Today, NetApp launched a new initiative around the journey to the Cloud, boldly stating that we are the foundation for which the cloud is built upon. Frankly, I couldn’t agree more. All the things you know and love about NetApp being the leader in Flexible, Efficient storage for IT makes it the perfect foundation for your cloud journey.
What is OnCommand?
OnCommand is the culmination of years of work, receipt of copious amounts of feedback from the field (including me, when I was a customer), and most importantly, delivering on some key concepts that were holding back management of unified infrastructure: Control, Automate, & Analyze. With one of our most recent acquisitions, Akorri, we were able to slot in the last piece of the pie with their BalancePoint product, integrating it as an end-to-end, full-stack, analytics tool.
For those of you familiar with our prior Data Fabric Manager, this will be very familiar to you. DFM has been rebranded as OnCommand Unified Manager, uniting the powers of OpsMgr, Protection Manager, and Provisioning Manager into one tool. This will also include updates to our plugins (VSC) in the near future to give them the same user interface as well. Centrally managing RBAC controls, allowing delegation of abilities to Storage Admins, Server & Virtualization Admins, and Backup Admins, et al. As an ex-customer/admin, this is very exciting for me personally, because it has been a huge pain point for a long time, and frankly this is the way things should have been done in the first place. I’m ecstatic that these changes have come to fruition, and for my readers out there that are doing these storage/virtualization/backup roles on NetApp kit, good things have been coming, and I’m happy to share with you today that they have arrived.
Here are the takeaways from the actual press release, found here: NetApp Cloud
You can also check out the new website, NetApp Cloud here: www.netapp.com/cloud
Key Facts
- NetApp’s new OnCommand management software delivers four fundamental elements that compose a cloud: service catalog, service analytics, automation, and self-service. The new NetApp OnCommand unified manager enables the creation of a storage service catalog and provides policy-based automation, including provisioning, data protection, and service monitoring. In addition, new NetApp OnCommand Insight provides the service analytics for storage and the rest of the infrastructure so customers have the visibility and knowledge needed to optimize a cloud service delivery. This includes usage-based metering, service-level monitoring, and performance and capacity modeling and planning.
- Building on its Alliance Technology Partner Program, NetApp has integrated nearly 20 enterprise cloud management partners, including BMC, CA, Fujitsu, Microsoft, newScale, Tivoli, and VMware. These partners’ cloud management software solutions enable automation and management of the cloud infrastructure and integrate with NetApp OnCommand to incorporate NetApp’s innovative storage into a full-stack orchestration to increase flexibility and efficiency while reducing overall total cost of ownership and complexity.
- Today’s news builds on the tremendous cloud momentum NetApp has achieved over the past year. Last June, NetApp officially launched its Partner Program for Service Providers, which was the first of its kind in the storage industry and today includes more than 30 service providers delivering more than 50 cloud services around the world. The program is a key part of NetApp’s strategy to broaden and leverage its diverse pathways to reach customers and has helped provide cloud services built on NetApp to over one billion end users.
- In November, NetApp unveiled new platform features, products, and technologies#—including the first Cisco and NetApp FlexPod™ solution with VMware—to help customers transition to a flexible and efficient shared IT infrastructure, the foundation for cloud computing. And with more than 150 customers having already implemented joint data center solutions based on the FlexPod design architecture, last month NetApp and Cisco introduced a new design guide for FlexPod that supports SAP applications, as well as the new NetAppHyper-V Cloud Fast Track with Cisco in collaboration with Microsoft, giving partners and customers greater flexibility and freedom of choice as they transition to the cloud. Leading global and regional system integrators are leveraging these integrated private cloud solutions and tailoring them to each customer’s unique business requirements.
