Plain Virtualization

When I join NetApp from VMware after spending a good 13 years, I was amazed and taken aback how much NetApp got to offer to customers. It not just a Data fabric company but lots more in the space of how data are managed, stored, secured, and much more surrounding data. The first thing I learnt about is ONTAP, the powerful software operating system that powers all NetApp hard and soft boxes at the very beginning. It also not just a storage but it is the King of Files for a reason. The unique of NetApp is in its way of storing data, Write Anyway File Layout ( WAFL ). Its ability to handle large amount of small files makes it elite on its own. Today NetApp is the ONLY vendor able to handle File, Block and Object all at the same time with ONTAP. NetApp also have acquired a few solutions over the years specific to how data are created, managed, used and secured. Let's leave that to another post for now. Let me drill into 3 key takeaways on why NetApp how it differentiate itself as the ...

You hear me right. Was browsing through some documentation and wanted to see any storage vendor is supporting Proxmox, the new player in virtualization. To my surprise, NetApp not only support, but all functions of ONTAP are also supported just like how it supports other virtualization platforms such as VMware, RedHat, Microsoft. Any virtualization platforms that support external storage solutions.  Check the virtualization overview documentation site . NetApp has extensive partnership with VMware to support day zero feature function. This can be seen from the support of vSphere vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) on vVols. RedHat OpenShift, Microsoft Hyper-V and Promox. NetApp allows customers to choose to consume storage in any shape and form namely, on premies physical storage array, in the cloud as first party files services from AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, Cloud Volumes as third party service in CSP's market place and ONTAP Select (virtual appliance). With tr...