Future-Proof Your Storage Investments With NetApp Advance

This article was written by Jeff Baxter at NetApp.

As we've learned in the last few years, our world is filled with constant disruption. There are industry shakeups and global pandemics and technology breakthroughs and geopolitical unrest. Even our disruptions have disruptions. You get the point.

This has created an environment in which it's increasingly difficult to make decisions that aren't just right for today's chaos but also for the murky demands of tomorrow. It's like buying the latest VR headset only to learn that a newer, shinier model is coming out next month. Unless you had a crystal ball, you probably couldn't have predicted it. But it's frustrating and leaves you saying coulda, shoulda, woulda. NetApp is stepping in to prevent that scenario for enterprise storage purchases.

Will your infrastructure investments stand the test of time?

When it comes to infrastructure (which is certainly more important than the latest VR tech), the last thing you want to do is make a wrong move. Modernization is a necessity, not an option, and you must achieve it while navigating all the disruption and demands of today's environment—inflation, budget cuts, limited capex, skills shortages, sustainability mandates, and more. Will you have to knock on Finance's door to request more capex 6 months from now, and face their inevitable wrath? Will you need to move more workloads to the cloud or perhaps repatriate some of them back on premises in a few years? It's hard to have all the answers.

Bottom line—you need the right performance, at the right price, with the lowest carbon footprint. And you also need infrastructure that can flex to whatever the future throws at you.

Forget the guessing game - meet NetApp Advance

We can't give you a crystal ball to predict the future. But we can future-proof your infrastructure with a whole new storage ownership experience that gives you predictability and adaptability. NetApp® Advance is a best-in-class portfolio of programs and guarantees that goes hand-in-hand with our NetApp AFF and FAS systems, including our new capacity flash AFF C-Series. As your business demands evolve, you can rely on greater flexibility, improved ROI, and reduced TOC. Here's a breakdown of the current elements of NetApp Advance.

Storage Lifecycle Program - buy once and get IT technology that evolves with you

Let's be honest–the enterprise storage upgrade/refresh cycle is a headache to say the least. And who knows what your future budget will be, so if you make the wrong investment, you could find yourself having to make repeated capex requests, which will only complicate things more. The NetApp Storage Lifecycle Program takes the pain and guesswork out of this process while future-proofing your investment.

• Easier, simpler, faster upgrade cycles. Purchase a NetApp AFF or FAS system with the Storage Lifecycle Program (SLP) option and we'll upgrade it indefinitely with nondisruptive refreshes of storage controllers every 3 years at no additional cost. You choose the timing of your upgrade, and we'll help you seamlessly and securely scale as you grow.
• Trade-in capacity. Minimize investment risk and future-proof your purchase when you buy additional new capacity by trading in your existing SLP-covered storage media for a 100% capacity credit. Never purchase the same storage twice.
• VIP services and AI-powered analytics. Keep your systems running at peak performance with proactive monitoring, full-stack visibility, and actionable insights while enjoying the peace of mind that comes from on-site support and troubleshooting.
• Easy peasy software experience. Stay on top of new software updates and enjoy all the new ONTAP® capabilities and advancements as soon as they become available. Take advantage of optional fully managed upgrade services, and let NetApp keep your systems up to date.

Cloud Advantage - complete flexibility with an easy path to the cloud

Even if you're not quite ready to move to the cloud now, that may change. So your current infrastructure investments shouldn't hold you back from making the transition if business demands shift. As a part of our Storage Lifecycle Program, Cloud Advantage gives you the option to swap your on-premises controller refresh for cloud services or hybrid cloud storage as a service with NetApp Keystone®. You can make on-premises storage purchases with the confidence of easily shifting that investment to the cloud in the future. Our competitors can't offer this level of flexibility because they haven't invested in hybrid cloud innovation like we have, and they don't have the deep integrations that we do in the world's biggest public clouds.

Storage Efficiency Guarantee - the most effective guarantee in the industry. Period.

Whether you're tracking increasing energy prices or working on corporate sustainability goals, you need rubber-meets-the-road solutions and partners that follow-through on their promises. We deliver both (read more about our sustainability efforts in this blog). And NetApp guarantees that if we don't meet your workload efficiency goals, we'll make it right at no cost to you.

• Performance and efficiency, guaranteed. NetApp offers a guaranteed storage efficiency of 4:1 for SAN workloads and 1.5:1 for NAS workloads on our ONTAP AFF systems. That means you get high performance while minimizing energy usage, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy costs. It's a total win-win.
• Right-sizing and tiering, simplified. Automatically move infrequently used data to more cost-efficient object storage with no need to refactor applications. This optimizes hardware usage, minimizes your footprint, and significantly reduces data storage costs. Our storage is natively available on AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud so you can tier to your cloud of choice or from high performance all-flash to hybrid-flash/HDD systems. Your data is always available for immediate access and stays secure with end-to-end data encryption and SOC2-type2 certification in the cloud.

Choose industry-leading storage with an innovation-obsessed partner

We know that you have a choice when you make infrastructure investments. Don't settle for vendors who only care about selling you products that fit today so they can sell you more when you outgrow them later. NetApp is the proven leader in all-flash storage with more than 30 years of innovation under our belts, now pairing the industry's best arrays with the best-in-class ownership experience. And we're ready to help you prepare for your future.