NetApp Takes Australian Suncorp to the Cloud

NetApp, Inc. announced that Suncorp, an Australian diversified financial services company, has consolidated its storage environment and implemented an IT-as-a-service model based on the NetApp dynamic data center.

The overhaul has allowed Suncorp to standardize management of its storage environment, enabling greater storage efficiency and improving service levels across its business.

"We decided it was time to consolidate and standardize our storage environment with NetApp, as our annual storage growth was unsustainable," said Jeff Smith, Group Executive Business Technology of Suncorp.

Suncorp is deploying NetApp FAS6070, FAS6080, and FAS6030 systems; VMware; and NetApp storage virtualization technologies for its storage, network, and hosting infrastructure. The company is also simplifying administration, provisioning, and monitoring of its storage environment with SnapDrive, SnapManager, SnapVault, SnapMirror, Operations Manager, MultiStore, and FlexClone.

The NetApp implementation has allowed Suncorp to reduce its data centers from three locations to two, with the preproduction and production data centers linked by IP SAN. Suncorp is also one of the first customers in the world to virtualize its core and aggregation layers with Cisco Nexus 7000 switches.

"We worked with NetApp to create a best practice design for our storage infrastructure through the use of virtualization," said Smith. "By implementing NetApp, Cisco, and VMware technology, we have increased our storage efficiency, introduced greater flexibility, and reduced our total IT costs. We have also improved our ability to develop and bring new product and service applications to market and respond to customer demands quickly."

"NetApp demonstrated the importance of using a standards-based approach for the administration of a storage environment to deliver greater storage efficiencies, reduce the cost of ownership, and enable business breakthroughs," said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions and Alliances at NetApp. "Our collaboration with Suncorp is a shining example of how our innovative technologies continue to meet the market’s demand for solutions that address real business challenges."