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Decoding NetApp Cloud Terminology – Part 3

Continuing our dive into NetApp Cloud terminology, here’s another four buzzwords you need to know:

What is Data Migration?

At the most basic level, ‘data migration’ describes the process of moving your information stores from one location to another. In terms of the cloud, this could mean the migration is between your on-premises data centre and a cloud platform. It may also be used to describe the process of moving data between different cloud platforms, such as AWS to Azure or similar.

All of the major cloud vendors provide tools to assist with data migration, but you may need to re-skill your engineers to use them. NetApp also provides tools to assist with cloud data migration – particularly Cloud Volumes ONTAP – which may be more useful for businesses already invested in ONTAP data fabric.

What are Cloud Volumes?

Part of the NetApp ONTAP suite, Cloud Volumes allows you to have the same operating system running in the cloud and on-premises, extending your storage fabric and simplifying the process of managing your data. Cloud Volumes ONTAP is a software-only solution delivering enhanced control, protection, and efficiency to data with the flexibility of the public cloud.

For any business already invested in NetApp, this tool will be familiar, helping to reduce the learning curve and allowing your team to be more productive, and faster. Cloud Volumes are also invaluable for helping migrate ONTAP workloads to the cloud.

What is Public Cloud Storage?

‘Public cloud’ describes hosted services running on shared infrastructure, the default offering from most vendors including Oracle OCI, AWS, Google and Microsoft Azure. ‘Public cloud storage’ is any kind of data storage hosted by one of these multi-tenant services.

It is important to note that although data is stored on shared infrastructure, the architecture has been secured to prevent access by other tenants. The cloud platform sits on a layer above the physical hardware which exists as a shared pool of resources, ready to be used on demand.

What is The Private Cloud?

The private cloud defines fully segregated storage and services running in the cloud. Offering the same scalability and reliability, the private cloud runs on dedicated hardware – there is no multi-tenancy or sharing. A private cloud is typically used for highly-sensitive or resource-intensive mission-critical workloads that must not be affected by other tenants. A well-known example of a private cloud is Oracle’s Cloud@Customer offering.

The use of dedicated hardware tends to make private cloud deployments more expensive than public cloud equivalents. However, the enhanced security, availability and reliability offset these costs.

To learn more about and NetApp’s cloud offerings and how these tools and services can benefit your business (or for help understanding their next-generation terminology) – give the WTL team a call. We’re always happy to help!

Data Management Solutions West Midlands

Oracle On NetApp – Real World Experiences

Whenever any technology company releases a new product or update, it is accompanied by bold, eye-catching benchmarks. Knowing that speed is critical to operations, most vendors will publish data suggesting exponential gains over previous releases.

But benchmark testing is usually conducted under optimised conditions in a lab. Every potential factor is tweaked to provide the very best performance. And all too often these lab tests are nothing like the real-world operating environments of most businesses.

So when NetApp claims to offer market-leading performance for Oracle databases., how does that match up to reality?

A report by Evaluator Group looked at two organisations using NetApp ONTAP on Oracle. The first was a large healthcare provider operating a medical record system for 300 distributed offices. The second was a technology infrastructure supplier of hardware, software and cloud computing resources.

This is what they found.

Simplified data protection and backup

The healthcare provider operates a 100TB database on Oracle. This was part of a larger data warehouse environment that relied on ETL processes to move data between systems.

Under their previous multi-vendor infrastructure, Oracle RMAN backups ran forever – sometimes failing to finish at all. This created the potential for permanent data loss when backups did not complete.

Following migration to Oracle on NetApp ONTAP, the company shifted their backup strategy to use FlexClone. This relatively simple change reduced database copy and distribution times from “potentially forever” to a matter of minutes. Data can be copied and cloned quickly and easily, reducing the risk of data loss caused by failed backups.

Ultrafast disaster recovery provisions

The IT infrastructure provider has a similarly complex set-up, with five data centres holding 100PB of raw data in 375 applications and 418 databases. By implementing NetApp ONTAP, they have been able to dramatically simplify and accelerate their disaster recovery and backup provisions.

Testing of their new NetApp infrastructure reveals they can:

  • Backup a database in 5 minutes
  • Restore a database in 5 minutes
  • Refresh a system in 15 minutes
  • Synchronise their disaster recovery platforms in 10 minutes

Whether these speeds match NetApp’s own benchmarks is debatable – but for the two companies described here, the improvements have been impressive. Not only are they able to complete backup and disaster recovery operations quicker, but their businesses (and data) are safer as a result.

If you want to know more about these specific use cases, you can read the Evaluator Group report here.

And if you would like to know more about how NetApp ONTAP can help turbocharge your Oracle databases, please give the WTL team a call

NetApp all-flash

Optimise Oracle Workloads with NetApp all-flash Solutions

When it comes to choosing infrastructure to support your line-of-business Oracle databases, Oracle hardware seems the logical choice. But faced by evolving computing needs and shrinking IT budgets what are the alternatives. NetApp all-flash solutions provide a more than viable option to Oracle hardware – well worth considering as you plan the next phase of your infrastructure lifecycle.

Best in class performance

The headline benefit of NetApp all-flash technology is its superior performance. Capable of performing up to 1 million IOPS with latency of about 100 microseconds, NetApp systems are the fastest available – up to 20 times faster than traditional storage. With end-to-end flash arrays and NVMe, these scalable all-flash systems are capable of halving application response times. No other database platform – including Oracle – comes close in terms of performance.

Increasing flexibility and growth options

The hybrid infrastructure operating model solves several problems about latency and security – but the integration between on- and off-premise systems could be improved. NetApp brings the power and flexibility of cloud into the local data centre. The ONTAP data management software bundled with NetApp flash arrays allows you to dynamically allocate your database workloads for maximum performance-cost benefits. This includes pushing lower priority data to cheaper cloud storage to maintain local capacity. NetApp solutions also integrate neatly with Oracle management tools, greatly simplifying administration. Application-integrated workflows can be automated; you can provision and prototype with a single mouse-click in as little as eight seconds. NetApp all flash arrays are also ideal for rapid development and prototyping. FlexClone technology makes it possible to clone large data volumes in seconds. A thin provisioning mechanism means that the data records or files aren’t actually cloned until accessed or used, helping to constrain the physical storage requirements for your test applications.

Consistent and stable operations

NetApp all flash arrays have been engineered to deliver consistently high performance for database operations. They are also extremely reliable averaging just 31.5 seconds pause time per year – that’s 99.9999% availability. This reliability is essential for mission-critical Oracle workloads. Oracle database owners also benefit from SnapShot and SnapMirror technologies that automatically replicate data to prevent loss. Further protection is available using FlexClone to transfer databases to an active disaster recovery site – including the cloud. As well as databases operating at the core, data is protected at the core and in the cloud too.

Streamlined operations and cost savings

Customers using NetApp for Oracle report some significant benefits: fewer components, greater return on investment and a lower total cost of ownership. Estimates suggest time and effort savings of up to 90% compared with their existing solutions. By blurring the boundaries between on-premise and cloud, NetApp arrays make it easy to migrate workloads to wherever they are best suited. This helps to overcome issues of local capacity and avoid the need for costly investment in redundant physical storage.

A worthy alternative option

Thanks to its high performance and reliability, NetApp all flash storage is a credible platform for your most critical Oracle database applications. Factor in the integrated suite of ONTAP management apps and it is easy to see why NetApp users are able to realise such significant returns on their investments.

Useful Links

White Paper: Optimise Oracle Workloads with NetApp Solutions

cloud-connected storage

Is cloud-connected storage your path to the future?

The hybrid cloud infrastructure model has become the platform of choice for most businesses for two reasons.

First, questions about security and sovereignty means that some operations are best retained in-house to maintain compliance.

Second, time sensitive operations, particularly operations that rely on real-time processing, need to be kept on-premise. Latency between local data centre and the cloud could prevent timely processing.

Time to blur the boundaries

Despite best efforts, current hybrid models emphasise the disconnect between on-premise and cloud. The number of applications and operations being run locally may have decreased, but the CTO must still deploy sufficient processing and storage capacity for those that remain.

This is where the choice of on-premises technology platform becomes crucial. Ideally you want to eliminate the barrier between local and hosted resources to create a seamless, unified platform on which to build.

One choice would be NetApp AFF storage. The ultra-low latency all flash arrays are powered by ONTAP, NetApp’s comprehensive management and configuration system providing cloud-connected storage.

Included in ONTAP is the FabricPool technology which allows you to connect various public and private cloud services directly to your on-site infrastructure. This forms the basis of your seamless hybrid cloud.

Time to get smart

A unified platform is just the start of a future-ready infrastructure, however. FabricPool goes further, using intelligent rules and analysis to automate data and workload allocation.

Mission-critical applications requiring the very highest levels of performance are retained in-house, using the NVMe flash to minimise latency. FabricPool then re-allocates other workloads to off-site cloud platforms to help balance performance and cost.

Embracing the multi-cloud future

Despite the best efforts of cloud providers, CTOs have been keen to avoid the trap of vendor lock-in. The ability to move workloads between providers cost effectively is important for future proofing and flexibility, driving a more towards multi-cloud deployments.

Best-of-breed infrastructure can be costly to set-up and maintain, mainly because the relevant skills are in such high demand. As a result, many of the cost-control opportunities of multi-cloud operations are lost through increased staffing and administration costs.

Again, NetApp AFF technology can help you build a multi-tier storage strategy. FabricPool analysis will identify and categorise workloads, moving data to the most appropriate cloud platform automatically. Shifting ‘cold data’ to a hosted archive service will help to reduce per-terabyte storage costs and free up valuable high-performance local capacity. Extra sensitive data can be piped to lower-cost private cloud storage if preferred too.

Cloud-connection will be key to the future

The beauty of cloud platforms is the flexibility they offer. With almost infinite scalability, your business is free to rapidly grow its systems without capital investment.

But while some workloads remain tied to the local data centre, there is no reason similar scalability cannot be deployed on premise. Choosing all-flash arrays with the ability to join on-off-site platforms offers exceptional processing speed and the option to extend into the cloud whenever required.

While the hybrid cloud model remains default, CTOs should pay close attention to their choice of on-premise systems. Cloud-connected storage offers valuable strategic opportunities – and a way to bridge the on/off-premise divide seamlessly.

Useful Links

White Paper: Optimise Oracle Workloads with NetApp Solutions