NetApp and VMware: The ultimate DR for your production workloads

I like to look back at how IT has evolved over the years and at my experience on that journey. I have found myself at the sharp end of several significant outages, which can be summarized as being caused by not enough electricity, the wrong type of electricity, or far too much water in the data center. The conclusion from these events was “Disaster is inevitable, plan accordingly.” Booting the large mainframe from tape was probably the pinnacle of those outages. In case you are wondering, it worked, and I was pleased that I had:

a.) Identified the capability.

b.) Included it in the plan.

c.) Tested it beforehand.

Time moves on, and for many in IT, the disaster recovery (DR) plan remains a constant feature, but with an ever-changing core. New infrastructure, platforms, and software technologies mean that evaluation is ongoing. Provision of DR capability, including backup, is often viewed as a necessary but costly insurance policy. Follow this link for useful information that will help you define your business continuity strategy

Enterprise cloud computing presents an opportunity to drive new efficiencies and cost savings through the DR plan, processes, and products. Looking at the predictions of the IT industry analysts and pundits, DR and backup feature at the top of their top 10 predictions for cloud adoption. The big questions are:

• How do I deploy DR in the cloud with speed and scale?
• How do I go about creating DR and backup in the cloud without creating yet another silo?
• How do I maintain consistent DR and backup operations across the hybrid cloud?
• How do I protect my investment in staff skills, experience, and knowledge?

Many tens of thousands of NetApp customers are also VMware customers. The integration of NetApp® and VMware technologies has a 20-year heritage. Today we see both companies in the market with robust compute and storage virtualization SDS cloud offerings. The integration between NetApp and VMware on premises and in the cloud means that customers can move their operations, such as DR and backup, to the cloud quickly and with minimal intervention. Find out more about how NetApp and VMware enable you to modernize your IT environment.

When you consider the outcome of moving your business operations to the cloud service provider of your choice, the first hurdle will be converting the VMs you want to replicate to the CSP’s own hypervisor platform. This is not something you want to be doing in a time of crisis!

The challenge of operating your business in the hybrid cloud is one of consistency. For me, consistency is fundamental and key. I don’t want to have to reengineer my entire operation if I decide to move to another cloud service provider. I want to be able to move on my terms and with relative ease.

This is exactly what NetApp and VMware integration in the hybrid cloud gives you.

• Consistency between your cloud and on-premises operation
• Freedom to select the cloud of your choice
• Protection of staff skills, knowledge, and tools
• Simple easy steps to create backup and DR in the cloud of your choice
• Perform ransomware recovery drills with ease
• Enable full production DR testing
• Cost savings – maintain data efficiencies, save by using cloud scale
• No requirement to procure, deploy, maintain, and manage physical DR and backup infrastructure
• Migration and protection of your primary workloads in the cloud

If your organization is looking to extend on-premises VMware environments to any cloud while retaining existing skills, NetApp can help you deliver the most robust DR and backup solution, in the cloud of your choice, at speed and with no lock-in.

To find out more NetApp and VMware’s joint vision and how NetApp data management optimizes a wide range of storage solutions across the enterprise hybrid cloud, check out these links:

NetApp and VMware: Modernized, hybrid, flexible, scalable, efficient
Optimize storage for cloud-based VMware deployments