NetApp FAS2500 Hybrid Storage Array
Simplify Your Storage with Leading Data Management

Overview:

Integrating data management across flash, disk, and cloud

Organizations of all sizes and local offices of larger companies are challenged more than ever by shrinking budgets, overextended staff, and the ever-changing demands caused by data growth. Plus, recently there is flash and cloud adoption to consider. These challenges, coupled with the increasing complexity of your Microsoft Windows, VMware, or server virtualization environment, can quickly eat your budget and affect the productivity of your staff.

Hybrid storage with best-in-class data management

Designed to support more of your IT needs, NetApp FAS2500 hybrid storage arrays provide more value for your money than other systems in their class. FAS2500 running the NetApp ONTAP storage software simplifies the task of managing growth and complexity by providing support for a broader range of workloads, along with seamless scaling of performance and capacity.

And with proven integration with AFF all-flash arrays and the cloud, you can build a foundation for a data fabric that leverages flash acceleration and public storage resources to cost-effectively handle dynamic storage needs. For growing organizations that are concerned about budgets today and meeting challenging IT needs in the future, FAS2500 is the perfect choice.

Realize superior ROI. Reduce your operational cost. Adapt to business growth with NetApp FAS2500 hybrid storage arrays.

Whatever the size of your enterprise, you need powerful, flexible storage that manages growth and maximizes the long-term value of your IT investment. The NetApp FAS2500 series running ONTAP software simplifies storage operations and builds a foundation for a data fabric that flows data seamlessly across flash, disk, and cloud. Its unified architecture supports a broader set of SAN and NAS workloads-with faster setup than other entry-class hybrid arrays.

• Get more from your investment
  Leverage flash technology to accelerate workloads. Boost disk utilization with enhanced partitioning and storage efficiencies.
• Reduce IT operational costs
  Deploy a single unit or a complete cluster faster with System Setup. Automate storage management (provision, protect, monitor) with the click of a button.
• Maximize flexibility and minimize disruption
  Start small to minimize upfront costs. Scale to eight nodes-without disruption-as your data requirements grow. Connect easily to the cloud.

Key Benefits

Simplifies Storage Operations

• Goes from initial power-up to serving data in under 10 minutes
• Handles complicated management tasks with the click of a button
• Allows you to upgrade software and add or retire storage with zero downtime

Delivers Best Value for Your IT Investment

• Serves SAN and NAS workloads with advanced unified architecture
• Meets more business needs with best-in-class data management
• Achieves better priceperformance with up to 20x more flash than previous generation
• Increases return on investment with enhanced storage efficiencies

Grows with Your Changing Needs

• Lets you start small and grow big, invest in what you need, and add without disruption
• Builds a foundation for a data fabric across flash, disk, and cloud

Flexible Flash Architecture: Performance Where You Need It

The FAS2500 series has a very flexible architecture capable of supporting media configurations including all-flash, hybrid, and all-HDD deployments. I believe that for this platform, hybrid configurations combining either performance or capacity HDDs and SSDs are the sweet spot. Hybrid configurations using our virtual storage tier (VST) technology have been shown to accelerate workloads by up to 46% and increase usable capacity by 48%. This is achieved by replacing performance HDDs alone with a combination of high-capacity HDDs and SSDs.

NetApp VST technology is designed to use flash very efficiently, and actually benefits from the use of complementary technologies such as deduplication and cloning, so you get more acceleration from a smaller investment in flash. With support for up to 4TB of flash in hybrid VST configurations on all FAS2500 systems, you can accelerate many workloads, all sharing the same storage. Storage QoS can be used to make sure that no single workload hogs too many resources.

While VST deployment is certainly the most common type of hybrid deployment expected for the FAS2500, you also have the option of deploying a mix of SSDs and HDDs, using SSDs for performance-sensitive workloads and HDDs for capacity-oriented workloads.

Designed to Scale Out

While the expanded flash architecture of the FAS2500 series delivers substantial performance benefits, we've also optimized the platform for clustered Data ONTAP to allow it to scale out to achieve greater capacity and performance. As you've already seen, you can scale up any FAS2500 model by adding HDDs for capacity and SSDs for performance.

FAS2500 series scale-out capabilities expand performance and capacity while eliminating downtime.

When you reach the limits of scale-up in a single system, you can then scale out by adding additional controllers (nodes). With expanded scale-out capabilities (4 nodes for the FAS2520 and 8 nodes for the FAS255x) you can build out a storage infrastructure with up to 2.3 petabytes of total capacity. You can mix different types of media in your cluster to satisfy a variety of storage requirements and, when needed, you can transition from FAS2500 controllers to FAS8000 controllers for even greater performance and capacity-all without disrupting ongoing operations.

Simplified Installation and Management

While designing great hardware is important, NetApp has paid equal attention to software for the FAS2500 (and the entire FAS product line). Our wizard-driven System Setup software makes it possible to configure a FAS2500 system in 10 minutes or less. You can unbox aFAS2500 system, set it up physically including racking and cabling, configure the software, and be serving data in less than 30 minutes with no storage expertise required, and with everything done according to best practices.

System Setup software makes it possible to get a FAS2500 system up and running with no storage expertise required.

Similarly, our suite of OnCommand management tools including OnCommand System Manager and OnCommand Workflow Automation simplify management and allow you to automate routine processes.

Finally, when it comes to storage, it just makes sense to choose infrastructure that offers complete integration for enterprise applications such as Oracle Database, SAP, and Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, and SharePoint. Integration facilitates deployment, management, and protection of important applications.

NetApp is widely regarded as an industry leader in the area of integration, providing API integration across the broadest set of technology partners, platforms, applications, and tools. We have more points of integration than any other storage vendor. This helps you to reduce IT complexity and increase availability, further accelerating the speed of business.

Cloud Connected

Ability to connect to the cloud to support backup, disaster recovery, and other functions is certainly appealing to everyone, and may be particularly desirable for smaller organizations that often don't have or would prefer not to have a second facility for remote backup or DR.

Over 350 cloud service providers (CSPs) use NetApp FAS storage, and we're forging relationships with hyperscale providers like Amazon Web Services. Utilizing the FAS2500 and Data ONTAP, you can choose a service provider and move data easily between your facility and the cloud using proven NetApp replication technologies to take full advantage of cloud resources.

Conclusion

The FAS2500 series is an ideal storage choice for almost any situation where there's a more modest storage requirement. Smaller shops will appreciate the FAS2500 for its easy setup, ease of use, flexibility, and consistent, flash-accelerated performance for both SAN and NAS workloads. Larger enterprises will benefit for many of the same reasons. Full feature compatibility with its larger FAS cousins and easy cloud connectivity make any of the FAS2500 models an easy choice for smaller storage requirements like remote and branch offices that need to be backed up to a central location or the cloud.