NetApp brings to market for the first time, enterprise-ready, unified scale-out storage with the release of Data ONTAP 8.1.

1. Scale-out

Data center needs agility. Cluster OnTap is a way to solve the growth in a storage environment. Every storage controllers has CPU, memory and disk shelves limit. When the physical limit is hit, it is much easier to add one more controller ( scale out) to the existing environment than transferring the data to a newer and larger controller(scale up). Scale out means as storage environment grows, addiational controllers are added seamlessly to the resource pool residing on a shared storage infrastructure. Host and client connections as well as datastores can move seamlessly and nondisruptively anywhere in the resource pool.

Benefit of Scale out

• Non-disruptive operations
• Keep adding 1000s of users to virtual desktop environment without downtime
• Operational simplicity, flexibility

2. Unified storage

Cluster OnTap has the ability to support multiprotocol concurrently in the same storage system. Data ONTAP 7G and 7-mode have been able to support multiprocol for a long time. Unified storage is important to XenDesktop solution. Based on different workload, we can choose different protocol. For example, CIFS SMB 2.1 for user data, NFS for write cache and SAN LUNs for windows applications.

The supported protocols are:

• NFS v3, v4, v4.1 including pNFS
• iSCSI
• Fiber Channel
• FCoE
• SMB 1 and 2

3. Multitency

Isolated servers and data storage can result in low utilization, gross inefficiency, and inability to respond to changing business needs. Cloud architecture, delivering IT as a service (ITaaS), can overcome these limitations while reducing future IT spending.

Virtual server is the primary logical cluster components. Each vserver can create volumes, logic interface and protocol access. With clustered ontap, different departments’  virtual desktops and data can be separated in different vservers. The administrator of each vserver have the rights to provision volumes and other vserver specific operations. This is particularly great for service providers or any multitenanted environments where workload separation is desired.