NetApp Adds Native Network Compression to SnapMirror Thin Replication

NetApp, Inc. has added native network compression to SnapMirror thin replication, making it more efficient in lowering customers’ total cost of ownership.

With SnapMirror, customers can now improve network bandwidth efficiency up to 70%* to existing storage and network efficiencies achieved with SAN thin replication. With this improvement, available today, SnapMirror provides more benefits than ever to an install base that is already more than 65,000 licenses.

SnapMirror not only backs up and protects customers’ data in the event of a disaster but can also replicate data in production environments to help customers make decisions faster and get better returns on infrastructure investments. Thin replication can efficiently replicate production data and, with FlexClone copies, provide multiple, instant copies for disaster recovery, decision support, business intelligence analysis, or to support a development and test environment – all with minimal overhead. As a result of these wide range of benefits customers can buy less storage and reduce their overall power, space, and cooling costs in their data centers.

"SnapMirror is the backbone of our disaster recovery plan, and we rely on it and trust it to protect our critical customer financial data," said Adam Clifton, senior systems administrator at North American Banking Company. "Not only has SnapMirror provided the data protection we need, but we have also been able to leverage its network compression capability to realize benefits across our network. We’ve been able to increase existing bandwidth utilization by 66% using SnapMirror’s compression capability, saving an estimated $10,000."

SnapMirror has also been tested with leading applications and databases to meet customers’ business needs. For instance, SnapMirror network compression can reduce bandwidth requirements for Microsoft Exchange by 33%, Microsoft Home Directory by 63%, and Oracle Database by 72%.*

"With SnapMirror replicated data on our secondary site, we can instantaneously create as many FlexClone copies for various uses such as testing and quality assurance with zero impact on our production systems and application services," said Matt Lawson, director of enterprise services, at Virginia Community College Systems.

"Customers have demonstrated that SnapMirror has been extremely successful as a disaster recovery tool," said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions Marketing at NetApp. "Today, it is much more than that. It has evolved into a multi-purpose tool for our customers to reduce their bandwidth and storage needs – all to help them reduce costs and accelerate their business."

* Based on NetApp testing