NetApp Hardware Deployment

We are one of the few companies in Western Canada certified to perform Clustered Data OnTap installs and have deployed all of NetApp's product line from the smallest to the largest controllers they sell. This includes IBMs rebranded N-Series. We also have considerable experience deploying V-Series or gateway controllers which allow non-NetApp disk such as EMC, Hitachi or IBM disk on the back end.

Head swaps, where the controller is upgraded but the disks remain, are regularly performed by us, as are capacity upgrades in the form of hot adding additional shelves.

NetApp Software Deployment

We have deployed every single one of NetApp's software products and some in particular, such as NetApp's SnapManager products for SQL, Exchange, Sharepoint, Oracle etc, we have done dozens of times. We are constantly keeping up with the latest versions and are very experienced in both the deployment of this software as well as the provision of knowledge transfer to ensure your staff have the requisite skills to manage your environment after we are gone.

We have also deployed NetApp's new SnapProtect solution, an OEM version of CommVault's Simpana 9 backup product with integration into NetApp's snapshot technology. This product is an excellent solution and we are excited about seeing it more widely deployed.

NetApp software we have installed includes: SnapManager for SQL, SnapManager for Exchange, SnapManager for Oracle, SnapManager for SAP, SnapManager for VI, SnapProtect, SnapMirror, SnapVault, OSSV, SnapDrive, Data OnTap, On Command, Data Fabric Manager, Protection Manager, Virtual Storage Console and VMware's SRM.

Finally, we have written hundreds of custom scripts on both Unix and Windows platforms to automate storage related tasks such as replication and failover, either to facilitate complex tasks for non-standard applications or to keep NetApp software costs down.

NetApp VMware Integration

Well over 50% of our engagements include integration of NetApp storage into virtualized environments. We have completed many virtualization projects performing setup and configuration of a complete VMware environment including ESX host builds, VCenter servers, P2Vs of physical servers as well as storage provisioning using FC or NFS attached datastores. All of which is performed according to current NetApp and VMware best practices.

We also provide assistance with or completely manage VMware upgrades and have performed over a dozen 4.1 to 5.0 rollouts in the last year.

Finally, we are also very experienced with deploying VMware's Site Recovery Manager (SRM) using NetApp storage as the backend. In our opinion, SRM and NetApp provide best of breed Disaster Recovery, making DR testing and failover extremely easy to perform.

NetApp Training

During hardware installation, we always provide knowledge transfer to the onsite storage admin staff. We consider it part of the job to ensure support staff have enough training to begin managing your storage correctly and efficiently.

Taking things a step further, we have provided many ad-hoc training sessions specific to a particular piece of NetApp Software. We've worked with Oracle or SQL DBAs to providing training on SMO or SMSQL, we've worked with storage admin staff to provide deeper skills using SnapMirror, SnapVault or SRM and we've worked with the backup team to provide training on the use of SnapProtect or OSSV.

Regardless of the requirement, when it comes to helping your staff leverage NetApp or VMware technology, we've likely already taught a client how to do it.

System Health Checks

We often get a call to come in, review the existing environment and provide a set of recommendations. We call this our NetApp Health Check.

The health check typically includes an interview with your storage team to gain an understanding of your current use of the storage, an inventory of all hosts and the methods of storage provisioning such as FCP, NFS or iSCSI, a complete review of the NetApp configuration including network, a complete inventory of all NetApp volumes and LUNs and a review of the system logs looking for issues or pending problems.

With all that information gathered, we then produce a detailed report of our findings including recommendations. We commonly find areas of concern that are just waiting to happen. It is not uncommon for a NetApp controller to be deployed and then left untouched for months. While they run very well, they do need an occasional set of experienced eyes to make sure things are as they should be.

Our reports are always very well received and commonly result in a much better utilization of existing storage based on our recommendations for use of things like deduplication and thin provisioning.

Data Migration

We have migrated petabytes of data over the years and whether it is file and print data from an old Windows server, production Oracle or SQL databases, Exchange mailstores or Virtual Machines, we have done it all.

Data migration is inherently a very detailed oriented task, especially Windows files. We take particular pride in ensuring that every file makes it from old storage to new with file permissions intact. Our track record is impeccable; we've never lost data in all of our years of providing these services.

In complex environments where millions of files and hundreds of shares exist, we can automate the process with PowerShell scripts to ensure every single detail is captured and mirrored to new storage.

We know data very well.

Data Protection

Regular backup of your critical data is a crucial part of data centre operations as is the replication of your critical data to a DR site. Even more important is the ability to restore from those backups or test failover at your DR site. We have helped dozens of customers leverage NetApp's SnapVault, SnapMirror and SnapProtect technology to make this process easy.

We have deployed dozens of SnapVault projects which allow you to keep a small number of on disk backups of your data in the form of on disk snapshots as well as a much higher number of backups on remote disks. This data can either live natively on NetApp disk or on a variety of hosts which can then replicate data using NetApp's Open Systems SnapVault (OSSV).

We've also helped hundreds of customers use SnapMirror to efficiently replicate terabytes of data across the country or the world to their DR sites. Not only can we help you get it there, we can help you leverage that data once it's there using FlexClone technology to utilize those copies for DEV and Test environments making that remote copy even more useful and cost effective.

Finally, we can help you manage all of your enterprise backups from a single pane of glass using SnapProtect. This relatively new offering from NetApp is one of the best software products it has released in years. Leveraging the industry's best of breed enterprise backup solutions in CommVault's Simpana 9, NetApp has been able to integrate it with their Snapshot technology to enable extremely fast, highly space efficient backups, regardless of the application or data type. We absolutely love this product.