BlueXP Blog

AWS and NetApp Agree: Files Thrive in the Cloud

Written by Spencer Sells | Sep 9, 2019 11:19:36 AM

For over six years, NetApp and AWS have cultivated a partnership with the common goal of bringing workloads that require enterprise file services to AWS. That partnership sparked an important conversation between AWS and NetApp—a conversation that culminated in the shared view that SAN, NAS, and Object storage all hold value, and that that value can be amplified in the cloud. Thankfully, through the AWS and NetApp partnership, we’ve been able to ensure that our customers do not have to make sacrifices.

Now, you can move a broader array of applications to AWS than ever before. Now, less time is needed to migrate your data and applications from on-premises storage. Now, you can take advantage of cloud file services to provide shared data access to applications built in AWS.

Recent Changes in the Market: AWS Announces Price Change

On Sept. 4, 2019, AWS announced that it had lowered the price of EFS Infrequent Access (IA) from $0.045 per GB per month to $0.025 per GB per month, with higher prices in some regions. AWS did not change the price of its basic EFS service.

We believe that the price decrease indicates that AWS has found a more suitable use case for EFS customers that’s focused on the storage of cold data, which is largely idle or infrequently accessed.

NetApp continues to serve a multitude of use cases in AWS, particularly applications that make active use of data, through Cloud Volumes Service (CVS) and Cloud Volumes ONTAP. Together, NetApp and AWS offer services that run the gamut of use cases for file services. If you were waiting to take advantage of NAS in AWS, you need wait no longer.

For more information on the AWS announcement, refer to their blog.

Cloud Volumes Service Enables Migration of Enterprise Applications

NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for AWS is a fully managed cloud service that enables you to move your mission-critical workloads and applications to the cloud and manage them with ease. You can subscribe to Cloud Volumes Service for AWS via the AWS Marketplace.

Cloud Volumes Service enables you to bring your Windows workloads and enterprise applications to AWS, with consistent performance, high availability, advanced data management, and the necessary NFS or SMB protocols. 

In particular, CVS offers:

Superior performance:  NetApp Cloud Volumes Service provides predictable performance, with over 470K IOPS and 4.4 GB/s throughput, from a single cloud volume. It enables you to move your most demanding enterprise applications to the cloud. See our benchmarks for CVS for AWS for complete performance information. 

Simpler: Cloud volumes can be created in seconds and CVS provides service levels that can be changed elastically and non-disruptively via UI or API to increase performance when needed. Service level can be lowered to save on cost (for example, at times when usage is lower).

Lower price:  We offer the lowest prices currently on the market, with the greatest value in return. With prices starting at $0.10 per GB per month in all regions, simultaneous NFS & SMB support, and advanced data services, such as storage efficient snapshots, backup and instant copy, no other file service in the cloud comes close.

More powerful: CVS improves application resilience with instant and efficient Snapshots, and a customer is only charged for the new data, which is incrementally written. CVS accelerates application deployment and time to market with instant copies.

Highly available: CVS is accessible to every Availability Zone (AZ) in a region. There is no need to copy data between regions, which would add storage costs and cross-AZ charges.

More to come: Watch this space for announcements about enhanced backup to S3 with a file-granular catalog, cross regional replication, tiering to S3, larger volume sizes, and more…

For you old time NetAppers and fans: “fast, simple, reliable” is a familiar refrain, but a true one.   

The Cloud Volumes Service is a compelling storage solution for AWS customers. Check out the full story: https://cloud.netapp.com/cloud-volumes-service-for-aws.

Cloud Volumes ONTAP Is Ideal for Extending On-Premises into AWS

Do not forget that Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an excellent choice for NetApp customers extending into AWS. CVO provides ONTAP’s proven data management capabilities, SnapMirror support for DR, a high availability option, and the ability to reduce the costs of running applications in AWS.

For additional information, please see Cloud Volumes ONTAP.