Interview with George Kurian, CEO of NetApp, at the NetApp Insight Xtra Paris event, in December 2024. Comments collected by Guilhem Thérond.
How do you see the needs of businesses evolving?
George Kurian : We observe it on a daily basis, companies today need to understand the data they possess in ever greater detail, and also to be able to unify them, to obtain the best possible analyzes from them. This concerns their customers’ data as much as that of their employees, and this leads them to place ever greater importance on the protection, control, and governance of their data.
Today, we are facing a challenge with AI that is ultimately quite similar to the one we encountered with the cloud. At that time, our customers needed to integrate their data, often on-premises, with cloud applications. Thanks to our NetApp solutions, we helped them manage this, via hybrid cloud infrastructures. We see the same opportunity with AI today: In businesses, AI systems and operational systems are not in the same place, and therefore businesses need to unify them. This is what we do: “we bring AI to your data”.
What is NetApp’s position on Cyber issues?
G.K : Cybersecurity is an issue that is evolving very quickly, especially now that hackers are relying on artificial intelligence, with ever more sophisticated attacks. To deal with this, we are now integrating additional protections: within the storage layers of course, but also in the client data layer. Because ultimately, these attacks target customer data.
So we believe that by making storage more aware of cyber attacks, you can detect them virtually in real time. You can then create copies of your data, very, very secure copies, in places where the hacker cannot access, and thus have the recovery mechanisms so that your company can find its data and become operational again quickly.
How has the NetApp portfolio evolved in recent months?
G.K : We innovate in both enterprise storage and cloud storage, integrating a wide range of capabilities to unify data, whether file, block or object storage. We also offer unification between on-premises and cloud environments. Furthermore, we continually enrich this data infrastructure with new services, such as classification tools, privacy tools, security tools, and many others.
What is your assessment of NetApp Insight Xtra Paris?
G.K : We brought together hundreds of customers, but also our partners, on NetApp Insight Xtra Paris. And what’s most exciting to me is seeing that our customers are on stage, sharing with other customers how they use NetApp technology, how they improve their business and solve critical problems. And I think that’s the most important thing for us. We have been present in France for almost 30 years, we have reached a leading position, number one. This comes as much from our NetApp innovations as from the trust of our customers. NetApp Insight Xtra Paris really allowed us to highlight these two aspects.
How do you maintain this culture of innovation within NetApp?
G.K : Innovation is built from the bottom up: our engineers work closely with customers to understand their problems and design technical solutions that meet their specific needs.
As CEO, my role is to encourage more projects like this within the company. And when failure occurs, it’s about helping teams understand that every mistake is a learning opportunity. Without errors, we cannot innovate quickly enough. For me, it’s all about creating a culture of trust, experimentation and learning within NetApp.
“The challenge is of course the explosion in the volume of data”: Interview with Guillaume de Landtsheer, CEO of NetApp in France
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