Solving for the growth of business data has long been a challenge for many organizations. Today, an increasing number of enterprises are adopting hybrid multicloud strategies to address their ever-expanding data growth. At the same time, they’re struggling with where to place business-critical data that drives their digital transformation initiatives.
The expansion of public cloud, the accelerated adoption of AI and the need to derive meaningful insights from data all put pressure on organizations to optimize the placement, control and security of their most valuable asset: their data.
The applications that power modern enterprises typically require high availability and performance. As they look to meet these requirements, many organizations think cloud first, for the following reasons:
- It provides them with a sense of direct control.
- It offers support for their security initiatives.
- The cloud providers’ global footprint can help with their data governance, cost controls and optimization efforts.
- It gives them data protection in case of disaster or a business continuity event.
With these concerns in mind, many enterprises have adopted a cloud-first mindset as part of their larger strategic goals around digital transformation. There’s no doubt that public cloud has solved many pain points for global enterprises, but it’s also introduced some new and interesting challenges.
For instance, many organizations find it difficult to enact a hybrid multicloud approach to delivering data services wherever they’re needed and to flexibly position their applications near their data in an ecosystem that includes multiple clouds and cloud-driven services.
A storage solution geared to the needs of hybrid multicloud environments
To help our customers along their hybrid multicloud journey, Equinix has partnered with NetApp to provide a secure, single-tenant storage solution with low-latency, high-performance connectivity to the public cloud and cloud-based services. This cloud adjacent storage approach enables customers to maintain control of their data, optimize costs, and provide high performance for their most demanding workloads.
NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal® delivers a single-tenant environment, built specifically to meet the customer’s capacity and performance requirements. It’s deployed as part of a complete digital infrastructure stack (compute, networking and storage) that meets requirements to run their applications—all under a single contract and support account.
Because the entire stack resides in Equinix IBX® data centers, the solution enables a true hybrid cloud service, utilizing Equinix’s connectivity to all major hyperscaler environments. Combined with the global reach that Equinix Metal delivers across 26+ metro locations, customers can address their cloud adjacent storage needs wherever they do business.[1]
Benefits of NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal for hybrid multicloud
NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal offers four pricing tiers to meet different customers’ performance requirements (latency and IOPS). It’s also available for both file and block storage.
Below, we’ll cover the benefits of deploying NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal in more detail.
An integrated solution that’s quick and cost-effective to deploy
NetApp Storage is fully integrated into Equinix Metal’s infrastructure, ensuring a cohesive experience for storage, compute and networking under a single subscription. When you subscribe to NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal, you receive only one monthly invoice.
In addition, the solution offers a simplified migration path using hardware that’s certified to run multiple enterprise applications. It uses an OPEX consumption model with low upfront costs, so it’s easy to align it with your business outcomes and cost-optimization efforts.
A dedicated, single-tenant storage environment
Any capacity that you deploy on Equinix Metal is yours and yours alone. You don’t have to share resources with other companies, nor do you need to worry about the “noisy neighbor” effect, where multitenant resource sharing in adjacent systems or hypervisors carries over into your environment and negatively impacts your applications. As a result, you can enjoy higher performance and security benefits.
Flexibility to build your cloud adjacent data strategy how you want
When you deploy NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal, you can choose how you want to build your hybrid multicloud experience—on premises, in the cloud, or anywhere in between—with low-latency access to AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and other major cloud providers.
You can locate your data adjacent to any public cloud, and take advantage of compute, database and analytics services with the lowest possible latency (~1ms roundtrip). When your data requirements change, you can add new cloud services with agility, without needing to move data from one cloud to another.
In addition, the solution offers rapid deployment and scaling to help you manage unpredictable data growth and align your compute capacity to your strategic business needs.
Unmatched performance for demanding workloads
NetApp Storage is renowned for its exceptional performance, reliability and scalability. When combined with Equinix Metal’s high-performance bare metal servers, you’ll experience lightning-fast data access, low latency and the ability to handle your most demanding workloads with ease.
As your end users start to demand access to more advanced applications, you’ll be able to meet their high expectations without delays.
Scalable capacity and performance on-demand
With NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal, you can scale your storage resources to meet evolving business needs. Whether you’re experiencing rapid growth or seasonal fluctuations, this solution offers the flexibility to adapt quickly and efficiently without compromising performance.
Superior data security
Data security is a top concern for almost every organization today. NetApp Storage delivers industry-leading encryption and security features. When paired with the unmatched physical and environmental security controls found in Equinix data centers, these features help ensure that your data remains protected at all times.
In addition, NetApp’s proactive ransomware detection capabilities can identify potential cybersecurity threats and automatically perform an additional data backup if a threat is suspected. This enables you to detect and respond to ransomware attacks faster and significantly increases your chances of fully recovering your data without having to pay a ransom. In short, you can rest easy knowing that your critical business information is in safe hands.
Global reach
With 26 Equinix Metal locations and counting across the globe, customers can take advantage of NetApp Storage to help expand their business into new markets quickly and with cloud adjacency via high-speed, low-latency connections to the major public cloud providers and cloud services.
Simplified management
Managing a storage infrastructure has never been easier. BlueXP, NetApp’s unified control plane for storage and data services, provides comprehensive control and visibility over your data, no matter where it resides: on premises, next to the cloud or in the cloud.
Equinix Metal’s automated provisioning platform further simplifies the deployment and management process. When your storage is this easy to manage, it frees you up to focus on your core business.
Learn more about NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal
Find out how you can get started with optimized storage for your hybrid multicloud environment in a matter of minutes, visit us today.
[1] NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal is currently not available in São Paulo.
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