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WIDENING THE NET

From STORAGE Magazine Vol 7, Issue 2 - March/April 2007

NetApp recently unveiled a new suite of data centre offerings - geared towards meeting its overall goal of resolving the enterprise storage issues with which end users are grappling. Brian Wall was in Barcelona to hear the announcement

Network Appliance is a company on a mission. It has just extended its data centre portfolio with the addition of its latest midrange platforms, the NetApp FAS3040 and NetApp V3040 series. Just as the FAS3070 and V3070 provided a refresh of the FAS3050 and V3050 in November 2006, the new FAS3040 and V3040 complete the refresh of the FAS3000 series storage systems by offering, according to NetApp, "75% greater performance and 50% more storage scalability than the FAS3020."

As part of the unified NetApp architecture, these mid-range systems are said to support file services, FC SAN, IP SAN (or iSCSI), and multiple network configurations, while offering scalability to higher-performance systems with seamless upgrades. The solutions are both based on a 64-bit architecture, with up to 252 disk drives, 126TB capacity and high-bandwidth I/O, including embedded 4Gb FC ports.

It's a move the company believes will increase what it regards as an already powerful competitive position in the marketplace - and the array of solutions is likely to expand. In fact, NetApp's new offerings are very much about reinforcing the company's vision for the future - a vision that was unveiled at its recent Executive EMEA press summit in Barcelona, at which Storage magazine was present.

Here, NetApp assembled its leading voices to drive home the message that the company is focused on resolving all of the enterprise storage issues with which end users are grappling - and it intends to achieve this while keeping speed, sophistication and total cost of ownership firmly in mind.

The company top guns at the summit included:
• CEO Dan Warmenhoven - there to discuss NetApp's corporate strategy, growth outlook, the big initiatives at the company and its role in the industry. It was a good opportunity, of course, to talk expansively about NetApp as the world's largest storage company by TB shipped

• Jay Kidd, senior vice president and general manager, emerging products group, covered NetApp's tech vision and undoubtedly delivered the most comprehensive and technology-rich content

• Rich Clifton, vice president and general manager, networked storage business units, dealt with NetApp's SAN strategy, outlining the key techs/partnerships/certifications in NetApp's SAN portfolio and compared NetApp's SAN portfolio to the SAN portfolios of its main rivals. Guess who came out tops? He also reviewed market share figures in SAN and concluded with an assessment of NetApp's SAN strengths and why he believes NetApp is poised to succeed … where others will succeed less.

So, what else can be said of the latest product offerings? Well, the FAS3000 series systems, combined with Data ONTAP 7G software - a highly optimised, scalable and flexible operating system that can handle mixed SAN and NAS environments - will clearly deliver powerful storage solutions for data-driven business applications such as Oracle, SAP and Microsoft Exchange.

The FAS3040 and V3040 systems
are also impressive additions to the company's technical applications infrastructure, providing storage for design, automation and other data-intensive needs. Future Data ONTAP GX support can also be leveraged on these systems for customers who require scale-out solutions.

NetApp describes itself as the fastest growing company in the SAN space. For NetApp, the FAS3040 and V3040 represent additional market opportunities as the company extends its enterprise line-up, and adds more functionality and capability for FC SAN environments.

"The FAS3040 and V3040 distinguish themselves as modular midrange systems that pack a lot of punch without punching a hole in our customers' budgets," says Patrick Rogers, vice president, solutions marketing, at Network Appliance. "Customers told us they wanted more mid-range options from us that deliver rock-solid SAN and NAS performance, increased data and application availability, ease of management, and extreme reliability - all at a compelling price. These latest systems are designed specifically with data-intensive business and technical applications in mind."

For customers with even greater performance and scalability needs, NetApp is recommending the FAS3070 and V3070, which are said to offer SAN performance and data management capabilities for the most demanding application environments, whether business or technical. And the number of organisations operating at this level is certainly growing.

"We are seeing more end users embrace mid-range in the data centre," says Tony Asaro, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "This is driven by ease of use, cost effective- ness, compelling price/performance, and a rich set of data management software capabilities. Additionally, end users are finding that mid-range storage systems are extremely reliable. With the relentless growth of data, we can't keep doing business as usual and spend endless amounts of money on big iron." ST