NetApp Helping Partners to Capitalize on Shift to Hybrid Cloud

At its annual NetApp Insight technical conference, NetApp, Inc. unveiled offerings for partners that help them capitalize on the shift to hybrid cloud.

These include specialization training, new services, and Data Fabric solution kits for partners to assist customers in piloting cloud projects.

Nearly 75% of enterprise organizations have a hybrid cloud strategy. But only 29% consider themselves good or excellent at managing data across multiple clouds¹. IT teams, tasked with quick response in a changing digital world, need knowledgeable resources to help them manage, move, and protect their data across any deployment model. NetApp is addressing this gap through investments in its partner ecosystem.

“The hybrid cloud gives organizations a platform for supporting new ideas and driving business transformation in ways they could never imagine,” said Bill Lipsin, VP WW channel, NetApp. “Partners with cloud skills, cloud-ready solutions, and expertise in data fabric architectures will be more successful reaching new buyers and strengthening existing relationships. NetApp supports our partners with services and solutions that help their customers realize the potential of the hybrid cloud and make the best decisions for their business.“

Data Fabric Services, Solutions, and Training for Partners
NetApp introduced its vision for Data Fabric a year ago at NetApp Insight 2014. Since then, the company has been working with its well-established and growing ecosystem of partners and service providers to deliver integrated solutions and services that make the Data Fabric real.

Baylor College of Medicine is among those customers already seeing improvements. Working closely with their NetApp partner, Presidio Networked Solutions, Inc., it delivered an infrastructure as a service for its researchers with a FlexPod private cloud solution. Researchers can begin their experiments sooner, get results more quickly, and improve their learning experience during their time at Baylor. The college has also saved more than $1.5 million in hardware costs so far.

NetApp’s partners are leading the way to help other organizations become cloud ready; protect their data wherever it resides; and improve application performance across flash, disk, and cloud resources.

NetApp unveiled the following training specializations to accelerate partner enablement
and spur more opportunity for its partner ecosystem:

• Partner Specialization programs: These training programs increase partners’ knowledge and capabilities in helping customers benefit from Data Fabric hybrid cloud solutions.
  • Clustered Data ONTAP Transition Services: A program for partners who have completed advanced training to assist customers with the full range of migration services, including full installation, advanced configuration, and data migration. NetApp distribution partners, such as Arrow Electronics, Inc. and Avnet, Inc., offer versions of this training for their reseller networks.
  • Clustered Data ONTAP Specialization: More than 200 NetApp partners, who have invested in this training to size, sell, and architect solutions based on NetApp’s OS have contributed to clustered Data ONTAP customers is up 130+% year over year growth (as of end of NetApp’s Q1FY16).
• Data Fabric Solution Essentials: These solution kits for specific workloads for partners to assist customers in piloting cloud projects. Kits combine software, systems, and/or services to speed deployment and show the immediate benefits of hybrid cloud.
  • Application Acceleration solution kit, aimed at database professionals, allows partners to deploy a small four-node cluster for their customers with SQL Server or Oracle databases. The kit showcases the capabilities of NetApp all-flash and clustered Data ONTAP to protect against data loss; provide high, consistent performance; and deliver data management across flash, disk, and cloud resources in a single platform.
  • OpenStack Solution Kit with FlexPod enables FlexPod Premium partners to get customers up and running on an OpenStack private cloud in days, not months, with known costs and capabilities.
  • Snap-to-Cloud DR solution kit offers partners a single replication solution to meet their customers’ needs for DR, business intelligence, data distribution, and development testing. Includes a one-year license for the NetApp cloud ONTAP software subscription as well as installation services and three years of support.
    

¹ Source: http://www.netapp.com/us/media/wp-data-fabric-cio.pdf