Welcome to the containerized path forward
Anthony Lye
Congratulations to the team at Portworx. Starting a company, raising money, building technology, and having a successful outcome are all very difficult things to do.
We think that software-defined storage for Kubernetes is a big opportunity — so much so that we have built Project Astra, a Kubernetes application data lifecycle management service that’s founded on NetApp® ONTAP® software. We believe that a data fabric is better when it’s built with one unified storage operating system instead of the three that Pure (and Portworx) uses.
We also differ from Portworx in that we believe that cloud-native Kubernetes storage is better with the deep native support of the public clouds rather than attempting to do it without them. What you might not know is that today, Project Astra sits behind NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP for Google Cloud, and soon it will be behind the hugely successful Azure NetApp Files. It’s better to take Kubernetes from the cloud back to on premises, not the other way around.
How does Project Astra work? It is 100% software and has no hardware dependencies. In the public clouds, we run Project Astra today on the native storage infrastructures of Google Cloud and Azure. On-premises Project Astra also runs on any logical unit number (LUN).
To have a complete system in Kubernetes, you need more than storage and a fully managed service. Only NetApp has the completeness of cloud data services like backup, compliance, AND something truly unique…Spot by NetApp. To get a fully managed platform for cloud-native, you need serverless AND storageless. Portworx is a self-managed storage product.
Project Astra is part of a much bigger NetApp. A cloud-native NetApp that’s chosen by the public clouds and used by thousands of customers in both public and private clouds.
Anthony Lye
Anthony Lye is executive vice president and general manager of the Public Cloud Services business for NetApp. He is responsible for the strategy and execution to further NetApp’s cloud innovation across public cloud, hybrid cloud, and hyperscaler models and to establish the company as the undisputed leader in managing data in a cloud-integrated world.
Anthony brings more than 25 years of diverse leadership experience to NetApp, spanning roles in development, product management, marketing and sales, and as a high-tech CEO twice. He has focused primarily on cloud innovation for the past 15 years, most recently as the executive vice president and chief cloud officer at Guidewire Software, and at Oracle where he was the senior vice president and general manager of CRM. His background includes leading teams worldwide and hands-on experience building applications and platforms working directly with the developer community.
