Multi-cloud modernization becomes a priority for VMware and NetApp

NetApp, a global, cloud-led, data-centric software company, and VMware, Inc. have expanded their long-standing global alliance. NetApp and VMware are assisting customers in lowering the cost, complexity, and risk of migrating and modernizing enterprise-class workloads in multi-cloud environments through innovative solutions and go-to-market initiatives.

Furthermore, through new integrations between VMware and NetApp data management infrastructure, organizations can accelerate the performance and delivery of both traditional and new modern applications, as well as simplify daily operations.

The NetApp and VMware partnership is built on a foundation of shared experience supporting over 20,000 mutual customers over a 20-year period. NetApp has been a consistent VMware strategic design partner for current and future VMware Cloud offerings such as VMware vSphere, VMware Cloud Foundation, and a variety of VMware Cross-Cloud services. NetApp and VMware are collaborating on customer-driven co-engineering to offer innovative solutions across an ever-changing technology landscape, assisting customers in effectively managing, sharing, and protecting their hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

“Customers today are faced with complex challenges to optimize their current IT investments while laying a path forward to modernize and accelerate their business,” said George Kurian, Chief Executive Officer, NetApp. “Together, NetApp and VMware have helped thousands of customers solve their multi-cloud challenges by effectively managing their enterprise workloads in any environment. By delivering powerful new solutions that help companies optimize their virtual data centers, modernize their applications, and provide cost-efficient, enterprise-class data management services to VMware Cloud, we can meet customers anywhere they are on their cloud journey.”

“At this stage it’s clear: Multi-cloud is the model we’re going to rely on for many years to come. It is the de facto operating model for the digital era, giving customers the freedom required to build, deploy, and manage applications in the way that best suits their business requirements,” said Raghu Raghuram, Chief Executive Officer, VMware. “Together, VMware and NetApp offer businesses the multi-cloud flexibility and choice they need to leverage the best innovations in any cloud environment.”

NetApp and VMware: Powering the Multi-Cloud Era

This digital age’s new wave of modern applications necessitates an innovative approach to enterprise workload and data management infrastructure. Today’s organizations are turning to the public cloud to simplify and accelerate their business initiatives, and they require flexibility and choice from leading public cloud providers. These organizations also require new, integrated platforms that can manage both enterprise and modern applications while utilizing existing resources efficiently. NetApp and VMware’s renewed partnership addresses these challenges by focusing on three major customer-driven initiatives:

• Cost-Effective & Seamless Migration to Multi-Cloud – NetApp and VMware are currently working together to certify and support VMware Cloud and NetApp Cloud Services across the world’s three largest public cloud providers. This enables VMware customers who use NetApp or non-NetApp storage environments on-premises to migrate, extend, or protect data-demanding enterprise workloads and files to the cloud at a lower cost and risk. Customers can now right-size their cloud compute and storage architectures to reduce and control the costs of running data-demanding workloads at scale in the cloud, while also avoiding the costs of migrating applications from on-premises to the cloud. NetApp and VMware have leveraged their decades of experience managing enterprise workloads in the data center to deliver fully certified, integrated, and supported solutions that provide these same benefits to customers leveraging public cloud, all built on a trusted workload and data management foundation.
• Accelerate Modernized Applications Using Kubernetes/Containers – VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu enables IT to manage virtual machines and container orchestration from a single unified platform. VMware Tanzu and VMware Cloud Foundation support the use of NetApp ONTAP-based storage arrays, allowing customers to build out a flexible data fabric for traditional VMs as well as modern, containerized applications. NetApp is a design partner with VMware Tanzu container-native storage for Kubernetes workloads, integrating Astra Control with VMware Tanzu for VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols) deployments. Customers can now use enterprise-scale, high-performance, and protected solutions that have been jointly validated and supported to simplify and accelerate new modern application development and deployment alongside traditional virtualized workloads.
• Optimize The Data Center Through Modernized Infrastructure – To optimize existing resources, organizations today require an efficient, cost-effective workload and data management platform. NetApp is a VMware co-design partner for vSphere and vVols, providing new and expanded support for key NetApp file and block storage platform technologies. This includes new certification and support for using vVols with NVMe-oF to enable enhanced block storage flash performance and more granular VM storage management across multiple network transports such as FC, ethernet, and standard TCP/IP networks. This includes new integration to improve the availability and security of virtualized workloads running in NFS 4.1 environments. Customers can now get more performance out of traditional virtualized workloads by leveraging existing infrastructure investments and simplifying day-to-day IT operations with solutions that have been jointly validated and supported.