Cozy with hot, tier with cold: A data growth simplicity story
Cloud Tiering
Hybrid Cloud Simplicity Experience
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Cathi Allen
I live in majestic Colorado and love it. I can drive from my home to the Continental Divide at 14,278’ in a few short hours; I can go white water rafting, camping, or relaxing in one of many natural hot springs anytime. And it’s always interesting - two weeks ago, it went from the mid-80°s to 12+” of foothills snow in 24 hours. We prepare for anything, layering clothes and carrying a ‘survival’ kit in the car. My boss thinks I carry a storm cloud with me, but it’s all part of the charm and lifestyle here.
Interesting enough, managing unstructured data is much the same. Data is either hot (actively being used and business critical), or it’s cold (stale, out of date, just taking up space). Companies need to keep the now data close to them, and tier off the cold data.
In my recent Chaos to calm: Your data growth story blog, I outlined the importance of data tiering in today’s world, and the value that NetApp® Cloud Tiering delivers. I’m not going to rehash that today. Instead, I want to update you on some of the new features and enhancements that should entice you to take a deeper look into NetApp Cloud Tiering.
Tiering to – anywhere - from a single point of control
Just as you’ve seen NetApp deliver a unified management approach to all things hybrid multicloud with NetApp® Cloud Manager, our approach to data tiering is no different.
The Cloud Tiering story has broadened, as it now delivers simplified and unified data tiering management from a single point of control to either on-premises or cloud object storage, including NetApp StorageGRID®. You may know that StorageGRID includes integrated FabricPool software which has (until now) been managed through System Manager. Now, you can manage tiering from ONTAP systems to your StorageGRID systems with Cloud Tiering, right along with your cloud tiering targets. The need for individual System Manager instances running for each FAS/AFF system to manage data tiering is gone, as a single dashboard now gives you full visibility of all of tiering activity with insights such as status, current real-time savings, and potential savings. You can change policies, tier new volumes or aggregates (storage tiers), adjust cooling times…or just sit back and watch your savings grow.
Save money by finding lower fares
If want to fly to Colorado for some fun, you’ll find out fast that airfares have risen – especially for non-stop routes. It’s faster – but it costs more. If you’re willing to wait just a bit more, you can save more. Maybe lots more. Tiering has a similar dynamic that you can now leverage where it fits best for you.
Cloud Tiering now supports AWS Glacier Instant Retrieval for destination object storage. AWS Glacier Instant Retrieval is Amazon’s ‘lowest-cost archive storage with milliseconds retrieval for rarely accessed data.’ Per Amazon, it offers savings of up to 68% compared to using S3 Standard-Infrequent Access storage class. Now, tiering cold data to AWS Glacier Instant Retrieval, combined with the economic savings and management simplicity of Cloud Tiering, delivers exceptional value to you and your business.
Never miss out on savings opportunities
One of the new features in Cloud Manager is how it integrates NetApp Active IQ® to notify you of potential savings that can come from tiering. Artificial intelligence-based analytics deliver machine learning-based recommended actions for enabling Cloud Tiering on specific environments, aggregates (storage tiers), or volumes for immediate savings opportunities. These actions include the Cloud Tiering intuitive wizard link, preconfigured with source location information, simplifying the entire process. All you need to do is run the wizard, allowing it to create your destination location, and start savings.
Easy peazy…
Peel the cold data layers off and save money now
We Coloradans know how to layer on and off to prepare for any weather. Managing your unstructured data is just the same, keeping your hot data close to the vest, while tiering your cold data out to object storage. And now, Cloud Tiering makes that simpler, supports higher savings object storage, and won’t let you miss out on opportunities to save more.
Just in case you are still not sure, see it for yourself with our handy Cloud Tiering TCO calculator. You enter your cloud and storage details, select your ONTAP system, enter your numbers and tiering methods. Then you see your potential savings with a downloadable report detailing the results.
The net-net is NetApp Cloud Tiering meets your unstructured data management needs, delivering the savings you expect in the easiest way possible.
Learn more about Cloud Tiering at NetApp.com and Cloud.NetApp.com.
Learn more about the full Hybrid Cloud Simplicity Experience launch here.
Cathi Allen
Cathi Allen is a long-time technologist. She started as a programmer and moved on to systems engineer, network and virtualization administrator, product management, and product marketing. Cathi has three master’s degrees: MSM – Information Systems Security, MBA – Project Management, MBA – Information Technology Management. Her thirty (30) plus years in the IT industry affords her the status of subject matter expert. She is currently the product marketing manager for Cloud Data Services at NetApp. She enjoys traveling, antiquing, movies, off-roading, camping, and hanging with her four-legged children.
