$3.68. That’s how much it costs for my 12oz double latte at our local coffee shop. Something is comforting about knowing exactly what the price will be. Whether I go in on a Monday morning to kick off the week with some caffeine or stop by on the weekend as an indulgence while running errands, my order is always $3.68. I know I can get my latte and leave a tip with a $5 bill, no fussing with swiping a card or dealing with change.

After taking initial steps to migrate to the cloud, many IT organizations look to leverage more advanced cloud technologies and applications to underpin their digital initiatives. This goes beyond core compute and storage infrastructure and extends to technologies that directly enable new applications in the most efficient way possible.

Last month Spot by NetApp launched Spot PC, and I couldn’t be prouder of the result. I want to take a minute to reflect on the journey that got us here and (hopefully) share some of my unbridled enthusiasm and optimism. Within NetApp there is a group of roughly 1,000 employees working on Cloud Services. Over the past 2-3 years, this group has been expanding rapidly, including several strategic acquisitions.

Enter password. Two of the most annoying words when using technology, whether it be your phone, a web site, or a computer. Remembering each password without plastering your monitor with sticky notes is a pain. Did I create this one with the kids’ initials in age order or alphabetically? Did I capitalize the dog’s name or not? And was it my anniversary date or the day we moved into our house?

IDC recently conducted a study of Spot by NetApp customers exploring the value and benefits of using Spot to manage and optimize their cloud resources. They discovered that Spot customers are realizing significant value in terms of ROI, more productive DevOps teams, as well as faster deployments and time to market.

I hope you are as excited as we are about all the Kubernetes buzz from Valencia with KubeCon EU 2022 happening this week! There are two significant announcements that we are happy to share with you. First, the serverless Spark-on-Kubernetes platform from Spot by NetApp, Ocean for Apache Spark, is now available on GCP. This announcement comes two months after the platform was declared generally available on AWS.

MSPs have a fantastic opportunity now. Many businesses are offering their employees a hybrid work model — the opportunity to split their time between working in the office and at home. The age of hybrid work is here and, as it appears, here to stay. For many businesses it’s not only the right thing to do, it’s also necessary to satisfy current requirements and attract and retain employees.

We’re thrilled to announce that Spot by NetApp has joined The FinOps Foundation as a Premier Member! Joining the FinOps Foundation is a natural extension of Spot by NetApp’s mission to help companies to get the most out of their cloud investments through world-class CloudOps. The FinOps Foundation is a non-profit technology consortium focused on advancing the people and practice of cloud financial management through best practices, education, and standards.