SUNNYVALE, Calif.—July 13, 2010— In support of the new VMware® vSphere™ 4.1 release, NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) today announced new storage management integration for greater performance and scalability of VMware vSphere environments. NetApp Virtual Storage Console enables customers to centrally manage all NetApp® storage for VMware environments directly from the VMware vCenter™ Server console and fully leverage the benefits of virtualized infrastructures.

Virtualized infrastructures are expanding the role of administrators and causing them to spend more time on storage monitoring and management. Although VMware® vCenter™ Server provides a powerful tool for managing and monitoring VMware vSphere™ environments, administrators also need a way to easily and efficiently manage associated storage.

"Virtualization of the server and storage infrastructure is reshaping today's data center as customers begin laying the foundation for cloud computing," said Gary Green, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. "The integration between VMware vCenter™ Server and Virtual Storage Console further demonstrates how the VMware and NetApp partnership benefits our customers by providing enhanced visibility and management for greater productivity, response time, and overall return on investment."

NetApp Virtual Storage Console combines several best-of-breed storage technologies to deliver end-to-end management in both SAN- and NAS-based VMware infrastructures. Tightly integrated with VMware vCenter Server, the single storage console enables VMware administrators to centrally monitor, provision, clone, back up, recover, and replicate storage operations for virtual server and desktop environments without requiring storage administrator assistance. Virtual Storage Console also helps optimize utilization and improve responsiveness with real-time discovery, health monitoring, and capacity management. This combination of unique capabilities provides VMware administrators with the necessary tools to improve server and storage visibility and efficiencies while still enabling storage administrators to own and control storage policies.

"On any given day our team is looking at a number of different things, from the VMware infrastructure to the physical servers, from the load balancers to the storage," said Grant Leathers, director of Enterprise Infrastructure at Kelley Blue Book, which worked with regional systems integrator Trace3 to design and implement a solution based on NetApp technology. "We need solutions that are integrated, easy to use, and provide better visibility for simplified management. NetApp solutions have enabled us to save close to 70% of previously used disk space to reduce the amount of storage space used for VMware deployment from 12 to 4.5 terabytes."

NetApp Virtual Storage Console employs both NetApp and VMware APIs to deliver a robust, fully supported solution for multiple virtual desktop environments, and enables fast updates to thousands of desktops or virtual machines. In addition, Virtual Storage Console supports NetApp MultiStore®, allowing customers, service providers, and cloud providers to secure multi-tenant cloud environments from within VMware vCenter Server, maintaining desired service levels and security for each tenant. Additionally, NetApp is supporting the new VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) capabilities that offload data management tasks from the host server to the storage system. This can free up host CPU cycles for better performance and increased virtual machine density.

"Enterprises recognize the importance of deploying virtualized resources to enable a more flexible, dynamic data center," said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions and Alliances Marketing at NetApp. "NetApp simplifies storage management in VMware environments, helping our joint customers achieve greater savings and business agility."

For additional perspective on NetApp's powerful new storage management capabilities for VMware environments, visit Vaughn Stewart's blog at blogs.netapp.com/virtualstorageguy.

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.