NetApp has announced new software, services, and partnerships at NetApp Insight North America 2014, all of which are designed to simplify data management across clouds. The announcement includes several new components including a new version of the NetApp clustered Data ONTAP operating system, Cloud ONTAP, OnCommand Cloud Manager, and NetApp Private Storage for Cloud. These offerings allow customers to leverage the flexibility of the hybrid cloud, while maintaining control of their data.
NetApp has announced new software, services, and partnerships at NetApp Insight North America 2014, all of which are designed to simplify data management across clouds. The announcement includes several new components including a new version of the NetApp clustered Data ONTAP operating system, Cloud ONTAP, OnCommand Cloud Manager, and NetApp Private Storage for Cloud. These offerings allow customers to leverage the flexibility of the hybrid cloud, while maintaining control of their data.
Data in different parts of a hybrid cloud system need to be connected in order to form an integrated system that makes data management and transport simple. NetApp's vision of this "data fabric" will allow data to be consistently managed and transported seamlessly from one part of the cloud to another and will give enterprises the ability to apply consistent policies and services to the data in the hybrid cloud regardless of the application, technology, or cloud infrastructure provider.
NetApp's Data Fabric includes several fundamental components:
Clustered Data ONTAP 8.3: Enhancements to the company’s software-defined storage operating system help organizations improve their availability, performance, and efficiency. New support for NetApp MetroCluster Disaster Recovery Software provides enterprises with uninterrupted recovery from failures across data centers allowing critical business applications to continue operating in the event of disasters or planned outages.
The latest version of Data ONTAP also includes performance optimizations for all-flash nodes so that customers can maximize performance without sacrificing data services. The new software includes increased efficiency that significantly improves the cost per gigabyte as well as the cost per IOPS of clustered Data ONTAP, which results in better return on investment for organizations.
Cloud ONTAP: Cloud ONTAP brings clustered Data ONTAP to the public cloud. The first release of Cloud ONTAP combines virtualized software only instance of clustered Data ONTAP 8.3 with the scale of Amazon Web Services (AWS). In addition, Cloud ONTAP uses NetApp technologies for non-disruptive operations, seamless scalability, and efficiency and combines them with the on-demand computing benefits of cloud services. This approach provides a consistent set of data services throughout a hybrid cloud environment. AWS is the first platform provider to run Cloud ONTAP services on its environment. To help customers take advantage of Cloud ONTAP, NetApp is also offering several cloud-friendly and traditional data center licensing options.
OnCommand Cloud Manager: OnCommand Cloud Manager offers users efficient and easy provisioning of clustered Data ONTAP instances between private cloud and public cloud providers. It also provides a simple and intuitive graphical user interface to give customers and partners useful visibility into their hybrid cloud environment and eliminates the complexity of storage setup and movement of data from one location to another.
NetApp Private Storage for Cloud: NetApp Private Storage (NPS) for Cloud allows customers to use multiple clouds and maintain control of their data on a single NetApp data storage device that is placed in select colocation facilities. The cloud solution also combines cloud elasticity and savings with the performance, availability, and control of private, dedicated enterprise storage.
Strategy, Design, Deployment, and Transition Services: NetApp has also announced new services including the Enterprise Transformation Workshop for Cloud, which helps customers envision and architect the right cloud storage strategy for a successful evolution to the hybrid cloud. For organizations looking to optimize the deployment of NetApp technology in their infrastructure, NetApp offers the Efficiency and Optimization Service, which performs a comprehensive storage-level health check and analysis to help pre-empt transition problems and enhance performance. In addition, for new and existing customers moving to clustered Data ONTAP software, the clustered Data ONTAP Migration Service, RapidData Migration QuickStart Service, and self-help migration tools facilitate a smooth and simple transition.
SteelStore
NetApp has also announced the acquisition of Riverbed Technology’s SteelStore product line in an all-cash transaction amounting to approximately $80 million. The SteelStore product line supports leading backup applications and cloud providers so that customers can choose how they extend their existing data protection infrastructure into the cloud. NetApp will also offer enterprises cloud-integrated storage that securely and efficiently backs up data to both private and public cloud environments. SteelStore is slated for a release during NetApp's fiscal third quarter of 2015.
