‘I don't think anybody else has the kind of portfolio today that we have’: NetApp UK & Ireland VP Puneet Gupta on market gains, sovereignty, and Novus deployment plans

Britain is a burgeoning market for NetApp, according to UK & Ireland VP Puneet Gupta, and with the recent launch of the company’s Novus system, it’s ripe for the picking.

Speaking to ITPro at NetApp Insight 2026, Gupta said the cloud storage provider has made significant headway in the UK in recent years. Indeed, since joining as VP for the region in December last year, he’s been shocked at the maturity and appetite among British businesses.

“I think the market has truly surprised me,” he told ITPro. “The growth in this market has been phenomenal. When you look from a distance, the usual view is that a mature market like the UK will have single-digit growth.”

“But look at how this market for external storage has grown. It’s remarkable.”

According to Gupta, figures from IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems (ESS) Historical Tracker for Q2 CY2026 show NetApp reached a 28.5% market share in the UK all-flash domain. This growth follows several quarters of consistent flash hardware revenue growth.

This represents a potential springboard for NetApp in the UK market, Gupta told ITPro. Crucially, it comes at a vital time for enterprises as many accelerate AI adoption and associated infrastructure overhauls to compensate for the technology.

Data readiness was a key talking point at NetApp’s annual conference last week, and the company has been highly vocal on this front in recent years. UK businesses, meanwhile, appear highly receptive to the messaging.

“The way customers are now thinking about their data, their data infrastructure, their AI infrastructure has been absolutely remarkable,” he said. “The conversations with customers have been pretty amazing in the last few months.”

“When you talk to customers, data is at the center of everything that they’re thinking, and whether it is around data sovereignty, whether it is around compliance, whether it’s how to leverage data … a lot of customers are planning that ahead of time, [and] are making the right investments.”

Sovereignty, in particular, is an area Gupta and his team are keen to capitalize on in the coming months. As ITPro reported at Insight 2026, the company unveiled the new Keystone Sovereign service, which is rolling out first to European customers before hitting shelves in the UK.

The new service, which sits within NetApp’s broader Keystone storage as a service (STaaS) offering, aims to provide customers with flexible sovereignty-related controls.

Since arriving in the UK last year, Gupta said this has become a common recurring talking point with customers and partners across the UK, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

“Every customer is thinking about sovereignty,” he told ITPro. “Every customer wants to be prepared for data sovereignty.”

Gupta’s engagement on this front comes amidst a sharpened focus on sovereignty-related concerns on both sides of the English Channel. Research from Civo in June this year found 73% of firms now view sovereignty as a “strategic priority”, for example.

Acting fast with NetApp Novus

An area of huge excitement for Gupta lies in the launch of NetApp Novus. Unveiled at the annual conference, this is a new zettabyte-scale file system designed specifically for organizations running AI factories.”

According to NetApp, storage has become the key bottleneck for AI factories, with outdated architectures unable to contend with the intense demands placed on infrastructure by high-performance GPU clusters.

Gupta told ITPro that with Novus, the company’s product range is now stronger than ever and represents the culmination of several years of work for the company. With this in mind, the company is keen to bang the drum for its new flagship service.

“I think the portfolio we have today, I haven’t seen anything like this in many, many years,” he said. “I've been at NetApp for six years. The first signs I think we got were three four years back when we refreshed the all-flash portfolio.”

“We refreshed everything, brought in new stuff. Our partnership with the hyperscalers, now the Novus announcement. I don't think anybody else has the kind of portfolio today that we have, and with Novus, I think we have leapfrogged everybody else.”

Gupta added that Novus will be “very powerful for momentum” both in the UK and further afield for NetApp in the coming months and years – but engagement and execution will be critical.

“In go-to-market, that’s where me and my team, our role, really comes into play,” he noted. “We have organized ourselves pretty well. We’ve hired, we’ve made investments, we’ve hired new leaders.”

“I think we are very well positioned in the market. Of course, the proof of the pudding is how we execute, and I’m very confident that the team is energized and very well positioned, and having the right conversations.”

With Novus targeting neoclouds and GPU as a Service providers specifically, Gupta said NetApp is also targeting heightened engagement with UK operators on this front – in particular, smaller providers.

“There are a fair amount of smaller neoclouds [in the UK],” he said. “We are talking to the smaller ones because the big ones have made their investments in the past, so that will be a different conversation.”

“For the neoclouds, they’ve got a lot of funding from the market, and obviously when they get funding, they need to give a return and there will be increasing pressure from investors to find that.”

This is a tactical move by NetApp designed to swerve the larger neoclouds already deeply integrated with industry big hitters, creating in-roads for the long term.

“Any tech company that goes to them and says ‘I'll find you a better return on your investment’ I think will be music to their ears.