NetApp Joined Microsoft Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track Program

NetApp, Inc. has joined Microsoft Corp.’s Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track program with a validated data center architecture design that simplifies private cloud deployment and operations.

The NetApp Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track with Cisco Systems, Inc. data center architecture design helps customers accelerate their business by enabling IT to rapidly respond to changing business needs while providing application availability and improving management efficiencies through automation.

Highlights:

• Validated through the Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track program, the NetApp Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track with Cisco data center architecture design helps customers reduce infrastructure and application deployment time from days to hours while helping them achieve greater utilization of their physical and virtual resource pools.
• The NetApp Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track with Cisco data center architecture design uses Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2 and Microsoft System Center, a common management platform to help ease management and enable automation and self-service provisioning of the entire private cloud infrastructure, including features such as automated self-service provisioning via native Opalis Integration Packs.
• Built on a flexible, shared infrastructure, the NetApp Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track with Cisco design is a tested data center architecture that can scale vertically or horizontally. The architecture design is comprised of Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) servers and Cisco Nexus switches; Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2 and Microsoft System Center components, including Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, Microsoft System Center Service Manager, and Opalis Integration Server; and NetApp unified storage systems running Data ONTAP, with a software bundle that includes the NetApp OnCommand 3.0 plug-in for Microsoft. (The NetApp OnCommand 3.0 plug-in is slated to be available in August 2011; the rest of the solutions are available now.)

Mitch Kitay, vice president of Advanced Data Solutions, Terremark, said: "NetApp Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track with Cisco has helped us achieve high levels of efficiency and density per rack and lower-cost operations. The common management framework supports larger multi-tenant deployments without needing to add more staff, while integration with Cisco UCS and Microsoft Hyper-V provides high-scaling capabilities that allow us to deliver resources for the wide variety of enterprise workloads and applications run by our customers. By providing flexible and efficient services, we’re helping our customers be competitive while accelerating our own success."

Soni Jiandani, senior vice president, Server Access and Virtualization Technology Group, Cisco, said: "With this validated architecture design, customers can confidently take advantage of the Cisco Unified Computing System and the NetApp infrastructure to accelerate their journey to the private cloud."

Mike Schutz, senior director of Windows Server Marketing at Microsoft Corp., said: "We developed the Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track program to help our customers accelerate private cloud deployments and enable them to reap the benefits of IT flexibility, increased agility, and lower costs. The combination of Cisco and NetApp provides orchestration and automation capabilities, and is directly in line with our vision to provide our customers with a broad choice of pre-validated infrastructures that can help them deploy private cloud architectures with confidence."

Phil Brotherton, vice president and general manager of the Microsoft Business Unit at NetApp, said: "Working with Cisco and Microsoft, NetApp continues to deliver on our commitment to helping our customers achieve greater flexibility and efficiencies at lower costs. This collaboration enables us to deliver a private cloud that paves the way for customers to transition to a shared IT infrastructure that helps them be ready for the future and use IT as a tool to capitalize on new growth opportunities."