The modern IT environment is hugely complex, spanning on-premises and cloud resources to provide an interlinked ecosystem of applications and storage. Managing data and compliance obligations in this decentralised scenario can be a significant headache – and risk.
To assist with these challenges, NetApp offers BlueXP, a unified control pane that brings together all of your data repositories, wherever they are physically located.
How?
BlueXP provides a number of secure, native cloud connectors that can be used to link resources from popular hosted providers. A thoughtful, intuitive user interface further simplifies operations.
Behind the scenes, each backed service is powered by a REST API to provide even greater control. You can even use popular tools like Terraform and Ansible to automate common functions via the connectors.
So what?
One of the biggest challenges when working with pay-as-you-use cloud resources is managing licenses and costs. BlueXP provides a couple of additional tools to help increase transparency and control.
Intelligent data placement
Cloud storage costs fluctuate according to the performance required; cold storage where retention is more important than performance is far cheaper than RAM-based capacity for instance. So tiering data is an essential technique for capping cloud costs by ensuring data is stored in the most appropriate locations.
BlueXP integrates AIOps functionality to help streamline this management process. Data is moved automatically to the most appropriate location based on how it is used. This ensures that storage is tailored to the specific needs of your business and that you can always meet your performance SLAs.
And it’s not just cold storage either. BlueXP supports edge caching for use cases where near zero latency is essential. Again, BlueXP migrates data to where it is needed before it is needed.
Storage management for DR
The same simple-to-use migration tools can also be deployed as part of your disaster recovery provisioning. BlueXP knows exactly where your data is stored and how to recover it – quickly.
Alternatively, you can spin up one of your replicated instances to resume operations from the cloud while on-premises recovery work is completed. BlueXP is an important tool for enabling flexible operations under any circumstance.
License and resource management
Managing entitlements has always been a headache, particularly since the advent of on-demand licensing – just ask your software asset manager. BlueXP introduces the Digital Wallet, a central console for reporting of your NetApp hyperscaler marketplace entitlements. The filterable dashboard allows your FinOps team to closely monitor and manage spending, ensuring entitlements are fully utilised.
With the ability to store contracts, terms, and subscriptions, the Digital Wallet is your single point of truth. Which means that all of your stakeholders have the same point of reference – and are empowered to control spending without constraining operations.
BlueXP extends control further still, allowing you to classify your data. Once complete you can automate governance and compliance rules, ensuring that your data migration and management rules adhere to all requirements.
To learn more about NetApp BlueXP and how it will streamline your data management processes, please give the WTL team a call