NetApp INSIGHT to Highlight Unified Storage for Production AI on Sept. 30

The event comes as AI adoption places new demands on enterprise infrastructure. Data management has proven to be one of the biggest hurdles for AI adopters, and NetApp’s unified storage solutions are intended to lay the groundwork for smoother AI workflows, SiliconANGLE reported.

Krista Case, principal analyst for theCUBE Research, said AI is forcing enterprises to rethink infrastructure around the data. Training, retrieval-augmented generation, inference and agentic workloads need governed, current data that may span the data center, cloud and edge, she said. That makes fragmentation and data movement increasingly expensive in performance terms as well as in security, governance and operational complexity, according to Case. She said NetApp’s opportunity is to make the existing enterprise data estate usable by AI without forcing organizations to create another data silo.

Unified storage ensures consistent access to data, according to the report. theCUBE’s application development research shows that 64% of organizations have already integrated AI-driven functionality directly into their software delivery pipelines. That reality has laid the ground for unified storage, which makes data continuously available and usable for AI workflows, SiliconANGLE reported.

Paul Nashawaty, principal analyst for theCUBE Research, said unified storage is becoming an important part of that foundation because developers are increasingly building applications that depend on real-time data, distributed architectures and AI-generated context. He said theCUBE research points to real-time data access becoming a prerequisite for AI-driven applications, while the broader shift toward agent-first development means applications will increasingly need continuous access to trusted data rather than relying on static datasets.

According to Case and Nashawaty, NetApp has an opportunity to provide a unified data layer that AI platforms can consume across multiple locations. They said this will be a critical tool for enterprises looking to ground probabilistic intelligence in a reliable data foundation and ensure continuity as AI pilots move into production.

Nashawaty said the bigger strategic question is not simply whether NetApp can deliver faster storage, but whether it can reduce the data fragmentation and operational complexity that stand between enterprise data and production AI. As AI moves from experimentation into production, unified storage becomes less about where data sits and more about how quickly, consistently and securely applications can use it, he said.

At NetApp INSIGHT, theCUBE will talk with industry experts about how NetApp is shaping its storage, cloud and data strategy for production AI. Topics include unified data access, infrastructure modernization, ecosystem partnerships, AI-ready platforms and the growing demands of enterprise workloads, according to SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE’s coverage will be available through its dedicated website and YouTube channel, and exclusive content will be available on demand after the live event, SiliconANGLE reported. TheCUBE is a paid media partner for NetApp INSIGHT, and neither NetApp nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE, according to the disclosure.