NetApp Technology Network : Thread List - Cloud Computing

SAP Cloud Powered by NetApp Enhanced FlexClone

community@netapp.com — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:17:31 GMT

SAP is arguably one of the most challenging applications for cloud environments. Virtual SAP templates are extremely large and SAP applications usually require a landscape of several instances (central instance, portal, BI, etc.) to work correctly and support all features. We solved these problems by running SAP on eCloudManager, VMware and NetApp. Enhanced FlexClone is used to quickly provision new SAP landscapes. The fluidOps Virtual Landscape technology drastically simplifies and automates configuring the cloned instances and grouping them into a logical system landscape. Using this combo, several customers are able to deliver SAP as a cloud service. More information, screencams and whitepapers can be found here: http://www.fluidops.com/eCM_SAP.html

Looking forward to your feedback.

Andreas

Private and Public clouds

community@netapp.com — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:57:45 GMT

How are companies looking to build and maintain systems that span both the private and external cloud?

Six Tips to Supercharge your Cloud

community@netapp.com — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:38:45 GMT

When it comes to cloud, it’s hard to separate the reality from the marketing hype. In the September issue of Tech OnTap, Hamish McGovern wrote an article that provides tips on cloud deployment based on NetApp experience with a variety of customers. He include discussions of what type of cloud to choose, the importance of Ethernet, cloud toolsets, cloud security and more.

You can check out the article at http://www.netapp.com/us/communities/tech-ontap/tot-supercharge-cloud-computing-0909.html

If you’re planning or thinking about implementing a cloud infrastructure, what are your biggest concerns?

Case Study: T-Systems Delivers Cloud with Enterprise-class SLAs

community@netapp.com — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:24:17 GMT

When you contract for cloud services, you normally expect lower service levels than internal IT. In the September issue of Tech OnTap TSystems wrote an article that describes how T-Systems designed their Dynamic Services offering to meet or exceed enterprise service levels using NetApp storage, MetroCluster, VMware HA and VMotion, and a unique “twin core” data center approach.

You can check out the article at http://www.netapp.com/us/communities/tech-ontap/tot-tsystems-case-study-0909.html

Does this approach to cloud appeal to you either as an approach you might take or as a service you might use?

How are you approaching towards Cloud Computing?

community@netapp.com — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:46:18 GMT

Tell us more about your experiences with the Cloud. How are you evolving towards Cloud Computing?

1. Are you taking an incremental approach towards evolving your existing data center towards Cloud? OR

2. Are you building a new data center using Cloud Computing?

cheers,

Brajesh.

Enterprise-class IT as a Service -- NetApp -- NetApp Cloud

summersj@netapp.com — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:35:33 GMT

NetApp highlights its key partnerships with leading IT vendors and enterprise VARs to provide enterprise customers with the technology and solutions needed to build their cloud infrastructures, including global service providers and system integrators that are leveraging NetApp technology to create cloud service offerings for their own enterprise customers.

Following are testimonials about their relationship with NetApp and the company's strategy and approach to cloud computing -- including BMC, Brocade Networks, INX, Joyent, Rackspace, Suncorp, Unisys, and VMware.

What is the Cloud?

ckranz@b2net.co.uk — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 23:52:12 GMT

I've been having a few conversations with various different people over the past few months about the Cloud phenomenon that is currently sweeping the industry, and it's an interesting term and concept. It seems nicely packaged up by a lot of service providers and outsourcing agencies, but it is a lot more than that.

I see the Cloud as stepping up from DR and BURA and move into fully automated Business Continuity. This has nothing to do with external service providers or outsourcing the IT infrastructure, this has to do with how the whole business works. Again, this is more than just keeping the data and systems running. I have a lot of customers that go to a lot of effort to put in a very reliable and proven DR infrastructure, but they have no-where for their employees to work from!

I wanted to post this here as a general open question. What does Cloud Computing and various Cloud terms mean to people out there in the real world? Is anyone seriously looking into it? There's been a lot of press coverage of Cloud systems that have had catastrophic failures, so is it really something to trust and put all your faith into? Is it just a buzz word and a good marketting term in our current economy? Is there anything that NetApp Engineering could possibly give insight into what NetApp could offer as Cloud services at the storage level?

Open to any sort of input or discussion here, so please post your thoughts!

Are Clouds Green?

community@netapp.com — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:00:09 GMT

Here we sit in the middle of history. The economy is transforming before our eyes. Last year energy costs caused IT practitioners to begin seriously considering the cost of the energy our data centers consume, so the Green IT dialog began. We became fascinated by Storage Efficiency and Server Virtualization as means of driving up asset utilization and the efficiency of the Facility itself became actionab.e.

This year, immense economic pressure is causing IT practitioners to begin thinking about converting the services we provide frome Capital Expense models to Operational Expense models. Which means that the Application Service Provider (ASP) model of ten years ago is now re-branded the X As A Service model (IaaS, PaaS and SaaS).

I'd like to know if you think that the As A Service model is green? Perhaps the providers have simply "green washed" the model. Or maybe viewing compute infrastructure as a utility really will drive new efficiencies.

What do you think?

How is your company approaching Cloud Computing?

community@netapp.com — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:35:42 GMT

Cloud computing creates some unique storage requirements in terms of elastic scaling, automation, data movement, multi-tenancy, space efficiency, virtualization support, network support and more. In the May issue of Tech OnTap, I wrote an article that shares how I think about the cloud. I also lay out some of the unique storage requirements of cloud computing, discusses what you should be doing now and describe some of NetApp's support for cloud storage.

You can check out the article at:

http://www.netapp.com/us/communities/tech-ontap/tot-cloud-storage-0509.html.

I'd like to hear from you on what do you think about cloud computing? Or more specifically on whether your company is already taking steps to leverage cloud services or upgrading your data center to provide IT as a Service within your company? Do you have a list of candidate apps that you're considering moving to the cloud?

Decru products installed at cloud environments

community@netapp.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:50:05 GMT

I have an analyst asking me if we have Decru products installed at cloud environments or with MOSSO products (http://www.mosso.com/cloudservers.jsp).

It’s for a conference and an analysis they do about cloud environments/application and data protection.

Thank you in advance,

Erez

Cloud and the corporate data center

community@netapp.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:29:07 GMT

Check out my blog and then answer this question:

Is the trend toward smaller corporate data centers real? If you think that the corporate data center will get smaller, how important do you think understanding the link between Enterprise Architecture and IT Architecture is?

This stuff if fascinating. I think this is a very exciting time to be in IT.

Gary