Latest news with #NetApp
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Data products and services are playing a new role in business.
Data mechanics isn't an industry. Discussion in this space tends to gravitate around the notion of 'data science' as a more pleasing umbrella term. Perhaps borrowing half its name from the core practice of computer science (the label usually put on university studies designed to qualify software application developers who want to program), there is a constant push for development in the data mechanics and management space, even though we're now well over half a century on from arrival of the first database systems. Although data mechanics may not be an industry, it is (in various forms) a company. Data-centric cloud platform company NetApp acquired Data Mechanics back in 2021. Known as a managed platform provider for big data processing and cloud analytics, NetApp wanted Data Mechanics to capitalize on the growing interest in Apache Spark, the open source distributed processing system for big data workloads. But the story doesn't end there, NetApp sold off some of its acquisitions that work at this end of the data mechanics space to Flexera, which makes some sense as NetApp is known for its storage competencies and as the intelligent data infrastructure company, after all. Interestingly, NetApp confirmed that the divestiture of technologies at this level will often leave a residual amount of software engineering competencies (if not perhaps intellectual property in some organizations on occasions) within the teams that it still operates, so these actions have two sides to them. NetApp is now turning its focus to expanding its work with some major technology partners to provide data engineering resources for the burgeoning AI industry. This means it is working with Nvidia on its AI Data Platform reference design via the NetApp AIPod service to (the companies both hope) accelerate enterprise adoption of agentic AI. It is also now offering NetApp AIPod Mini with Intel, a joint technology designed to streamline enterprise adoption of AI inferencing - and that data for AI thought is fundamental. If there's one very strong theme surfacing in data mechanics right now, it's simple to highlight - the industry says: okay you've got data, but does your data work well for AI? As we know, AI is only as smart as what you tell it, so nobody wants garbage in, garbage out. This theme won't be going away this year and it will be explained and clarified by organizations, foundations, evangelists and community groups spanning every sub-discipline of IT from DevOps specialists to databases to ERP vendors and everybody in between. Operating as an independent business unit of Hitachi, Pentaho calls it 'data fitness' for the age of AI. The company is now focusing on expanding the capabilities of its Pentaho Data Catalog for this precise use. Essentially a data operations management service, this technology helps data scientists and developers know what and where their data is. It also helps monitor, classify and control data for analytics and compliance. "The need for strong data foundations has never been higher and customers are looking for help across a whole range of issues. They want to improve the organization of data for operations and AI. They need better visibility into the 'what and where' of data's lifecycle for quality, trust and regulations. They also want to use automation to scale management with data while also increasing time to value," said Kunju Kashalikar, product management executive at Pentaho. There's a sense of the industry wanting to provide back-end automations that shoulder the heavy infrastructure burdens associated with data wrangling on the data mechanic's workshop floor. Because organizations are now using a mix of datasets, (some custom-curated, some licenced, some anonymized, some just plain old data) they will want to know which ones they can trust at what level for different use cases. Pentaho's Kashalikar suggests that those factors are what the company's platform has been aligned for. He points to its ability to now offer machine learning enhancements for data classification (that can also cope with unstructured data) designed to improve the ability to automate and scale how data is managed for expanding data ecosystems. These tools also offer integration with model governance controls, this increases visibility into how and where models are accessing data for both appropriate use and proactive governance. The data mechanics (or data science) industry tends to use industrial factory terminology throughout its nomenclature. The idea of the data pipeline is intended to convey the 'journey' for data that starts its life in a raw and unclassified state, where it might be unstructured. The pipeline progresses through various filters that might include categorization and analytics. It might be coupled with another data pipeline in some form of join, or some of it may be threaded and channelled elsewhere. Ultimately, the data pipe reaches its endpoint, which might be an application, another data service or some form of machine-based data ingestion point. Technology vendors who lean on this term are fond of laying claim to so-called end-to-end data pipelines, it is meant to convey breadth and span. Proving that this part of the industry is far from done or static, data platform company Databricks has open sourced its core declarative extract, transform and load framework as Apache Spark Declarative Pipelines. Databricks CTO Matei Zaharia says that Spark Declarative Pipelines tackles one of the biggest challenges in data engineering, making it easy for data engineers to build and run reliable data pipelines that scale. He said end-to-end too, obviously. Spark Declarative Pipelines provide a route to defining data pipelines for both batch (i.e. overnight) and streaming ETL workloads across any Apache Spark-supported data source. That means data sources including cloud storage, message buses, change data feeds and external systems. Zaharia calls it a 'battle-tested declarative framework' for building data pipelines that works well on complex pipeline authoring, manual operations overhead and siloed batch or streaming jobs. 'Declarative pipelines hide the complexity of modern data engineering under a simple, intuitive programming model. As an engineering manager, I love the fact that my engineers can focus on what matters most to the business. It's exciting to see this level of innovation now being open sourced, making it more accessible,' said Jian Zhou, senior engineering manager for Navy Federal Credit Union. A large part of the total data mechanization process is unsurprisingly focused on AI and the way we handle large language models and the data they churn. What this could mean for data mechanics is not just new toolsets, but new workflow methodologies that treat data differently. This is the view of Ken Exner, chief product officer at search and operational intelligence company Elastic. 'What IT teams need to do to prepare data for use by an LLM is focus on the retrieval and relevance problem, not the formatting problem. That's not where the real challenge lies,' said Exner. 'LLMs are already better at interpreting raw, unstructured data than any ETL or pipeline tool. The key is getting the right private data to LLMs, at the right time… and in a way that preserves context. This goes far beyond data pipelines and traditional ETL, it requires a system that can handle both structured and unstructured data, understands real-time context, respects user permissions, and enforces enterprise-grade security. It's one that makes internal data discoverable and usable – not just clean.' For Exner, this is how organizations will successfully be able to grease the data mechanics needed to make generative AI happen. It by unlocking the value of the mountains of (often siloed) private data that they already own, that's scattered across dozens (spoiler alert, it's actually often hundreds) of enterprise software systems. As noted here, many of the mechanics playing out in data mechanics are aligned to the popularization of what the industry now agrees to call a data product. As data now becomes a more tangible 'thing' in enterprise technology alongside servers, applications and maybe even keyboards, we can consider its use as more than just information; it has become a working component on the factor floor.
Cision Canada
11-06-2025
- Business
- Cision Canada
AI Data Storage Leader MinIO Expands Partner Program to Meet AIStor Demand
MinIO names former NetApp and Pure Storage veteran Mike Marinchak as VP of Global Partner Sales to lead partner strategy; increases partner incentives for revenue growth and enhances training, enablement, and tiering for partners REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 11, 2025 /CNW/ -- MinIO, the leader in high-performance object storage for the exabyte AI era, today launched an expanded MinIO Partner Program. The MinIO Partner Program is designed to meet the evolving needs of global customers as the demand for object storage skyrockets with AI adoption, which is projected to exceed $20B by the end of 2025, according to IDC. The updated partner experience introduces new, unique and profitable opportunities for partners as more and more customers rely on MinIO AIStor as the de facto object-native storage system for AI. According to Statista, the total amount of data created, captured, copied, and consumed globally reached 149 zettabytes in 2024 and is forecast to increase rapidly, reaching 394 zettabytes by 2028. This is in large part because AI model scale is continuing to grow rapidly, with training compute doubling every five months and dataset sizes every eight, according to Stanford University's 2025 AI Index Report. Consequently, the AI data storage market is expanding rapidly and MinIO is experiencing unparalleled growth. With multiple 8 figure exabyte scale customer engagements closed in 2024 and 149% Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) growth over the last two years, MinIO is evolving its Partner Program to meet this scale and demand. The program now offers larger incentives for revenue growth, enhanced training courses, enablement materials, and new certifications and tiering for partners in the MinIO ecosystem. Areas of focus include channel (system integrators, appliance partners and distributors), cloud, GSI, platform, and technology partners. MinIO's newly appointed partner leader, Mike Marinchak, formerly led channel and partner sales at NetApp and Pure Storage, and brings nearly 25 years of experience in the data storage and infrastructure industry. At MinIO, Marinchak will be focused on extending MinIO AIStor's capabilities and services through channel partners (system integrators, appliance partners and distributors), with plans to partner globally. He has been instrumental in shaping this new program and will be critical to company growth moving forward. "After launching MinIO AIStor in late 2024 and setting a new bar for multi-exabyte AI data storage, the evolution of the MinIO Partner Program presents a massive partner opportunity as AI adoption drives exponential demand for scalable storage solutions," said Mike Marinchak, Vice President, Global Partner Sales, MinIO. "The enhancements to the program deliver significantly more value to our partners, and importantly, to our customers, as we continue to invest in expanding the reach and breadth of MinIO global offerings available." Continuing its promise of a frictionless partnership that paves the way for customer and partner success globally, the MinIO Partner Program centers around four key pillars: Market Demand — Partners can expect to benefit from MinIO's massive global adoption (over 33K community Slack members and 52.8K stars and 6K forks on GitHub) and AIStor's unmatched performance, which scales linearly with capacity in a single namespace, as customers strive for storage environment modernization and cost and control optimization. Bundling — Partners can realize a 4-5x selling opportunity by bundling standardized storage hardware with MinIO AIStor and services to maximize ASPs. Sustained Profitability & Predictable Subscription Model — Partners can build recurring revenues with generous margins for the entirety of the customer engagement, across renewals, up-sell and cross-sell. Enablement & Certification — MinIO now empowers partners with dedicated deal support, enablement training and a paid certification program via the MinIO Academy to arm partners with the skills, knowledge, and confidence required for success. "Trace3 and MinIO have a strong partnership and successful track record in helping joint customers meet and exceed their goals," said Jeremy Morris, General Manager, Northwest, Trace3. "We value the new opportunities the partner program delivers, especially the increased revenue opportunities, co-marketing, and advanced training—it makes us better, together. The benefits of this revamped program will help fuel our business growth as we evolve our offerings and go-to-market strategy." As a part of the updated program, the MinIO Academy offers different levels of MinIO sales, technical, and advanced technical training. Each level of training earns a badge to recognize the skills and commitment it represents. Partners can access training via the partner portal. New partners can apply to join the partner program here. About MinIO MinIO is the leader in high-performance object storage for AI. With 2B+ Docker downloads 50k+ stars on GitHub, MinIO is used by more than half of the Fortune 500 to achieve performance at scale at a fraction of the cost compared to the public cloud providers. MinIO AIStor is uniquely designed to meet the flexibility and exascale requirements of AI, empowering organizations to fully capitalize on existing AI investments and address emerging infrastructure challenges while delivering continuous business value. Founded in November 2014 by industry visionaries AB Periasamy and Garima Kapoor, MinIO is the world's fastest growing object store.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
AI Data Storage Leader MinIO Expands Partner Program to Meet AIStor Demand
MinIO names former NetApp and Pure Storage veteran Mike Marinchak as VP of Global Partner Sales to lead partner strategy; increases partner incentives for revenue growth and enhances training, enablement, and tiering for partners REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 11, 2025 /CNW/ -- MinIO, the leader in high-performance object storage for the exabyte AI era, today launched an expanded MinIO Partner Program. The MinIO Partner Program is designed to meet the evolving needs of global customers as the demand for object storage skyrockets with AI adoption, which is projected to exceed $20B by the end of 2025, according to IDC. The updated partner experience introduces new, unique and profitable opportunities for partners as more and more customers rely on MinIO AIStor as the de facto object-native storage system for AI. According to Statista, the total amount of data created, captured, copied, and consumed globally reached 149 zettabytes in 2024 and is forecast to increase rapidly, reaching 394 zettabytes by 2028. This is in large part because AI model scale is continuing to grow rapidly, with training compute doubling every five months and dataset sizes every eight, according to Stanford University's 2025 AI Index Report. Consequently, the AI data storage market is expanding rapidly and MinIO is experiencing unparalleled growth. With multiple 8 figure exabyte scale customer engagements closed in 2024 and 149% Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) growth over the last two years, MinIO is evolving its Partner Program to meet this scale and demand. The program now offers larger incentives for revenue growth, enhanced training courses, enablement materials, and new certifications and tiering for partners in the MinIO ecosystem. Areas of focus include channel (system integrators, appliance partners and distributors), cloud, GSI, platform, and technology partners. MinIO's newly appointed partner leader, Mike Marinchak, formerly led channel and partner sales at NetApp and Pure Storage, and brings nearly 25 years of experience in the data storage and infrastructure industry. At MinIO, Marinchak will be focused on extending MinIO AIStor's capabilities and services through channel partners (system integrators, appliance partners and distributors), with plans to partner globally. He has been instrumental in shaping this new program and will be critical to company growth moving forward. "After launching MinIO AIStor in late 2024 and setting a new bar for multi-exabyte AI data storage, the evolution of the MinIO Partner Program presents a massive partner opportunity as AI adoption drives exponential demand for scalable storage solutions," said Mike Marinchak, Vice President, Global Partner Sales, MinIO. "The enhancements to the program deliver significantly more value to our partners, and importantly, to our customers, as we continue to invest in expanding the reach and breadth of MinIO global offerings available." Continuing its promise of a frictionless partnership that paves the way for customer and partner success globally, the MinIO Partner Program centers around four key pillars: Market Demand — Partners can expect to benefit from MinIO's massive global adoption (over 33K community Slack members and 52.8K stars and 6K forks on GitHub) and AIStor's unmatched performance, which scales linearly with capacity in a single namespace, as customers strive for storage environment modernization and cost and control optimization. Bundling — Partners can realize a 4-5x selling opportunity by bundling standardized storage hardware with MinIO AIStor and services to maximize ASPs. Sustained Profitability & Predictable Subscription Model — Partners can build recurring revenues with generous margins for the entirety of the customer engagement, across renewals, up-sell and cross-sell. Enablement & Certification — MinIO now empowers partners with dedicated deal support, enablement training and a paid certification program via the MinIO Academy to arm partners with the skills, knowledge, and confidence required for success. "Trace3 and MinIO have a strong partnership and successful track record in helping joint customers meet and exceed their goals," said Jeremy Morris, General Manager, Northwest, Trace3. "We value the new opportunities the partner program delivers, especially the increased revenue opportunities, co-marketing, and advanced training—it makes us better, together. The benefits of this revamped program will help fuel our business growth as we evolve our offerings and go-to-market strategy." As a part of the updated program, the MinIO Academy offers different levels of MinIO sales, technical, and advanced technical training. Each level of training earns a badge to recognize the skills and commitment it represents. Partners can access training via the partner portal. New partners can apply to join the partner program here. About MinIOMinIO is the leader in high-performance object storage for AI. With 2B+ Docker downloads 50k+ stars on GitHub, MinIO is used by more than half of the Fortune 500 to achieve performance at scale at a fraction of the cost compared to the public cloud providers. MinIO AIStor is uniquely designed to meet the flexibility and exascale requirements of AI, empowering organizations to fully capitalize on existing AI investments and address emerging infrastructure challenges while delivering continuous business value. Founded in November 2014 by industry visionaries AB Periasamy and Garima Kapoor, MinIO is the world's fastest growing object store. Media Contact: Tucker Hallowell, Inkhouse, minio@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE MinIO View original content to download multimedia:
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NetApp, Inc. (NTAP) is Attracting Investor Attention: Here is What You Should Know
NetApp (NTAP) has recently been on list of the most searched stocks. Therefore, you might want to consider some of the key factors that could influence the stock's performance in the near future. Shares of this data storage company have returned +11.6% over the past month versus the Zacks S&P 500 composite's +5.2% change. The Zacks Computer- Storage Devices industry, to which NetApp belongs, has gained 19.7% over this period. Now the key question is: Where could the stock be headed in the near term? While media releases or rumors about a substantial change in a company's business prospects usually make its stock 'trending' and lead to an immediate price change, there are always some fundamental facts that eventually dominate the buy-and-hold decision-making. Here at Zacks, we prioritize appraising the change in the projection of a company's future earnings over anything else. That's because we believe the present value of its future stream of earnings is what determines the fair value for its stock. We essentially look at how sell-side analysts covering the stock are revising their earnings estimates to reflect the impact of the latest business trends. And if earnings estimates go up for a company, the fair value for its stock goes up. A higher fair value than the current market price drives investors' interest in buying the stock, leading to its price moving higher. This is why empirical research shows a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and near-term stock price movements. For the current quarter, NetApp is expected to post earnings of $1.55 per share, indicating a change of -0.6% from the year-ago quarter. The Zacks Consensus Estimate has changed -9.2% over the last 30 days. The consensus earnings estimate of $7.71 for the current fiscal year indicates a year-over-year change of +6.3%. This estimate has changed -0.3% over the last 30 days. For the next fiscal year, the consensus earnings estimate of $8.62 indicates a change of +11.8% from what NetApp is expected to report a year ago. Over the past month, the estimate has changed -0.8%. Having a strong externally audited track record, our proprietary stock rating tool, the Zacks Rank, offers a more conclusive picture of a stock's price direction in the near term, since it effectively harnesses the power of earnings estimate revisions. Due to the size of the recent change in the consensus estimate, along with three other factors related to earnings estimates, NetApp is rated Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). The chart below shows the evolution of the company's forward 12-month consensus EPS estimate: While earnings growth is arguably the most superior indicator of a company's financial health, nothing happens as such if a business isn't able to grow its revenues. After all, it's nearly impossible for a company to increase its earnings for an extended period without increasing its revenues. So, it's important to know a company's potential revenue growth. For NetApp, the consensus sales estimate for the current quarter of $1.55 billion indicates a year-over-year change of +0.3%. For the current and next fiscal years, $6.76 billion and $7.11 billion estimates indicate +2.8% and +5.2% changes, respectively. NetApp reported revenues of $1.73 billion in the last reported quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +3.8%. EPS of $1.93 for the same period compares with $1.80 a year ago. Compared to the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.73 billion, the reported revenues represent a surprise of +0.21%. The EPS surprise was +1.58%. Over the last four quarters, NetApp surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. The company topped consensus revenue estimates three times over this period. No investment decision can be efficient without considering a stock's valuation. Whether a stock's current price rightly reflects the intrinsic value of the underlying business and the company's growth prospects is an essential determinant of its future price performance. Comparing the current value of a company's valuation multiples, such as its price-to-earnings (P/E), price-to-sales (P/S), and price-to-cash flow (P/CF), to its own historical values helps ascertain whether its stock is fairly valued, overvalued, or undervalued, whereas comparing the company relative to its peers on these parameters gives a good sense of how reasonable its stock price is. As part of the Zacks Style Scores system, the Zacks Value Style Score (which evaluates both traditional and unconventional valuation metrics) organizes stocks into five groups ranging from A to F (A is better than B; B is better than C; and so on), making it helpful in identifying whether a stock is overvalued, rightly valued, or temporarily undervalued. NetApp is graded C on this front, indicating that it is trading at par with its peers. Click here to see the values of some of the valuation metrics that have driven this grade. The facts discussed here and much other information on might help determine whether or not it's worthwhile paying attention to the market buzz about NetApp. However, its Zacks Rank #3 does suggest that it may perform in line with the broader market in the near term. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report NetApp, Inc. (NTAP) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) Just Reported Yearly Earnings: Have Analysts Changed Their Mind On The Stock?
Last week saw the newest annual earnings release from NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP), an important milestone in the company's journey to build a stronger business. NetApp reported US$6.6b in revenue, roughly in line with analyst forecasts, although statutory earnings per share (EPS) of US$5.67 beat expectations, being 3.0% higher than what the analysts expected. Following the result, the analysts have updated their earnings model, and it would be good to know whether they think there's been a strong change in the company's prospects, or if it's business as usual. So we collected the latest post-earnings statutory consensus estimates to see what could be in store for next year. This technology could replace computers: discover the 20 stocks are working to make quantum computing a reality. Following the latest results, NetApp's 18 analysts are now forecasting revenues of US$6.78b in 2026. This would be a modest 3.1% improvement in revenue compared to the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are predicted to increase 4.2% to US$6.07. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$6.85b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$5.88 in 2026. So the consensus seems to have become somewhat more optimistic on NetApp's earnings potential following these results. See our latest analysis for NetApp There's been no major changes to the consensus price target of US$115, suggesting that the improved earnings per share outlook is not enough to have a long-term positive impact on the stock's valuation. It could also be instructive to look at the range of analyst estimates, to evaluate how different the outlier opinions are from the mean. The most optimistic NetApp analyst has a price target of US$135 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$100.00. Analysts definitely have varying views on the business, but the spread of estimates is not wide enough in our view to suggest that extreme outcomes could await NetApp shareholders. Of course, another way to look at these forecasts is to place them into context against the industry itself. The period to the end of 2026 brings more of the same, according to the analysts, with revenue forecast to display 3.1% growth on an annualised basis. That is in line with its 3.3% annual growth over the past five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to see their revenues grow 5.6% per year. So although NetApp is expected to maintain its revenue growth rate, it's forecast to grow slower than the wider industry. The biggest takeaway for us is the consensus earnings per share upgrade, which suggests a clear improvement in sentiment around NetApp's earnings potential next year. Fortunately, the analysts also reconfirmed their revenue estimates, suggesting that it's tracking in line with expectations. Although our data does suggest that NetApp's revenue is expected to perform worse than the wider industry. The consensus price target held steady at US$115, with the latest estimates not enough to have an impact on their price targets. With that said, the long-term trajectory of the company's earnings is a lot more important than next year. We have forecasts for NetApp going out to 2028, and you can see them free on our platform here. You can also see our analysis of NetApp's Board and CEO remuneration and experience, and whether company insiders have been buying stock. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
