Anaplan achieves seamless global operations with NetApp technology

Anaplan, a leading business-planning software provider, faced significant outages and inefficiencies with its previous storage systems. By partnering with NetApp, Anaplan successfully deployed business continuity software, integrated on-premises and cloud-based storage, and achieved cost savings and operational efficiency. This collaboration expanded Anaplan’s technical capabilities and deepened the trust of its customers.

Headquartered in vibrant Miami, Florida, Anaplan specializes in delivering cutting-edge solutions for strategic planning and long-range forecasting. Anaplan helps organizations worldwide with solutions that span business functions, including finance, sales, supply chain, and operations. Trusted by major banks and investment firms, its Software-as-a-Service platform is considered the gold standard for financial applications.

With thousands of global customers, the high availability and reliability of its software-as-a-service platforms are paramount. Anaplan helps its clients foster connected enterprises, aiming to accelerate planning and iterate multiple scenarios to guide better decisions. Using in-house large language models (LLMs), Anaplan is infusing AI at every layer of its platform to improve forecasting models and expedite innovation.

At the core of Anaplan’s offerings is its innovative connected planning approach, which integrates data from multiple sources and facilitates cross-functional collaboration. This allows its customers to break down silos and build a unified view of their operations, driving better forecasts, strategic alignment, and resource optimization. By prioritizing user experience and continuous improvement, Anaplan is committed to delivering solutions that not only enhance efficiency but also nurture a culture of proactive decision-making and sustained growth.

Over a six-month span, Anaplan faced multiple critical outages due to issues with its previous vendor’s storage systems. The disruption, which affected not only Anaplan's largest customer but thousands of other customers, hampered access to data for decision-making and operational tasks. The series of outages threatened Anaplan's reputation and customer satisfaction.

Adding to the business challenges, Anaplan's existing storage systems had reached End of Service Life (EOSL), necessitating an urgent system refresh. The lack of a robust public cloud offering from its previous vendor hindered seamless integration between on-premises storage and public cloud environments, a crucial component in serving a diverse and global customer base.

NetApp addressed Anaplan’s multifaceted challenges with a comprehensive infrastructure solution that included:

• Cost-efficient storage. Anaplan chose NetApp C-Series all-flash arrays for performance-critical applications and tiered secondary data to NetApp FAS systems for cost-effective storage. This hybrid approach allowed Anaplan to optimize costs without compromising on performance.
• MetroCluster functionality. NetApp^® MetroCluster^® technology provided Anaplan with continuous availability by combining array-based clustering with synchronous replication. Data is duplicated immediately across two physically separate, mirrored clusters, offering nondisruptive data protection and disaster recovery capabilities.
• Running at cloud scale. For scaling on a global platform, Anaplan relies on Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP for Google Cloud. These advanced storage services provide Anaplan with the performance, cost efficiency, and scalability needed to grow its international operations.
• Unified data storage with ONTAP. By leveraging NetApp ONTAP^® data management software, Anaplan unified data storage across both cloud and on-premises infrastructure. With fluid integration between its cloud and data center resources, Anaplan can better deliver rapid, AI-driven insights for its customers.
• Actionable intelligence. Anaplan simplifies storage optimization using NetApp Active IQ^®, a digital advisor that analyzes telemetry data to enhance performance and security. By proactively identifying and addressing potential issues, Active IQ streamlines storage management and reduces administrative time.

Critical to Anaplan, this flexible solution allows it to scale storage capacity to meet dynamic demand. The partnership with NetApp future-proofed Anaplan’s infrastructure and yielded other positive outcomes that benefit its customers:

• Enhanced operational efficiency. Anaplan’s operations team can now manage both cloud and on-premises systems with ease. This consolidation has streamlined their workflows and enabled real-time monitoring, allowing the team to provide services faster and scale more efficiently.
• Cost savings. The hybrid storage approach delivered considerable cost savings, freeing up resources for Anaplan to invest in further innovations and customer-centric enhancements.
• High availability. Importantly, the MetroCluster solution significantly reduced the risk of outages and restored customer confidence in Anaplan’s reliability.
• Simplified management. With ONTAP, Anaplan can repurpose any modifications and developments around storage globally, providing consistency and facilitating management with a minimal number of trained NetApp administrators.

Turbocharged by this solid technical infrastructure, Anaplan’s connected enterprise approach is paying dividends to its customers. Using Anaplan’s innovative software, organizations no longer spend wasted hours on data collation and system connectivity, but instead focus their energy on making informed and fast decisions.

Anaplan defines decision excellence as the velocity, quality, and efficiency of decision-making. Surveying 500 executives of top companies, Anaplan research shows that companies in the top quartile of decision-making excellence outperform those in the bottom quartile by an impressive 14 percentage points of total shareholder returns, equaling $10 billion in market capitalization. Anaplan enables its customers to process an unprecedented amount of information and channel that to effective decision-making. ^[1]

Anaplan equips companies to be more agile in today’s highly competitive markets, so they can swiftly respond to both external shocks and internal challenges. This, combined with tools like generative AI, means that Anaplan delivers its clients profound business impact and elevated performance.

Anaplan revolutionized its operations to elevate customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Anaplan’s transition to NetApp has been a game-changer. This strategic move has significantly boosted operational efficiency and reliability, enabling the company to deliver uninterrupted services and enhanced data management. With a scalable, cost-efficient NetApp storage solution, Anaplan enhanced its service delivery, maintaining a seamless experience for customers and reliable access to crucial business-planning tools.

Passionate about growth, Anaplan will further leverage AI and machine learning capabilities to refine decision-making processes and drive innovation. The ongoing collaboration with NetApp promises to unlock new potential and strengthen Anaplan’s position as a leader in the business-planning software industry.

For details on Anaplan’s selection of NetApp as its primary storage vendor, read the press release.