Extending its three-year strategic alliance with Microsoft, storage appliance maker NetApp has announced tight integration with Microsoft technology, in a move to streamline the data centre management and accelerate cloud computing.
NetApp said that the integration will allow customers to use Microsoft management tools to monitor and manage their virtual environments, which include NetApp storage, and build internal and public clouds.
Based on Microsoft’s management framework, NetApp is introducing a new management pack that enables Microsoft customers to manage NetApp storage technologies, plus basic self-healing capabilities with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
According to NetApp, the new ApplianceWatch PRO 2.1 includes new PRO tips that provide granular control and include auto remediation for common storage utilisation, replication and configuration issues that can affect Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs).
In addition, Microsoft customers can also create automated reports, troubleshoot storage issues and view mapping of storage to individual VMs via Microsoft System Center Operations Manager.
NetApp said that it has integrated its technologies with Microsoft’s Dynamic Datacenter Toolkits (DDTKs) to help simplify the creation of self-service portals and automate management for public and private clouds.
Patrick Rogers, vice president of products, alliances and solutions marketing at NetApp, said: “As part of our strategic alliance, NetApp and Microsoft continue to deliver on our promise to help customers transform their data centres to achieve greater efficiencies, increase agility, and respond faster to changing business needs.
“Our joint vision with Microsoft centers on delivering a unified architecture for customers to design and build highly efficient, virtualised, and dynamic data centres to enable enterprises, integrators and service providers to deliver IT as a service.”
