HotLink Collaborates With NetApp

HotLink Corporation announced a secure, performance hybrid IT solution spanning VMware environments and Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) using NetApp Private Storage for AWS and HotLink Corp.‘s transformation technology and VMware vCenter plug-in solutions.

The solution integrates the VMware vCenter management with enterprise NetApp Private Storage for AWS; low-cost, pay-as-you-go computing of Amazon EC2; and high-speed, low-latency AWS Direct Connect. The result is an integrated, performance hybrid IT infrastructure for VMware environments with TCO.

NetApp Private Storage for AWS enables enterprises to build an agile infrastructure that accommodates a mix of VMware and AWS resources to best meet business needs and economic interests while providing control and data mobility. When combined with qualified AWS direct connect service providers, customers have sub-5 millisecond response times between NetApp storage and AWS for the lowest latency hybrid IT environment available. HotLink’s patented transformation technology provides the management and workload interoperability between VMware and AWS that completes the solution stack providing cost-effective, hybrid on- and off- premises use cases, including data protection and cloud bursting for VMware customers.

“In order to gain the full benefits of flexibility, scalability and cost savings of public cloud, IT administrators need methods and technologies to combine public cloud and private data center resources in a holistic fashion,” said Lee Gates, director cloud solution, NetApp. “By leveraging HotLink, NetApp, AWS and Direct Connect, we offer customers unified hybrid management, workload portability, complete data control, low-latency data transfer, and the attractive economics and scalable compute power of AWS.”

Key use cases for enterprises and service providers include DR and BC, cloud bursting for peak load, and development and test – all benefiting from the performance, low-cost hybrid IT solution.

Capabilities include:

• The security, flexibility and scale of NetApp Private Storage for AWS extended to VMware environments;
• The ability to dynamically adjust private infrastructure and public cloud resources and manage the hybrid pool using customers’ on-premise VMware vCenter infrastructure;
• Operational recovery in Amazon EC2 within minutes of an on-premises VMware failure;
• Complete data control and low-latency data transfer using NetApp Private Storage for AWS;
• Integrated and automated bi-directional workload conversions between on-premises VMware and off-premises AWS; and
• When combined with qualified AWS Direct Connect service providers, the lowest latency hybrid environment available.

Brian Lillie, CIO, Equinix, Inc., an interconnection data center and colocation service and AWS Direct Connect provider, said: “We find many enterprises are looking for methods to leverage public cloud more fully for a number of use cases, including DR and BC. Our customers gain greater efficiencies and costs savings when we can combine the speed of Direct Connect with the high-performance of NetApp Private Storage for AWS, and the complete integration and interoperability to on-premises VMware management environments using HotLink.”

Lillie recently joined HotLink’s CIO advisory board, which includes CIOs from industry companies such as Facebook, ETRADE, Clorox, AstraZeneca, Citrix,  and BMC.

HotLink also announced its membership in the NetApp Alliance Partner Program. It will continue to work with NetApp to ensure tight integration between HotLink solutions and NetApp Private Storage for AWS to simplify IT management and reduce the cost of hybrid computing infrastructures.

“AWS provides practically unlimited compute resources at a trivial cost that’s affordable for any size IT shop. However, integrating existing data center operations with public cloud resources and managing data and workloads across both platforms historically posed huge IT challenges,” said Lynn LeBlanc, CEO and founder, HotLink. “By combining HotLink’s transformation technology and NetApp Private Storage for AWS, companies can unify hybrid management, easily move workloads, retain control of their data and leverage AWS’s scalable compute power and unique pay-as-you-go economics – all critical components of an effective hybrid IT strategy.“

The solution is available through a network of VARs in North America, including Blue River Information Technology, Inc., Clearpath Solutions Group, Day1 Solutions, LLC and Integrated Archive Systems, Inc.

HotLink was demonstrating its hybrid management solutions and NetApp Private Storage for AWS integration at re:Invent booth and at NetApp booth in Las Vegas, NE, from November 12 to 15, 2013.