By Andy Khoo, NetApp country manager for Malaysia and Brunei
Organisations are creating and saving more data than ever. By next year, they will be generating the equivalent of all data produced in the world from the beginning of time until 2003. Organisations won’t be generating that amount of data over the course of a year or even a month – they’ll be generating it every 10 minutes, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
|
With a changing business and societal technology landscape, businesses must be ready to embrace the changes and challenges created by this new paradigm in data growth.
The industry needs a new type of IT infrastructure that can seamlessly scale as data volume increases and build agile data infrastructure that is also intelligent and capable of supporting data that will outlive the infrastructure. Our three main messages are intelligent management, immortal operations and infinite scalability.
|
 |
|
Intelligent data management is the cornerstone of an agile data infrastructure. This means the ability to automatically deploy, adjust and control data storage attributes by using policy-based management.
A small number of policies can automate storage operations that may need to be performed hundreds or thousands of times – for instance, creating a LUN (Logical Unit Number for SCSI devices), establishing a replication pair and monitoring performance.
It is increasingly common for companies to save everything and delete nothing – often for valid reasons such as regulatory mandates. By saving everything and deleting nothing, however, organizations are creating a situation where the majority of their data can outlive the underlying storage infrastructure. For businesses to have a non-disruptive environment that will grow with them, it is important for their infrastructure to be immortal.
Finally, businesses must continue to push the limits of scalability for performance, capacity and operations. That is, the infrastructure must be able to scale efficiently and to scale shared resources without the need to scale the number of people managing the environment. Infinite scalability will allow businesses to seamlessly scale to meet any business requirement.
Firstly, it’s intelligent data infrastructure. Intelligent means that storage is intelligent, self-aware and able to respond quickly to changing business needs. Intelligent data infrastructures allow businesses to automatically provision and optimise resources. As a service, NetApp can automate the provisioning, optimisation, and monitoring of storage with its Zero Touch Automation so businesses can spend less time and energy on maintenance and more time driving innovation and value. Also, this IT solution provides 100% utilisation, enabling multiple and diverse workloads to take place at the same time without complex data classification.
The second thing we’re hearing more often about is zero downtime. In light of increasing business demands, it is important for businesses to deliver non-disruptive operations throughout the lifespan of data. With zero downtime, immortal data infrastructure can support continuous access to mission-critical business services.
Data is also kept secure as embedded multilevel security prevents unauthorised access, at the same time, meets stringent regulatory requirements for data at rest. Integrated data protection is beneficial as it removes human error and the need for ongoing adjustments to architecture, storage systems and protection policies. This is truly a game changer as immortal operations can maintain data accessibility, reduce overall risk, preserve IT’s credibility and relevance to businesses and ultimately, improve efficiency.
Thirdly, we’re hearing a greater demand for infinite scalability. Business owners will be looking for solutions that will enable them to grow their business without limits. Infinite scalability provides a competitive edge as businesses can be the first to move to new infrastructures without having to overspend.
The concept of infinite scalability is made possible through a unified architecture, which is one architecture (Data ONTAP) that can be utilised for many diverse workloads, giving companies the flexibility to deal with the changes in storage requirements.
Having an IT infrastructure that is intelligent, immortal and infinite will help companies achieve unprecedented agility, therefore, maximising its IT investments while also allowing them to adapt to unpredictable data growth, increasing business demand and ensure they’re competitive.
Key initiatives One of the key initiatives is Agile Data Infrastructure, a set of capabilities which companies can utilise to excel in their business and reap the benefits that come with agility. Agility can help companies manage data growth with an IT solution that can better respond to changing business requirements, maintain non-disruptive operations and enable businesses to grow without limits.
Companies have started reaping the rewards of Agile Data Infrastructure. As an example, Thomson Reuters used NetApp to cut time to market and outpace its competition. Thomson Reuters were able to avoid a US$65 million data center build-out and gave its customers access to 50 times more data in half the time for their WestLawNext case law content.
Another NetApp customer success story saw Suncorp, a financial services company, turn its IT from a cost center to an innovation center by slashing its IT costs by 30% and allowing the company to invest in new business initiatives. They now routinely bring new services to market months ahead of their competition and at a fraction of the cost.
Strategies Innovation is increasingly important in this competitive and dynamic business landscape and for that has challenged the traditional methods of data management. For this reason, NetApp continues to stay innovative by unveiling new products, technologies, and programs that enable further penetration into the data center, help customers capitalise on data growth and help channel partners expand its businesses. With the offering of Data ONTAP, the first storage operating system, NetApp became the pioneer in unified storage which cemented its reputation as an innovation leader.
NetApp continues to build strong networks with industry leaders and value-added resellers. Through the partnerships, sharing of know-how and leveraging on expertise, NetApp and its partners can collectively help businesses meet IT imperatives, deliver exciting innovations and set new benchmarks.
Recently, NetApp and Cisco launched a global channel initiative to accelerate market momentum of the FlexPod converged infrastructure solution which to date has almost 1,300 customers. NetApp also partnered with Hortonworks where it announced a joint development project to make Apache Hadoop solutions more enterprise ready, helping customers simplify data access.
In Malaysia specifically, NetApp works closely with Alliance partners like Accenture, Fujitsu, Cisco, VMware, Citrix, Microsoft and Commvault to enable business solutions which bring bottom-line benefits to end customers.
NetApp also works with established and committed local resellers to provide greater acquisition, support and service channels to end customers who always prefer choice and a range of options rather than be locked into a single source model.
NetApp is also proud to work with local industry organizations like PIKOM, the National ICT (information and communications technology) Association of Malaysia and The Share/Guide Association (Malaysia) or SGAM, an IT users group and non-profit organisation, whose members are primarily users of technology and IT services. These collaborations will enable NetApp to expand the awareness of leading edge technologies and alternatives among Malaysian customers, allowing them to benefit from greater flexibility and value for money in their IT investments.
By providing innovative solutions and establishing partnerships, we are confident that we can help our customers leverage on the cloud and enhance business productivity.
The Next Big Thing
In this highly digitised era, increased virtualisation is a big trend that will grow with importance as IT and business needs continue to increase and accelerate. This is especially the case when it comes to storage. Storage innovations continue to evolve to help enterprises meet its rapidly evolving data and storage needs. Enterprises will be equipped to take advantage of this if they are flexible and can adapt to the dynamic changes of their business environment which include their IT infrastructures.
Enterprises need to scale up their storage systems non-disruptively. This will be limited by organisational IT budgets and resources, making enterprises search for ways to increase utilization of its storage assets in the coming year.
One NetApp solution is Agile Data Infrastructure with its infinite scaling capabilities. Enterprises can start small and then grow investments and capabilities in pace with its businesses in a secured, non-disruptive ecosystem without having to overspend.
Mid-size enterprises in particular require simple technologies to reduce management complexity and to cater to a new suit of customers. This calls for the right vendor which can offer enterprise-class capabilities with storage that is simple to use and affordable to purchase. Through NetApp’s commitment to ensure IT solutions are simple, enterprises will be able to easily adapt and make the transition to the cloud.
Another factor that will affect business operations is IT downtime which is increasingly expensive. Some enterprises are not aware of the need to prepare for such disasters and as such are not willing to invest in IT infrastructures. Data migration can also affect operations when enterprises or individuals change computer systems or upgrade to new ones.
With the benefits that come with immortal operations, NetApp solutions can support continuous access to mission-critical applications anytime, anywhere by providing zero IT downtime. Enterprises are then able to access data indefinitely with 24/7 data accessibility regardless of upgrades, migrations and technology refreshes. Enterprises are then more apt to meet challenges with a strong IT infrastructure.
The more storage technology evolves, the more evident it becomes that a unified approach to data storage system is needed to meet all these requirements. With the latest release of NetApp’s Data ONTAP, the industry’s largest installed operating system, NetApp provides a single integrated platform which can provide storage solutions be it scaling storage to reducing complexity and downtime.
Data ONTAP is further enhanced with Agile Data Infrastructure. By combining rich data management with the architectural advantages of clustering, companies can make IT intelligent, immortal and infinite.
|
