ALEF Hybrid Cloud – Azure and NetApp

Bratimir Timotijević

 

The Cloud can be an expensive place to learn. We at ALEF strongly believe that knowledge is the driving factor in Hybrid Cloud adoption, so in order to help you on this journey, we created a Hybrid Cloud environment comprised of 2 remote locations. The first site is built within ALEF’s DC, with on-premises NetApp physical and virtual appliances (All Flash AFF A250, StorageGRID, SolidFire & ONTAP Select SDS).  The other data center is placed in Microsoft Azure, with almost any service NetApp currently has to offer in a Public Cloud environment.

Both sites are interconnected via a Site-to-Site VPN connection.

The main intent of this Briefing & Demo Center is to help NetApp and Microsoft partners learn and test various Azure technologies, NetApp Cloud Data Services, as well as NetApp on-prem data technologies.

In addition, whether you are considering a Backup to Cloud project, or your goal is to build a Disaster Recovery site in Azure for your primary DC, or you are just interested to know the basics of Azure or NetApp, we cover it all!

Depending on your needs, we can help prepare and let you test it within our Hybrid Cloud environment in a way that best suits your particular use case. Our NetApp&Azure Engineers will walk you through Azure fundamentals (storage, compute, networking and security) or any of the NetApp solutions offered on-prem or in the Cloud.

What can we offer?

• We can help you understand Azure Core technologies and basic concepts (storage, compute, networking) – from the creation of an Azure account to a working Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution
• How to create a backup of your primary data in Azure, no matter what technology you have on your Primary DC
• How to backup your on-prem NetApp system to Azure Blob by using a native solution from NetApp
• How to avoid the building, securing, and operating secondary (or even tertiary) physical site by implementing cloud-ready and DR solutions
• How to gain visibility into your data and become really GDPR compliant, whether your data resides on-prem (NetApp FAS / AFF, any Linux & Windows file server, OneDrive account, etc.) or in the Public Cloud
• How to sync and replicate your data between ANY source and ANY destination in ANY environment
• How to optimize and manage your Virtual Windows Desktop environment in Azure
• How to save with archiving your cold data