Partners

NetApp

To Partner Overview

NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that accelerate business breakthroughs and deliver outstanding cost efficiency. NetApp and Microsoft are driving end-to-end solutions to provide nonstop availability of critical business data and simplify business processes so that companies can deploy new capabilities with confidence and get to revenue faster.

NetApp and Microsoft Virtualization

Extending their history of application-level integration, Microsoft and NetApp combine storage and server virtualization to deliver tremendous data center management efficiencies, cost savings, and data protection for joint customers.

Microsoft and NetApp help you dramatically reduce data center costs and improve application availability and disaster recovery. By tightly integrating server and storage virtualization, you can support hundreds of virtual machines while allocating storage and provisioning servers in just minutes, in addition to scaling as needed. Maximize server and storage utilization by using 50 percent less storage, consolidate to cut power and cooling costs in half, and purchase only the storage you need today. Improve disaster recovery and application availability by eliminating backup windows; recovering virtual machine critical data with application-consistent backups; and provisioning storage without interrupting production operations.

  • Reduced Data Center Costs: Maximize server consolidation and use thin provisioning to improve storage utilization, enabling 50 percent less storage; cut power and cooling costs in half; and reduce over-capitalization by purchasing only the storage needed today.

  • Efficient, Easy-to-Manage Data Centers: Support hundreds of virtual machines with a single storage system, while cutting storage provisioning for servers by 40 percent and enabling easy scaling.

  • Improved Data Protection and Application Availability: Eliminate the need for backup windows; recover critical virtual machine data from application-consistent backups; let application administrators directly manage application storage; and provision storage and perform scheduled maintenance without disrupting service.

Virtual Site Recovery Solution Overview

Availability and disaster recovery need to be at the core of any IT strategy. The Microsoft and NetApp disaster recovery solution combines NetApp HA and DR storage capabilities with Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V, resulting in an easy to implement and manage end to end solution. NetApp complements Windows Server 2008 R2 business continuity features such as Live Migration and Failover Clustering with highly efficient policy-based backups, automatic storage failover, and remote replication. As a result, joint customers can achieve:

  • Zero cost, near instantaneous backups and granular recovery of virtual machines

  • High Availability with Live Migration of virtual machines between multi-site clusters

  • Simplified disaster recovery across all application tiers, enabling non-disruptive testing of disaster recovery processes and automated site failover

Learn more about how Microsoft and NetApp support highly efficient disaster recovery across all application tiers:

Datacenter Consolidation Solution Overview

NetApp and Microsoft help customers lower costs, maximize server and storage resource utilization, and improve their ability to respond to changing business needs. The Microsoft and NetApp cost optimized virtual datacenter solution combines a highly efficient NetApp storage architecture with Microsoft server consolidation and integrated management via System Center. NetApp compliments a Microsoft virtualized environment with a variety of unique technologies including highly efficient incremental-only Snapshot copies, the ability to deduplicate primary storage, rapid cloning, and RAID-DP. As a result, joint customers can:

  • Cut storage, power, cooling, and space costs by 50%

  • Provision storage as quickly as virtual machines

  • Backup and restore virtual machines instantaneously

  • Manage server and storage resources together

Learn more about how NetApp and Microsoft are delivering the Optimized Virtual Datacenter:

Solution Briefs

  • NetApp Solutions for Microsoft Virtualized Environments
    Learn more on how NetApp storage provides the best in management efficiency, flexibility and world-class data protection for virtualized environments based on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V

  • SnapManager for Hyper-V Datasheet
    SnapManager® for Hyper-V automates and simplifies backup, restore, and disaster recovery for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V environments with automated, policy-based data protection

White Papers

IT Briefing

  • IT Briefing: Cost Optimizing Your Virtual Data Center
    Microsoft has an end-to-end strategy for virtualization, offering products from the data center to the desktop, all supported by integrated management. When paired with NetApp's virtualization solutions for network storage, organizations can truly optimize the cost savings potential of data center virtualization.

Best Practice Guides

Reference Architectures

Demos

  • Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2 and NetApp Storage Episodes.These technical videos were created by Matt McSpirit, a Microsoft Partner Technology Specialist, and shared on his VirtualBoy blog.

    • Honey I Shrunk the LUNs
      Combining Microsoft Hyper-V with NetApp efficiency technologies and on-the-fly LUN resizing cuts storage usage dramatically while completely eliminating the downtime and hours of work traditionally required to reclaim space.

    • Business Continuity for Microsoft Virtualization
      Combining Microsoft and NetApp business continuity technologies enables you to automate backups, failover, and replication to keep your business up and running under all conditions.

    • Hyper-V and NetApp Storage – Overview
      In this video, Microsoft Partner Technology Specialist Matt McSpirit is joined by NetApp’s Steve Winfield and Pete Mason to discuss the value add that NetApp storage technologies can bring to a Microsoft Hyper-V infrastructure. In addition to exploring the basics this video also reviews advanced features like deduplication and thin provisioning.

    • Hyper-V and NetApp Storage - Demo Part I - Storage Config
      This video details the set up and configuration of a NetApp storage backend to be used with a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V cluster. It shows installation and configuration and walks through volume creation, LUN creation, and more.

    • Hyper-V and NetApp Storage - Demo Part II - Cluster Building
      This video highlights the validation and creation of a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Cluster using the NetApp storage backend. A few highly available Virtual Machines are created to run on the cluster.

    • Hyper-V and NetApp Storage - Demo Part III - Optimising Storage
      This video reviews key capabilities of a NetApp storage backend supporting a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V cluster and examines the space savings achieved with thin provisioning, deduplication, and NetApp snapshot technology.

Webcasts

Press Releases

Testimonials

  • “It didn’t take long for Microsoft and NetApp to win me over. The Microsoft virtualization and systems management solution provided greater value operationally and reduced capital costs, while NetApp gave us the most storage at the best value. I’ve had such a great experience that I’ve begun recommending NetApp to other IT groups exploring server virtualization with Microsoft. I always tell people I see no reason why anyone would choose anything else but Microsoft and NetApp solutions for their IT infrastructure needs.”

    —Dan Morris, Systems Engineer, A & A Contract Customs Brokers

Case Studies

To Partner Overview
NetApp

Live Webcast: Virtualize with Microsoft and NetApp - Increase Application Uptime with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and NetApp
On Dec. 3rd Microsoft and NetApp experts team with the city of Frisco's Tim Yarbrough to discuss how he maximized uptime for Exchange and related applications with Microsoft virtualization solutions that includes Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and NetApp storage.

See why Microsoft named NetApp Storage Solutions Partner of the Year
"We are excited to have NetApp support Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and our System Center suite of management tools. Thanks to NetApp’s storage virtualization capabilities, our mutual customers can receive a complete virtualization solution that addresses both their server and storage needs.As we move forward, we will continue to work with NetApp to optimize the virtualization experience for our mutual customers."
Bill Laing, Corporate Vice President, Windows Server and Solutions Division, Microsoft

Customer Blueprint: Improving Efficiency and Availability Using Microsoft Hyper-V and NetApp Storage
Contemplating virtualization, server consolidation, or remote site recovery? Based on real customer experiences, this architectural guide details an end-to-end virtualization solution including specific configuration and hardware details.

A & A Contract Customs Brokers Reverses Storage Growth, Reclaims Close to 70% Capacity
Learn how AACB consolidated servers, cut utilization 70%, and tripled backup retention times using a virtualization solution based on Hyper-V and NetApp storage.