NetApp announced new solutions, services, and partnerships that provide customers with the enterprise data protection that they need to confidently embrace the hybrid cloud. The new offerings extend NetApp’s Data Fabric vision, which helps organisations reduce cloud risk and data mobility cost challenges while maintaining data control across on-premises and cloud resources. (See additional new news on NetApp enterprise-grade all-flash storage: http://www.netapp.com/us/company/news/press-releases/news-rel-20151119-181205.aspx)

“NetApp’s Data Fabric vision aligns perfectly to our strategy.  It has empowered us to build a new generation of hybrid cloud services designed to move, manage, and protect data, enabling us to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations,” explained Lars Göbel, director of Sales and IT Services at DARZ. “NetApp has been a valuable partner for DARZ because they are focused on solving customer problems—not on selling boxes.”

“NetApp is ahead in the market in understanding how data management is changing,” said Eirik Pedersen, vice president of Sales at Proact IT Group. “Customers no longer want their data stored in silos, but instead want to be able to seamlessly move it, not only between the most optimal storage media —flash and disk— but also between their own data center and external cloud solutions. NetApp products coupled with our services provides customers with a complete data management solution for the hybrid cloud.”

The Data Fabric vision was unveiled a year ago at NetApp’s Insight annual technical conference. Since then, NetApp has teamed with a growing ecosystem of partners and service providers to create integrated solutions and services that help customers realize the full potential of the hybrid cloud.   

“The hybrid cloud introduces new requirements for keeping data optimally safe, secure and protected,” said Mark Peters, practice director & senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “Users are quickly and increasingly realizing that integrating their on-premises gear with any amount of external cloud resource introduces additional and varied challenges around sovereignty, cost, time and performance that are unique to data storage and protection.”

Announcements included:

• File and Object Integration Now Available with StorageGRID Webscale. StorageGRID Webscale provides an optimal solution for organisations that require large, distributed, multi-site content repositories. This latest release integrates object management simplicity with familiar NFS and CIFS protocols. A single global name space includes support for OpenStack Swift APIs, multi-tenancy, geo-dispersed erasure coding, and metadata search. It delivers efficient, non-stop global operations on-premises and across the hybrid cloud, meeting long-term data durability requirements.
• New NetApp SnapCenter manages data protection across the hybrid cloud. Enabling efficient copies is a key element of data protection in the hybrid cloud, spanning backup, restore and disaster recovery of primary data. SnapCenter software is a new NetApp offering that helps enterprises simplify management of application-specific data protection at scale. It allows customers to consolidate and centralise the backup and cloning of multiple applications and multiple servers into one efficient operations center. SnapCenter sits at the core of the NetApp data management portfolio. It enables backup to NetApp Private Storage solutions and integration with NetApp Cloud ONTAP software, NetApp’s instance of its clustered Data ONTAP operating system that runs on Amazon Web Services.
• NetApp Private Storage (NPS) innovation for data protection. NetApp Private Storage is a foundational solution for customers who are building out their data fabrics. It allows users to integrate cloud compute resources with on- or-off-premises storage. With NPS solutions, customer data is protected and managed separately for performance and compliance, while public cloud servers are rented as needed to support workload scaling and quick provisioning. 

German cloud service provider DARZ relies on NPS as part of a monthly service for customers who want to tap in to Amazon cloud compute economics while adhering to German data sovereignty laws. The company deploys NPS in a hosting center in Frankfurt, Germany, connected over dark fiber to Amazon compute. Customers can access cost-effective compute resources and secure storage in a pay-by-the-month service. This innovative partnership brings DARZ customers the freedom of cloud compute services while retaining local performance and security requirements.  

• Enhanced Professional Services for Disaster Recovery solutions. These offerings provide customers with the expertise that they need to quickly and non-disruptively deploy NetApp MetroCluster  or SnapMirror disaster recovery solutions. Services teams can help users assess technical requirements, develop comprehensive designs and implement disaster recovery solutions that provide fast failover and synchronous or asynchronous replication at a remote site. These services are part of a broader NetApp services portfolio for enabling integrated data protection solutions across the hybrid cloud.

• New Commvault IntelliSnap for NetApp. This third-party solution replaces NetApp SnapProtect software and provides the same functional features and controller-based licensing, with the added benefits of expanding into Commvault environments. This solution joins the broad portfolio of NetApp data protection solutions, which include NetApp SnapManager software, Virtual Storage Console and SnapCenter, along with other third-party integrated solutions such as Veritas NetBackup Replication Director, Veeam and Catalogic. 

“Data Fabric solutions from NetApp and our partners allow customers to reliably protect, recover and archive their data across the hybrid cloud, while reducing complexity, cost and risk,” said Lee Caswell, vice president, Product, Solutions and Services Marketing, NetApp. “We make it possible for organisations to manage proven, enterprise-grade data protection across flash, disk and cloud resources.”

Additional resources

• View this video on how DARZ teams with NetApp to make secure hybrid cloud and multicloud a reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvoNwSsKrlE
• Get the inside scoop on the changing nature of data protection in our blog: http://community.netapp.com/t5/Technology/Defying-Data-Gravity-and-Risk-in-the-Hybrid-Cloud/ba-p/112676. 
• Hear from analyst firm ESG on how data protection must evolve: http://nt-ap.com/1MVxDrC. 
• Delve into our next generation data protection solution: http://www.netapp.com/us/products/management-software/snapcenter/index.aspx.
• See how StorageGRID Webscale helps meet long-term data durability requirements: http://www.netapp.com/us/products/object-storage/storagegrid/index.aspx.
• Speed backup and recovery: http://www.netapp.com/us/products/protection-software/intellisnap.aspx.
• Find deploy and transition services to help you: http://www.netapp.com/us/services-support/services/deploy-transition/index.aspx.
• Follow NetApp on Twitter: https://twitter.com/netapp.