Verizon Enlists NetApp for Cloud Storage

Five Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Cloud Platform Solution

After first allying with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to build the servers for its next-generation cloud platform, Verizon today revealed it has enlisted NetApp to provide the storage.

According to Tom Shields, director of service provider marketing for NetApp, the Verizon Cloud Compute and Verizon Cloud Storage platforms will be the first live instances of the hybrid storage cloud technology called Clustered Data OnTap that NetApp previewed last month.

Chris Drumgoole, senior vice president of global operations for Verizon Terremark, says Verizon chose NetApp because, for the foreseeable future, most cloud computing deployments in the enterprise are going to be of a hybrid nature. Clustered Data OnTap will provide customers with a way to holistically manage storage across their own and Verizon data centers.

Drumgoole says that Verizon is already managing some of the largest cloud computing platforms in the market. Verizon Cloud Compute and Verizon Cloud Storage are being developed to specifically address enterprise-class performance and security issues that rival cloud platforms simply don’t address, at price points that Drumgoole says will rival anything from another public cloud service provider.

While the devil will be in the cloud details, most public cloud services are designed to meet the needs of independent software vendors (ISVs). Verizon, along with a handful of other cloud service providers, is trying to establish a new class of enterprise-grade services in the cloud that will give IT organizations the control they need over the IT infrastructure on which their applications are running.

While Verizon has yet to reveal pricing for Verizon Cloud Compute and Verizon Cloud Storage, it’s certain that the pricing wars in the cloud are about to enter a whole new phase that will go way beyond the ancillary services that have been the primary focus of competition in the public cloud thus far.