5 Home Runs for Nasuni at Gartner IOCS 2024

The Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations, & Cloud Strategies Conference is a stand-out event in the Nasuni calendar. It’s cloud-specific, so it feels like home turf. It’s also one of the few conferences where you’re guaranteed to speak to customers and buyers directly. Plus, it’s Gartner. These are the people who invented the “Hybrid Cloud Storage” category in which Nasuni lives. When Gartner has something to say, the tech world sits up and listens.

Since it was my second Gartner IOCS I’ve attended with Nasuni in a row, I had high hopes for this year’s event. It lived up to the hype on all fronts. Here are our five biggest wins from the week:

Nasuni’s messaging resonated loudly at Gartner IOCS 2024.

Our booth message, “You can’t do AI” (and, in tiny font underneath, “without a data strategy”), was designed to start conversations — and it worked! The tagline produced a range of responses, from curiosity and amusement to friendly pushback, but every one of those discussions was productive and positive. As usual, we had a point to make: AI is only as good as the data fueling it. And, of course, you need a solid foundation of data to build your AI dream house.

It was validating to see this same idea reflected back at us throughout the event. The main message from Hassan Ennaciri’s opening keynote was that everyone in infrastructure and operations is doing “everyday AI,” such as note-taking, ideation, and editing. But companies in our space doing “game-changing AI” are surprisingly rare. Why is that? Ennaciri thinks businesses are cautious about AI because they are waiting for use-cases that will deliver enough ROI to justify the expense. One of the reasons this ROI is so slow to emerge is a lack of clean, well-managed data.

The data sprawl is growing, and so is the opportunity.

One thing was clear wherever you looked at Gartner IOCS 2024: data growth is showing no signs of slowing. The need for better data management and visibility across systems is only going to become more urgent. This was confirmed in my interactions with customers and analysts alike. I spoke to one white paper author whose entire thesis was perfectly aligned with Nasuni’s own proven approach to data management: assess, rationalize, secure, and curate. To extend my tenuous house metaphor: if it’s clean and tidy, you’ll be able to find what you need. Simple in theory, but tricky in practice. This emerged in our chats with buyers, too.

“I don’t know where half our data lives.”

“We’ve just merged with another company that uses totally different systems.”

“Our new office in Europe can’t get access to files — it’s chaos.”

You can win the data battle. Take it from our customers.

The Nasuni File Data Platform has already helped hundreds of customers with struggles just like these. On the final day of the conference, two of them took part in a speaker session led by our Chief Marketing Officer, Asim Zaheer.

Creator of Barbie and Hot Wheels, Mattel Inc. is one of the world’s best-known brands, while BorgWarner is a household name in the automaker sphere. Both have entrusted Nasuni with petabytes of data. During the session, they spoke openly about their transformative journeys.

Alex Goncharov of Mattel shared how the company’s expansion into entertainment put pressure on their existing infrastructure: “It was a constant rotation of ‘Hey, we’re out of space,’ we get it in, and a couple of months later we’re already starting to push up against that ceiling again.” Since partnering with Nasuni, those days are behind them: “For the last few years, all we get is praise. It works and it works well.”

For BorgWarner, it was a catastrophic event that catalyzed the move to Nasuni. Justin Voytal explained, “A tornado ripped the roof off one of our major plants. Within the data center, mud was pouring out of the switches. Our gear was gone.” Nasuni not only got them back up and running after that disaster, we also restored full remote access to data within just ten minutes when a hurricane cut-off access to another plant earlier this year.

We love our customers. We are even more proud that so many of them volunteer to speak about how much they love Nasuni.

Nasuni was an analyst magnet this year.

Gartner IOCS 2024 proved to be a big deal for tech companies. Analysts are the people writing the research, informing our customers, and opening up the market spaces we operate in. So, we were pleasantly surprised that the Nasuni booth became an unofficial hangout for reputable thought leaders. We had some fascinating conversations as a result, including with Julia Palmer, Research VP at Gartner, who told us that she believes Storage-as-a-Service will be increasingly sought after over the next decade as companies try to find new and efficient ways to manage their data. That’s why she forecasts the rise of the fully managed service.

Seeing our booth become the place to be for analysts was a big win and incredibly exciting, especially since they were able to interact with many Nasuni customers who also spent time at our booth.

We struck the perfect balance of fun and substantial.

There’s no question that the Nasuni booth was fun. Our stylish swag, attractive reps, unbridled humility, and car-racing heats (thanks, Mattel!) definitely got us noticed. But it takes more than giveaways and gimmicks to keep people around. Events like Gartner IOCS demand a blend of energy and expertise, and we brought both. While other booths were struggling to keep attention, ours was packed with engaged, interested visitors who stuck around to chat. We covered a wide range of topics, from consolidating geographically scattered data to reducing costs by moving away from traditional backup software.

Nasuni is running with the Hybrid Cloud Storage baton.

I was confident that Gartner IOCS 2024 would be a great opportunity for Nasuni. But even I wouldn’t have expected that we’d get double the traffic as compared to last year. We received interest from all angles — and not just passing intros. People exchanged ideas and formed new connections with us. The majority asked for us to follow up with them after the event. Seeing these familiar faces again at the Nasuni speaking session on the final day was the cherry on top.

Gartner is the firm shaping our landscape, choreographing the hype cycles, and publishing must-read research. They defined the hybrid cloud storage industry and Nasuni has picked up the baton and run with it. It feels great to be at the center of such an exciting and dynamic space, and we look forward to continuing to grow and evolve within it.

And, yes, we will be returning in 2025 (for both the London and Las Vegas events)! So, if you want to see what all the hype is about for yourself, make sure you build Nasuni into your next Gartner IOCS agenda.