Insight 2024: NetApp AFA ASA A-Series Storage Systems

NetApp, Inc. announced its new all-flash ASA A-Series storage systems, optimized for block storage, to enable storage modernization for every organization.

Netapp Afa

With these new systems and continued advancements to firm’s intelligent data infrastructure, customers no longer need to make tradeoffs between operational simplicity, high-end capabilities, and affordability in their storage.

The all-flash ASA A-Series systems are positioned to help customers manage their most advanced block storage workloads by providing 3 key benefits:

Simplicity: Customers will be able to leverage a storage solution so simple that anyone can deploy, manage, and upgrade it. With deployment in minutes and provisioning ins, adopting ASA systems is fast and hassle-free. And day-to-day management, driven by built-in AIO/s and deep integration with VMware, consists of a few steps that anyone can handle.
Power: IT teams can use the new systems to accelerate VMware and database apps with market-leading performance, proven reliability, and intelligent data management. The ASA A-Series delivers abundant performance and efficiency, from millions of IO/s to consistent sub-millisecond latency. With advanced features like scale-out clustering, seamless workload balancing, a “six 9s” availability guarantee, the Ransomware Recovery Guarantee from the company, and application-aware backup, users get market-leading storage that is ready to power and consolidate their block workloads.
Affordability: Organizations will get unmatched value with a 25-50% lower upfront price and better ROI over time. With this pricing, organizations can modernize to simple, powerful all-flash storage with industry-leading raw-to-effective storage efficiency while meeting budget limits. And low power consumption can increase savings while low operational overhead slashes the TCO over time.

To support the new ASA A-Series, NetApp has enhanced its Data Infrastructure Insights service, formerly Cloud Insights, to elevate the monitoring and analysis capabilities for the ASA platform. With these updates, customers can better manage visibility, optimization and reliability for their data infrastructure to increase savings and performance.

“Our customers tell us that the demands on their infrastructure keep intensifying so they need storage systems that deliver real value through power, affordability and simplicity,” said Sandeep Singh, SVP and GM of enterprise storage. “With the new NetApp ASA A-Series systems, our customers can modernize their operations to meet the demands of more powerful workloads on block storage without having to choose between operational simplicity and high-end capabilities. Simpler operations at an affordable price point ensure our customers have the time and resources to apply their powerful storage systems to drive innovation across their business.“

Continuing Investment in Intelligent Data Infrastructure
In addition to the ASA A-Series, the vendor is continuing to advance intelligent data infrastructure with the release of several new enhancements to its portfolio, including:

New FAS Systems: It has added to its portfolio of hybrid flash storage arrays with new FAS 70 mid-range and FAS 90 high-end FAS systems. FAS is for achieving a low cost of data over its lifecycle by auto-tiering cold data. These systems deliver affordable, yet high-performing backup storage, enabling a secure cyber vault for recovery from ransomware attacks.
Updates to Cloud Volumes Ontap: Ontap Autonomous Ransomware Protection (ARP) and WORM are available for no additional cost with Cloud Volumes Ontap (CVO). NetApp customers’ CVO licenses now include Ontap’s industry-leading cyber security features-no additional license needed-strengthening IT teams’ ability to fight ransomware attacks.
Enhancements to Native Cloud Services: There are now new features available for two of NetApp’s native cloud storage services, Google Cloud NetApp Volumes and Azure NetApp Files. For Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, the Premium and Extreme service levels now can provision large volumes starting at 15TB that can be scaled up to 1PB dynamically in increments of 1GB. Additionally, Google Cloud customers can achieve cost savings through auto tiering, which efficiently moves less frequently accessed data to lower-cost storage service levels. Azure NetApp Files now has new features for cost effective pricing and enhanced reliability. Azure customers can achieve cost savings through cool access auto tiering, which efficiently moves less frequently accessed data to lower-cost storage services. Additionally, users can improve data availability with cross-zone replication, enhancing data protection by replicating volumes across Azure availability zones.
New Features for BlueXP: NetApp released new features and updates to BlueXP to make unified management in a hybrid multicloud world simpler for IT. BlueXP’s newest software updates streamline the Ontap upgrade process with a service that identifies potential candidates, validates compatibility, reports on recommendations and benefits, and executes selected updates through intuitive wizards.

“What sets NetApp apart is not just the strength of its storage systems, as displayed by its new ASA A-Series, but also its comprehensive portfolio of solutions to support data operations both on-premises and in the cloud,” said Simon Robinson, principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, part of TechTarget. “The definition of value is changing for IT customers. It isn’t just about price or performance anymore; it’s both. Organizations are running increasingly advanced workloads but need to do so with budgets that they can sustain for the long term. By packaging incredible simplicity for block storage workloads with impressive performance and affordable TCO in its ASA A-Series, NetApp is giving organizations the tools they need to succeed in the era of data and intelligence.”

NetApp is now accepting orders for the ASA A-Series, which will begin shipping by the end of October 2024.

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