Storage
Mobility
Protection
Analysis and control
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March 27, 2019
Topics: 3 minute read
A Fortune 500 healthcare services company that improves the cost efficiency of global healthcare approached NetApp with a cloud storage quandary: How could they move 100% of their applications to the cloud from their on-premises storage without compromising the integrity of their data?
Breaking Free from IT Bottlenecks
The company, which provides medical and surgical products and logistical services to 46 countries on 5 continents, had long run their network-attached storage (NAS) workloads on the premises using Dell-EMC NAS devices. To manage their very demanding operations, they adopted a web of off-the-shelf software applications that were written specifically to take advantage of NAS technology.
But they needed a more efficient storage solution because the scale and diversity of their operations created a series of IT bottlenecks. The time had come to transition to a quicker, more cohesive model for their day-to-day data operations.
NetApp® Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud was the ideal cloud storage solution.
As a global leader in healthcare services and products, it’s essential for this client’s cloud management service to be seated at the nexus of ease of use, flexibility, and efficiency. In the past, the company had supported its IT operations through a series of handoffs between functional silos, which severely limited their flexibility. The majority of their application teams did not have experience with cloud orchestration, even though the company has, for more than a century, been a crucial hub that connects patients, providers, payers, pharmacists, and manufacturers across borders, both digital and geographical.
Thus began the company’s search for a permanent cloud storage solution.
Moving Global Healthcare to the Cloud
For 2 years, the company tried to wrestle their on-premises storage into the cloud, but they struggled to reconcile their NAS workloads with their global presence and the demands of their extensive logistics and manufacturing operations. Although they didn’t replace their NAS-compatible software, they were able to successfully migrate their mission-critical applications to the cloud—10 times faster than planned. The move to cloud storage was transformational.
The company started small (well, relatively speaking). Using NetApp Cloud Sync, they moved 10TB to Google Cloud, which they manage through our cloud-native storage service, NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud. Now they have grown to almost 100TB. Cloud Sync allowed the company to seamlessly migrate their NFS and SMB workloads to the cloud without risk of error, providing a lasting solution to their ongoing storage issues.
As a large service, applications, and products software user, the company’s primary concerns were data integrity and scalability. Their goal in searching for a cloud storage solution was to maintain the high availability and encryption of their NAS workloads. Using Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud, they are able to scale up and scale down as needed, and they pay only for what they use.
High-Performance Storage at the Click of a Mouse
What NetApp offered the company was freedom of choice; they’re able to provision terabytes of high-performance storage in seconds with full confidence that their data is secure. With the proven backup and restore capability of NetApp Snapshot™ technology, they can restore their data instantly in case of disaster.
The ease of use of NetApp Cloud Volumes Service was key to the company’s decision to work with NetApp; using its intuitive, cloud-native interface, they can easily manage their NFS and SMB file shares in Google Cloud. Their developers no longer need to double as storage experts. Instead, they can focus on delivering business value in their field of expertise.
NetApp Cloud Volumes Service has become their standard solution for cloud management.
Ready to Get Started?
Do you want to learn how NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud can simplify your business operations (and your life)? Read more and sign up for a live demo.
