NetApp Unveils All-Flash Array Guarantees in Vegas
NetApp Insight 2015, which took place in Las Vegas earlier this month, saw the storage giant announce that it will be offering 3 x performance guarantees for its all-flash array.
NetApp also used its annual technical conference to reveal that five years of Flexpod reference converged system architecture partnership by Cisco and NetApp had achieved shared revenues of $5.6 billion, with a reach of over 6,300 customers and 1,100 partners worldwide.
The all-flash array guarantees that NetApp are proffering stem from the theory that, compared to enterprise database applications which run on traditional non-flash, disk-based systems, customers using the NetApp EF540 or AFF8000 all-flash arrays will experience a 3 x improvement in IOPS at 1msec latency with SQL and Oracle-type workloads.
If customers do not experience this 3 x performance improvement, NetApp has stated that it will provide up to two days of professional optimisation services free of charge. In order to qualify for NetApp’s 3 x Performance Guarantee, the customer must:
- Purchase either an All Flash FAS8080 or EF560.
- Purchase support for the Flash System from NetApp or a NetApp authorised partner.
- Purchase installation and implementation services for the Flash System from NetApp or a NetApp authorised partner.
- Meet with NetApp or a NetApp authorised partner to evaluated the performance of a customer’s traditional storage system, and follow NetApp’s documented best practices related to configuration of the Flash System.
- Enable AutoSupport features available with the Flash System and sign the Terms and Conditions of the program at the time of purchase. Customer agreement forms for submission will be provided on the field portal.
In addition to its new performance guarantees, NetApp also made its announcement regarding the success of Flexpod, with CEO George Kurian saying: “The capabilities of Cisco ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite and NetApp Data Fabric enable customers to seamlessly extend their IT systems from the private cloud to the public cloud.”
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins added: “Cisco and NetApp share the same vision to empower every country, city and company to become digital. To do this, IT organisations need a simpler approach to deploy and manage infrastructure. Together, FlexPod and Cisco’s partner network improve deployment time and prepare customers for the next wave of data centre transformation.”
NetApp’s Data Fabric concept translates as having NetApp software and hardware function as a single hybrid cloud storage resource that would cover both on-premises storage in NetApp arrays and in the public cloud. This would mean that customers could eventually have a single virtual data resource with both on- and off-premises components merged together.
A number of announcements relating to NetApp’s Data Fabric concept were made at Insight 2015 in Las Vegas:
- Data Fabric Solution Essentials starter kits to make it easier for customers to become hybrid cloud ready.
- Data Fabric Enablement Services to help customers create their own data fabrics.
- Expansion of cloud provider relationships to Google, with NetApp now a Google Cloud Platform Technology Partner.
- Data security, additional media support, volume capacity increases, and other enhancements to Cloud ONTAP, NetApp’s software to deploy enterprise-grade storage in the cloud and automate data movement to and from their premises and Amazon Web Services.
- Enhanced security and other capabilities for AltaVault, its cloud-backup appliance.
NetApp asserted that customers, “can choose from more than 275 service providers to craft their hybrid cloud, with support for multi-cloud and multi-directional strategies and integration of resources that are on-premises, near-the-cloud, and in-the-cloud.”
To learn more about NetApp’s Data Fabric concept, download the whitepaper here:
NetApp Data Fabric Fundamentals – Building a Data Fabric Today
(As reported in The Register, 14th October 2015: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/14/netapp_flexpod/)