Analyst(s): Camberley Bates & Krista Case
Publication Date: April 21, 2025
NetApp and Google Cloud have enhanced Google Cloud NetApp Volumes with features to simplify the deployment of AI, EDA, and high-performance enterprise workloads. The updates focus on improved scalability, throughput, flexible performance provisioning, and compliance alignment.
What is Covered in this Article:
- Integration of NetApp Volumes with Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform for custom agent development
- Expanded volume capacity and throughput in Premium and Extreme service levels to support large datasets
- Enhanced Flex tier offering with independent scaling of capacity and performance
- Upcoming support for Google Cloud Assured Workloads to address compliance requirements
The News: NetApp and Google Cloud introduced a series of enhancements to Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, aimed at simplifying the deployment and scaling of high-performance workloads in the cloud. The updates focus on use cases such as electronic design automation (EDA), AI model training, and petabyte-scale content repositories.
Key additions include direct integration with Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform, enabling customers to use NetApp Volumes data to build custom AI agents without complex data pipelines. Performance upgrades now allow the provisioning of single volumes from 15TiB to 1PiB with throughput up to 30 GiB/s in the Premium and Extreme service levels. The Flex tier now supports independent capacity and performance provisioning, while future support for Assured Workloads will help meet region-specific compliance standards.
Can NetApp Volumes Deliver on AI and EDA Storage Demands in the Cloud?
Analyst Take: The expansion of the NetApp and Google relationship with added functionalities reflects a measured approach to solving enterprise challenges around performance, scalability, cost optimization, and compliance in the cloud. In particular, it leverage NetApp’s long-time presence in the EDA market, potentially expanding those relationships into Google’s Cloud.
Performance and Scale Improvements Target High-End Workloads
With the ability to provision single volumes starting at 15TiB and scaling up to 1PiB, and throughput reaching up to 30 GiB/s, Google Cloud with NetApp Volumes now provides infrastructure capable of supporting performance-intensive workloads such as EDA and AI training. These updates eliminate the need to partition datasets across multiple volumes, reducing administrative complexity and performance bottlenecks. For organizations that rely on fast, consistent access to large data repositories, such capabilities are essential to maintaining workflow efficiency. The enhancements clearly position Google with NetApp Volumes as a strong option for enterprises that want to consolidate storage at scale without compromising throughput.
Vertex AI Integration Supports More Efficient AI Development
The preview integration with Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform enables organizations to build custom AI agents directly on NetApp Volumes data. By eliminating the need to replicate data or build external pipelines for retrieval augmented generation (RAG) use cases, customers can reduce architectural complexity, minimize paying for unused cloud resources, and maintain tighter control over data usage. The ability to access and use enterprise data natively in Vertex AI contributes to faster experimentation and deployment of intelligent applications. This integration introduces a meaningful advantage for enterprises seeking operational alignment between storage and AI workflows.
Flex Tier Expansion Balances Performance with Cost Controls
The improved Flex service level enables independent scaling of capacity, throughput (up to 5 GiB/s), and IOPS (up to 160K). This decoupling allows organizations to make provisions based strictly on their performance requirements without overcommitting to storage size. Such configurability can help manage cloud costs more effectively for workloads that fluctuate in intensity. The granular and resource-efficient delivery model is increasingly important in budget-conscious enterprise environments.
Assured Workloads Support Enhances Compliance Readiness
NetApp Volumes is expected to support Google Cloud’s Assured Workloads framework shortly, providing pre-configured compliance capabilities around data residency, access control, and key management. This feature reduces the complexity of meeting regulatory obligations by offering a managed path to align with governance requirements in specific jurisdictions. For organizations operating in regulated sectors or across multiple regions, such compliance-oriented features embedded at the storage level allow for easier policy enforcement and infrastructure standardization. This addition reinforces NetApp’s positioning within industries prioritizing security and regulatory clarity.
What to Watch:
- The integration with Vertex AI may encourage enterprises to build more AI-native workflows directly on NetApp Volumes, reducing infrastructure duplication and supporting faster AI experimentation.
- The expanded throughput and scale in the Premium and Extreme tiers could drive adoption in EDA and AI model training environments where high-volume data access is non-negotiable.
- Adoption of the Flex tier enhancements will be a key indicator of how successfully enterprises can reduce cloud waste and balance storage provisioning against budget priorities.
- As support for Assured Workloads rolls out, its ease of implementation and impact on compliance posture will be critical to broader uptake, particularly in healthcare, public sector, and financial services.
See the complete press release on the partnership between NetApp and Google Cloud to enhance NetApp Volumes for AI and high-performance workloads on the NetApp website.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other insights from The Futurum Group:
NetApp Revenue Grows 2%, Driven by Key All-Flash and Storage-as-a-Service Offerings
NetApp Introduces New Members to the ASA Block Storage Family
Author Information
Now retired, Camberley brought over 25 years of executive experience leading sales and marketing teams at Fortune 500 firms. Before joining The Futurum Group, she led the Evaluator Group, an information technology analyst firm as Managing Director.
Her career spanned all elements of sales and marketing including a 360-degree view of addressing challenges and delivering solutions was achieved from crossing the boundary of sales and channel engagement with large enterprise vendors and her own 100-person IT services firm.
Camberley provided Global 250 startups with go-to-market strategies, creating a new market category “MAID” as Vice President of Marketing at COPAN and led a worldwide marketing team including channels as a VP at VERITAS. At GE Access, a $2B distribution company, she served as VP of a new division and succeeded in growing the company from $14 to $500 million and built a successful 100-person IT services firm. Camberley began her career at IBM in sales and management.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from California State University – Long Beach and executive certificates from Wellesley and Wharton School of Business.
Krista Case brings over 15 years of experience providing research and advisory services and creating thought leadership content. Her vantage point spans technology and vendor portfolio developments; customer buying behavior trends; and vendor ecosystems, go-to-market positioning, and business models. Her work has appeared in major publications including eWeek, TechTarget and The Register.
