Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP Storage Service

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company, announced the availability of Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP, a storage service that allows customers to launch and run complete, managed ONTAP file systems in the cloud for the first time.

ONTAP is a Netapp, Inc.’s file system technology that has traditionally powered on-premises NAS and provides a widely adopted set of data access and management capabilities. Amazon FSx for ONTAP enables customers to launch, run, and scale fully managed ONTAP file storage on AWS with a few clicks-giving customers the ability to migrate their applications that rely on NAS appliances to AWS without having to modify their applications, tools, processes, or workflows. It makes it possible for customers to deploy and manage their applications and data using the NAS workflows they already know and use today, and enjoy the agility, scalability, and security of AWS-along with integration with other AWS services. There are no upfront commitments or costs to use Amazon FSx for ONTAP, and customers only pay for the resources used.

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Organizations of all sizes are migrating their on-premises applications to the cloud to increase agility, accelerate innovation, improve security, and reduce costs. Many of those applications store the data they rely on in a NAS, providing multiple compute resources and multiple users with access to shared data. Today, many organizations store and manage their application data on premises using NAS powered by ONTAP, which provide storage and data management features that make it easy to manage applications and workloads. For example, application administrators depend on ONTAP to provide performance storage with features that make it easy to support their applications like multi-protocol access to network file shares, point-in-time snapshots for data protection, and data replication and cloning for redundancy. Storage administrators typically manage ONTAP deployments for multiple users and groups, and rely on standardized tools, workflows, and processes for managing file storage that are built around ONTAP’s administrative capabilities and APIs. Before today, if customers wanted to migrate their applications to the cloud, they would need to forgo the NAS data management capabilities they are familiar with, and in many cases, re-architect their applications, tools, and workflows, which required customers to expend time and effort to realize the agility, scalability, and security of the cloud.

Amazon FSx for ONTAP allows customers to launch, run, and scale fully managed ONTAP file storage on AWS with a few clicks-giving customers the ability to migrate their on-premises applications that rely on NetApp or other NAS to AWS without having to modify their applications or how they manage their data. It offers performance file storage that supports ONTAP’s familiar capabilities and features, including multi-protocol access to network file shares, point-in-time snapshots, SnapMirror (for data replication), and FlexClone (for data cloning). It also supports ONTAP’s storage features (de-dupe, compression, compaction, and thin provisioning) so customers can take advantage of their on-premises capabilities in the cloud. In addition to using the Amazon FSx API, customers can also manage Amazon FSx for ONTAP using ONTAP administrative APIs, allowing customers to continue deploying and managing storage using their existing tools, workflows, and processes. Amazon FSx for ONTAP provides HA and durability by automatically replicating data across multiple Availability Zones, and it supports data replication and backups across AWS Regions for even higher resiliency. With Amazon FSx for ONTAP, customers can now take advantage of ONTAP as a fully managed service in the cloud for the first time and enjoy familiar AWS APIs, tools, and seamless integration with other AWS services for a unified application experience.

“In collaborating with NetApp to deliver Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP, we’re giving customers the only complete cloud service that is built on ONTAP and provides its most popular features and capabilities,” said Wayne Duso, VP, file, edge, and data services, AWS. “Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP now makes it even easier for customers to migrate applications and run them on AWS using the same familiar file storage workflows and data management capabilities they use today on premises.“

“NetApp is a cloud-led software company that specializes in helping our customers get the most out of their data. ONTAP and its data management capabilities are integral for so many mission-critical workloads,” said Anthony Lye, EVP and GM, public cloud services, NetApp. “With Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP, we’ve brought NetApp’s trusted file storage and data management capabilities to the AWS Cloud. By providing a fully managed service that’s supported, run, and sold by AWS, we’re making it simple for customers to leverage the power of ONTAP for virtually any application.”

Amazon FSx for ONTAP joins Amazon FSx for Windows File Server and Amazon FSx for Lustre as the newest file system offered by Amazon Fsx – a suite of file storage services that makes it easy and cost effective to launch and run popular file systems that are fully managed by AWS. Customers can get started using Amazon FSx for ONTAP in minutes by creating a file system using the AWS Management Console, the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), the Amazon FSx API, or NetApp’s Cloud Manager. Once a file system is created, customers can access their data from Linux, macOS, or Windows clients by mounting their file systems using either the NFS, Service Message Block (SMB), or iSCSI protocols.

Customers can also configure any additional ONTAP features using the ONTAP REST API or CLI. As a fully managed service, Amazon FSx for ONTAP manages provisioning file servers and storage volumes, replicating data, installing file server software updates and patches, and managing HA features.

It is available in US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Africa (Cape Town, South Africa)), AsiaPac (Hong Kong), AsiaPac (Mumbai, India), AsiaPac (Seoul, Korea), AsiaPac (Singapore), AsiaPac (Sydney, Australia), AsiaPac (Tokyo, Japan), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt, Germany), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London, UK), Europe (Milan, Italy), Europe (Paris, France), Europe (Stockholm, Sweden), Middle East (Bahrain, Pakistan), South America (São Paulo, Brazil), AWS GovCloud (US-East), and AWS GovCloud (US-West).

CDW Corporation is a multi-brand provider of information technology solutions to business, government, education and healthcare customers in USA, UK, and Canada. “Many of our customers are looking to the cloud to provide a reliable and cost-effective environment for the DR and backup of their existing on-premises NetApp ONTAP data and business-critical applications,” said Tom DeCoster, VP, hybrid infrastructure, CDW. “By fully supporting ONTAP APIs and features like SnapMirror and SnapVault, Amazon FSx for ONTAP enables NetApp customers to seamlessly replicate their data from on premises to the AWS cloud, enhancing their ability to protect and recover data and applications without the need to alter their application code or management automation.“

FactSet Research Systems Inc.‘s analytics, high-quality data, and flexible technology help financial industry leaders drive productivity and performance and make better investment decisions. “Our legacy data centers leverage traditional storage solutions that support the HA and scalability of our applications,” said Demetry Zilberg, CTO, FactSet. “As we continue pivoting to the cloud with Amazon FSX for NetApp ONTAP, we are excited by the opportunity to benefit from combining the familiar constructs offered by enterprise storage solutions with the elasticity and simplicity of AWS’s native services. We believe this approach will reduce our execution risk as we migrate applications that depend on our current architecture.“

Rescale is a technology company that builds cloud software and services that enable organizations of every size to deliver the engineering and scientific breakthroughs that enrich humanity. “At Rescale-a widely adopted platform for modern, cloud HPC-we manage and provide intelligent automation for the most demanding computational workloads,” said Joris Poort, founder and CEO, Rescale. “We see Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP as a huge step forward to deliver the best of cloud infrastructure for demanding HPC workloads. On-premises HPC workloads can seamlessly burst to the cloud using ONTAP’s efficient data movement and caching tools without requiring any changes to the underlying application logic.“

Logz.io SLA is a cloud observability platform that enables engineers to use open source tools in the market without the complexity of operating, managing, and scaling them. “As a cloud-native company, we rely on a variety of AWS services to drive efficiency and cost savings in our product development,” said Tomer Levy, CEO, Logz.io. “We expect that Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP will streamline our application development process by letting us automatically provision new storage in minutes, instantly clone our application’s configuration and resources using NetApp FlexClone, and easily monitor performance and availability of our storage using the same AWS APIs that currently manage our production application.“

Sysdig, Inc. delivers solutions to secure and operate containers, so customers can confidently run cloud-native workloads in production. “Kubernetes and containerized microservices are becoming a common way to deploy business critical apps in the cloud,” said Suresh Vasudevan, CEO, Sysdig. “Our Secure DevOps platform brings a wealth of security and monitoring capabilities to Kubernetes containers for customers running cloud-native applications. We are excited about using Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP as a shared data layer within our offering, enabling us to more quickly deliver new capabilities to customers.“

Resources:
Fully managed storage built on NetApp’s popular ONTAP file system
Blog AWS: Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP
NetApp Blog: Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP