Sunnyvale, Calif.-March 31,
2010-As it approaches its eight-year anniversary since
introducing the industry's first unified storage system, NetApp
(NASDAQ: NTAP) today reached an important milestone of deploying
more than 150,000 unified storage systems. The milestone
underscores NetApp's long-standing commitment and significant
industry innovation in making unified storage a reality for
customers.
"Our customers' adoption of unified storage
over the past eight years validates our technology direction for
next-generation virtualized storage architectures. Unified storage
is a key requirement for customers, especially as they move to
shared infrastructure environments to drive down cost and reduce
operational complexity," said Manish Goel, executive vice president
of Products at NetApp. "While many of our competitors resisted the
technology evolution, NetApp was innovating. We believe that every
storage solution provider will need to recognize and react to this
significant industry trend and follow NetApp's lead to remain
relevant."
On October 1, 2002, NetApp officially
launched its ground-breaking hybrid storage system that offered a
very different approach to NAS and SAN convergence. The FAS900
series went beyond traditional file-serving capabilities by also
serving up blocks over Fibre Channel, making it the first product
of its kind in the industry and marking the advent of the unified
storage market.
According to research conducted by analyst
firm Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), unified storage is becoming
more common. "More than two-thirds of the organizations surveyed by
us are in the process of implementing or evaluating a unified
storage infrastructure that consolidates NAS and SAN systems," said
Terri McClure, senior analyst, ESG. "By improving the mobility and
sharing of data between resources and users in a fluid and
cost-effective manner, unified storage can provide both IT and
business benefits in almost any environment and can also serve as
the perfect back-end to today's dynamic and increasingly
virtualized data centers."
The trend toward server virtualization and
consolidation is transforming the way data centers are being
designed, built, and managed. Data storage and data management are
key elements of this transformation, because successful
virtualization deployments depend upon a shared, networked storage
infrastructure capable of eliminating the silos of storage
associated with various application tiers. This shift toward a
shared infrastructure increases the importance of unified storage
and enables customers to achieve storage efficiency rates of
85--100% while improving flexibility, increasing scalability,
controlling power and cooling, and much more. This is evidenced by
the fact that nearly 75% of all of NetApp's virtualized deployments
are based on a unified storage system. Unified storage is a
critical component of customers' shift to a shared
infrastructure.
Customers worldwide are leveraging NetApp's
unified storage solutions to simplify operations, achieve business
breakthroughs, increase productivity, and recognize significant
cost savings. To hear these customers tell their stories, visit
www.netapp.com/us/technology/unified-storage.
Discuss this news in the NetApp community,
where you can exchange thoughts and ideas on a variety of topics
with our community members. Collaborate with our company, engage in
conversation with NetApp leaders and employees, and participate in
our passion to go further, faster. Join now at www.netapp.com/us/communities.
About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions
that accelerate business breakthroughs and deliver outstanding cost
efficiency. Discover our passion for helping companies around the
world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.
Press Contact:
Sarah Tolle
NetApp
(408) 822-7986
sarah.tolle@netapp.com