What role do cloud-native architectures and APIs play in enabling seamless data flow and real-time insights for better decision-making?
Grant Caley: Cloud-native architectures and APIs have revolutionised how data is consumed, created and moved. It’ s not yet the perfect solution, but compared to on-premises architectures, it is much better.
There is still work to be done to increase data fluidity, governance and cost of delivering. But cloud providers, along with companies who deliver data management in the cloud – such as NetApp – are making rapid progress on making this a reality.
Ann Maya: Cloud-native architectures yield elasticity, resilience and locationagnostic deployment, all of which are crucial as data continues to double every few years. APIs are also critical, as the true lifeblood of real-time integration.
Together, cloud-native and API ecosystems enable the kind of eventdriven architectures and continuous data pipelines that make real-time business insights and automation possible. The opportunity is enormous, but as enterprises adopt multiple cloud environments and APIs multiply, it will be more difficult to maintain visibility and governance.
With the volumes of data only increasing, finding the balance of scale, performance and control will be essential to keeping data flowing and achieving real-time oversight.
“Cloud-native architectures and APIs have revolutionised how data is consumed, created and moved”
Grant Caley, UKI Solutions Director, NetApp
170 December 2025