SUNNYVALE, Calif.-July 12,
2010- NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) today announced enhanced
integration with Microsoft to deliver enterprise-class data
protection solutions to cloud service providers by leveraging the
Microsoft Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Hosters. Although
enterprise-class data protection has historically been too
expensive for most small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) to
implement themselves, NetApp and Microsoft now enable service
providers to offer enterprise-class data protection to their SMB
customers. Additionally, NetApp announced the availability of new
professional service offerings and additional resources and
guidance for service providers to build a variety of
enterprise-class cloud services.
"SMB customers have many of the same disaster
recovery and business continuity requirements as large enterprise
organizations, but often times don't have the necessary skill set
or budget needed to achieve the desired results," said Laura
DuBois, program vice president, Storage Software and Solutions,
IDC. "Solutions that address this gap by providing enterprise-level
data protection along with the support and guidance needed to
deploy will be integral in helping SMBs realize the true benefits
of a cloud infrastructure."
The Dynamic Data Center Toolkit provides
sample code and guidance for building cloud services powered by
Windows Server® 2008 R2 with Hyper-V™ and the
Microsoft® System Center Suite. NetApp is currently the only
storage vendor to integrate seamlessly with the Dynamic Data Center
Toolkit, enabling service providers to leverage NetApp's
industry-leading integrated data protection capabilities such as
disaster recovery, clustered failover, and backup and recovery.
These unique solutions enable service providers to expand
their service offerings to accelerate their business, while
offering and meeting stringent service-level agreements (SLAs) for
their customers. Additionally, NetApp® storage efficiency
capabilities help service providers reduce their costs-savings that
are passed along to SMBs.
"SMBs are demanding enterprise-class disaster
recovery solutions, and hosting service providers are in a
tremendous position to fill that demand as more SMBs move toward
hosted IT services," said John Zanni, general manager of Worldwide
Hosting for the Communications Sector at Microsoft. "We're pleased
to be working with NetApp as part of the Dynamic Data Center
Alliance to enable hosting service providers to offer these
disaster recovery solutions, and to take another step to move
beyond commoditized hosting services to become full-service IT
providers to their customers."
nGenX Corporation, a regional
infrastructure-as-a-service provider and joint NetApp and Microsoft
customer, leveraged the Dynamic Data Center Toolkit to deliver its
Guardian GeoCloud™ service to its customers. The Guardian
GeoCloud solution, which replicates a customer's data to
geo-diverse locations and automates failover in the event of a
disaster, demands a shared storage solution that meets the highest
availability requirements. nGenX leverages NetApp storage solutions
for its Hyper-V based cloud services to provide its customers with
the security of knowing that their data is safe and that they will
experience minimal to no impact to their critical applications,
even in the unlikely event of a complete data center failure.
Service providers such as nGenX can now take advantage of the
efficiencies inherent in the NetApp and Microsoft solution to make
these types of robust services available to smaller enterprises
through the cloud at an affordable price.
"The Microsoft Dynamic Data Center Toolkit
allowed us to leverage NetApp technologies, which are a fundamental
building block of our Guardian GeoCloud solution, to deliver a
unique service and set ourselves apart in the marketplace," said
Robert A. Bye, executive vice president at nGenX. "Using NetApp
storage efficiency technologies such as thin provisioning and
deduplication in Microsoft Hyper-V environments helps us maximize
infrastructure utilization and lower costs for the end user. As a
result, we use 50%-60% less storage than we would otherwise need to
support cloud services for our customers. We are really exploding
some myths about the affordability of enterprise-class disaster
recovery for our customers."
"Today's announcement extends our already
strong
relationship with Microsoft to deliver integrated solutions for
cloud service providers," said Patrick Rogers, vice president of
Solutions and Alliances Marketing, NetApp. "To date, small- and
medium-size businesses haven't been able to make the investments
necessary to enjoy the benefits of robust disk-based data
protection. Working with Microsoft, we are helping to address this
gap by arming regional and local service providers with the ability
to deliver cost-effective enterprise-class data protection services
to their customers."
Additional Professional Services and
Solutions for Service Providers
To supplement today's announcement, NetApp also unveiled new
consulting offerings and design guidance documentation for
Microsoft environments, along with new capabilities to help service
providers improve their SLAs.
To help service providers reduce the risk and
complexity of deploying a NetApp and Microsoft solution on their
own, NetApp introduced new professional services specifically
designed for Microsoft environments. The new offerings
assist service providers across all phases of a shared
infrastructure deployment, including assessment, planning,
architectural design, and best-practices-based implementation.
Delivered by an expert consulting team and based on a proven
service methodology, these new offerings support services built
using the Dynamic Data Center Toolkit integrations to provide
NetApp storage and data protection for Microsoft Exchange,
Microsoft SQL Server®, and Microsoft SharePoint®
infrastructures.
NetApp has also published new
design guidance documentation to give service providers best
practices around rapidly and efficiently deploying as-a-service
offerings for their customers. The guidance helps service providers
design and deploy the following cost-effective enterprise-class
services:
- Exchange as a service
- SharePoint as a service
- Infrastructure as a service
- Storage as a service
- Desktop as a service
Finally, to provide further assistance to
service providers deploying NetApp data protection as a service
(DPaaS), NetApp has partnered with InControl software to help
service providers monitor and meet their customers' SLAs. InControl software can be deployed in a NetApp DPaaS
environment to provide real-time SLA and key performance indicator
monitoring. This data informs administrators of upcoming SLA issues
as they happen, helping service providers manage SLAs proactively
rather than reactively, to increase customer satisfaction and
improve business processes.
Visit NetApp at the Microsoft
Worldwide Partner Conference
NetApp will attend the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, July
12-15, to help service providers, resellers, and system integrators
learn more about the solutions discussed in this release. Stop by
the Microsoft Partner Hosted Cloud Pavilion (booth #545), where
NetApp will have a kiosk; or arrange a meeting with NetApp through
the WPC Connect Wall.
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 communities.netapp.com.
Pricing and
Availability
All customer pricing for offerings described in this release,
except for the professional services, is available from NetApp
sales and reseller partners. Pricing for the professional service
offerings is available from NetApp sales only. All offerings are
available today.
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:
Ryan Lowry
NetApp
(408) 822-7544
ryan.lowry@netapp.com
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