NetApphas
ruled out starting its own hosted services operation.
The data storage company has instead produced a raft of products
to help its customers provide secure, flexible, virtualised
cloud-based services to multiple clients.
NetApp has unveiled Data Ontap 8, the first upgrade to its data
storage operating system for nearly five years, said John Rollason,
the firm's EMEA solutions marketing manager.
Rollason said the software is aimed at larger enterprises and
hosted service providers. It was developed largely in response to
and together with
T-Systems, the hosted
services arm of mobile network operator T-Mobile.
According to Rollason, the product has been designed as a "one
size fits all, but with tweaking to optimise it". It allows users
to manage "multi-tenant" operations, including virtualised servers,
storage networks and communications links to provide high
availability at all times.
A data motion tool allows customer to move data around the farm
without disrupting users' access. A solid state performance
acceleration tool provides fast caching in front of disc storage
for quick access to frequently-used data.
Rollason said NetApp has also provided tools to automate many of
the storage management tasks.