However, this calls into question the future of NetApp's Direct Access File System (DAFS), a file protocol it designed to take advantage of RDMA transports. Essentially, DAFS does exactly the same thing that RDMA for NFS would, but using an industry-standard protocol (see NetApp Preps DAFS Splash and DAFS Debuts).
The way NetApp describes things, it's combining the best of both worlds. "We're trying to take DAFS and NFS and have those threads intersect at some point in the future," says David Dale.
Other observers say NetApp has finally realized that DAFS, a technology it controls, is a nonstarter. "What they experienced through their whole DAFS initiative was none of the other players in the NAS space would play with them," says an industry executive who requested anonymity. "It never took hold as an industry protocol."
The DAFS Collaborative is an ostensibly vendor-neutral consortium with 85 member companies that "submitted" the protocol to the IETF for consideration as an industry standard. But a message on the IETF Website says the DAFS draft the group submitted has since expired. Furthermore, NetApp has always been the prime organizer and promoter of the technology -- and one of the only companies to introduce DAFS-based products.
NetApp insists it isn't abandoning DAFS. "We remain committed to DAFS and our DAFS partners, and look forward to providing compatible high-performance storage solutions well into the future," Steve Kleiman, NetApp's CTO, is quoted as saying in a prepared statement.
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
