Smart Storage Solutions Enable Midsize Organisations to Accelerate Growth, Increase Simplicity, and Leverage the Cloud

NetApp Unveils New Low-Cost FAS2220 and ExpandsPartner Cloud Ecosystem to Help Midsize Businesses Start Right, Keep It Simple, and Grow Smart

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - June 6, 2012 - Midsize businesses face the challenge of keeping pace with growing demands while managing the volume of data being generated, all with limited IT resources and budget. Building on a simple, flexible, and efficient IT infrastructure enables the agility required to help midsize businesses capitalise on this data growth to drive their success and create a competitive advantage. As a result, the decisions midsize businesses make about their storage foundation play a critical role in their future success.

NetApp's new(NASDAQ: NTAP) FAS2220, which starts at under A$10,000, is the latest member of its entry-level product portfolio and builds on the momentum and success of the recently introduced FAS2240.Already an established leader in the midsize market, with more than 10,000 customers turning to NetApp each year for their storage needs, the new FAS2220 delivers innovative technologies and increased value that enable midsize businesses to:

  • Start right by providing more performance and software value than traditional entry-level storage systems
  • Keep it simple by delivering increased performance without increasing deployment or management complexity
  • Grow smart by leveraging existing storage investments and easily adding new capabilities to meet changing needs

NetApp also unveiled an expanding ecosystem of value-added reseller (VAR) partners to provide midsize businesses with cloud backup and disaster recovery services built on NetApp® along with new channel enablement programs to help partners expand their business.

Enhanced Portfolio Provides Powerful, Simple, and Flexible Platform

  • NetApp's FAS2220 leverages new NetApp Flash Pool technology to providean unmatched combination of performance and value to help midsize businesses start right and stretch their dollars. Flash Pools, which extend NetApp's Virtual Storage Tier approach to the midsize market,enable customers to accelerate application performance and are simple to implement and operate "outofthebox. "Flash Pool technology also seamlessly integrates with NetApp's industry-leading suite of nine storage efficiency technologies to help customers increase utilisation and reduce power costs. NetApp is the only vendor offering this unique intelligent caching approach in the entry-level storage market.
  • The new NetApp OnCommand® System Manager 2.1 helps simplify, control, and automate both setup and ongoing management of NetApp storage. This tool allows customers to improve their storage and service efficiency, boost productivity, and reduce the impact of storage management on IT resources.
  • The FAS2200 series runs on the latest version of the Data ONTAP® operating system to provide atruly unified, scalable architecture that enables customers to easily and affordably upgrade to higher-end systems and new capabilities without needing forklift upgrades. Data ONTAP also provides "cluster-ready" capabilities, enabling midsize customers to seamlessly add storage capacity as needed to their shared infrastructures with no downtime.

VAR Ecosystem Helps Midsize Businesses Leverage the Cloud

  • According to a recent study by Enterprise Storage Group [1], 74% of all midsize businesses will increase expenditures on cloud services in 2012. NetApp is working closely with select VAR partners to deliver data protection as a service (DPaaS) to help customers start right and grow smart. DPaaS enables customers to better protect their business from lost productivity, revenue, and goodwill associated with data loss and downtime.
  • DPaaS is a logical first step into cloud services for many midsize businesses because it delivers powerfuldisk-based recovery and second-site failover functionality typically enjoyed by large enterprises at a fraction of the cost of traditional disk-based solutions. And with the ability to payas they go, decision makers with DPaaScan optimally align IT spending to the growth of the business.
  • DPaaSmaximises the effectiveness of limited administrative resourcesbecause it is simple to initiate and easier to maintain than legacy tape protection infrastructures. By moving to DPaaS, administrators can eliminate onerous tape management tasks, restore data in minutes versus hours or days, and leverage experienced support teams and monitoring tools to help save valuable time and resources.

New Programs Enable Channel Partners to Accelerate Business Growth

  • The GetSuccessful™ Cloud Services Program provides reseller partners with industry-leading support and connects them with NetApp's ecosystem of cloud service providers to help them transform their business to capitalise on the cloud service opportunity.
  • Additional programs, promotions, and financing offers provided by NetApp specifically help NetApp resellers help existing customers make the transition from their legacy NetApp storage platform to the new FAS2200 portfolio. As a result, resellers have more to offer their customers and can increase their business opportunities by offering services.
  • NetApp will participate in VMware's 'Real World Advantage' campaign. The campaign provides VARs with various joint sales and marketing tools to help them accelerate sales opportunities and generate leads for VMware® and NetApp solutions with midsize customers.

Supporting Quotes

  • Julie Eades, vice president, Global SMB Marketing, VMware
    "VMware is pleased to share a common vision and strategy with NetApp to deliver affordable and robust solutions and cloud services to our midsize customers. Additionally, VMware and NetApp will continue to partner with our joint service providers and channel partners to deliver solutions and cloud services that are simple, efficient, and flexible to serve as a foundation for our midsize customers to grow their businesses now and in the future."
  • Brian Babineau, vice president, Research and Analyst Services, Enterprise Strategy Group
    "The demands on midsize businesses continue to increase, which makes the IT infrastructure they build on as important as ever. The right infrastructure can provide midsize businesses with the flexibility required to adjust to their changing environment and grow their business along with the efficiency to help keep costs down. We see cloud services as another key layer to the IT infrastructure as they enable midsize businesses to maximise limited resources, pay only for the service levels they need, and easily expand as their business needs grow."
  • Julie Parrish, senior vice president of Worldwide Partner Sales, NetApp
    "There is no question that midsize businesses are making the transition to cloud-based solutions and value-added resellers will play an important role in helping to address this customer need. NetApp is providing our partners with a unique opportunity to be part of an ecosystem that will enable them to strengthen their customer relationships, build profitable new revenue streams, and take advantage of industry-leading enablement programs designed to help them transform their business to capitalise on the cloud."
  • Manish Goel, executive vice president of Products, NetApp
    "The growth of data and an ever-expanding competitive landscape combined with limited budgets and resources means that midsize businesses must make smart decisions when it comes to their IT infrastructure. The enhanced FAS2200 platform provides customers with the simplicity, flexibility, performance, and value they need while delivering a storage foundation that they can build on with confidence to achieve business success."
  • Paulo Mpliokas, business manager - Enterprise Solutions, Triforce
    "Australian midsized businesses have specific IT needs that are constantly shifting. Triforce made the decision to partner with NetApp based on its vision to meet these needs with simple and scalable solutions that provide the storage infrastructure needed to support an efficient and innovative IT department."

Availability and Pricing
The FAS2220 will start at under $10,000. It will be available on June 12, 2012, through NetApp's worldwide network of value-added authorised resellers, distributors, and systems integrators. DPaaS is available now through select NetApp VAR partners.

Additional Resources

About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that accelerate business breakthroughs and deliver outstanding cost efficiency. Discover NetApp's passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.

Press Contact:
Katy Berg
Weber Shandwick for NetApp
02 9994 4482
kberg@webershandwick.com

NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, Data ONTAP, FlexPod, OnCommand, SnapDrive, SnapManager, and Snapshot are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The use of the words "partner", "partnership", or "partnering" do not imply a legal partnership between NetApp and any other company.

[1]Enterprise Storage Group, "Market Report: Cloud Integrated Storage," April 2012.