The local arm of international storage business, NetApp, plans an aggressive move to up its South African and African profile.
Country manager Mike Styer says NetApp is keen to capture a wider customer base locally, with the backing of its parent company's investment. “We are growing fast locally, and we hope to take the number one storage provider position in SA,” he says.
The company already has a complement of 12 staff members in the South African office, and has become the hub of expansion into the continent. “The investment by the international business in emerging markets is there.”
The company deals entirely indirectly, through several local large partners, including Faritec, Datacentrix, African Legend Indigo and Bytes Technology Solutions.
NetApp is pushing cloud storage in its attempt to gain the local market share. However, Styer admits the company has some work to do. Local companies are notorious for wanting to hold onto tin, and Styer says they are no different when it comes to data.
Despite the longstanding history of cloud and service-based computing, Styer says there needs to be a mindset change in the industry.
“We need to transition people to look towards information and focus less on data. Data, on its own, is useless,” he says. NetApp says it has several technologies that can help companies release their hold on data.
The company today releases a new service, Data ONTAP 8, which it hopes will drive the South African data into the data centre. According to Styer, the upgrade will help waylay some customer concerns, including data efficiency and redundancy.
The company also complies with various levels of data governance. “We use compliance software called Worm (write once read many), which will lock down any data that needs to be kept over a period of time.”
Styer says the rise of cloud computing is on the horizon, and NetApp is preparing to take on the expected customers.
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