Research Note: Pure Storage Enhances Cyber-Resilience
At its recent Accelerate event in New York, Pure Storage unveiled a comprehensive expansion of its cyber-resilience capabilities.
Research Note: MongoDB Application Modernization Platform (AMP)
At its recent MongoDB.local NYC event, MongoDB launched its Application Modernization Platform (AMP), seeing the database vendor’s expansion into full-stack enterprise application transformation services.
The new platform combines AI-powered code transformation tools, proven migration frameworks, and professional services to modernize legacy applications for MongoDB’s Atlas cloud platform.
MongoDB claims AMP accelerates code transformation tasks by 10x and overall modernization projects by 2-3x compared to traditional approaches (these figures have not been independently validated).
MONGODB AMP
MongoDB AMP integrates three core components into a unified modernization framework: AI-powered automation tools, battle-tested migration methodologies, and dedicated delivery engineering teams.
Its architecture centers on agentic AI workflows that decompose, analyze, transform, and validate legacy application code in manageable segments.
The technical foundation rests on MongoDB’s document model architecture, which provides schema flexibility for modernized applications. AMP’s AI agents perform several specialized functions:
• Legacy code analysis and dependency mapping
• Automated decomposition of complex applications into testable components
• Code transformation with automated repair capabilities
• Test case generation for validation against legacy behavior.
MongoDB’s approach emphasizes test-first methodology, requiring comprehensive test coverage establishment before any transformation begins. This creates behavioral baselines for legacy systems, serving as validation checkpoints throughout the modernization process.
The platform’s dependency analysis tools map complex interdependencies within legacy applications, informing migration sequencing and risk identification.
The code transformation process operates iteratively rather than attempting wholesale migrations. AMP breaks large modernization efforts into incremental components, with each segment tested and verified before proceeding. MongoDB’s tooling specifically targets applications built around stored procedures, where business logic distribution across multiple system layers traditionally complicates migration efforts.
MongoDB AMP incorporates multiple AI agents with distinct specializations: analysis agents for decomposing legacy code, transformation agents for automated code conversion, and validation agents for generating testing frameworks. These operate alongside deterministic tools that handle predictable transformation patterns, creating a hybrid approach that balances automation speed with reliability requirements.
IMPACT TO IT PRACTITIONERS
MongoDB AMP addresses several critical operational pain points that enterprise development teams face when managing legacy applications.
The platform’s primary operational benefit lies in dramatically reducing the manual effort required for complex modernization projects, especially those involving stored procedure-heavy applications where business logic spans multiple system layers.
For development teams, AMP’s test-first approach increases confidence in modernization efforts by establishing comprehensive behavioral baselines before transformation begins.
Mongo’s methodology reduces the risk of introducing regressions during migration, a primary concern that often stalls modernization initiatives. The iterative transformation approach allows teams to validate each component before proceeding, catching issues early when remediation costs remain manageable.
Cost implications will vary based on legacy application complexity. While MongoDB positions AMP as an alternative to expensive multi-year consulting engagements, the platform still requires professional services engagement and dedicated delivery engineering resources.
Enterprises must weigh these costs against traditional modernization approaches and factor in ongoing Atlas platform expenses post-migration.
COMPETITIVE OUTLOOK & ADVICE TO IT BUYERS
MongoDB AMP enters a competitive modernization market dominated by established players, including AWS Transform, traditional systems integrators, and specialized modernization consultancies.
The platform’s primary competitive advantage lies in its deep integration with MongoDB’s database technology and proven migration methodologies developed through customer engagements.
It also competes with traditional systems integrators, such as IBM, Accenture, and Deloitte.
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ANALYSIS
MongoDB’s expansion into application modernization represents a strategic evolution from database vendor to platform provider, leveraging its established position in NoSQL databases to capture broader modernization budgets. The company differentiates AMP through its data-centric approach, arguing that database transformation forms the critical foundation for successful application modernization.
This challenges traditional modernization vendors by emphasizing the database layer as the primary constraint in legacy application evolution. MongoDB argues that most modernization failures stem from inadequate data layer transformation, positioning its document model expertise as a competitive advantage in addressing complex legacy database migrations.
The broader market opportunity is substantial, as enterprises face mounting pressure to modernize legacy applications for AI integration and digital transformation initiatives.
MongoDB AMP offers a differentiated approach. For organizations heavily invested in MongoDB technologies or evaluating comprehensive modernization strategies, AMP merits serious consideration as a potentially transformative approach to legacy application challenges.
Research Note: CrowdStrike to Acquire AI Security Firm Pangea
CrowdStrike announced its intent to acquire Pangea Cyber for a reported $260 million, adding specialized AI security capabilities to its expanding agentic security platform.
Pangea targets a critical vulnerability in enterprise AI: protecting AI agents and LLMs from prompt injection attacks and other AI-specific threats.
Research Note: Check Point to Acquire Lakera for End-to-End AI Security
Check Point Software announced its intention to acquire Lakera, an AI-native security platform, for $300 million in a transaction expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The acquisition is designed to establish comprehensive AI security capabilities as part of its broader solution stack.
Research Note: Cisco’s AI-Powered Transformation of the Splunk Portfolio at .conf 2025
At its recent Splunk .conf25 in Boston, Cisco unveiled a comprehensive suite of AI-powered enhancements across its recently acquired Splunk portfolio, showing significant progress in integrating the two companies’ technologies.
The announcements centered on three core themes: agentic AI automation, unified data architectures, and enhanced observability capabilities.
Research Note: Palo Alto Networks SASE 4.0
Palo Alto Networks recently released Prisma SASE 4.0, the company’s AI-driven secure access service edge platform to address modern threat vectors and data security challenges.
The new release focuses on three primary areas: browser-based threat protection, AI-enhanced data security, and unified operations management.
Research Note: Veeam Software Appliance for Veeam Data Platform
IT teams have long faced the trade-off of choosing between hardware appliances that lock them into specific vendors and increase costs, or spending resources hardening and maintaining custom backup infrastructure. Veeam’s new Software Appliance offers a third path by delivering appliance-like simplicity without the hardware constraints.
Research Note: Marvell Solidifies CXL Leadership w/ Ecosystem-Wide Interoperability
The CXL ecosystem is moving quickly from concept to deployment as hyperscalers, OEMs, and chipmakers seek new ways to address the memory bottlenecks that limit AI, cloud, and high-performance computing workloads. In this environment, interoperability is not a checkbox—it is the foundation that determines how quickly new architectures can reach scale.
Research Note: CrowdStrike Acquires Onum for Streaming Data Capabilities
CrowdStrike recently announced its intended acquisition of Onum, a two-year-old startup specializing in real-time telemetry pipeline management, to enhance its Falcon Next-Gen SIEM platform.
Research Note: IBM and AMD Collaborate on Classical-Quantum Computing
IBM and AMD recently announced a strategic collaboration to develop quantum-centric supercomputing architectures that combine quantum computers with high-performance computing infrastructure. The partnership is based on a memorandum of understanding between the companies, with no immediate financial exchange.
Research Note: Dell’s New Automation Platform
First teased at Dell Technologies World earlier this year, the company has launched its Dell Automation Platform. The new centralized software orchestration solution consolidates management of AI, private cloud, and edge computing environments.
Research Note: DXC Technology and 7AI Partner on Agentic Security Operations
Announced earlier this month at Black Hat, DXC Technology has partnered with cybersecurity startup 7AI to launch the DXC Agentic Security Operations Center (SOC) for delivering managed security services.
The collaboration integrates 7AI’s autonomous AI agents into DXC’s global security operations workflow, covering alert ingestion, investigation, and remediation processes.
Research Note: CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen Identity Security
CrowdStrike recently launched its new Falcon Next-Gen Identity Security, a unified platform that consolidates identity protection capabilities across human, non-human, and AI agent identities within hybrid environments. The solution integrates initial access prevention, privileged access management (PAM), identity threat detection and response (ITDR), SaaS identity security, and agentic identity protection into the existing Falcon platform architecture.
Research Note: F5 Acquires MantisNet
Application security player F5 announced its acquisition of real-time network observability company MantisNet for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition promises to enhance F5’s Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP) with eBPF-powered observability capabilities, specifically targeting the monitoring of encrypted traffic in containerized infrastructures.
Microsoft Project Ire: Autonomous Malware Reverse Engineering at Scale
Microsoft recently introduced Project Ire, an autonomous AI agent that performs full-scale reverse engineering and classification of software files, with a focus on malware detection.
Research Note: Tenable Brings Exposure Management to Enterprise AI
Tenable recently expanded its Tenable One exposure management platform with AI Exposure, a comprehensive solution designed to address generative AI security risks in enterprise environments. Announced at Black Hat USA 2025, the platform addresses the growing visibility gap as organizations rapidly adopt AI tools, such as ChatGPT Enterprise and Microsoft Copilot.
Research Note: Rubrik Safeguards Agentic Workflows with Agent Rewind
Rubrik recently introduced Agent Rewind, a solution targeting the emerging challenge of AI agent error recovery. The new offering, powered by technology from Rubrik’s acquisition of AI infrastructure startup Predibase earlier this year, provides visibility, audit trails, and rollback capabilities for actions taken by autonomous AI agents across enterprise systems.
Research Brief: Oracle Globally Distributed Exadata Database on Exascale Infrastructure
Oracle announced the general availability of its Globally Distributed Exadata Database on Exascale Infrastructure, a managed cloud service that combines distributed database capabilities with serverless computing architecture. The platform automatically distributes and synchronizes data across multiple Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) regions, maintaining full SQL compatibility and support for Oracle Database features.
Research Note: SentinelOne to Acquire Prompt Security
SentinelOne recently announced a definitive agreement to acquire Prompt Security for an estimated $250-300 million, more than 10x the startup’s funding history. The transaction, expected to close by November 2025, will allow SentinelOne to address enterprise AI governance risks through real-time monitoring and control of generative AI tool usage.
Research Note: Cloudera Acquires Taikun for Kubernetes Capabilities
Cloudera announced its acquisition of Taikun, a Czech-based company that develops a Kubernetes-native platform for managing cloud and on-premises infrastructure across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
The acquisition adds a fully integrated, Kubernetes-based compute layer to the Cloudera Data Platform (CDP), enabling consistent deployment and management of data and AI services across distributed and regulated IT estates.
Research Note: AWS Open Sources MCP Server for Aparch Spark History Server
AWS recently announced the open-source release of Spark History Server MCP, a specialized implementation of the Model Context Protocol (MCP). This server enables AI agents to directly access and analyze historical execution data from Apache Spark workloads through a standardized, structured interface.
Research Note: AGNTCY Moves to Linux Foundation
AGNTCY delivers foundational infrastructure for the “Internet of Agents”, enabling AI agents from different frameworks, vendors, and deployment environments to discover each other, establish identity, communicate securely, and share runtime observability data.
Research Note: Palo Alto Networks’ $25 Billion Acquisition of CyberArk
Palo Alto Networks announced its intent to acquire CyberArk for $25 billion in a cash-and-stock transaction, marking the company’s largest acquisition to date and one of the most significant cybersecurity consolidations in 2025. The deal values CyberArk at $495 per share, representing a 29.2% premium to its pre-announcement price.
The acquisition addresses Palo Alto’s strategic gap in identity security and privileged access management (PAM), positioning the combined entity to capture opportunities in the emerging AI and autonomous agent security market.
Research Note: Red Hat OpenShift on Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA
Dell Technologies recently announced that its integrated Red Hat OpenShift with its Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA platform is now generally available to customers. The solution was previewed earlier this year at Dell Tech world. The updated solution combines Dell PowerEdge infrastructure, NVIDIA GPU acceleration, Red Hat container orchestration, and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software into a validated stack.
Research Note: Extreme Networks’ Platform ONE
The Extreme Platform ONE integrates conversational, multimodal, and agentic AI capabilities into a single enterprise networking management system, consolidating oversight across physical, access, fabric, and service layers through a cloud-native architecture.
Open Flash Platform Initiative Aims to Redefine Flash Storage for AI
Six industry participants recently launched the Open Flash Platform (OFP) initiative, backed by six founding members: Hammerspace, the Linux Foundation, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), ScaleFlux, SK hynix, and Xsight Labs.
The initiative purports to address the challenges presented by the next wave of AI-driven data storage, specifically the limitations of power, heat, and data center space.
Research Note: AWS Enhances S3 for Enterprise AI
At its recent AWS Summit in NYC, Amazon Web Services introduced two significant enhancements to its S3 object storage service: S3 Vectors for cost-effective vector data storage and expanded S3 Metadata capabilities for comprehensive object visibility.
Research Note: Enterprise AI Agents Take Center Stage at AWS Summit NYC 2025
AWS recently concluded its New York City Summit with a clear message: the future of enterprise software is agentic AI, and Amazon aims to own the infrastructure that enables it.
Research Note: IBM Brings Hyper Protect to Red Hat
IBM recently expanded its Hyper Protect confidential computing portfolio to the Red Hat ecosystem through two new offerings: Hyper Protect Container Runtime (HPCR) for Red Hat Virtualization Solutions and Hyper Protect Confidential Containers (HPCC) for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.
Research Note: IBM Power11
IBM recently announced the latest generation of its Power family, Power 11. The new processor and associated servers provide a significant architectural evolution, focusing on autonomous operations, AI integration, and hybrid cloud deployment.
Research Note: Oracle Introduces MCP Server for Oracle Database
Oracle this week introduced its new MCP Server for Oracle Database, leveraging Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol to enable direct interaction with its AI assistant on the database platform. The new capability transforms AI-database workflows (from code generation to execution), allowing large language models to connect, query, and analyze Oracle databases while maintaining existing security frameworks.
With MCP Server for Oracle Database, Oracle becomes the first major database vendor to implement MCP, continuing its aggressive approach to quickly bringing MCP capabilities to its database customers.
Research Brief: Oracle Database@AWS
First announced in December 2024, Oracle and AWS have announced the general availability of Oracle Database@AWS. This strategic partnership positions Oracle Exadata Database Service and Oracle Autonomous Database on dedicated Oracle Cloud Infrastructure within AWS data centers.
Research Note: HPE GreenLake Intelligence
At the recent HPE Discover event, HPE introduced GreenLake Intelligence, an agentic AI framework that attempts to address the operational complexity of modern hybrid IT environments through autonomous agent orchestration.The platform combines domain-specific large language models with real-time telemetry from HPE’s infrastructure portfolio, enabling proactive, cross-domain IT operations management.
Research Note: HPE’s Updated AI Factory
At its recent Discover event, HPE announced an expansion of its NVIDIA-based AI Computing portfolio with three distinct AI factory configurations targeting enterprise, service provider, and sovereign deployment scenarios.The offerings center on the upgraded HPE Private Cloud AI platform, which integrates NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs with HPE ProLiant Gen12 servers, custom storage solutions, and orchestration software.
Research Note: Pure Storage’s New Enterprise Data Cloud
At its recent Pure //Accelerate event, Pure Storage introduced its new Enterprise Data Cloud (EDC) architecture, positioning the concept as a unified data management platform that consolidates storage operations across hybrid environments.
The EDC centers on Pure Fusion, the company’s storage orchestration layer, with new automation capabilities, including workload presets, workflow orchestration, and enhanced security integrations.
Research Brief: WEKA NeuralMesh, a Micro-Services-based AI Data Architecture
WEKA recently announced NeuralMesh, its software-defined, microservices-based storage platform engineered for high-performance, distributed AI workloads. NeuralMesh introduces a dynamic mesh architecture that departs from traditional monolithic or appliance-bound storage systems.
It addresses the requirements of emerging AI applications, including agentic AI, large-scale inference, and token warehouse infrastructure, by delivering consistent microsecond-level latency, fault isolation, and scale-out performance across hybrid environments.
Research Note: Snowflake Evolves into AI Platform at Summit 2025
Snowflake recently held its annual Snowflake Summit in San Francisco where the announcements show the company evolving from a data warehouse provider to an AI platform orchestrator. The announcements address three core enterprise challenges: democratizing data access beyond technical teams, accelerating AI development workflows, and reducing data integration overhead.
Research Note: Broadcom Releases VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0
Broadcom has announced the general availability of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, a major release that advances its unified private cloud platform across on-premises, edge, and managed service provider environments.
This release consolidates infrastructure management and developer operations into a single interface while integrating support for AI workloads, modern applications, and advanced cost transparency and security features.
Research Note: AMD Raises its Game at its Advancing AI 2025 Event
AMD announced a comprehensive portfolio of AI infrastructure solutions at its recent Advancing AI 2025 event, positioning itself as a full-stack competitor to NVIDIA.
The announcements include the immediate availability of MI350 Series GPUs with 4x generational performance improvements, the ROCm 7.0 software platform achieving 3.5x gains in inference, and the AMD Developer Cloud for broader ecosystem access.
AMD also previewed its 2026 “Helios” rack solution, which integrates MI400 GPUs, EPYC “Venice” CPUs, and Pensando “Vulcano” NICs.
Research Note: VDURA Data Platform 11.2
Earlier this month, VDURA announced Version 11.2 of its Data Platform, featuring native Kubernetes CSI support, end-to-end encryption, and the VDURACare Premier support package.
The release also includes a technology preview of V-ScaleFlow, a data movement capability that VDURA claims will reduce flash requirements by over 50% through intelligent tiering between QLC flash and high-capacity HDDs.
Research Note: Snowflake’s Crunchy Data Acquisition
At its annual Snowflake Summit in San Francisco, Snowflake announced its intent to acquire Crunchy Data for approximately $250 million. The deal brings enterprise-grade PostgreSQL capabilities into Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud through a new offering called Snowflake Postgres. This acquisition addresses a critical gap in Snowflake’s platform, while intensifying competition with Databricks for dominance in AI infrastructure.
Quick Take: Dell Tech World 2025
Last week I was back in Las Vegas for Dell Technologies World 2025. The company has a broad portfolio but was telling a single-minded story: Dell has a relentless focus on AI, emphasizing the Dell AI Factory and the shift towards on-premises enterprise AI solutions.
DataCore Acquires StarWind, Expands HCI Capabilities from Core to Edge
DataCore Software, a long-time player in software-defined storage (SDS) and data infrastructure, announced the acquisition of StarWind Software, a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) vendor best known for serving edge and ROBO environments
Research Note: Dell Updates its Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA
At its annual Dell Technologies World event in Las Vegas, Dell announced significant updates to its AI Factory with NVIDIA, expanding the platform’s hardware capabilities and introducing new managed services.
The updated platform targets enterprises transitioning from AI experimentation to full-scale implementation, particularly for agentic AI and multi-modal applications.
Key updates include new PowerEdge server configurations supporting up to 256 NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs per rack, enhanced data platform integrations, and comprehensive managed services.
Research Note: HPE’s New Storage SLAs and Edge-Ready Backup Appliances
HPE recently introduced new service-level guarantees and product innovations focused on cyber resilience, energy efficiency, and zero data loss for its flagship HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 platform.
It also expanded its StoreOnce data protection portfolio with new appliances tailored to remote offices and SMBs.
NAND Insider Newsletter: Week of May 12, 2025
Each week NAND Research puts out a newsletter for our industry customers taking a look at what’s driving the week, and what happened last week that caught our attention. Below is a excerpt from this week’s, May 10, 2025.
Research Note: Nutanix & Pure Storage Partnership
At the recent Nutanix .NEXT event, Pure Storage and Nutanix announced a collaboration to deliver a jointly certified solution combining Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure with Pure Storage FlashArray over NVMe/TCP.
The alliance targets enterprise customers seeking alternatives to traditional virtualization stacks, particularly VMware deployments.
Quick Take: UALink & OCP Join Forces
The Open Compute Project (OCP) Foundation and the Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink) Consortium have announced a strategic collaboration to standardize and deploy high-performance, open scale-up interconnects for next-generation AI and HPC clusters.
Research Note: IBM Orchestrate for Enterprise Agentic AI
At IBM Think 2025 in Boston, IBM announced its new watsonx Orchestrate, catching the shift that sees enterprise AI moving beyond simple model deployment toward agent orchestration.
The platform enables organizations to build, deploy, and manage AI agents across enterprise environments with minimal technical expertise required.
Research Note: CrowdStrike’s Falcon Adversary OverWatch
CrowdStrike expanded its threat-hunting capabilities, introducing its new Falcon Adversary OverWatch Next-Gen SIEM, extending visibility beyond endpoints to third-party data sources.
The new solution uses managed threat hunting to uncover threats in their early stages using available third-party SIEM data from network edge devices, identity and access management tools, SaaS applications, and email security tools.
NAND Insider Newsletter: Week of April 28, 2025
Each week NAND Research puts out a newsletter for our industry customers taking a look at what’s driving the week, and what happened last week that caught our attention. Below is a excerpt from this week’s, April 28, 2025.
Research Note: IBM Autonomous Threat Operations Machine (ATOM) & Predictive Threat Intelligence
At RSAC 2025, IBM introduced new agentic AI capabilities to its managed security services portfolio, focusing on autonomous threat detection and response. The two key offerings are the Autonomous Threat Operations Machine (ATOM) and X-Force Predictive Threat Intelligence (PTI).
Research Note: Palo Alto Networks Prisma AIRS for AI Protection
At RSAC 2025, Palo Alto Networks launched its new Prisma AIRS (AI Security), a comprehensive security platform targeting threats across enterprise AI ecosystems. Building upon their “Secure AI by Design” portfolio introduced last year, Prisma AIRS addresses emerging security challenges posed by the proliferation of AI applications, agents, and models.
Quick Take: Palo Alto Networks to Acquire Protect AI
Today, Palo Alto Networks announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Protect AI, which secures AI and ML applications. The deal is part of Palo Alto Networks’ broader strategy to expand its cybersecurity portfolio into AI risk management.
Research Note: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSIAM 3.0
Palo Alto Networks recently released Cortex XSIAM 3.0, expanding its security operations platform with proactive exposure management and advanced email security capabilities. The update shifts the platform’s focus from primarily reactive to proactive security measures.
Research Note: Veeam’s VeeamOn Announcements
At its annual VeeamON 2025 event, Veeam Software announced three significant expansions to its data resilience platform. The updates focus on identity protection, AI integration, and security partnerships.
Research Note: Atlassian Team ’25 Announcements
At Atlassian’s Team ’25 event in Anaheim, the company unveiled a comprehensive set of product updates that unify cross-functional collaboration, strategic execution, and service delivery capabilities under a single AI-enabled platform.
The key announcements focus on expanding the Rovo AI system, launching new strategic planning and workforce management tools, introducing a Customer Service Management solution, and bundling core collaboration tools into the new Teamwork Collection.
NAND Insider Newsletter: April 21 2025
Each week NAND Research puts out a newsletter for our industry customers taking a look at what’s driving the week, and what happened last week that caught our attention. Below is a excerpt from this week’s, April 21, 2025.
Research Note: Scality-Veeam Unified Software Appliance
Scality and Veeam have developed a unified software appliance that runs on commodity x86 servers. It combines Scality’s ARTESCA object storage with Veeam’s Backup and replication software.
The new integration promises to streamline deployment, enhance security, and reduce implementation costs. It also eliminates the need for separate physical or virtual infrastructure for Veeam while providing a hardened security environment with reduced attack surface.
Research Note: CrowdStrike Falcon Privileged Access
CrowdStrike recently introduced Falcon Privileged Access, a new component of its Falcon Identity Protection portfolio that adopts a just-in-time access model for privileged access management.
CrowdStrike also announced complementary capabilities, including integration between Falcon Identity Protection and Falcon Next-Gen SIEM, Charlotte AI Detection Triage for identity-based attacks, and new CrowdStrike Pulse Services for security maturity improvement.
Research Note: Hitachi Vantara’s CyberSense Integration
Hitachi Vantara is partnering with Index Engines to integrate CyberSense, an AI-powered ransomware detection solution, into its Virtual Storage Platform One (VSP One). With this move, Hitachi joins Dell, IBM, and Infinidat as the fourth OEM to adopt Index Engines’ technology.
Research Note: IBM Updates Concert Platform
IBM has introduced three significant updates to its IBM Concert platform, extending its capabilities in resilience management and hybrid infrastructure support. These updates allow IT organizations to shift operations from reactive to proactive posture by applying AI and workflow automation across observability, remediation, and mainframe operations.
Research Note: VMware Tanzu’s AI Makeover
Broadcom’s VMware is repositioning Tanzu from a Kubernetes-centric application platform to a GenAI-first PaaS. The latest release introduces support for Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) for agentic AI, deepens integration with the Claude LLM, and introduces a rearchitected platform focused on private cloud AI workloads.
Research Note: Fortanix Armet AI Public Preview
Fortanix recently launched a public preview of Armet AI, a turnkey generative AI platform that integrates confidential computing and enterprise-grade data governance.
Targeted at enterprises managing sensitive or regulated data, Armet AI addresses the challenges of building secure and compliant generative AI systems by combining Intel’s trusted execution environments (SGX, TDX) with fine-grained access control, policy enforcement, and AI-specific security mechanisms.
Research Note: NetApp Updates Google NetApp Cloud Volumes
At the recent Google Cloud Next event, NetApp and Google Cloud announced enhancements to Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, their fully managed file storage service. The updates focus on increasing scalability, performance, and integration capabilities while reducing complexity for enterprise workloads.
Key improvements include throughput increases to 30GiBps for Premium and Extreme service levels, independent scaling of capacity and performance for the Flex service level, integration with Google Cloud’s Vertex AI Platform, and support for Google Cloud Assured Workloads.
Research Note: Azure NetApp Files Enhancements
NetApp recently announced enhancements to their Azure NetApp Files (ANF) offering, introducing a new Flexible service level along with new capabilities to provide greater control over storage resources.
Quick Take: Databricks Acquires Fennel
Databricks announced the acquisition of Fennel, a specialized platform focused on feature engineering for machine learning applications. This acquisition bolsters Databricks’ capabilities in feature engineering, especially for real-time and streaming data applications.
Research Note: UALink Consortium Releases UALink 1.0
The UALink Consortium recently released its Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink) 1.0 specification. This industry-backed standard challenges the dominance of NVIDIA’s proprietary NVLink/NVSwitch memory fabric with an open alternative for high-performance accelerator interconnect technology.
Research Note: Hammerspace $100M Series B to Accelerate AI Infrastructure Growth
Hammerspace, which provides a high-performance data orchestration solution for AI and hybrid cloud environments, announced it’s raised $100 million in a Series B funding round.
The round, led by Altimeter Capital and including participation from ARK Invest and other strategic investors, values Hammerspace at more than $500 million.
Research Note: Dynatrace & AWS New Strategic Collaboration
Dynatrace and AWS announced a multi-year strategic collaboration agreement, deepening their decade-long partnership that began in 2014. This expanded collaboration aims to address enterprise challenges in digital transformation through enhanced AI-powered observability and security solutions.
OFC 2025: Optical Interconnects Take Center Stage in the AI-First Data Center
AI is reshaping the data center, bringing networking along for the ride. It’s clear that optical networking is rapidly moving from a back-end concern to a front-line enabler of next-generation infrastructure.
AI workloads, with their massive datasets, distributed training pipelines, and high-performance compute requirements, demand interconnect solutions that combine extreme bandwidth with low power consumption and low latency. At last month’s OFC 2025 event in San Francisco, this shift was unmistakable.
Key Takeaways: Microsoft FabCon 2025
At Microsoft’s second annual Fabric Community Conference (FabCon) 2025, held earlier this month in Las Vegas, the company unveiled several significant announcements that together enhance its unified data platform. The updates to Fabric focus on improving data security, AI integration, and streamlined data management.
Research Note: HPE Updates Aruba Networking Central
Hewlett Packard Enterprise recently announced significant enhancements to its HPE Aruba Networking Central platform, which expand its deployment options and strengthen AI and analytics capabilities. The platform now supports four distinct deployment models: public cloud SaaS, virtual private cloud, on-premises, and network-as-a-service.
Research Note: Cohesity’s Updates Cyber-Resilience for Google Cloud
At Google Cloud Next 2025, Cohesity announced several enhancements to its cyber resilience portfolio that provide deeper integrations with Google Cloud’s security capabilities. The announcements focus on AI-driven threat intelligence, incident response, secure recovery environments, and operational integration with Google Security Operations.
Research Note: Rubrik Expands Annapurna to GCP
At Google Cloud Next 2025, Rubrik announced the expansion of Rubrik Annapurna, its API-driven AI data security and governance platform, to Google Cloud. The announcement sees Rubrik delivering Annapurna as a secure data access layer for AI-driven application development within Google’s Agentspace framework.
Research Note: Anthropic/Databricks Partnership
Anthropic recently announced a new five-year strategic partnership with Databricks to integrate its Claude language models, including the newly released Claude 3.7 Sonnet, into the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform.
The deal, valued at approximately $100 million, will allow Databricks’ enterprise customers to build, deploy, and govern AI agents that operate directly on their proprietary enterprise data. Databricks will offer Claude models natively through its platform across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
Research Note: Infineon Acquires Marvell’s Auto Ethernet Business
Infineon Technologies announced its intention to acquire Marvell Technology’s Automotive Ethernet business for $2.5 billion in cash in a move that expands its microcontroller and automotive systems portfolio.
Research Note: IBM QisKit 2.0
IBM recently released Qiskit SDK v2.0, a major update to its open-source quantum software development kit. The new release is a key element of IBM’s long-term strategy to support utility-scale quantum computing by delivering architectural improvements, higher performance, and expanded interoperability with classical HPC systems.
Research Note: Dell’s Data Protection & Storage Updates
Dell Technologies this week announced a comprehensive set of updates spanning its data protection and storage platforms, including PowerProtect Data Domain, PowerProtect Data Manager, PowerScale, and PowerStore.
Research Note: Enhanced Google Cloud NetApp Volumes
At the 2025 Google Cloud Next event, NetApp and Google Cloud announced a significant expansion of capabilities for Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, their jointly developed fully managed file storage offering.
The updates provide enhance performance, scalability, and integration with AI and compliance frameworks, targeting large-scale enterprise workloads
NAND Insider Newsletter: April 6 2025
Each week NAND Research puts out a newsletter for our industry customers taking a look at what’s driving the week, and what happened last week that caught our attention. Below is a excerpt from this week’s, April 6, 2025.
Quick Take: IBM Acquires Hakkoda, Expands Consulting Reach
IBM has announced its acquisition of Hakkoda, a New York-based data and AI consultancy, as part of its strategy to expand its consulting services, particularly in the financial services, public sector, and healthcare and life sciences industries.
Research Note: OpenText Titanium X in CE 25.2
OpenText recently launched Titanium X, part of its Cloud Editions (CE) 25.2 release, its most comprehensive AI-native upgrade across all major product clouds. The release introduces new AI agents, expanded automation capabilities, and integrated cloud security enhancements.
Quick Take: Qualcomm Acquires VinAI’s MovianAI Division
Qualcomm last week announced its acquisition of MovianAI, the generative AI division of VinAI, a leading Vietnamese AI research firm within the Vingroup ecosystem. The acquisition will enhance Qualcomm’s generative AI R&D capabilities by bringing VinAI’s deep expertise in AI, machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing to its already-strong arsenal.
Research Note: Portworx Enhanced Kubernetes VM Support
At this week’s Kubecon event, Portworx announced significant updates to its Enterprise 3.3 and Portworx Backup solutions, focused on enabling virtualization administrators to run virtual machines natively in Kubernetes environments.
NAND Insider Newsletter: March 30 2025
Every week NAND Research puts out a newsletter for our industry customers taking a look at what’s driving the week, and what happened last week that caught our attention. Below is a excerpt from this week’s, March 30, 2025.
Research Note: Siemens Acquires Altair Engineering
Siemens AG recently announced the acquisition of Altair Engineering, a leading provider of industrial simulation and HPC software, for an enterprise value of approximately $10 billion.
This is Siemens’ largest acquisition to date and expands the company’s industrial software portfolio with core technologies in mechanical and electromagnetic simulation, data science, AI, and HPC.
Research Note: Verizon Trusted Connection
Earlier this month at MWC 2025, Verizon Business announced the release of its new Verizon Trusted Connection, a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and Security Service Edge (SSE) platform that unifies secure connectivity and policy enforcement across enterprise devices, networks, and applications.
The new offering sees Verizon targeting midsize enterprises seeking to consolidate security and networking services under a single provider and management interface.
Research Note: Palo Alto Networks Prisma SASE for 5G
Earlier this month at MWC 2025, Palo Alto Networks announced the general availability of Prisma SASE 5G, its new cloud-delivered cybersecurity solution for enterprises leveraging 5G connectivity.
The offering expands the company’s SASE portfolio to provide integrated Zero Trust security for 5G-enabled infrastructure, including mobile users, IoT/OT devices, and SD-WAN endpoints.
Research Note: Lenovo AI Announcements @ GTC 2025
At NVIDIA GTC 2025, Lenovo showed off its latest Hybrid AI Factory platforms in partnership with NVIDIA, focused on agentic AI.
The Lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage framework integrates a full-stack hardware and software solution, optimized for both private and public AI model deployments, and spans on-prem, edge, and cloud environments.
NAND Insider Newsletter: March 24, 2025
Every week NAND Research puts out a newsletter for our industry customers taking a look at what’s driving the week, and what happened last week that caught our attention. Below is a excerpt from this week’s, March 24, 2025.
Research Note: NetApp AI Data Announcements @ GTC 2025
At the recent GTC 2025 event, NetApp announced, in collaboration with NVIDIA, a comprehensive set of product validations, certifications, and architectural enhancements to its intelligent data products.
The announcements include NetApp’s integration with the NVIDIA AI Data Platform, support for NVIDIA’s latest accelerated computing systems, and expanded availability of enterprise-grade AI infrastructure offerings, including NetApp AFF A90 and NetApp AIPod.
Metadata: The Silent Bottleneck in AI Infrastructure
One of the most impactful but underappreciated architectural changes impacting storage performance for AI is how these solutions manage metadata. Separating metadata processing from data storage unlocks significant gains in performance, scalability, and efficiency across AI workloads. Let’s look at why metadata processing matters for AI.
Research Note: WEKA Augmented Memory Grid
At the recent NVIDIA GTC conference, WEKA announced the general availability of its Augmented Memory Grid, a software-defined storage extension engineered to mitigate the limitations of GPU memory during large-scale AI inferencing.
The Augmented Memory Grid is a new approach that integrates with the WEKA Data Platform and leverages NVIDIA Magnum IO GPUDirect Storage (GDS) to bypass CPU bottlenecks and deliver data directly to GPU memory with microsecond latency.
Research Note: IBM Content-Aware Storage for RAG AI Workflows
At the recent NVIDIA GTC event, IBM announced new content-aware capabilities for its Storage Scale platform, expanding its AI infrastructure offerings to support more efficient, semantically rich data access for enterprise AI applications.
Research Note: HPE’s New Full-Stack Enterprise AI Infrastructure Offerings
At the recent NVIDIA GTC 2025, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and NVIDIA jointly introduced NVIDIA AI Computing by HPE, full-stack AI infrastructure offerings targeting enterprise deployment of generative, agentic, and physical AI workloads.
The solutions span private cloud AI platforms, observability and management software, reference blueprints, AI development environments, and new AI-optimized servers featuring NVIDIA’s Blackwell architecture.
MWC 2025 Playbook: Enterprise IT’s Big AI & 5G Moment
If you blinked, you might have missed the tidal wave of AI, 5G, and cloud announcements at Mobile World Congress 2025. But don’t worry—we’ve got the cheat sheet.
Liquid Cooling is Front & Center at GTC 2025
One thing was clear at the just-wrapped NVIDIA GTC event: the race to cool the next generation of HPC and AI systems is intensifying.
Let’s take a quick look at some of our favorite announcements.
Research Note: Oracle Exadata X11M on Oracle Database@Azure
Oracle recently announced that it’s expanded its Oracle Database@Azure service with the general availability of Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure, introducing a shared, multi-tenant deployment model. The service now spans 14 Azure regions, with 18 additional regions planned within the next 12 months.
Research Note: NVIDIA AI Storage Certifications & AI Data Platform
At its annual GTC event in San Jose, NVIDIA announced an expansion of its NVIDIA-Certified Systems program, including the new NVIDIA AI Data Platform reference design, to include enterprise storage certification to help streamline AI factory deployments.