NetApp's Jen Prenner: AI-ready data, no rebuild

NetApp's pitch lands at a moment when enterprises are moving AI from pilots to production while sitting on decades of legacy information. The company frames the answer as making that archive usable where it already lives, rather than rebuilding the infrastructure underneath it. Jen Prenner, senior vice president of product marketing, said data needs to be accessible, governed, protected, and available for AI projects without re-architecting or moving it.

The strategy stretches beyond NetApp's storage roots. A unified approach spans file, block, and object storage, and NetApp announced plans for a fully managed storage service on Oracle Corp.'s cloud infrastructure within the next 12 months. Prenner argued a unified strategy lets customers avoid complexity and new silos as they store data in the cloud, at the edge, or on-prem, or some combination.

Protection is positioned as built into every layer rather than bolted on, combining NetApp's own tools with an expanded partnership with Commvault Systems Inc. Its Console control plane supports local deployment for environments that must remain disconnected from the cloud, which Prenner said can spare customers separate teams and tools. The stakes appear to hinge on whether customers buy that storage-plus-services combination as a real path to production AI, and on delivery of the Oracle cloud service within the stated window.