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NetApp Cloud Manager Enhancement Series: September 2022

Utilize this series to find everything you need to know about any updates or enhancements developed inside of NetApp Cloud Manager, including all the NetApp Cloud products.

In this blog

  1. Cloud Manager Connector
  2. Amazon FSx for ONTAP (FSxN)
  3. Cloud Backup
  4. Cloud Data Sense
  5. Kubernetes Environments

The NetApp Cloud Manager Enhancement Series will kick off a regular update schedule for everything NetApp Cloud. This series will follow the monthly release cycle of NetApp Cloud Manager. 

Cloud Manager is the hottest item offered by NetApp. It enables infrastructure experts and architects to centrally manage their hybrid multi-cloud environments using NetApp's cloud solutions. Cloud Manager is an enterprise-grade, SaaS-based, management platform to control your data across any NetApp products. This single platform is quickly becoming the unified management UI for all things NetApp. 

The current release schedule for NetApp Cloud Manager and NetApp Cloud products (i.e. CVO, Backup, Tiering, Monitoring, Data Intelligence, Ransomware Protection and Kubernetes) follows a monthly or bimonthly update, and this new series will offer you a glance at the most recent release information. Plus, we will provide you with a direct glance at how WWT utilizes these features inside our own environment and include expert insight for each release. You can see all the release information here.

The information below is separated by sections for each NetApp Cloud solution and covers the enhancements for September 2022.

 Cloud Manager Connector

The Connector is a crucial component of NetApp Cloud Manager, essentially allowing connectivity to all your public cloud resources deployed for NetApp Cloud products. The Connector can be deployed on-premises or in any of the public cloud providers. The updates below highlight the administrative enhancements to the Connector with this release.

  • Deployment: The Connector deployment wizard now includes a minimum requirement guide and guides users through all components of the installation including permissions, authentication and networking.
  • NetApp Support: With this new enhancement, you can now create support cases directly from Cloud Manager and the Support Dashboard.
  • Support for StorageGRID and E-Series: On-premises StorageGRID and E-Series environments can now be discovered within Cloud Manager. This provides a more complete view of all your data across your hybrid multi-cloud environments.
  • Digital Wallet: You can now view a summary of all your various types of consumption options for Cloud Volumes ONTAP, including WORM capacity. This ensures you know how much of your license has been consumed, when you need to purchase additional licensing, plus which type of license to purchase. Also, you can now change your charging method for any working environments you have deployed.

 Amazon FSx for ONTAP (FSxN)

FSxN is an AWS native storage solution, which incorporates all the features of ONTAP but is managed by AWS. Below are the enhancements released to NetApp Cloud Manager if you choose to manage FSxN directly through Cloud Manager.

  • VMware Cloud (VMC) on AWS: For customers utilizing VMC on AWS today, you can now deploy FSxN NFS volumes as native VMC data stores. This is a huge improvement in total cost of ownership (TCO) for VMC because you can now scale storage capacity with FSxN without the need to purchase more compute resources inside VMC.
  • Configuration: You can now change the throughput, IOPS, and storage capacity for your FSxN filesystem.
  • Drag and Drop: Using the drag and drop feature in Cloud Manager, you now have the ability to set up replication and sync capabilities utilizing FSxN as the source environment.
  • Block Support: Block-based volumes utilizing the iSCSI protocol can now be created directly through Cloud Manager.

 Cloud Backup

If you are backing up ONTAP, either on-premises or in the cloud, Cloud Backup is the solution for you. This backup solution works exclusively with ONTAP environments. Below we cover the new enhancements to Cloud Backup.

  • DataLock and Ransomware Protection: In earlier releases of Cloud Backup, you were able to enable DataLock and Ransomware Protection for backups stored in Amazon S3. With this release, you now have the same functionality with backups being stored within NetApp StorageGRID.
  • Restore Capability: In this release of Cloud Backup, you now have the ability to restore entire folders, perform single file restores from archival storage in AWS and Azure, and overwrite files on the source if you are restoring individual files to the source volume.
  • Drag and Drop: The easy-to-use "Drag and Drop" feature in Cloud Manager can now be used to create Cloud Backup relationships.

 Cloud Data Sense

If you need intelligence about your data specific to compliance, governance and personal information across a variety of environments, then Cloud Data Sense is the solution for you. Here are the newest enhancements to Data Sense with this release.

  • Rescan On Demand: To avoid waiting for the scheduled scanning mechanism built into Data Sense, you can now rescan a repository of data manually. This is extremely useful if you are attempting to remediate and reflect changes to a repository. With the rescan option, you can see these changes immediately as you manage your data.
  • New Filter Options: If you are investigating your scanned data, you can now filter based on "Analysis Status" and "Data Subjects". The analysis status feature for filtering will allow you to see what stage of scanning your data is in (i.e. "Pending First Scan", "Completed", "Pending Rescan", or "Failed"). The data subjects filtering identifies "Data Subjects" as "Personal Data". You can then filter specifically for files that contain only data subjects.
  • Data Sense Breadcrumbs: As a compliance administrator investigating your scanned data, Data Sense will now leave behind "breadcrumb" files as you move files from a source location to another location. The term "breadcrumb" means, as you would expect, a notification metadata placeholder ensuring normal users of the data know that a file was relocated per a compliance investigation.

 Kubernetes Environments

For customers utilizing Kubernetes clusters today, they too can be managed through NetApp Cloud Manager. Here are the recent enhancements to Kubernetes inside of Cloud Manager.

  • Discover Kubernetes Clusters: You can discover your Kubernetes clusters inside AWS, Azure, Google Cloud or OpenShift by way of automated discovery if you are using AWS EKS, Azure AKS or Google Cloud GKE, or by way of manual import for any OpenShift clusters you may have.

 

NetApp Cloud Manager provides a unified approach to controlling and accessing your data. If you would like to keep up with all the features consistently added to Cloud Manager, please use the "Add to My Picks" option inside the WWT Platform. This series will be updated monthly following the NetApp release schedule.

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