Azure NetApp Files: Enhanced scale, and performance, with flexible pricing

When it comes to cloud data storage, scale, flexibility and cost-efficiency are at the forefront of every IT professional’s mind. Azure NetApp Files (ANF) continues to redefine enterprise storage by offering innovative solutions tailored to the needs of today’s data-driven AI enabled businesses.

Microsoft has announced several new capabilities for Azure NetApp Files to continue to improve file share experiences for enterprise workloads. Let’s take a look!

With the introduction of the Flexible service level for Azure NetApp Files and new data scale and performance capabilities, organizations now have unprecedented control over how they manage capacity and performance demands to provide the right service at an optimized cost. I’ll cover all the details a bit further down in this blog.

Scale and performance

One of the most anticipated updates is the introduction of Application Volume Groups, designed specifically for Oracle and SAP workloads. This feature simplifies management by enabling Azure NetApp Files users to deploy all volumes required to install and operate Oracle and SAP HANA databases at enterprise scale, with optimal performance and according to best practices in a single one-step and optimized workflow.

With application volume groups you can achieve:

• Streamlined management of storage resources for businesses running mission-critical apps, like Oracle databases or SAP systems.
• Improved performance by placing all volumes in the same availability zone as the VMs to achieve automated, latency-optimized deployments.
• Enhanced efficiency reduces the complexity of managing multiple volumes tied to the same application. This is a game-changer for enterprise customers who demand tight and reliable integration between their applications and storage solutions.

If your organization relies on Oracle or SAP, this update ensures a smoother and more responsive experience for your high-demand applications.

Cool access with snapshot only policy (general availability): For data tiering with cool assess this new capability enables storing only snapshots in low-cost storage, reducing expenses while maintaining high-performance storage for the rest of the data. This offers a cost-effective solution for managing snapshots, allowing customers to benefit from cost savings without compromising on restore times.

Now let’s turn our attention back to the new Flexible service level and dig into all the details.

Overprovisioning: The Challenge of Traditional Cloud Storage

Historically, enterprises using cloud storage often had to overprovision their resources. For instance:

• Businesses seeking high throughput for their workloads were compelled to purchase more storage capacity than needed.
• Conversely, organizations requiring large storage volumes without significant performance demands often paid for unused throughput.

These rigid configurations led to inefficiencies and inflated costs. The inflexibility in aligning an enterprise’s specific storage needs to its workload requirements made it challenging to achieve optimal pricing strategies.

The Flexible service level for Azure NetApp Files is a revolutionary offering that separates throughput and capacity pricing. Think of it as a "pay for the capacity you need, scale the performance as you grow" model that redefines cost alignment in cloud storage. The minimum throughput to be assigned to a Flexible capacity pool is 128 MiB/second regardless of the pool quota. The first 128 MiB/s of throughput, known as the baseline, is included in the Flexible service level. And then you can add additional performance in 1 MiB/s increments to the same capacity pool without increasing capacity.

Key Benefits:

1. Capacity and Throughput Independence: With the Flexible service level, you can independently provision storage capacity (in TiBs) and throughput (in MiBs/sec). No more overprovisioning storage just to achieve higher performance—this is a truly customizable model suited to your specific workload.
2. Elastic Performance Scaling: Need higher throughput during peak periods? You can dial up your performance instantly. When demands drop, you can reduce throughput (following a cooldown period), ensuring continual alignment with your workload’s needs.
3. Significant Cost Savings up to 40%: By eliminating the need to bundle capacity and throughput, this new approach allows customers to reduce their current ANF spending between 10% and 40%. For example:
   • High-performance workloads with small data sets no longer need to purchase large storage volumes to achieve optimal performance.
   • Large-capacity general-purpose storage can now be provisioned without paying for unused throughput.
4. Flexibility for Every Workload: Whether it’s supporting high-transaction databases, virtual desktop environments, disaster recovery (DR) strategies, or general file shares, the Flexible service level adapts to your requirements.
5. Consistency Across Functions: The Flexible service level supports core ANF features, such as snapshots, backups, restores, and replication—ensuring seamless data management without compromising functionality.

Use Cases of Flexible service level

1. High Throughput, Low-Capacity Needs: A finance company running transactional databases required 700 MiB/sec of throughput for rapid operations while managing just 4 TiB of data. Under traditional tiers, they’d need to pay for far more capacity than required. With the Flexible service level, they now only pay for the high throughput they need, resulting in a cost reduction of over 40%.
2. Cost-Effective Disaster Recovery (DR): An enterprise leveraging Azure NetApp Files for DR previously needed to pay for full production-level performance on secondary DR sites. With the Flexible service level, they now provision minimal capacity with the baseline 128 MiB/sec throughput for the DR site, saving 25% on costs while remaining prepared for failover scenarios.
3. Large File Shares, Moderate Throughput Needs: For general-purpose file shares, many enterprise customers manage 100+ TiB of data but do not require matching throughput. Since you get 128 MiB/s of baseline throughput with every flexible capacity pool you create by utilizing Flexible service level, the baseline throughput allocations across multiple capacity pools can save organizations up to 21% compared to standard tiers.
4. Dynamic Oracle Databases: An Oracle database workload required variable performance levels throughout the month. The Flexible service level allowed the organization to increase throughput during peak periods, then scale it back dynamically resulting in 34% total cost savings after the cool down period.

Cloud architects and IT professionals, the time to optimize your cloud storage is now. The launch of Flexible service level for Azure NetApp Files signals an exciting evolution in cloud data storage frameworks. No longer constrained by inflexible pricing models, organizations now have the power to align their storage resources precisely with workload demands. This innovation ultimately drives both cost savings and operational efficiency.

Are you ready to revolutionize your approach to cloud storage? Try Azure NetApp Files today and discover how the Flexible service level can bring innovation, assurance, and unparalleled adaptability to your enterprise.