SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 4, 2012) - Trends toward greater virtualization of IT infrastructure, increased levels of content digitization, faster levels of IT service deployment, and continued service-level availability expectations are driving increased interest in cloud computing. This period of transformation from physical to virtual infrastructures, and then to secure private, public, and hybrid clouds, offers new opportunities for IT professionals to deliver agile, on-demand services built on a flexible pool of shared compute, network, and storage resources.

In close collaboration with technology leaders such as NetApp, Microsoft is unveiling a new Windows Server release to help accelerate this transition. Today, NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) announced support for Windows Server 2012 with storage solutions for server and desktop virtualization, storage and availability, Web and application platform development, and private cloud deployment. For organizations of any size and in any industry, this close collaboration simplifies and accelerates how storage is pooled, provisioned, accessed, and managed in Windows environments.

In June, NetApp was named Microsoft Private Cloud Partner of the Year for 2012 in recognition of its commitment to helping organizations move to private cloud solutions. For more than 10 years, NetApp and Microsoft have teamed to develop and provide innovative storage and data management solutions for Microsoft technologies. Today more than 25,000 enterprise customers worldwide store, protect, and manage their Microsoft application data with NetApp^® storage solutions.

"Windows Server 2012 is the category benchmark for organizations looking to migrate rapidly to cloud-ready infrastructures for application and service delivery," said Phil Brotherton, vice president, Enterprise Software Ecosystem, NetApp. "To help organizations realize the full value of their Microsoft technology investments, we continue to align our solution delivery roadmaps to address the critical challenges our mutual customers are facing, from increasing storage efficiency to maintaining high availability of servers, applications, and services."

"Windows Server 2012 is built from the ground up to be cloud ready and delivers important storage enhancements to help organizations reduce costs and achieve a whole new level of business agility," said Thomas Pfenning, general manager, File Server Foundation, Microsoft. "We've worked closely with NetApp with a focus on giving our mutual customers an efficient, flexible, and reliable IT foundation for delivering business-critical services."

NetApp Supports Windows Server 2012 Capabilities

NetApp offers the following support for key capabilities of Windows Server 2012:

• Storage. NetApp FAS and V-Series storage systems have been thoroughly tested, and are fully supported with Windows Server 2012, which means compatibility and confident deployment of applications. NetApp is committed to providing support for SMB 3.0 and Windows ODX -- file storage and data transfer technologies used in Windows Server 2012 storage environments -- and is launching a public beta program for this support in October 2012. For more information about this program, go to https://communities.netapp.com/groups/ontap-82-beta-program. NetApp is committed to making data storage and data movement easier by providing storage protocol choices (including support for FCP, FCoE, and iSCSI) that can make server consolidation and virtualization easier, enabling additional cost savings, greater storage efficiency, increased utilization, and simpler high-availability and disaster recovery solutions. NetApp is also a partner member of the Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track program and is developing prevalidated solutions for Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V on the NetApp and Cisco FlexPod^® architecture managed with Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1.
  
  
• Server and desktop virtualization. NetApp Snapshot^™ based backup and recovery with SnapManager for Hyper-V 1.2 and SnapDrive^® for Windows 6.5 have achieved Windows Server 2012 logo certification and provide integrated data protection in Windows Server 2012 environments, speeding backup, restore, and disaster recovery operations in Microsoft Private Cloud and Hyper-V environments. NetApp's support for the updated Clustered Shared Volumes in Windows Server 2012 and the new VHDx specification significantly reduce consumption of server and storage system resources, enabling large-scale virtualization and private cloud deployments. For desktop virtualization, NetApp storage systems offer an innovative set of features for efficient, reliable, and scalable VDI deployments, including deduplication, zero-space cloning, Flash Cache, and automation.
  
  
• Reduced infrastructure for cloud. With delivery expected later this year, a NetApp reference architecture built with Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 SP1 will tightly integrate with NetApp FAS data storage systems and V-Series open storage systems running NetApp Data ONTAP^®. This validated architecture is structured to reduce application deployment times; increase utilization of virtual and physical resource pools; and provide end-to-end interoperability of compute, storage, and network resources in conjunction with the release of Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1.
  
  
• Management and automation. For private cloud implementations, NetApp OnCommand^® Plug-in for Microsoft 3.2 is designed to provide integration with Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1 for dynamic scalability, automated workflow, on-demand self-service, and infrastructure orchestration in conjunction with the release of the updated management suite for Windows Server 2012 by Microsoft.
  
  
• Web and application platform. NetApp provides comprehensive support for application platforms on Windows Server 2012, including support of SQL Server 2012 data protection with SnapManager^® 6.0 for SQL Server.
  
  

Additional Resources

• For more information about NetApp support for Microsoft: www.netapp.com/microsoftsolutions
• Follow NetApp on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NetApp
• Get the latest on NetApp culture: www.facebook.com/NetAppCulture
• Join NetApp on Facebook: www.facebook.com/NetApp
• View NetApp videos on YouTube: www.youtube.com/NetAppTV
• Connect with NetApp on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=111681

About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that deliver outstanding cost efficiency and accelerate business breakthroughs. Our commitment to living our core values and consistently being recognized as a great place to work around the world are fundamental to our long-term growth and success, as well as the success of our pathway partners and customers. Discover our passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.

NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, Data ONTAP, FlexPod, OnCommand, SnapDrive, SnapManager, and Snapshot are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The use of the words "partner", "partnership", or "partnering" do not imply a legal partnership between NetApp and any other company.