NetApp introduces AFF A900 and ONTAP Enterprise Edition

NetApp AFF A900, the more performant next generation of the highly resilient AFF A700 system, is offered exclusively with NetApp ONTAP Enterprise Edition data management software. ONTAP Enterprise Edition leverages the world’s leading data management software and is delivered pre-packaged with all the components enterprises need, including unified support for SAN, NAS, NVMe-oF, and S3, built-in data protection with optional cutting-edge anti-ransomware capabilities, and the high performance and resiliency required to support the most critical business workloads. With the most flexible and complete hybrid multi-cloud offerings in the market, companies can extend and scale to any cloud as needed with ONTAP’s deep, market-leading integrations with public cloud providers.

“As the value of critical business applications and massive enterprise data management workloads continue to rise over the next few years (IDC Enterprise Infrastructure Workloads Forecast for 2021-2025), enterprises will demand performance, security, and the operational simplicity to move and scale those workloads to their preferred cloud of choice with ease,” said Eric Burgener, Research Vice President, Enterprise Infrastructure at IDC. “Products like NetApp’s AFF A900 and ONTAP Enterprise allow organizations to reliably and securely run their most advanced business apps and databases on-premises, or easily scale to any cloud.”

The NetApp AFF A900 includes the following new capabilities:

•        Industry-Leading Performance –

o   The AFF A900 delivers an enhanced user experience for managing organizations’ most important enterprise databases like Oracle, SAP HANA, Microsoft SQL Server, and virtualized applications. Touting extremely low latency around 100μs, the AFF A900 increases performance by up to 50 percent over previous models (AFF A700 with like protocols).

o   Enterprises can take advantage of modern network connectivity without new hardware investments in networking infrastructure with first-to-market enterprise-grade NVMe/TCP in addition to NVMe/FC. Organizations can also scale and grow with unified multi-protocol support for SAN, NAS and Object storage, delivering maximum flexibility for enterprise storage needs while increasing reliability and reducing performance tuning and support costs.

•        Best-in-Class Data Security – With the ONTAP Enterprise Edition and the new Anti-Ransomware Suite, organizations have built-in data protection and cutting-edge anti-ransomware solutions for both pre-emption and post-attack recovery to prevent against catastrophic data loss and economic costs.

•        Simplified Non-Disruptive Upgrades – The AFF A900 is available as a non-disruptive in-chassis upgrade to existing A700 customers, simplifying the refresh and eliminating disruptions to mission-critical operations with advanced reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) capabilities. Additionally, ONTAP software automatically applies firmware updates to increase operational efficiency and simplify day-to-day activities for IT teams. And NetApp Keystone’s support for the AFF A900 provides companies operational and financial flexibility to consume storage and data services in the model that best suits the needs of the business.

“As a longtime NetApp partner, WWT is committed to helping organizations accelerate growth by applying complex technologies to deliver simplified business solutions,” said Jeff Fonke, Manager, Primary Storage & Cloud Data Management, WWT Global Engineering. “With the non-disruptive in-chassis upgrade from the A700 to A900, NetApp is enabling us to help our joint customers quickly and easily transition to more performant systems, allowing them to spend less time thinking about IT infrastructure and more time on the needs of their customers and business.” 

“Enterprises running their business applications and databases on-premises demand the highest performance storage systems with the most secure data availability,” said Praveena Vajja, Vice President, ONTAP at NetApp. “With the AFF A900 and ONTAP Enterprise Edition, these enterprises can leverage NetApp’s leading hybrid multi-cloud solutions to meet the needs of their business and scale their data and management to any public cloud simply and efficiently.”