Australian Cloud Provider ASE IT Works With NetApp

NetApp, Inc. announced that ASE IT, an Australian cloud provider, has leveraged its existing partnership with the vendor to develop two cloud management offerings based on NetApp Private Storage (NPS) and StorageGRID Webscale solutions.

ASE sought to offer customers new ways to manage their data in a public cloud with a simple and straightforward web portal.

With a data centre network spanning the US, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, ASE supports over 200 companies ranging from SMBs to some of the world’s largest corporate organisations. These corporations include First Wave, EzyPay, AW Edwards Pty Ltd, Silver Trak Digital, and several media companies.

ASE chose to work with NetApp to provide the data management features and innovations that ASE customers need from their cloud services. ASE has become known for its public, private, and hybrid clouds supported by smart solution design and dedicated 24/7/365 technical assistance.

ASE’s founder and CEO, Andrew Sjoquist said: “We set out to be the most secure and innovative in terms of cloud services providers and we feel our partnership with NetApp has allowed us to do just that.“

NPS as a service enables ASE to move its customers’ data between multiple cloud providers and builds on NetApp’s vision for putting data next to the cloud. Next-to-cloud storage allows ASE’s customers to decouple from proprietary storage attached to cloud computing vendors and relieves fears of vendor lock-in. IT managers are then able to fulfill the role of brokering more cloud services associated with their data-sets that are more fit for the purpose.

Beyond logical separation, ASE makes practical the mobility of data and the heavy tolls associated with it by reducing retrieval costs to zero. The solution is suitable for customers of all sizes who might not want buy into huge amounts of storage but still demand the performance of an enterprise-quality cloud. The solution also builds on the philosophy that ASE’s customers can maintain control of their data with easy, high-speed access provided by direct connect and express route links.

ASE’s object storage service is built from the ground up on the StorageGRID Webscale solution. This scalable and reliable technology enables high volumes of data to be ingested into the grid and accessed. It is an always-on mesh that allows constant, easy access to huge amounts of core data in an active archive scenario. Data integrity is also paramount and the solution enables customer data to be maintained as it moves between locations and ages over time, preventing corruption.

NPS and StorageGRID Webscale technology allow ASE’s customers the freedom to manage and control their own data on a public cloud, allowing not just efficiency and ease of use, but also major cost reductions. Those who moved away from file-based storage to StorageGRID Webscale have received significant savings. In particular, customers in the media industry reduced their storage costs by up to 75%. The technology is so popular that approximately 15% of on-air content in Australia is being managed through ASE’s services.

“With NetApp storage we can offer cloud services with the features our customers need,” says Sjoquist. “This includes the ability to manage their own data, move it on demand, and have reliable backup and DR, all while having significant cost savings.“