Science and Technology Science and Technology
Tue, January 13, 2009

NetApp Offers 50% Guarantee Program for Citrix and Microsoft Virtual Environments


Published on 2009-01-13 05:26:10, Last Modified on 2009-01-13 05:28:22 - Market Wire
  Print publication without navigation


SUNNYVALE, Calif.--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--As customers look to reduce costs amid the current economic climate, NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) today announced that it is extending its 50% Virtualization Guarantee* Program, previously available only for VMware®, to Citrix® and Microsoft® virtual environments. As part of the program, NetApp is offering a guarantee that customers will use 50% less storage with NetApp® compared to traditional storage in Citrix XenServer™ and Microsoft Windows® Server Hyper-V™ virtual environments. According to industry estimates, most storage that IT organizations purchase is inefficient and underutilized. The NetApp guarantee minimizes investment costs and risks while enabling customers to achieve greater storage utilization in their virtual server and desktop environments.

"Recently introduced guarantee programs vary widely in what is covered and what is guaranteed. Careful evaluation and judgment is needed, but when users qualify and find that the solutions meet their requirements, they should consider these guarantees a plus in the vendor's favor," said April Adams, research director, Gartner, in the November 2008 report, Capacity Savings and Storage Utilization Guarantees: What's Included, and Are They Worth Considering? Adams also said, "During the research phase of your next storage purchasing cycle, ask each vendor if it offers a capacity savings or utilization guarantee."

NetApp's unique program assures customers that they will use less storage, achieve better data protection, and increase flexibility when they select NetApp and leverage its unique storage-efficiency technologies such as thin provisioning, deduplication, RAID-DP®, and Snapshot™, all of which come standard on NetApp systems. No other large storage vendor is willing or able to match this guarantee. As a result, customers can buy less storage and reduce their overall power, space, and cooling costs in their data centers.

NetApp customer Transplace provides comprehensive transportation and logistics management services and technology to major shippers. Transplace trusted NetApp to support its virtualization environment. Transplace achieved as much as 93% space savings leveraging NetApp storage-efficiency technologies such as deduplication. The use of deduplication in all of its virtual environments has enabled Transplace to achieve massive space savings of more than 11TB.

"We're responsible for the global logistics for many Fortune 1000 companies. The more efficient we can make our processes and infrastructure, the more we can directly impact our ability to execute and respond to the needs of our customers," said Vincent Biddlecombe, CTO of Transplace. "We needed a solution that gave us better business continuity and greater flexibility in our test and development environment. We rearchitected our entire data center infrastructure, making NetApp storage over Ethernet our new standard. This solution has since allowed us to increase customer service levels while simultaneously meeting our own tight budget constraints. The bottom line was that NetApp saved us a ton of money and improved our ability to offer enhanced services to our customers."

NetApp is committed to helping customers drive cost inefficiencies out of their data centers. With the proven expertise and technology that may provide customers to use 50% less storage compared to other competitive offerings, NetApp is helping customers tap into the unrealized potential of their virtual infrastructures.

"Virtualization is at the heart of helping our customers reduce costs and adapt to changing business needs," said Frank Artale, vice president of Business Development, Citrix Systems. "NetApp extends the value of virtualization by delivering greater efficiency in the storage infrastructure, a requirement for any virtual environment. NetApp's guarantee gives customers confidence that they can realize greater efficiencies in their XenServer virtual environments and be more flexible and responsive to business change."

"Applying virtualization technologies broadly across the IT infrastructure, such as those offered by Microsoft for addressing the needs of the desktop through the data center, yields important benefits in reducing costs and attaining greater efficiency, flexibility, continuity, and agility," said Zane Adam, senior director, Virtualization at Microsoft. "With the combination of the storage capabilities from NetApp and server virtualization offerings from Microsoft, customers can quickly provision both their storage and servers. Together, NetApp and Microsoft deliver greater IT efficiencies with improved flexibility, helping drive down cost and complexity for customers' operations."

Availability and Requirements

Customers anywhere in the world who purchase a new system for their virtual desktop and server environment, including Citrix XenServer, VMware ESX, and Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V, can take advantage of this program. If customers don't use 50% less storage with NetApp compared to competitive storage systems after following established best practices implemented by NetApp Professional Services and utilizing NetApp Data ONTAP® storage-efficiency technologies, NetApp will provide the additional capacity needed to meet customers' shortfall, up to 50% of the original capacity purchased, at no additional charge*. Qualifying service delivery is available from NetApp Global Services or participating Authorized Professional Service Partners in networked storage for virtualized platforms.

For more information, visit [ www.netapp.com/guarantee ], where you can access program details including FAQs, technical resources, best practices, and the new NetApp Storage Efficiency Calculator to evaluate your current environment and learn how NetApp storage-efficiency technologies can lead to higher storage utilization.

Also, listen to the podcast titled "[ Use 50% Less Storage with NetApp—Guaranteed ]" with Jim Sangster, senior director of Marketing at NetApp, on ways to manage your company's exponential data growth in a virtualized environment while minimizing your storage investment.

To learn more about the latest in NetApp and industry deduplication news, visit NetApp's Dr. Dedupe Blog at [ http://blogs.netapp.com/drdedupe/ ].

Discuss this news in the NetApp Community, where you can exchange thoughts and ideas on a variety of topics with our community members. Collaborate with our company, engage in conversation with NetApp leaders and employees, and participate in our passion to go further, faster. Join now at [ www.netapp.com/us/communities/ ].

About NetApp

NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that accelerate business breakthroughs and deliver outstanding cost efficiency. Discover our passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at [ www.netapp.com ].

*This guarantee and related Program are limited to the terms set forth in [ www.netapp.com/guarantee ] applicable only to prospective orders placed after the Program effective date and are dependent upon your compliance with the terms and conditions set forth in this document and any of the instruction sets and specifications set forth in the referenced documents. NetApp's sole and exclusive liability and your sole and exclusive remedy associated with the terms of this guarantee and related Program is the provision by NetApp of the additional storage capacity as set forth in this guarantee and related Program.

Disclaimer - Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied in the forward-looking statements.NetApp advises readers that these potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: potential fluctuations in operating results; the ability to maintain and gain market or industry acceptance of the company's products; the company's dependence on a limited number of customers; fluctuations and variances in customers' overall products, product architectures, and internal configurations; variations in product availability; fluctuations and variations in the virtualization product markets; fluctuations in software development and release schedules, customers' demand for products and services, changes in partner, channel and vendor relationships, international economic, regulatory, political, and other risks and uncertain benefits from strategic business combinations. More detailed information on these and additional factors which could affect the company's operating and financial results is described in NetApp's Forms 10-K, 10-Q, and other reports filed, or to be filed, with the Securities and Exchange Commission. NetApp urges all interested parties to read these reports to gain a better understanding of the business and other risks that the company faces. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made only as of the date hereof, and the company does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, Data ONTAP, RAID-DP, and Snapshot are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Citrix and Citrix XenServer are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks and Hyper-V is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.

Contributing Sources