NetApp announced the development of the NetApp Kilo Client, a massive testing environment capable of exceeding the most scalable and extreme performance conditions that most enterprises deploy with NetApp solutions in their data centers. The NetApp Kilo Client provides an environment in which utility computing approaches can be tested in real-world environments and on a scale unavailable from other storage vendors today.

Thousands of customers are deploying NetApp storage with larger and larger computing grid environments. In order to meet the increasingly demanding requirements of these data centers, NetApp built the Kilo Client to explore the limits of its storage solutions in a controlled environment and developed best practices in rapid provisioning methodologies. Specifically, NetApp learned how a SAN boot architecture coupled with thin provisioning provides rapid client provisioning and storage consolidation, simplifies the management of large data center architectures, and reduces the level of power consumption, all for huge overall cost savings.

“The NetApp Kilo Client is a breakthrough architecture that pushes the limits in the testing and development of enterprise grid compute environments,” said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions Marketing at NetApp. “This environment was made possible for our customers due to close collaboration with key partners like AMD, Blade Network Technologies, Brocade, Chelsio Communications, Cisco, IBM, Intel, QLogic, Qlusters, and VMware. The Kilo Client is a technology that delivers the day-to-day business efficiencies promised by utility computing and makes those efficiencies not just a theoretical possibility, but a practical consideration for commercial usage today.”

The Kilo Client, a 1,500-node diskless enterprise server farm located at the NetApp RTP facilities, runs multiple operating systems including Windows, UNIX, and Linux. Additionally, the Kilo Client supports NAS, FC SAN, and IP SAN protocols. The system leverages NetApp FlexClone technology to rapidly create system images without making full physical copies of those images. This approach affords near-instantaneous image provisioning, maximum performance, and unprecedented flexibility in a footprint of just over 300 square feet.

Rogers continued, “NetApp is taking a holistic approach to helping users test and build the most energy-efficient data centers without sacrificing performance and scalability. The NetApp Kilo Client affords end users the right insight into pulling the maximum utilization from their storage and server virtualization resources. This isn’t a technology of the future—there is absolutely nothing in the Kilo Client test lab that can't be leveraged by NetApp customers today.”

he NetApp Kilo Client is an example of how NetApp is helping customers with their data center transformation. To read more about the innovative solutions NetApp introduced today that is ushering in the next wave of data center transformation, read the separate press release at http://www.netapp.com/news/press/news_rel_20080212.
For more information on the NetApp Kilo Client, please visit:
http://www.netapp.com/library/tr/3566.pdf
and http://www.netapp.com/go/techontap/matl/downloads/EMA_Kilo.pdf.


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