations quickly has meant uninterrupted services that include providing COVID-19 education, waivers for testing, and prioritization of related claims. The continuity of services has helped Blue Cross NC stay in the fight.From a technology perspective, COVID-19 has been a non-event. If this was 2 years ago, we would have been in a lot of pain—a lot of struggle with having poor infrastructure, poor response, and not enough capabilities to support that.— Petar Bojovic, Director of IT Infrastructure at Blue Cross NC
With a combination of cloud and on-premises solutions and data fabric capabilities, Blue Cross NC can provide the same level of care to their customers and the same service to their staff as they did pre-COVID .
Your enterprise apps now, your enterprise apps tomorrow
NetApp is here to help organizations succeed in exactly these types of transitions. NetApp supports our customers’ enterprise application (SAP, Oracle, MS SQL Server) needs on premises and in the world’s leading clouds. We provide the largest range of options so that companies can move to the cloud at the pace that works for them. With NetApp, organizations can rapidly modernize their infrastructure with uninterrupted access to their data. We help IT teams unify data services on their premises and in the world’s biggest clouds when they’re ready, helping them to unleash the full potential of their environment.To see how NetApp can help you with your hybrid cloud transition, go here.
Rob McDonald
At NetApp, Rob has global responsibility for all outbound marketing strategy (awareness, demand generation, and enablement) for enterprise applications. His main focus is to show how NetApp customers benefit from and the business value of running their enterprise applications on NetApp solutions. His previous experience includes driving high-visibility flagship products and programs at multibillion dollar high-technology companies including Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and Quantum. Rob lives in San Carlos in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, three kids, and dog, and when not working is mostly driving his family to various sporting events.
