NetApp Cloud Volumes Brings Opportunities to Google Cloud Partners

Last week’s Google Cloud Next ’18 was all about building Google Cloud Platform (GCP) momentum via new partnerships and emerging technologies. Although much of the talk was about technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, there was still a significant undercurrent focused on evolving cloud services, such as storage.

Take for example Google’s partnership with storage vendor NetApp, which has resulted in the creation of  NetApp Cloud Volumes for Google Cloud Platform. The idea behind the offering was to bring a fully managed, cloud-native file storage service that was fully integrated with GCP, giving MSPs the ability to address the changing storage needs of businesses looking to move workloads into the cloud.

NetApp’s offering also makes it easier for businesses to move their on-premises storage systems into the cloud, addressing evolving needs such as access to high-performance, scalable and shared file-systems, which many cloud-based applications demand today.

“The conundrum companies face is how to take advantage of the agility and velocity of cloud computing while minimizing the risks of extensive re-architecture of their applications,” said Brendon Howe, senior vice president, cloud data services, NetApp. “As a leader in hybrid-cloud data services, NetApp is uniquely positioned to help companies across multiple workloads to create new market opportunities by accelerating their cloud transitions and unleashing the true business value of data.

Brendon Howe

At the Google event, NetApp promoted the addition of new capabilities that enhance their offering, while also giving more options to Google Cloud partners; for example, the addition of the SMB and NFS v2 protocols, which will allow both Windows and Unix based applications to be deployed on GCP. Other improvements include:

• Support for large volumes of data —up to 100TB per volume with snapshot capabilities.
• Support for volumes to scale up and down in both size and performance at runtime.
• Support for operating in hybrid and multicloud scenarios, on-premises and in the cloud.

Nan Boden, senior director of global technology partnerships for Google Cloud, made it clear at the event that Google is looking to make its cloud partners successful.

“We’re here to not only enable technology, but also partners’ businesses and goals.” Boden said, adding, “The new technologies and programs we are putting in place will accelerate that.”

Nan Boden

Ultimately, the enhancements to NetApp Cloud Volumes for GCP will give MSPs and their customers the ability deploy workloads like databases, video rendering, continuous integration and high-performance computing on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).  

“Companies are on different paths to the cloud, each with unique dependencies,” said Diane Greene, CEO, Google Cloud. “Google Cloud and NetApp are committed to simplifying the journey, meeting customers where they are, and accelerating innovation. NetApp Cloud Volumes for Google Cloud Platform – a high-performance storage service with advanced management features – gives our customers the freedom to move to the cloud at their own pace.”

MSPs and other Google partners might be able to get a larger piece of the $186 billion public-cloud-services pie thanks to new offerings and partnerships. Research firm Gartner says the fastest-growing segment of the market is cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which it forecasts to grow 36 percent this year to reach nearly $41 billion. The analyst firm said it expects the top 10 providers to account for nearly 70 percent of the IaaS market by 2021, up from 50 percent in 2016. Worldwide spending on public cloud services will grow more than 21 percent, from a little less than $154 billion in 2017.