NetApp at AWS re:Invent post-event re:Cap

Back in the saddle again, it was something special to join AWS re:Invent 2021 in person. Las Vegas was as welcoming and electrifying as ever, and AWS did an incredible job of catering to attendees while delivering outstanding keynotes, content, and fun experiences. Whether or not you made it to re:Invent 2021, either in person or online, NetApp had a lot going on, so I wanted to share some of my favorite highlights.

For NetApp, the highlight of re:Invent 2021 was winning the 2021 AWS ISV Design Partner of the Year (US) award at the Global Partner Summit. The award speaks to the value that NetApp® cloud specialization brings to AWS and its customers. We work closely with AWS in many areas to help customers do more with their data, and this year our biggest partnership news was hands down the September announcement of Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP.

Today, it’s easier than ever for AWS customers to deploy shared storage for Linux and Windows workloads on AWS while taking advantage of our enterprise-grade data services to seamlessly manage their data wherever it lives. And AWS customers are already seeing stellar results and quickly taking advantage of new opportunities to innovate. Check out what they’re saying:

We improved the agility of our digital education platform by being able to refresh and clone 10 times faster thanks to moving our storage to FSx for ONTAP, which also decreased our RPO and RTO from being measured in hours to minutes.

—Pearson

After testing, we found FSx for NetApp ONTAP as the only cloud shared storage service with throughput and latency on par with or better than on-premises best-of-breed offerings.

—eHealth

With FSx for NetApp ONTAP we can now migrate any demanding workload that was running on EMC-Isilon on premises on AWS with better performance, lower latency, and with rich data services.

—Large international energy company

Pretty impressive; just looks like an ONTAP cluster in the cloud; we feel like this can accelerate our pace of transitioning to the cloud.

—Investment firm

FSx for ONTAP isn’t just a disruptive native cloud service, it’s one of the fastest growing AWS storage services ever. In just 3 short months since it launched, FSx for ONTAP is changing cloud strategies for the rest of the industry. An outstanding example is VMware integrating FSx as primary storage for VMC. VMware Cloud on AWS will be forever changed with the open preview announcement of their Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP integration.

As an NFS datastore for VMware Cloud on AWS, customers can finally scale their storage environment as needed without purchasing additional host instances. Customers are now able to support application block and file data in VMware Cloud on AWS with the enterprise features they take for granted in the data center. This support enables them to move the most demanding applications to the cloud on their schedule without refactoring. Data protection, disaster recovery, and migration to cloud can now cover the application block and file data together in a unified architecture with FSx for ONTAP and VMware Cloud.

Now that NetApp ONTAP® software is native on AWS, we are working hard to make FSx for ONTAP even better. At re:Invent 2021 we released several new integrations and some helpful provisioning and cost-optimization functionality. Here are the broad strokes:

• Amazon RDS Custom for Microsoft SQL builds on the October Amazon RDS for Oracle release. Both offer a managed database service for applications, automating database setup, operation, and scaling in AWS while providing database and OS access for maintenance needs.
• New AWS service integrations, including with the AWS CloudFormation provisioning service and the AWS Lambda serverless, event-driven compute service.
• Added functionality support for Terraform infrastructure-as-code provisioning software.
• Enhanced fabric pool tiering helps to control and optimize costs with more throughput options.
• New 128MBps/month and 256MBps/month SKUs improve ease-of-entry price points.

While we were in Vegas, the NetApp executive team took advantage of the opportunity for facetime with partners and each other, sharing some lively strategic discussions of all things data storage and hybrid cloud. One of my personal highlights for re:Invent 2021 was relaxing with my fellow cloud sommeliers Anthony Lye and Ed Naim during our “The Perfect Blend” discussion about bringing structure to your unstructured data in AWS. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it at your convenience on NetApp TV^™.

While you’re on NetApp TV, also be sure to check out the “In The Cloud” segments with the NetApp executive team. It’s the first (and I’m guessing it will be the only) time I have been locked in a cabin on a giant Ferris wheel with my colleagues, 550 feet above the Vegas Strip. We shared our thoughts about unstructured data in the cloud, the practitioner skills gap, cloud security, internet connectivity—and even what project we’d start with the duffle bag full of $1M in cash that the producers brought along. It was a fun way to explore important considerations for some of today’s most pressing cloud and business-related challenges.

As IT platforms become increasingly hybrid, it’s interesting to see how work is becoming more hybrid as well. Including major tech conferences, re:Invent 2021 is a masterclass in possibilities. The live event was sold out, and thousands of people attended virtually. The great thing is that in person and on line, everyone had access to the latest thought leadership and technical instruction. And anything you missed or want to watch again is still available. For NetApp content, just head over to NetApp TV.

• Watch our re:Invent videos
• Read the award announcement
• See our re:Invent summary