NetApp announced the availability of NetApp BlueXP, a unified control plane delivering a simple hybrid multicloud experience for storage and data services across on-premises and cloud environments. Previously referred to as Cloud Manager, BlueXP allows user to manage their broader hybrid multicloud data estate, including on-premises unified storage and first-party native storage across public cloud providers.
NetApp announced the availability of NetApp BlueXP, a unified control plane delivering a simple hybrid multicloud experience for storage and data services across on-premises and cloud environments. Previously referred to as Cloud Manager, BlueXP allows user to manage their broader hybrid multicloud data estate, including on-premises unified storage and first-party native storage across public cloud providers.
BlueXP offers different teams the ability to innovate in different clouds but still have a single unifying management environment. Built-in AIOps in BlueXP works across on-premises and AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud environments providing the tools to optimize and automate. BlueXP can turn on data services with a single click, allowing customers to do backup, sync, tiering, data governance, and more. BlueXP is the one place to do all of this with a consistent experience, including the power to leverage an “APIs first” automation capability.
George Kurian, Chief Executive Officer at NetApp, said:
“With the launch of BlueXP, NetApp is uniquely positioned to help organizations unlock the promise of the cloud by making infrastructure, applications, and data true assets to their business. By taking an evolved cloud approach, customers can integrate cloud into their architecture and operations, eliminate complexity and increase their speed of innovation to deliver quickly on the business outcomes that matter most.”
Putting Evolved Cloud in the hands of all Ops teams
The BlueXP console is simple, bringing together the organization’s entire data estate as one unified management experience with the ability to discover, deploy, and manage all NetApp resources and operations, regardless of location, whether on-premises or in the cloud.
An intuitive web-based UI and unified APIs with role-based access control allow broad utility across the organization, putting the power of the evolved cloud in the hands of ITOps, CloudOps, DevOps, SecOps, and even FinOps teams with a common framework, addressing headcount and skillset constraints that many organizations struggle to fill.
An integrated Digital Wallet service in BlueXP allows users to flex financial commitments as workloads shift. An example is the NetApp Keystone Advisor in BlueXP, which helps determine which clusters should be replaced with Keystone storage as a service, including estimates of the projected service levels and pricing in advance. And BlueXP aligns technology and financial objectives into a common fungible “currency” to make using NetApp services seamless, shifting certain entitlements between storage and data services as workload conditions change over time.
Try NetApp BlueXP
NetApp has developed a free trial for users to get a feel for how BlueXP works. The sign-up process is simple, but it should be an admin with permission to access accounts in the public cloud and the servers on-premise.
The initial step is to link your NetApp product account with BlueXP. Creating a new account is easy enough and only takes a few minutes to complete.
After logging into BlueXP, you will be presented with the splash screen.
If you click the Go To Console button, you will be taken to a setup screen.
The first step is to add the working environment. BlueXP will walk through the steps and provide guidance based on the selection.
After clicking Add Working Environment, you are presented with the option to choose your location.
In this case, On-Premise was selected and presented us with a type selection. Beneath each type, there is a down arrow, and clicking that arrow will bring up more information on each type.
Once a type is selected, it will be necessary to deploy a connector to the services used for BlueXP. There is the option to skip this step and go directly to deployment.
These are the providers presented when choosing the connector type.
This is where it will be specific to the environment getting set up.
NetApp put a lot of effort into this product to give a feel for the flexibility and the services available to connect. Worth taking a look at the service.
NetApp BlueXP Highlights
Unified Storage Management: The SaaS-delivered BlueXP global control plane gives a single point of visibility and management over wide-ranging hybrid multicloud environments. This includes the ability to manage NetApp AFF, FAS, StorageGRID, and E-Series on-premises storage and the major clouds with Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP, Azure NetApp Files, Google Cloud Volumes Service and Cloud Volumes ONTAP, all in a single console.
AIOps-Driven Health: Integrated AI/ML-driven automation reduces workforce demands, resource loads, and risk profile, while AI-enabled health and status monitoring not only alerts of infrastructure and workload issues but offers proactive guidance to avoid trouble scenarios. BlueXP integrates NetApp’s leading Active IQ technology for always-on telemetry across the hybrid multicloud.
Cyber Resilience: Unified data protection and security control with an integrated zero-trust model. A single ransomware dashboard provides company-wide visibility into ransomware vulnerabilities with the ability to fix many issues automatically with a single click.
BlueXP provides integrated protection of your data and your infrastructure, allowing you to map and secure your data against threats from any source in one place. True cyber resilience is achieved with BlueXP since it combines data protection through its block-level, incremental-forever backup capability (including replication, mirroring, and synchronization options) with advanced cyber resilience technology to protect your entire data estate.
The Ransomware Protection dashboard in BlueXP can be a key strategy, with integrated AIOps enabling overall ransomware protection score and highlighting opportunities to strengthen defenses. BlueXP also offers one-click recommendations to automate the resolution of issues and further improve your score.
Governance at a Glance: A complete view of the digital estate to monitor compliance and permissions. The AI/ML capability audits user and data-level activity, immediately detecting anomalies and taking prescribed actions.
Seamless Mobility: Integrated data movers allow for copying, syncing, tiering, and caching data across all major clouds and the data center as easily as “drag and drop.” Integrated security and efficiencies ensure data is protected in transit and stored on the lower-cost storage tier possible.
Flexible Consumption: BlueXP allows customers to only pay for the capabilities they need, billed on usage. A Digital Wallet allows for licenses for data services to be easily interchanged as an enterprise’s needs change. NetApp Keystone, the leading Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) offering, is integrated into BlueXP to allow customers to manage their consumption-based data center storage alongside their cloud storage.
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