There's a conversation happening in enterprise IT right now, and it's long overdue.
For the better part of a decade, "cloud-first" has been the default strategic position - move workloads to the public cloud, reduce on-premises footprint, modernise as you go. It was a compelling narrative, and for many organisations it delivered real value.
But somewhere along the way, "cloud-first" became a destination rather than a design principle. The consequences are familiar: unexpected egress costs, latency that undermines application performance, data gravity problems, and hybrid architectures that are far more complex than they looked on a whiteboard.
The smarter conversation isn't cloud-first. It's digital-first.
From Cloud-First to Digital-First
As Lewis Preston, Partner BDM at Equinix, puts it: "Public cloud is a key part of modernisation, but only one component. Customers who focus on cloud without considering their wider ecosystem of IT service providers, business partners and end-customers simply trade one set of challenges for another.
That's our collective opportunity: helping customers bring the ecosystem into the conversation as a core architecture design principle. This is where our partnership with NetApp naturally converges."
Chris Gondek, Solutions Engineering Manager ANZ at NetApp, frames it with a principle he's carried throughout his career: "Appropriate workload for the appropriate cloud." Simple in concept, harder to execute in practice - unless the underlying platform is genuinely up to the task.
This is the lens through which the NetApp and Equinix story becomes compelling.
Where the Two Stories Converge
NetApp has long been the trusted name in enterprise data management - intelligent storage, seamless hybrid and multi-cloud integration, and data services that give enterprises real control over their most valuable asset. ONTAP on-premises, Cloud Volumes in hyperscaler environments, StorageGRID for unstructured data at scale. As Chris puts it: "We don't make servers, networking or hypervisors - we just underpin all workloads in all environments with their data foundation." When the data platform is truly omnipresent, workload placement becomes a strategic choice rather than a technical constraint.
Equinix is where the digital world physically comes together. Over 260 IBX data centres across 70+ metros, direct low-latency access to more than 2,900 cloud and network service providers, and Platform Equinix® - a global interconnection fabric that puts enterprises at the centre of their own ecosystem.
By deploying NetApp storage platforms within Equinix, organisations position their data at the intersection of cloud, network, and ecosystem connectivity. As Lewis describes it: "The result is a hybrid architecture that offers the control and economics of on-premises infrastructure together with the flexibility of cloud, while keeping data closer to the networks, clouds and partners that matter."
When your storage platform sits inside an Equinix facility, you're not fighting the network to get data where it needs to go. You're already there.
The Ecosystem Advantage
Chris captures the deeper architectural idea well: "The way the NetApp data fabric aligns to Equinix's network fabric effectively unlocks the previously perceived boundaries for workloads to truly be liberated from any ecosystem - across multiple dimensions, whether financial, technical, geographical, or others we haven't even thought of yet."
Enterprises have long talked about hybrid and multi-cloud as an aspiration. The convergence of NetApp's data fabric and Equinix's interconnection fabric makes it a reality. Data infrastructure co-located alongside the networks, clouds, and partners that need to access it - reducing latency, simplifying compliance, and enabling real-time data exchange without complex cross-environment pipelines.
Built for the AI Era
Chris's point on future-proofing is particularly relevant right now: "This is the only way to ensure future proofing for all workloads, especially in the AI era."
AI workloads are among the most demanding from a data infrastructure perspective - large datasets, low-latency access, intensive compute-to-storage communication. The combination of NetApp's omnipresent data platform and Equinix's physical proximity to clouds, networks, and AI compute creates the foundation those workloads need. Not just for today's applications, but for what hasn't been built yet.
What This Means for Partners
For MSPs and resellers, this proposition opens up conversations that go well beyond hardware refresh or cloud migration. The question to ask isn't "where do you want to run your workloads?" - it's "where does your data need to live to best serve your business?"
Customers revisiting cloud-first decisions, navigating data sovereignty requirements, wrestling with latency-sensitive applications, or building AI and analytics platforms are all receptive to this conversation. NetApp and Equinix together provide a credible, proven answer in each case.
The Bottom Line
The "your gear works better here" idea is simple, but it's real. NetApp brings the intelligence - an omnipresent data foundation underpinning every workload in every environment. Equinix brings the interconnection - physical proximity to the clouds, networks, and partners that make the digital-first vision executable anywhere in the world.
Together, they give enterprise data the environment it needs to perform - today, and for whatever the AI era demands next.
If your customers are ready to move beyond cloud-first thinking, this is the conversation worth starting.
As Equinix's Australian distributor, Dicker Data helps partners design and deliver digital-first infrastructure strategies built around performance, connectivity and data proximity. Whether your customers are reassessing cloud costs, planning AI initiatives or modernising hybrid environments, our team can help you position the right NetApp and Equinix solution. If you're ready to show customers why their gear works better here, speak with the Dicker Data Telco team today.
