SIA Member Profile: NetApp
Security Industry Association (SIA) member NetApp provides a full range of hybrid data services that simplify management of applications and data across cloud and on-premises environments to accelerate digital transformation. NetApp is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with seven additional offices across the United States, field offices in more than 45 countries and regional headquarters in the Netherlands and Singapore. Although the U.S. is the company’s largest market, NetApp has customers in 140 countries around the world.
SIA spoke with Karl Hess at NetApp about the company, the security industry and working with SIA.
SIA: Tell us the story of your company.
Karl Hess: NetApp was founded in 1992 by David Hitz, James Lau and Michael Malcolm. Since its earliest days, NetApp has been committed to thinking outside the box. From humble beginnings to becoming a Fortune 500 company, NetApp has pioneered many key developments in the storage industry.
As the data authority for the hybrid cloud, NetApp has a broad portfolio of data management solutions to meet every customer need. With the acquisition of storage area networking leader Engenio in 2011, NetApp expanded that portfolio to include E-Series – fast, simple, reliable storage area network (SAN) storage that is purpose built for high-performance workloads. Already installed in more than 1 million deployments, NetApp E-Series storage systems offer security teams a proven, easy-to-use, scalable platform for video surveillance storage.
What solutions/services does your business offer in the security industry? And what makes your offerings/company unique?
KH: NetApp offers industry-leading storage solutions for video surveillance, video analytics and artificial intelligence. Our storage solution is unique in that it offers customers five key benefits:
- Greater than 99.999% availability through a fault-tolerant design, ensuring that customers never lose access to their data
- High density and high performance in the same small footprint, without compromise
- Easy deployment and support with our enterprise architecture, which offers “call-home” support
- A solution that scales transparently, from 200 cameras to 200,000
- Very cost-effective centralized storage compared to multiple network video recorders (NVRs)
In addition, E-Series is a SAN storage solution, which is ideal for video surveillance. With SAN, multiple devices are connected by a dedicated network and data is accessed in data blocks, delivering the scalability, performance, and availability that video surveillance workloads require.
What’s something we might not know about your company – or What is your company’s vision, and what are your goals for the security industry?
KH: We partner with the largest video surveillance technology providers, such as Axis, Bosch, Milestone and Genetec, as well as a wide range of physical security systems integrators and resellers to provide true end-to-end solutions for our customers. We work together to create innovative developments in video surveillance, not just to improve security, but also to help businesses monetize their video surveillance investments and find new customers. These innovations are pushing the limits of video surveillance and turning video data into a source of revenue and increased customer loyalty. As developments in video surveillance accelerate, NetApp will continue to partner with the industry leaders in security to push the envelope for our customers.
What is your company’s vision, and what are your goals for the security industry?
KH: When it comes to success in the security industry, our goal is to make NetApp E-Series storage the heart of every video surveillance platform. We partner with the industry’s best to build rock-solid solutions for today and tomorrow. With E-Series storage, customers never lose access to their video assets; they get the speed they need with lower total cost of ownership, and they can scale without limits with a solution that is easy to deploy and manage.
What do you think are the biggest opportunities in the security industry right now?
KH: Intelligent video surveillance cameras and analytical applications are capturing more data than ever, resulting in increased requirements for bandwidth, storage performance and capacity. As video resolution and retention requirements increase, the volume and size of video data is growing quickly.
As a result, retail enterprises, governments and other organizations face serious challenges with respect to video storage. Network video recording based storage architectures are not designed for massive amounts of big video content. And with more cameras, expanding retention periods, and rising camera bit rates, traditional standalone NVR solutions are becoming costly and inefficient. Organizations now look to enterprise storage vendors to help them handle the rapid increase in data. NetApp E-Series for video surveillance is the perfect solution.
What are your predictions for the security industry in the short and long term?
KH: Surveillance infrastructure will begin to pay for itself as more companies start leveraging their surveillance data to market to their customers in real time. This will be especially true for casinos, retail and event venues, which are already seeing tremendous results from this approach.
What are the biggest challenges facing your company and/or others in the security industry?
KH: Security is getting increasingly technical, especially in the case of surveillance data. What was once handled entirely in the security office now often needs to be moved to the data center and managed by IT professionals.
With NetApp E-Series, you don’t need to be a storage expert to manage video data. Security personnel can access and manipulate video data with ease, even without any background in IT or data management. That ability saves time and reduces the burden on IT and security staff, so they can focus on doing their jobs.
What do you enjoy most about being at your company – and in the security industry?
KH: We succeed when our customers succeed. NetApp is committed to providing high-quality video surveillance storage solutions that help our customers sleep better at night knowing that their data is safe, secure and available.
SIA: What does SIA offer that is most important to you/your company? And what do you most hope to get out of your membership?
KH: SIA offers connections to major players and partners in the security space. We value SIA resources and events because they expose us to the latest industry information and provide networking opportunities with partners and prospects.
The views and opinions expressed in guest posts and/or profiles are those of the authors or sources and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Security Industry Association (SIA).
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