John Furrier, Founder of SiliconANGLE, the Cube, spoke with Todd Palmer, Vice President of Americas Channels for NetApp at the Oracle Open World 2012 Customer Event. In regards to the relationship between Oracle and NetApp, Palmer feels this is a tremendous opportunity with Oracle being the largest database platform in the world. Companies are looking for the most efficient ways to store their large amounts of data. The massive ingest rate of big data being turned into information is a challenging but great opportunity. Palmer notes that storage is the best business to be in right now, "If you look at every single one of the cities and municipalities, they're now putting video cameras at every single street corner to see, real-time, what's going on to make sure they're keeping their people safe. All that data's got to go somewhere." There seems to be some complexity involved in acquiring the required technology for businesses. Big data is complex with multiple manufacturers. Resellers must be an integral part of the equation to bring solutions to the customers. Many companies are migrating toward the Cloud. Palmer continues, "Our partners, they have to figure out a way to monetize what's going on. I think a lot of our resellers and partners today are either going to launch cloud services themselves, or if that's not a part of their business plans they need to partner with people and resell or white-label those cloud services offerings." NetApp has a big practice around educating their partners regarding the available opportunities and aiding them in the decision-making process. Customers are looking for the best-of-breed integrated solution offerings. The market is moving rapidly and businesses are being asked to do more with less every single day. Customers are looking for people to come to them with solutions to their business problems and help them with that decision. Palmer states, "I think they're looking for either manufacturers to provide them that information, or more importantly, our partners to provide them that information." Palmer discusses the potential for channel conflict, "Our partners tell us all the time, they care about three things: They want innovative products, they want predictability. Predictability in margins, predictability of your partnership and the third thing is, they want to be aligned with your sales organization." NetApp wants to do all of their business with their partners, so they align their partner and app sales teams to ensure just that. The NetApp outlook of accomplishments for next year at Oracle Open World is virtual infrastructure and big data.