NetApp recently announced some new storage platforms at INSIGHT 2019. I didn’t attend the conference, but I had the opportunity to be briefed on these announcements recently and thought I’d share some thoughts here.
All Flash FAS (AFF) A400
Overview
- 4U enclosure
- Replacement for AFF A300
- Available in two possible configurations:
- Ethernet: 4x 25Gb Ethernet (SFP28) ports
- Fiber Channel: 4x 16Gb FC (SFP+) ports
- Based on latest Intel Cascade Lake processors
- 25GbE and 16Gb FC host support
- 100GbE RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) connectivity to NVMe expansion storage shelves
- Full 12Gb/sec SAS connectivity expansion storage shelves
It wouldn’t be a storage product announcement without a box shot.
[image courtesy of NetApp]
More Numbers
Each AFF A400 packs some grunt in terms of performance and capacity:
- 40 CPU cores
- 256GB RAM
- Max drives: 480
Aggregates and Volumes
| Maximum number of volumes | 2500 |
| Maximum aggregate size | 800 TiB |
| Maximum volume size | 100 TiB |
| Minimum root aggregate size | 185 GiB |
| Minimum root volume size | 150 GiB |
Other Notes
NetApp is looking to position the A400 as a replacement for the A300 and A320. That said, they will continue to offer the A300. Note that it supports NVMe, but also SAS SSDs – and you can mix them in the same HA pair, same aggregate, and even the same RAID group (if you were so inclined). For those of you looking for MetroCluster support, FC MCC support is targeted for February, with MetroCluster over IP being targeted for the ONTAP 9.8 release.
FAS8300 And FAS8700
Overview
- 4U enclosure
- Two models available
- FAS8300
- FAS8700
- Available in two possible configurations
- Ethernet: 4x 25Gb Ethernet (SFP28) ports
- Unified: 4x 16Gb FC (SFP+) ports
[image courtesy of NetApp]
- Based on latest Intel Cascade Lake processors
- Uses NVMe M.2 connection for onboard Flash Cache™
- 25GbE and 16Gb FC host support
- Full 12Gbps SAS connectivity expansion storage shelves
Aggregates and Volumes
| Maximum number of volumes | 2500 |
| Maximum aggregate size | 400 TiB |
| Maximum volume size | 100 TiB |
| Minimum root aggregate size | 185 GiB |
| Minimum root volume size | 150 GiB |
Other Notes
The 8300 can do everything the 8200 can do, and more! And it also supports more drives (720 vs 480). The 8700 supports a maximum of 1440 drives.
Thoughts And Further Reading
Speeds and feeds announcement posts aren’t always the most interesting things to read. It demonstrates that NetApp is continuing to evolve both its AFF and FAS lines, and coupled with improvements in ONTAP 9.7, there’s a lot to like about these new iterations. It looks like there’s enough here to entice customers looking to scale up their array performance. Whilst it adds to the existing portfolio, NetApp is mindful of this, and working on streamlining the portfolio. Shipments are expected to start mid-December.
Midrange storage isn’t always the sexiest thing to read about. But the fact that “midrange” storage now offers up this kind of potential performance is pretty cool. Think back to 5 – 10 years ago, and your bang for buck wasn’t anywhere near like it is now. This is to be expected, given the improvements we’ve seen in processor performance over the last little while, but it’s also important to note that improvements in the software platform are also helping to drive performance improvements across the board.
There have also been some cool enhancements announced with StorageGRID, and NetApp has also announced an “All-SAN” AFF model, with none of the traditional NAS features available. The All-SAN idea had a few pundits scratching their heads, but it makes sense in a way. The market for block-only storage arrays is still in the many billions of dollars worldwide, and NetApp doesn’t yet have a big part of that pie. This is a good way to get into opportunities that it may have been excluded from previously. I don’t think there’s been any suggestion that file or hybrid isn’t the way for them to go, but it is interesting to see this being offered up as a direct competitor to some of the block-only players out there.
I’ve written a bit about NetApp’s cloud vision in the past, as that’s seen quite a bit of evolution in recent times. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a good hardware story to tell, and I think it’s reflected in these new product announcements. NetApp has been doing some cool stuff lately. I may have mentioned it before, but NetApp’s been named a leader in the Gartner 2019 Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage. You can read a comprehensive roundup of INSIGHT news over here at Blocks & Files.
Dan, the updates and new announcements from Netapp are great tactically but strategically, where do you see NetApp going? Keystone is a copy cat move to HPE Greenlake, but in the face of challenging times ahead, where can NetApp shine again?
Hey Chin-Fah, I think a lot of this is going to hinge on how they bring the hardware and cloud vision together. There are still a lot of moving parts in places where it could be made simpler. I think their ability to execute in that realm will have a real impact on how they progress strategically. I’ve said before that I think their cloud vision is great, but like a lot of “older” vendors, they have people in the org who aren’t all in on the new ways of doing things. It will be interesting to see how that evolves.