Enterprise storage vendor NetApp has launched a number of hybrid cloud products, singing the praises of the infrastructure model it previously neglected.

The all-new Cloud ONTAP platform enables IT staff to run instances of NetApp’s Data ONTAP operating system in the public cloud and seamlessly connect them to the on-premise hardware. Data management across different types of clouds can be accomplished with the new OnCommand Cloud Manager software.

Meanwhile the latest version of Data ONTAP brings improvements for all-flash arrays and introduces Metro availability features.

“Hybrid clouds will be the backbone of IT today and tomorrow,” said George Kurian, executive vice president of Product Operations at NetApp. “We help enterprises maintain control of their data as they bridge their on-premises architecture with the cloud of their choice.”

All of the announcements were made at the annual NetApp Insight conference in Las Vegas.

Mix and match
Cloud ONTAP is an enterprise-class information management platform that takes Data ONTAP, NetApp’s venerable, proprietary storage appliance OS, and injects it into the public cloud.

This functionality is currently limited to Amazon Web Services (AWS) but will be extended to include Verizon Cloud and Microsoft Azure - NetApp already cooperates with both on some of its cloud storage products.

The company says it wants to offer a common set of tools that would enable seamless, consistent data management across different types of cloud environments. It calls this architecture the NetApp Data Fabric – an effort to marry the reliability of its traditional forte - dedicated enterprise storage - with flexibility and low cost of public infrastructure.

To help with the management of hybrid clouds, NetApp has created a new software product – the OnCommand Cloud Manager. It enables provisioning of clustered Data ONTAP instances between private cloud and public cloud providers through a simple graphical user interface.

But the latest clustered Data ONTAP release also features plenty of updates for traditional storage arrays, like performance optimizations for all-flash storage nodes, support for NetApp MetroCluster disaster recovery software and other tweaks that the company says improve the cost per gigabyte and cost per IOPS over the previous version.

NetApp also announced the new Private Storage for Cloud family of products, designed to ease data movement between various public cloud providers by running all of the control functions from a single NetApp data storage device strategically placed in select colocation facilities. This functionality was successfully tested in a number Equinix data centers.

A number of new consulting services from NetApp will aim to help customers with their hybrid cloud deployments.

“One of the ways in which CIOs can be successful in supporting the goals of their business is by controlling data,” commented Ashish Nadkarni, research director at IDC.

“NetApp is focusing on helping CIOs maintain Data Control on their terms — by allowing them to choose the public cloud service providers they want to work with and only when they need their services.”