NetApp extends partnership with Google Cloud for flexible data movement, storage capabilities

Data storage and infrastructure company NetApp has extended its partnership with Google Cloud for its customers better to leverage data for hybrid cloud and generative AI workloads. Under this partnership, the two firms are launching a new Flex service level for companies to have more flexibility and control to run existing infrastructure across Google Cloud with similar enterprise data management capabilities, the company said. 

“Increasing demand for data-intensive applications and insights has reinforced the need for a new approach to unified data storage that gives organizations the agility to move and store data wherever it is needed at any point in time,” said Pravjit Tiwana, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cloud Storage at NetApp. 
This new service level will be available across 15 Google Cloud regions by Q2 2024, further to be expanded by the end of the year. 

In addition to the partnership extension, NetApp has also announced that it is releasing a preview of its GenAI toolkit with support for NetApp Volumes. To be sure, NetApp Volumes, introduced first in August 2023, is a fully managed file storage service for running applications on Google Cloud. With the NetApp GenAI toolkit, companies will be able to speed up retrieval augmented generation (RAG) operations. It will allow greater ability to generate high-quality and unique insights and automation

“Building on our partnership with Google Cloud to streamline RAG enables customers to tap into market-leading AI services and models to generate a unique competitive advantage,” Tiwana said.  NetApp GenAI toolkit helps optimize RAG processes offers capabilities such as common data footprint, automated classification and tagging, fast and scalable snapshots, and real-time cloning at scale.The GenAI toolkit will be available as a public preview within the second half of 2024.