NetApp and Cisco Expand Collaboration to Enhance Cybersecurity
NetApp (NTAP) and Cisco (CSCO) announced an expansion of their collaboration to help customers strengthen defense-in-depth strategies for customers. Combining Intelligent Data Infrastructure with advanced analytics and observability capabilities, NetApp and Splunk have delivered deep, real-time visibility into storage and infrastructure health. Together, they are helping customers turn operational data into actionable insights that improve reliability, security, and business outcomes. By expanding their collaboration with the new NetApp Splunk Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response playbook, NetApp and Splunk are helping joint customers contain ransomware attacks and limit data loss at the storage layer, enhancing the containment of the blast radius of cyberattacks while increasing the speed and reducing the cost of recovery. To give customers the resiliency and flexibility they need to protect their data, Cisco and NetApp are releasing the NetApp Splunk SOAR playbook. Splunk Enterprise Security is already integrated with NetApp Ransomware Resilience to collect analytics from the data layer, enhancing incident triage and prioritization. With the new playbook, Splunk SOAR users can now use those signals as well as signals from other solutions to automatically take incident response actions directly on NetApp ONTAP storage as an integral part of their incident response. These actions include blocking a suspicious user, taking snapshots of the data and taking data volumes offline to protect against further infection. As a result, customers will be better able to contain ransomware attacks and limit data loss at the storage layer. Utilized as part of the organization's defense in depth security strategy, the NetApp Splunk SOAR playbooks help to strengthen collaboration between security and storage teams.
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- Jobs Data Surprises: The May jobs report revealed an increase of 172,000 payrolls, significantly exceeding the expected 80,000, which heightened concerns about the Federal Reserve maintaining elevated interest rates, leading to a broad market decline, particularly among high-valuation hardware stocks.
- Market Overreaction: As rate hike expectations rise, hardware and infrastructure companies like Dell (DELL) fell 3.5%, NetApp (NTAP) dropped 4.3%, and Everpure (P) decreased by 3.8%, presenting potential buying opportunities for investors looking for quality stocks amidst the volatility.
- NetApp's Strong Earnings: NetApp reported a 12.5% year-over-year revenue growth to $1.95 billion in Q1, with adjusted earnings per share of $2.43 surpassing analyst expectations, and the company provided an optimistic revenue guidance for the next quarter, 8.5% above consensus estimates, indicating robust profitability.
- Impressive Stock Performance: NetApp has surged 59.6% year-to-date, trading near its 52-week high of $181.08, and investors who purchased $1,000 worth of shares five years ago would now see their investment valued at $2,096, highlighting its long-term investment appeal.
- Earnings Beat: NetApp reported non-GAAP earnings of $2.43 per share for Q4 2026, exceeding the Zacks consensus estimate of $2.27, while revenues of $1.95 billion surpassed expectations of $1.86 billion, indicating strong market performance driven by cloud and AI demand.
- Surge in AI Demand: The company secured over 1,100 AI and data preparation wins in fiscal 2026, with 500 in Q4 alone, highlighting AI as a central growth driver, particularly in areas requiring high-performance storage and data mobility.
- Optimistic Outlook: Management forecasts fiscal 2027 revenues between $7.33 billion and $7.58 billion, with non-GAAP EPS of $8.70 to $9.00, reflecting 8% revenue growth and 9% earnings growth despite rising component costs.
- Cash Flow and Buybacks: NetApp generated $900 million in free cash flow in Q4 and returned $303 million to shareholders while increasing its share repurchase authorization by $1 billion, demonstrating a robust capital allocation strategy.
- Significant Earnings Growth: NetApp's net income surged by 19% year-over-year to $404 million in Q4 FY2026, demonstrating strong performance amid rapid AI growth, which further solidifies its market position.
- Revenue Continues to Rise: The company reported a 12.47% increase in net revenues to $1.948 billion, reflecting its leadership in hybrid cloud and intelligent data infrastructure, driving customer AI transformations.
- Impressive Annual Performance: For FY2026, NetApp's net income grew by 8% to $1.276 billion, with annual revenues increasing by 5% to $6.925 billion, indicating record highs across financial metrics and boosting investor confidence.
- Clear Strategic Positioning: CEO George Kurian emphasized that NetApp's unified data platform and flexible offerings support enterprises' AI scaling ambitions, ensuring sustained growth potential for the company despite competition from other AI stocks.
- Strong Market Performance: The S&P 500 rose by 0.22%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 0.72%, and the Nasdaq 100 climbed by 0.36%, with all three indices reaching new all-time highs, reflecting market confidence in economic recovery.
- Tech Stocks Lead Gains: Dell Technologies surged 32% after reporting Q1 total revenue of $43.84 billion, significantly exceeding the consensus estimate of $35.52 billion, and raised its 2027 revenue forecast to between $165 billion and $169 billion, indicating strong market demand and growth potential.
- Positive Economic Data: The May Chicago PMI rose by 13.5 to 62.7, far surpassing expectations of 50.3, marking the fastest expansion pace in 4.25 years, which further bolstered market confidence in stocks.
- Oil Price Decline Benefits Stocks: Crude oil prices fell over 1% to a five-week low due to a preliminary agreement between the US and Iran, easing inflation concerns and supporting the upward trend in the stock market.
- Earnings Beat Expectations: NetApp reported a 26% year-over-year increase in earnings for fiscal Q4 2026, reaching $2.43 per share, significantly surpassing analyst expectations of $2.27, highlighting the company's robust profitability and market demand.
- Significant Revenue Growth: The company's quarterly revenue rose 13% year-over-year to $1.95 billion, exceeding market expectations of $1.87 billion, indicating NetApp's sustained competitiveness in the data storage market.
- Stock Hits All-Time High: With shares surpassing $170, NetApp's stock price eclipsed the previous record of $148.63 set in 2000, reflecting strong investor confidence in the company's future growth prospects.
- Positive Future Outlook: Management's guidance for fiscal year 2027 consistently exceeds analyst projections, indicating strong demand and growth potential in the AI and data management sectors, further solidifying its market position.
- Strong Earnings Report: NetApp's fiscal Q4 2026 earnings per share reached $2.43, a 26% year-over-year increase, significantly surpassing analyst expectations of $2.27, highlighting the company's robust profitability and market demand.
- Significant Revenue Growth: The company reported revenue of $1.95 billion, a 13% increase from the previous year, exceeding market expectations of $1.87 billion, indicating sustained growth potential in the data storage and management sector.
- Stock Price Breaks Historical High: Following the earnings report, NetApp's stock surged to $170, surpassing the previous all-time high of $148.63 set in 2000, reflecting strong investor confidence in the company's future prospects.
- Strong Demand in AI Market: CEO George Kurian emphasized that as enterprise AI adoption scales, the need to manage large volumes of unstructured data is increasing, positioning NetApp's services as a critical driver of ongoing growth.











