IDC Market Note explores how BlueXP aims to simplify hybrid multicloud management

In today’s digital landscape, organizations face the challenge of having to manage infrastructure and data across multiple on-premises and cloud-based systems. According to IDC, 84% of enterprises live in a hybrid cloud and/or hybrid multicloud world, with storage infrastructure spanning from on-premises data centers to one or more public clouds.

Although hybrid multicloud environments offer flexibility and scalability, they also introduce complexity over traditional on-premises setups. Managing and securing your infrastructure and data across geographically dispersed systems with unique tools and technologies can be complicated. To help mitigate that complexity and get the most value from a hybrid multicloud approach, you need effective, unified data management and governance.

IDC notes: NetApp BlueXP serves as the consolidation point for disparate systems, providing unified management and integrated data protection. 

How we do it: BlueXP delivers unified control of storage and services for all your data, wherever it lives. The NetApp tools that you already know and love are integrated within BlueXP, including ONTAP® System Manager, Active IQ® Digital Advisor, the NetApp Support Site, support case management, alerting, notifications, reporting, and more. And additional integrations are on the way.  

With BlueXP, you can implement common processes, policies, and procedures across your entire intelligent data infrastructure. Gone are the days of multiple logins, windows, and tools to perform everyday tasks. With BlueXP, you can do everything that you currently do with your storage, through a single point of control by using your NetApp Support Site account.

IDC notes: BlueXP gives you a unified view of all the potential vulnerabilities in your environment. It spots things such as abnormal encryption rates, outdated software versions, volumes that don’t have data protection or security features enabled, and sensitive data in repositories with unrestricted or minimally restricted access.  

How we do it: Data protection is a crucial aspect of BlueXP. BlueXP integrated services maximize data protection and cyber resilience while minimizing costs. It offers backup and recovery, disaster recovery, replication, and cyber-resilience services.  

BlueXP backup and recovery capabilities offer the full 3-2-1 spectrum of protection capabilities for NetApp ONTAP® data, applications, databases, Kubernetes persistent volumes, and VMs. NetApp SnapMirror® technology enables the efficient replication of changed and newly added blocks between ONTAP based storage systems.  

BlueXP delivers cyber resilience through its integrated classification technology that helps your organization identify vulnerabilities and protect your data from potential threats.

IDC notes: BlueXP uses telemetry and environment-monitoring data to find potential points of failure and storage inefficiencies across an organization’s entire data estate. 

How we do it: BlueXP uses AIOps to drive automation and to deliver intelligent, actionable insights. NetApp Active IQ technology, fueled by telemetry and AIOps, provides a comprehensive “wellness dashboard” that gives you insights into your system’s performance, capacity, configuration settings, and security vulnerabilities.

BlueXP can flag potential issues and suggest administrative actions to fix them. It also gives you proactive recommendations, such as identifying inactive data for storage tiering and workloads that are suitable for migration to the cloud. 

BlueXP also provides several other services to enhance the management and optimization of your environment. BlueXP digital wallet consolidates visibility and management of your licenses, subscriptions, and entitlements. With 88% of enterprises extending to at least one cloud and 85% extending to two or more clouds, management of consumable assets is critical.1 BlueXP unlocks more control, investment protection, and return on investment (ROI) through the flexible consumption of these resources.  

With a single point of visibility, you control your licenses, marketplace entitlements, private offers, annual contracts, and subscriptions. From BlueXP, you can also upload, update, activate, and renew your resources. Your investments are protected through exchanges, reallocation, and reassociation.  

BlueXP communicates back and forth with hyperscaler marketplaces so that you can see utilization, capacity, and ROI for all your resources.  

BlueXP also provides copy and sync for data movement between file and object storage, tiering for efficient data storage, and volume caching that’s built on NetApp FlexCache® technology.

As organizations like yours continue to embrace hybrid multicloud strategies, NetApp BlueXP has emerged as a valuable tool to streamline operations and to promote efficient data management. BlueXP supports most NetApp storage systems and solutions, including AFF, FAS, StorageGRID® object-based storage, and E-Series. You also get support for cloud-based services such as Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP, Azure NetApp Files, and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP. 

To learn more, read IDC’s full Market Note about BlueXP or contact us.  

Note: The information in this blog post is based on the IDC Market Note with document ID US50786123. For complete details and accuracy, refer to the original document: 

IDC Market Note: BlueXP Strengthens NetApp's Hybrid Multicloud Portfolio with Unified Management of Storage and Data Services (doc #US50786123, June 2023)| NetApp