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Lowering Costs in the Cloud: Four DR Success Stories

NetApp’s Cloud Volumes ONTAP is specially designed to create a single organizational Data Fabric for seamless management of business-critical data across complex multicloud and hybrid cloud environments.

Cloud Volumes ONTAP (formerly ONTAP Cloud) orchestrates primary and secondary data storage appliances with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure cloud-based resources, providing a single-pane view and command console of all deployments, whether on-premises and/or cloud-based.

With NetApp’s SnapMirror software enabling seamless and efficient data transport to and from the cloud, Cloud Volumes ONTAP is particularly well-suited for DR use cases. 

OnCommand Cloud Manager is also leveraged to streamline the deployment, management and tracking of the hybrid cloud resources.

What follows are four real-life examples of customers who successfully used NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP to meet their DR challenges—meeting and often exceeding their expectations for cost-savings and ease-of-use.

1. Leveraging the Cloud for DR and More

About the Customer: The first and largest 100% green-electricity supplier in Germany, they have saved the equivalent of more than 10,000 soccer fields of rainforest through their innovative electricity products.

The Challenges: The customer’s main challenge was to cost-effectively leverage the cloud for DR, but they were also aiming to improve accessibility to lab resources and reduce developer down-time.

The Solution: The customer’s  Cloud Volumes ONTAP deployment included:

  • Complete backup via NetApp’s SnapVault disk-to-disk backup software More than 60TB of data cost-effectively stored on the AWS Backup and Recovery service.
  • Continuous disaster tests and atomization via OnCommand Cloud Manager.
  • Automatic deployment of DevOps environments.

The Benefits: The customer achieved a cost-effective and resilient DR environment in the AWS cloud and revolutionized their DevOps environment. The customer was astonished by how easy it is with Cloud Volumes ONTAP to spin up and tear down test environments.

2. Lowering On-Premises Data Center DR Costs

About the Customer: The customer helps publishers and bloggers distribute content to millions of related pages across their network. Their free content-suggesting widget exposes online readers to new content and deepens engagement.

The Challenge: The customer wanted to leverage the cloud to reduce the cost of DR for their on-premises data center but without the usual complexity of cloud-based DR solutions.

The Solution: The customer deployed NetApp’s Cloud Volumes ONTAP for AWS as a DR target for their on-premises FAS 8200, keeping a secondary data copy continuously updated.

The Benefits: The immediate benefit for the customer was an exact replica of their on-premises environment in AWS. More importantly, they were able to deploy and manage the solution self-sufficiently due to the simplicity of Cloud Volumes ONTAP and OnCommand Cloud Manager.

3. Cost-Effective DR on the Azure Cloud

DR Success StoriesAbout the Customer: the customer is  a publicly traded, leading manufacturer of building products for the residential remodeling and residential, commercial, and institutional construction industries. Their more than 3,500 employees serve the US market from coast to coast.

The Challenge: The customer wanted to leverage the Azure cloud for robust but cost-effective DR of all their file systems, databases, and VDI environments.

The Solution: The customer licensed two Cloud Volumes ONTAP instances for Azure and immediately deployed a DR solution using Azure Site Recovery (ASR) for their file environments, to be followed by DR for their Database and VDI environments.

The Benefits: The customer has the peace of mind that, in case of a disaster, they will be able to use OnCommand Cloud Manager to quickly and completely recover their files, databases, and VDI environments from their Azure DR site. Cloud Volumes ONTAP, with its built-in storage efficiencies, keeps their DR costs within budget.

4. Replacing a Physical DR Site with Cloud Volumes ONTAP for Azure

About the Customer: A global company with 5,000 employees in more than 100 countries, the customer develops, produces and markets products and services to increase crop yields by controlling weeds, insects, and disease.

The Challenges: As part of the customer’s cloud-first strategy to reduce their on-premises footprints, they wanted to implement a simple solution to protect their enterprise CIFS services as they migrate workloads to Azure.

The Solution: The customer licensed an Cloud Volumes ONTAP instance for Azure which it leveraged with Azure Site Recovery (ASR) to replace a physical DR site with an Azure-based DR site.

The Benefits: The customer used Cloud Volumes ONTAP and OnCommand Cloud Manager’s intuitive interface to maintain a replica of their on-premises CIFS data on Azure. After the initial full replication, NetApp’s SnapMirror keeps on-premises data synced with the cloud with incremental snapshots that reduce transfer costs.

Final Note

These DR success stories are useful to better understand how NetApp works with its customers to implement robust, cost-effective DR strategies, but there is still more to learn about how Cloud Volumes ONTAP makes that happen.

In addition to its excellent manageability, Cloud Volumes ONTAP leverages a unique Amazon S3 tiering ability and other storage efficiency features to lower costs without compromising on failproof disaster recovery.

Please do not hesitate to contact us to discuss how we can help you achieve your cloud-based DR aspirations without breaking the bank, or start a 30-day free trial of Cloud Volumes ONTAP for AWS or for Azure today.

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