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Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud – bringing high-performance file storage as a service to you

June 18, 2019

Topics: 4 minute read

Analysts at Gartner estimate that upward of 80% of enterprise data today is unstructured stored in files.  Even native cloud applications often use files for unstructured data that is stored in the cloud. So whether you’re moving enterprise applications and workloads to the cloud, or you want to accelerate native cloud applications, a high-performance, fully managed file service in the cloud is critical.  To help organizations simplify their digital transformation NetApp and Google Cloud partnered to create a jointly engineered enterprise file storage service with the performance, availability, & security required to run your business-critical applications in the cloud.


Just last year, NetApp and Google Cloud introduced the first jointly engineered, high-performance, managed file storage service, Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud, and we are excited to announce it’s available in beta today. CVS for Google Cloud is an enterprise file storage service that simplifies moving, deploying, and managing your applications in Google Cloud.  With newly introduced support for self-provisioning cloud volumes in the Google Cloud project console, and support for Google Cloud open APIs, CVS for Google Cloud is a less disruptive and more compliant approach than competing file storage offerings.  CVS for Google Cloud gives you the freedom to modernize your applications at your own pace, innovate faster, and improve data security. Now that our customers have started to run their applications in Google Cloud with CVS, we believe it will be the managed file storage service of choice for many years to come.

How are customers using Cloud Volumes Service?

One global healthcare company is using CVS for Google Cloud to expedite their move to the cloud.  For 2 years, the company tried to wrestle their on-premises storage into the cloud, but they struggled to reconcile their NAS workloads with their global presence and the demands of their extensive logistics and manufacturing operations. Although they didn’t replace their NAS-compatible software, they were able to successfully migrate their mission-critical applications to Google Cloud 10 times faster than planned because of CVS for Google Cloud.

The ease of use of CVS was key to the company’s decision to work with NetApp and Google Cloud; using the co-engineered cloud-native interface, they easily manage and protect their NFS and SMB file shares in Google Cloud. Their developers no longer need to double as storage experts. Instead, they can focus on delivering business value in their field of expertise.  NetApp Cloud Volumes Service has become their standard solution for cloud management.

What’s new with CVS for Google Cloud?

With this latest version of the service we bring the benefits of NetApp’s data management to your Google Cloud deployments, providing a consistent experience across all your environments to make your operations team much more efficient, freeing the team up to work on other projects. Google Cloud customers will experience CVS fully integrated into the Google Cloud Project UI framework, allowing them to self-provisions NFS and SMB file shares. This deep integration gives users project-level isolation for their volumes through their existing Google Cloud credentials, without having to manage identities and access like other alternatives (third-party services).  With the addition of shared VPC Support customers can now seamlessly use Cloud Volumes with the most common, production network topology in the Google Cloud.

CVS can make your organization more productive with APIs that automate file data management processes and improve efficiency of your whole IT team. Check out the user guide.  The CVS capabilities that are available through the Google Cloud Project UI framework are also available through RESTful APIs that conforms to Google Cloud API standards so you can provision & manage resources programmatically, with seamless authentication handling. The APIs enable you to create and manage cloud volumes and develop provisioning scripts and tools.

Finally, CVS provides the performance, availability, and security to be the file storage service for enterprise applications, for applications delivered as a service, Container data persistence, home directories, group shares, libraries, content management systems, and more.  Its support for NFS and SMB file storage protocols, multiple performance levels supporting different price/performance requirements, and rich data management make it the ideal file storage service for data-driven industries including, life sciences, retail, media & entertainment, energy, and financial services.

Google Cloud and NetApp are proud of this beta release of CVS, which can help you move your workloads to Google Cloud 10X faster, with a choice of file protocols, and advanced data management capabilities, all at a competitive price point.  Our early-access customers love this service, and we’re sure that you will too.

Learn more and  Sign up today to try Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud!

Robert Cox, Senior Product Marketing Manager, NetApp

Senior Product Marketing Manager, NetApp

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