Industry experts explain how modern, intelligent data foundations turn scattered, risky environments into trusted platforms for cloud and AI innovation.
Everyone wants the power of cloud and AI, but many enterprises are discovering a hard truth along the way: their data isn’t ready for the journey. Fragmented datasets, inconsistent governance, and sprawling environments introduce risk and slow innovation. Investments in an intelligent data infrastructure offer a strategic path forward, helping CIOs gain visibility, reduce complexity, and build a foundation that AI and cloud workloads can trust. To explore how, we asked members of the Foundry Influencer Network for their perspectives.
Why data sprawl—not tools or talent—is now the biggest barrier to secure cloud and AI adoption
For many CIOs, the challenge is no longer a lack of technology options. Instead, it’s the inability to see, govern, and secure data consistently across hybrid, multicloud, and edge environments. Having an intelligent data infrastructure is emerging as the way to replace reactive controls with embedded intelligence, giving IT leaders a clearer understanding of where data lives, how it’s used, and how it should be protected.
Will Kelly (LinkedIn: Will Kelly), a writer focused on AI and the cloud, sees having an intelligent data infrastructure as a meaningful shift away from reactive data handling and toward proactive control.
“Investing in [an] intelligent data infrastructure gives CIOs a way to tame sprawl by centralizing discovery, metadata, and governance while still letting teams work in the tools they prefer,” he says. “Think automated classification, policy-based access control, and built-in lineage so you can see who’s using which data in which AI workloads, instead of reverse-engineering it after an incident. The real takeaway is that [an] intelligent data infrastructure turns data from a reactive liability into a managed product that AI and analytics teams can safely build on.”
That ability to govern without slowing teams down is critical as organizations scale AI initiatives. Rather than layering manual processes on top of already fragmented systems, a unified data foundation allows governance, performance, and security to move together.
Better organization and visibility improve security and operational efficiency
For CIOs and CISOs alike, visibility has become one of the most elusive—and valuable—outcomes of modern infrastructure investments. Without clear insight into what data exists and how it’s being used, security and operations teams are forced to operate defensively.
Scott Schober (LinkedIn: Scott Schober), President/CEO at Berkeley Varitronics Systems, notes that intelligent data foundations give CIOs something they increasingly lack: clarity.
“As a small business owner specializing in cybersecurity, I’ve seen firsthand how quickly data can get out of control as companies expand into the cloud and start testing various AI tools,” he says. “Investing in [an] intelligent data infrastructure gives CIOs and IT teams better control when they bring everything back under one roof. When data is carefully organized, it becomes much easier to apply consistent security policies, spot issues early, and defend against new threats.”
Beyond day-to-day security, an intelligent data infrastructure also plays a foundational role in preparing data for advanced analytics and AI. Cleaning, classifying, and rationalizing data has traditionally been a slow, manual effort—one that often stalls innovation before it starts.
Peter van Barneveld (LinkedIn: Peter van Barneveld), Group Innovation Manager at Dustin, highlights how intelligence accelerates cleanup and readiness for AI. “Intelligent systems are the perfect start to get these complex and time-consuming projects underway. IT teams can take the lead in relocating raw data to an intelligent data system. Then the intelligent part will help visualize the mess by sharing insights on things like duplicates and the age of data. As a result, AI projects are more likely to succeed because they can rely on quality, clean data, and IT can manage security and operations with less complexity.”
As data volumes grow and threats evolve, resilience becomes just as important as organization. Intelligent platforms don’t just store data—they actively understand and protect it. Robert Siciliano (LinkedIn: Robert Siciliano), CEO at Protect Now LLC, describes how an intelligent data infrastructure adds resilience by understanding, deduplicating, and protecting data at scale.
“Investing in [an] intelligent data infrastructure represents a shift from buying ‘storage boxes’ to deploying active, software-defined platforms that use AI to manage the data they hold,” Siciliano says. “Intelligent systems present all data in a single, virtualized file system and automatically deduplicate files across the network. Because [an]intelligent [data] infrastructure now understands the data, it can detect strange patterns, too, such as a sudden massive encryption of files. If ransomware hits, you simply dial back to the snapshot taken five minutes ago. Investing in [an] intelligent [data] infrastructure turns data from sloppy, stagnant, risky, messy garbage into fluid, secure, and organized. It allows CIOs to stop worrying about where the data is and focus on putting the data to its effective use.”
Intelligent foundations strengthen zero trust, improve automation, and accelerate cloud + AI
As organizations adopt zero-trust models and automate more of their security and data operations, infrastructure intelligence becomes a force multiplier, reducing manual effort while improving consistency.
Vivek Singh (LinkedIn: Vivek Singh), Senior Vice President of IT and Strategic Planning at PALNAR, describes an intelligent data infrastructure as the key to real-time visibility and scalable governance. “By removing silos and reducing sprawl, [an] intelligent data infrastructure provides CIOs with a single, real-time view of their data. With integrated pipelines and AI-driven monitoring, it improves zero-trust security, automates classification and governance, and simplifies operations. Cleaner data, quicker decision-making, reduced risk, and an organization that can now scale cloud and AI projects are the outcomes.”
This shift away from manual intervention is critical as IT teams struggle to balance reliability, security, and innovation. Gene de Libero (LinkedIn: Gene de Libero), Principal Consultant at Digital Mindshare LLC, highlights how intelligence replaces constant firefighting with built-in trust.
“Intelligent data infrastructure unifies silos to eliminate sprawl, automating governance and security by default,” de Libero says. “By replacing manual firefighting with AI-driven reliability, it delivers the clean, trusted data required to accelerate AI outcomes and focus on high-value innovation.”
For engineering and platform leaders, this intelligence also translates into operational consistency, ensuring data pipelines are governed, clean, and secure from ingestion through consumption.
Mircea Trofimciuc (LinkedIn: Mircea Trofimciuc), VP of Engineering, Agentic AI at RealPage, emphasizes the operational and security uplift. “Smart investments in [an] intelligent data infrastructure — AI-orchestrated pipelines with real-time governance — are the antidote for CIOs in this storm. It curbs discrepancies through a unified platform that auto-ingest and cleanse data.”
At the executive level, the outcome of these investments is trust: trust in data accuracy, trust in security controls, and trust in the organization’s ability to adapt.
Sridhar Iyengar (LinkedIn: Sridhar Iyengar), Managing Director of Zoho Europe, explains why intelligent data foundations are now essential for clarity, trust, and enterprise resilience.
“For businesses today, investment in [an] intelligent, modern data infrastructure is needed to create the foundation for clarity, trust, and resilience,” he says. “When data is consolidated, contextualized, and continuously governed, CIOs and IT leaders gain a single, reliable source of truth. Security becomes proactive rather than reactive, with embedded controls and visibility that extend across the entire data lifecycle.”
Treat data infrastructure as a strategic investment
Across expert perspectives, one message is clear: An intelligent data infrastructure is more than an upgrade. It is a strategic requirement for organizations struggling with sprawl, risk, and operational complexity — and for those aiming to accelerate cloud and AI innovation.
By unifying data, enforcing governance, automating protection, and creating a trusted foundation for advanced workloads, CIOs can shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive value creation. An intelligent data infrastructure allows enterprises to treat their data as a strategic product — one that fuels innovation, strengthens resilience, and unlocks competitive advantage in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Learn how NetApp can help CIOs regain control over data sprawl, strengthen security, and reduce operational complexity with an intelligent data infrastructure built for hybrid and multicloud environments.