TIERING! Well, this isn’t the only new feature but I must admit that it is probably the most exciting new concept.  Tiering in AWS has long been a request and now to see if natively available in OnCommand Cloud Manager (OCCM) is very cool.  What is tiering and why does it change the way we think about AWS storage.

It has long been known that Elastic Block Storage (EBS) in AWS is a costly investment.  This is an even more important fact when we think about Disaster Protection and long-term archive.  Simple Storage Service (S3) is a much cheaper solution and perfectly suited for preserving archived data in the cloud.  The challenge has been in how to leverage the power of NetApp SnapMirror and the cost-effectiveness of S3.  This new solution allows for better effective use of EBS to give access to actively used (HOT) data while move snapshot blocks into an S3 bucket (COLD).  The benefit is that I can spend less on my expensive storage while maintaining great scalability of my protected blocks.

Let’s think about a great scenario for this type of integration.  Imagine that we have NetApp running in our data center and we would like to replicate that data for disaster protection and possible cloud scale-out.  NetApp has always stated that ONTAP Cloud is a good use case for this type of scenario since the data replicates natively using SnapMirror.  Combine this on-premises data set with something like SnapCenter and now you can eliminate the real need for a disaster recovery data center.  Since disaster happen and hopefully, you rarely need to trigger them, those remote systems mainly sit idle.

How do we make the most out of a solution that we hope and pray that we never need?  Well, using the Volume Flexclone feature of ONTAP, you can create a read-writeable copy of the data and present it to a host.  More often than not, I see customers use these copies for Test and Development use cases.  Typically, the use case is only to clone out the most recent version/copy of the data but retain multiple copies of snapshots.  With this new feature, those cold snapshots move into S3 cutting the overall cost of the EBS storage.

Another new feature is available when creating new ONTAP Cloud systems.  Now, you can quickly get the right configuration based on your use cases.  This is just another great example of the ease to use available in OCCM.  If you want to try the tiering for yourself, then go ahead and select the Cost effective DR solution type.

Want to learn more about the OnCommand 3.3 release

Want to learn more about NetApp Fabric Pool technology?  Listen to the awesome NetApp Tech Podcast: What is Fabric Pool? 

Would you like to get started trying out OnCommand Cloud Manager 3.3?  Take a look at how to Terraform your lab today.

Github: Terraform Templates to deploy and manage NetApp ONTAP Cloud environments

Github: A CHEF cookbook to manage OCCM and ONTAP Cloud deployments