Insight: NetApp Adds and Enhances Capabilities Across Hybrid Cloud Portfolio

At Insight 2021, NetApp, Inc. announced additions and enhanced capabilities across its hybrid cloud portfolio to help organizations modernize their IT infrastructures and accelerate digital transformation.

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Delivering new secure ways to consume and operate data services on-premises and in the cloud, the company’s hybrid cloud solutions make it simpler for enterprise customers to put their data to work – wherever and whenever they need it.

As a solutions provider with native integrations for the world’s largest public clouds, ONTAP software continues to serve as the foundation for hybrid cloud. With the latest release of ONTAP, the firm is introducing enhanced protection vs. ransomware, expanded data management capabilities, and NVMe/TCP support for accelerated performance. The company is also announcing digital wallet capabilities for NetApp Cloud Manager and enhanced data services for simplified administration across a hybrid cloud, more flexible consumption options to better control costs, as well as ‘Professional Services’ offerings to help customers unlock the full value of on-premises and hybrid cloud resources.

“The promised benefits of migrating to the cloud may be profound, but many IT departments are still working to overcome on-premises challenges, like managing the complexity and costs of moving data, protecting vs. ransomware, and ensuring reliable performance for critical applications,” said Brad Anderson, EVP, hybrid cloud group. “As the hybrid cloud specialist, NetApp can help enterprises move their digital transformation efforts forward to deliver business results faster and within budget-whether they are still developing a strategy or in the middle of executing large-scale migrations.“

“IDC’s research shows that approximately 70% of enterprise IT customers plan to modernize their storage infrastructures in the next two years to support next-gen workloads. But the key operational advantage will be in optimizing workload placement across traditional on-premises and cloud environments,” said Eric Burgener, research VP, infrastructure systems group, IDC. “As an industry leader with years of innovation and expertise delivering hybrid cloud solutions, NetApp is uniquely positioned to help enterprises transition to hybrid cloud models to achieve the scalability and flexibility they need to deliver critical data services and workload capabilities that drive business value.“

“Formula One racing has always been about finding the competitive edge, and with Aston Martin Cognizant’s return to the F1 grid this year, we’re embracing an ambitious data-centric strategy to maximize our performance both on and off the track as we seek pole position,” said Otmar Szafnauer, CEO and team principal, Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team. “By partnering with NetApp to build our data fabric and standardize operations with its world-class hybrid cloud solutions, we’re working to ensure that everything we do-from capturing real-time data on car and component performance to how we streamline factory and engineering operations-is focused on constant improvement and driving the team forward.“

Company’s latest portfolio innovations announced include:

• ONTAP data management software enhancements: The latest release of ONTAP enables enterprises to autonomously protect vs. ransomware attacks based on ML with integrated preemptive detection and accelerated data recovery. This release also delivers enterprise-grade performance for SAN and modern workloads with NVMe/TCP support, expanded object storage capabilities, and simplified management. In addition, this latest release will power the upcoming AFF A900, the next-gen resiliency all-flash system for business-critical workloads.

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• Enhanced data services: With digital wallet capabilities available in Cloud Manager, customers can benefit from mobility and more visibility into usage of data service licenses across a hybrid cloud, with prepayment of credits enabling streamlined deployment to avoid procurement hassles. Additional updates include enhancements to Cloud Backup and Cloud Data Sense services, simplified deployment of Cloud Volumes ONTAP with new customer-ready templates, fully embedded Active IQ, and deeper integrations with Cloud Insights and ONTAP software to support Kubernetes workloads.

• More Flexible Consumption Options: Keystone Flex Subscription, an on-premises storage-as-a-service offering with native cloud integration, continues to gain momentum with customers. The offering is supported on 4 continents-encompassing petabytes of capacity within just under 1 year of availability. The company is offering a freemium service tier for Cloud Volumes ONTAP, providing customers with access to a fully featured, perpetual license to use ONTAP in the cloud for workloads needing less than 500GB of storage. This consumption flexibility gives organizations the freedom to use enterprise-grade data services for small workloads such as Kubernetes clusters at no initial cost. An organization only needs to convert to a subscription when the workload matures and scales.

“As a leading IT consultancy specializing in cloud infrastructure and services, our clients are increasingly working with us to reduce CAPEX spending by taking advantage of cloud-like consumption models for their on-premises environments,” said Kent Christensen, virtual practice director, cloud and data center transformation, Insight. “NetApp Keystone helps us provide a truly flexible consumption model for enterprises, serving as a platform to provide business-critical data services across the entire hybrid cloud data fabric, which will be a huge boon for our growing client base.“

• More Accessible Hybrid Cloud Expertise: The company is also introducing ‘Support and Professional Services’ offerings to make it easier to access experts for step-by-step guidance as they transition to hybrid cloud. With SupportEdge Advisor for Cloud, the firm is extending its data center support model to cloud services with rapid, direct access to trained specialists. The company’s ‘Flexible Professional Services’ (FlexPS) is also available for customers that require on-demand and ongoing support as they transition to a hybrid cloud. With this new subscription-based offering, organizations can get the professional help they need to design and build a data fabric strategy, implement solutions, and optimize their hybrid cloud with predictable costs and avoid procurement delays.

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Resources:
Meet specialists: NetApp Insight 2021 digital, October 20-22
NetApp hybrid cloud portfolio