NetApp Private Storage for Microsoft Azure

Product Description

Overview:

The Multicloud Challenge

Thanks to continuous innovation from cloud providers, companies are faced with a dazzling array of continually evolving choices. The savings from infinite, elastic, affordable public clouds are impossible to ignore. Major cloud providers continually add capabilities and lower the price points of their offerings.

In today’s rapidly changing business environment, how can you tell which clouds and cloud types are right for your organization now and in the future? Wouldn’t it be great to use a public cloud for more workloads— even those with sensitive data and compliance requirements?

Expand your cloud choices - Connect to many clouds and switch clouds at any time.

When it comes to cloud, one thing is clear: Enterprise customers demand choice and control. That’s why NetApp Private Storage (NPS) for Cloud solutions are designed to keep you in control. 

Get cloud on your terms.
Use multiple, industry-leading clouds while maintaining complete control over your data on dedicated, private NetApp storage. Choose from solutions for an expanding NetApp network of cloud service providers, including:

• NPS for Amazon Web Services
• NPS for Microsoft Azure
• NPS for SoftLayer

Switch at any time.
With an NPS approach, you put your data “next to” multiple clouds in Equinix data centers. Once you make your first cloud connection you can add or switch to any or all of them—in minutes—using the Equinix Cloud Exchange.

Own and control your data.
You can meet your data compliance and sovereignty requirements because you know where your data is located at all times.

Quick and Easy Multicloud Access

With NetApp Private Storage (NPS) for Cloud solutions, you keep your data on NetApp storage “next to” rather than “into” multiple clouds. You get the freedom to connect to the clouds you want while maintaining complete control of your data on your own dedicated, private NetApp storage systems.

Once you make your first cloud connection in an Equinix colocation facility, it's easy to add new clouds or switch clouds without moving your data.

Seamless, on-demand cloud connections. Diagram courtesy of Equinix.

Match your clouds to your workloads
With access to multiple clouds, you can match your clouds to your workloads and choose the right mix of clouds for business at hand. For example, you may decide to run an analytics application in Amazon Web Services, but prefer to use Microsoft Azure to cloudburst from your existing on-premises Microsoft infrastructure.

Quickly connect to new clouds and switch clouds any time
Start with your favorite cloud, then add new clouds or switch clouds in minutes. Once you establish a secure, dedicated, high-speed network connection from your NetApp storage to your first cloud in an Equinix colocation facility, it’s easy to add new clouds or switch clouds. The Equinix Cloud Exchange offers seamless, on-demand cloud connections through a simple web portal.

Eliminate lock-in and costly data migrations
NPS for Cloud eliminates time-consuming, costly data migrations that cause cloud lock-in. You can turn off connectivity to one cloud and spin up connectivity to another in minutes without having to move your data.

Diversify risk
Using more than one cloud to run your applications reduces business risks. If the first cloud does not respond, your application can instantly move to a second one.

Maximize your cloud buying power
As major competitors continue to innovate on price and feature set, the NPS for Cloud approach puts you in the driver’s seat to get the service, capabilities, and price you want from your cloud providers.

Maintain Complete Control Over Your Data

When you control your storage, you can meet the strictest possible data compliance and sovereignty requirements because you know where your data lives at all times. With advanced data protection features such as NetApp SnapLock technology and NetApp disk encryption, you can achieve compliance standards in even the strictest industries.

Move your data any time
The NetApp universal data platform makes it easy to move data between any NetApp based infrastructures, including private, public, and hybrid clouds. You can change your mix of public and private cloud resources to meet dynamic business needs or move data back on the premises any time you want. See Figure 3 on page 3, which shows the connections that allow NetApp SnapMirror data movement to NetApp on the premises.

Moving data back on the premises is quick and easy with a dedicated VPN/MPLS line and NetApp SnapMirror data replication software.

Gain world-class physical security for your data
Placing NetApp storage in Equinix gives you unmatched physical and environmental security for your data.

Protect your critical applications
Your business-critical applications will benefit from NetApp Integrated Data Protection features, such as spaceefficient Snapshot copies for backup and rapid recovery.

The Hybrid and Multicloud Approach

Private cloud services let companies retain control, but they do not offer low-cost commodity compute power and scalability of public cloud services. And public cloud services, although they provide great flexibility and scalability, require giving up control and putting your data into the hands of external providers. No single cloud type is just right. NPS for Cloud is unique because it blends private and public resources to give you the benefits of both. See Figure 4 on page 4, to compare NPS with other familiar types of cloud offerings.

Public cloud benefits with dedicated, proven enterprise storage
The NPS for Cloud approach gives you the elasticity and savings of a public cloud with the performance and availability of dedicated enterprise storage. By locating your data near major clouds with a dedicated highspeed connection to cloud compute in Equinix, your compute will feel local while your data remains secure and protected in a colocation facility. Your enterprise applications will get the high performance and low latency they need.

Common Use Cases Include:

Use cloud compute for enterprise workloads
Reap cloud elasticity with the speed, reliability, and availability of NetApp storage for enterprise workloads such as Oracle Database and Microsoft SQL Server.

Use cloud compute for variable workloads
You can match compute resources to utilization and avoid the large capex investments required for peak, unforecasted, or seasonal workloads with enterprise applications.

Accelerate innovation and time to market
Gain cloud agility for development and test. Then, run in the cloud you choose or deploy on the premises.

Provide disaster recovery at a lower cost
Deploy cost-effective single or multiregion, multicloud DR by activating your cloud only in test and failover scenarios.

Leverage temporary cloud resources for data center migration and consolidation
Maintain operations in the cloud as old data centers are decommissioned, then keep using the cloud or move your data to a new data center.

Adjust your capex-opex spending throughout your SaaS lifecycle
Pay as you go for cloud compute, then repatriate data to a NetApp based private cloud as you grow.

Most cloud solutions require a tradeoff between flexibility and control. By blending private and public resources, NPS for Cloud gives you the benefits of both.

Leverage the Experience of Industry Leaders

With NetApp Private Storage for Cloud you can move your business to the cloud with confidence by leveraging the experience of industry leaders in storage and cloud computing. According to Gartner, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft are the industry leaders and SoftLayer is an up-and-coming visionary.* Over one billion end users rely on cloud services built on NetApp; 77% of Fortune 500 companies built their storage infrastructure on NetApp.