NetApp New Portfolio Delivers Foundation for Cloud Computing and Enables IT as a Business Accelerator

To help customers respond to the demands of addressing today's rapidly evolving business requirements in IT infrastructure, NetApp unveiled new platform features, products, and technologies that will help customers make the transition to a flexible and efficient shared IT infrastructure which are the foundation for cloud computing and enable IT to be an accelerator of the business.

"There's a significant change underway as CIOs look to better align IT to the speed of business and get IT budgets under control," said Tom Georgens, president and chief executive officer, NetApp. "This is a pivotal time, because the decisions IT leaders make will not only impact how they compete today but also the long-term success of their businesses. Winners in this market are thinking and choosing differently, and more customers are turning to NetApp as their storage platform to achieve greater flexibility and efficiency. We are paving the way for customers to transition to a shared IT infrastructure that will help them be ready for the future and use IT as a tool to capitalize on new growth opportunities."

The following new product and technology portfolio delivers the storage platform of choice for customers to build their shared IT infrastructure and make IT more flexible and efficient.

Under the Unified Architecture and Systems Portfolio, NetApp Data ONTAP 8 has new features to enable greater flexibility, efficiency, scalability, and performance. A first for the industry, Unified Connect takes the unified architecture to new levels by supporting all protocols through a single wire to help increase efficiency, improve performance, and simplify management. NetApp DataMotion for Volumes allows customers to move large volumes of data without disrupting their business operations. In addition, new inline data compression can be used alone or with deduplication to help dramatically reduce the amount of storage needed and improve storage efficiency.

A family of three new high-end storage systems, FAS/V6280, FAS/V6240, and FAS/V6210 -- extends NetApp's unified architecture and provides double the performance, increased enterprise-class availability, and more scalability and flexibility. Customers can meet their mission-critical business requirements while responding to the rapid growth and pace of their business.

Also a family of three new midrange storage systems, FAS/V3270, FAS/V3240, and FAS/V3210 delivers one of the industry's most cost-effective platform for greater flexibility and efficiency, higher performance, and enterprise availability, to support today's midrange storage requirements and adapt to future changes.

In addition to its market-leading Flash Cache technology, the introduction of SSDs extends NetApp's portfolio to provide an option for customers who require consistently fast response times for mission-critical applications. The new SSDs deliver high input/output operations per second and the flexibility to use them for SAN or NAS without needing a gateway or different storage system.

NetApp's third-generation SAS (News - Alert)-based shelf, the new DS2246, helps double the performance density, can provide up to 50% better power efficiency per rack unit, and offers strong resiliency and availability for enterprise storage needs.

NetApp's new management suite, OnCommand, allows greater control and optimization of unified storage, automation for operational efficiency, and optimal flexibility with an open API that integrates with a variety of third-party management products and hypervisors.

FlexPod Modular Data Center Solution

Manish Goel, executive vice president of Product Operations, NetApp said, "Yesterday's technology strategies and approaches are inadequate for today's requirements. The market is moving toward a more flexible and efficient shared IT infrastructure, which is optimal for virtualization and cloud computing. Customers no longer ask if they need to move to this paradigm, they now ask when and how. And the answer is now and with NetApp. We were early to recognize this trend and are uniquely positioned to help customers successfully transition to a shared IT infrastructure, enabling them to make decisions today that will impact the long-term success of their business."

As part of their ongoing collaboration, Cisco (News - Alert), NetApp, and VMware are offering a presized, validated, standardized data center architecture design that is available through select joint channel partners. FlexPod for VMware helps customers accelerate their transformation to a virtualized, shared IT infrastructure with consistent and proven designs to simplify deployment and help reduce risk.

In addition to the new product portfolio detailed above, NetApp introduced a simpler software pricing structure to make it easier for customers and partners to do business with NetApp. The new software pricing structure offers more value-added software for no additional cost as part of the base package, enhancing value and increasing flexibility for customers customizing their infrastructure.

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