NetApp expands hybrid cloud solutions portfolio to unlock the best of cloud

NetApp has announced new additions and enhanced capabilities across its hybrid cloud portfolio, helping organisations modernise their IT infrastructures and accelerate digital transformation.

According to the software company, NetApp hybrid cloud solutions make it easier for enterprise customers to put their data to work wherever and whenever they need it.

"As the only solutions' provider with native integrations for the world's largest public clouds, NetApps industry-leading ONTAP software continues to serve as the foundation for hybrid cloud," it says.

With the latest release of ONTAP, NetApp is introducing enhanced protection against ransomware, expanded data management capabilities, and NVMe/TCP support for accelerated performance. The company is also announcing new 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, and new 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 against ransomware, and ensuring reliable performance for critical applications," says NetApp executive VP, Hybrid Cloud group, Brad Anderson.

"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."

Eric Burgener, research vice president, Infrastructure Systems Group at analyst firm IDC, says recent research shows that approximately 70% of enterprise IT customers plan to modernise their storage infrastructures in the next two years to support next-generation workloads.

"But the key operational advantage will be in optimising workload placement across traditional on-premises and cloud environments," he says.

"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."

According to NetApp, innovative organisations leading their respective industries are adopting NetApp hybrid cloud solutions to accelerate digital transformation.

A hybrid cloud strategy has become a strategic imperative for organisations navigating an increasingly distributed and disrupted world, where agility and adaptability are crucial to survival.

NetApp's latest portfolio innovations announced include:

• ONTAP Data Management Software Enhancements: The latest release of ONTAP enables enterprises to autonomously protect against ransomware attacks based on machine learning with integrated pre-emptive detection and accelerated data recovery. The new 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 ONTAP release will power the upcoming NetApp AFF A900, the next-generation high-resiliency all-flash system for business-critical workloads.
• Enhanced Data Services: With new digital wallet capabilities available in NetApp Cloud Manager, customers can benefit from greater 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 NetApp 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 NetApp Cloud Insights and ONTAP software to support Kubernetes workloads.
• More Flexible Consumption Options: NetApp Keystone Flex Subscription, an on-premises storage-as-a-service offering with native cloud integration, continues to gain momentum with customers. The offering is now supported on four continents - encompassing petabytes of capacity within just under one year of availability. NetApp is now offering a new 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 organisations the freedom to use enterprise-grade data services for small workloads such as Kubernetes clusters at no initial cost. An organisation only needs to convert to a subscription when the workload matures and scales.
• More Accessible Hybrid Cloud Expertise: NetApp is also introducing new Support and Professional Services offerings to make it even easier to access experts for step-by-step guidance as they transition to hybrid cloud. With SupportEdge Advisor for Cloud, NetApp extends its data center support model to cloud services with rapid, direct access to trained specialists. NetApp 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, organisations can get the professional help they need to design and build a data fabric strategy, implement solutions, and optimise their hybrid cloud with predictable costs and avoid procurement delays.