Analyst(s): Camberley Bates
Publication Date: November 15, 2024
On November 11, 2024, NetApp announced New Models and BlueXP expansion, furthering their Intelligent Data Infrastructure Platform.
What is Covered in this Article:
- NetApp AFF series updates
- StorageGRID updates
- BlueXP advanced services
- E-Series new models
The News: NetApp announced new models for their AFF, StorageGRID, and E-Series, plus key updates for BlueXP around ransomware and workload automation.
NetApp Announces New Models and BlueXP Expansion, Furthering Their Intelligent Data Infrastructure Vision
Analyst Take: On November 11, 2024, NetApp announced significant enhancements to its “Intelligent Data Infrastructure” portfolio, covering its AFF and ONTAP unified data storage platforms, StorageGRID, and E-Series. These updates reinforce NetApp’s ongoing commitment to provide a wide range of high-performance, capacity-hungry, and scalable solutions across on and off-premises environments with the capabilities of BlueXP for unified management.
High-Performance and Capacity-Optimized Enterprise Storage
NetApp released new models for their AFF A-Series and C-Series that bring high-performance flash storage to the market. The AFF A20, A30, and A50 models enhance the A-Series, delivering sub-millisecond latency and up to 2.5x performance over previous generations, targeting mission-critical workloads. The AFF A50, for example, doubles the performance of its predecessor within a compact form factor, suitable for commercial and enterprise businesses. Meanwhile, the updated AFF C-Series (C30, C60, C80 based on QLC technology) focuses on general-purpose workloads, offering high-density configurations with up to 1.5PB of storage capacity in just 2U. Both series feature the full ONTAP suite and ransomware protection, providing a seamless upgrade path for hybrid customers moving to all-flash systems.
StorageGRID Enhancements for Unstructured Data Management
NetApp’s StorageGRID 11.9 introduces improvements for unstructured object data, with expanded scalability using 60TB QLC drives. The integration of 60TB QLC drives in the SGF6112 appliance effectively doubles capacity density while reducing rack space and power costs. They have also improved performance by enabling data-only and metadata nodes for small object workloads and increased the scale to 5000 buckets.
BlueXP: Unified Control for Data Infrastructure
NetApp’s BlueXP is a control plane that delivers unified management across their storage offerings (ONTAP and StorageGrid) for cloud and on-premises environments. This is a fairly large update, evidence of their commitment to a platform-based strategy.
BlueXP has significantly strengthened security measures with their AI-driven classification and user behavior anomaly detection through Data Infrastructure Insights, previously announced. They are now releasing integration with Microsoft Sentinel adding monitoring for ransomware protection. This combined with ONTAP’s AI-based ransomware detection of primary storage that immediately creates snapshots is a powerful combination of tools for the storage administrator.
Lastly, ONTAP gets a new AIOps-powered updates service within BlueXP that simplifies ONTAP upgrades by automating compatibility checks, providing upgrade recommendations, reducing complexity, and minimizing risks.
NetApp’s BlueXP-integrated workload factory is a service that is designed for Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP to streamline the deployment, optimization, and management of various workloads. These include workloads such as Bedrock, SQL database, and VMware. NetApp has incorporated industry best practices to simplify the processes with the goal of more efficient and secure operations.
E-Series Enhancements
The often-overlooked E-Series, a SAN offering, got an update for its hybrid flash offering. The new E4012 and E4060 models are designed to provide organizations with the ability to store 40% more data and achieve higher read and write performance compared to previous generations. These models are 2U and 4U form factors and targeted for ROBO, backup targets, and video surveillance.
Looking Ahead
NetApp continues to build on its platform, integrating operations between its cloud and on-premises offerings as well as between its core ONTAP and specialized systems with BlueXP. This comes off their very focused launch from Insight of their data platform to address the issues enterprises are facing with data management and AI deployments.
What to Watch:
- Continued integration and functionality built into BlueXP for all workloads and applications.
- Migration of ONTAP hybrid systems to their new C-Series models.
- Growth of the E-Series, including all flash models, in the HPC market.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other insights from The Futurum Group:
NetApp INSIGHT: Driving Innovation for Customer Success – Six Five Media at NetApp Insight
NetApp Insight 2024: Making Waves with AI
Data Under Siege? NetApp Prioritizes AI & Hybrid Cloud Defense
Author Information
Now retired, Camberley brought over 25 years of executive experience leading sales and marketing teams at Fortune 500 firms. Before joining The Futurum Group, she led the Evaluator Group, an information technology analyst firm as Managing Director.
Her career spanned all elements of sales and marketing including a 360-degree view of addressing challenges and delivering solutions was achieved from crossing the boundary of sales and channel engagement with large enterprise vendors and her own 100-person IT services firm.
Camberley provided Global 250 startups with go-to-market strategies, creating a new market category “MAID” as Vice President of Marketing at COPAN and led a worldwide marketing team including channels as a VP at VERITAS. At GE Access, a $2B distribution company, she served as VP of a new division and succeeded in growing the company from $14 to $500 million and built a successful 100-person IT services firm. Camberley began her career at IBM in sales and management.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from California State University – Long Beach and executive certificates from Wellesley and Wharton School of Business.
