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    NetApp Brings Its Storage Management Expertise to the Cloud

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    This week at the NetApp Insight 2014 conference, NetApp moved to unify storage management across hybrid cloud computing environments starting with the release of Cloud ONTAP for Amazon Web Services (AWS).

    George Kurian, executive vice president of product operations at NetApp, says that Cloud ONTAP gives enterprise IT organizations storage management capabilities such as snapshot and mirroring, which they have traditionally had in their data centers, but can now have in cloud computing environments. Following support for AWS, NetApp plans to make Cloud ONTAP available on Microsoft Azure and Verizon clouds.

    Kurian says that in essence, NetApp is enabling IT organizations to create a data storage fabric across on-premise and cloud implementations of the NetApp storage operating system in a way that allows those organizations to take back control of their IT environments. As part of that effort, NetApp also rolled out OnCommand Cloud Manager, which makes it possible to manage NetApp storage deployed in hybrid cloud computing environments

    In addition to delivering Cloud ONTAP, NetApp is also upgrading its on-premise software. Version 8.3 of Clustered Data ONTAP improves the performance of NetApp storage software with Flash memory and adds support for NetApp MetroCluster disaster recovery software.

    Cloud Computing

    NetApp also announced today that it is making a private cloud version of its software available on the IBM SoftLayer cloud.

    Putting data in a cloud is one thing; being able to actually manage it is another. With the availability of NetApp software both in the cloud and on premise, Kurian says NetApp is addressing the data fidelity issues that IT organizations need to resolve any time they move a workload to the cloud.

    As IT organizations begin to add multiple clouds to their IT portfolio, those data management challenges will become more complex—unless, of course, there is some way to actually unify the management of data both inside and outside of the traditional enterprise.

    Mike Vizard
    Mike Vizard
    Michael Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist, with nearly 30 years of experience writing and editing about enterprise IT issues. He is a contributor to publications including Programmableweb, IT Business Edge, CIOinsight and UBM Tech. He formerly was editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he launched the company’s custom content division, and has also served as editor in chief for CRN and InfoWorld. He also has held editorial positions at PC Week, Computerworld and Digital Review.

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