ONTAP 9.1 RC1 is now available, the next major release of ONTAP.
If you're one of those people that have concerns over the “RC” designation then worry not, RC releases are fully supported by NetApp and are perfectly fine to run in production environments. So do it, do it now! :)
So what's new in ONTAP 9.1?
The two biggest features I see in ONTAP 9.1 are NetApp Volume Encryption and FlexGroup.
NetApp Volume Encryption
Yes, NetApp Volume Encryption is finally here! This is encryption on FAS and AFF arrays that do not require special disk drives!
Key Features:
NetApp FlexGroup
NetApp FlexGroups are massively scalable, high-performance data containers. Think Infinite Volume on steroids. The goal of FlexGroups is to create a Single Name Space that meets the following goals:
Other ONTAP 9.1 features include:
If you have questions or concerns about upgrading to ONTAP 9.1, then you can contact EACS Limited on 0044 845 337 9146 who will be happy to talk about any of the above with you.
If you're one of those people that have concerns over the “RC” designation then worry not, RC releases are fully supported by NetApp and are perfectly fine to run in production environments. So do it, do it now! :)
So what's new in ONTAP 9.1?
The two biggest features I see in ONTAP 9.1 are NetApp Volume Encryption and FlexGroup.
NetApp Volume Encryption
Yes, NetApp Volume Encryption is finally here! This is encryption on FAS and AFF arrays that do not require special disk drives!
Key Features:
- Software encrypt any volume, any disk, any system
- FAS, AFF, and ONTAP® Select
- Lower cost: no need for hardware self-encrypting drives
- More granular: volume level
- Onboard key manager
- Leverage storage efficiency features
- Deduplication, compression, compaction
- Future proof encryption solution
- Software updates will keep the algorithms up to date
NetApp FlexGroup
NetApp FlexGroups are massively scalable, high-performance data containers. Think Infinite Volume on steroids. The goal of FlexGroups is to create a Single Name Space that meets the following goals:
- Linear scale for performance and capacity
- Scales to 20PB and 400 billion files
- Operational simplicity
- Single mount point with automated load and space distribution
- Consistent high performance
- Predictable, consistent low latency
- All-flash containers
- Leading resiliency
- ONTAP® non-disruptive operations
- Flexibility to scale as you grow
- 6x performance gain
- 50% lower cost compared to nearest competitor
- Inline efficiency guarantees with AFF
Other ONTAP 9.1 features include:
- Support for NetApp's new hardware portfolio
- Increase in the number of nodes to 12 in SAN clusters
- Some nice System Manager improvements, including FlexGroup GUI, storage efficiency reporting and a new cluster setup workflow
- Support for 32GB FC and 40GbE connectivity
- SnapMirror to AltaVault/ONTAP Cloud; expect SnapMirror to Solidfire in an upcoming release
- Native foreign LUN import with AFF support (no PVR needed!)
- SAP HANA support for AFF templates
- Trusted Platform Module
- SMB 3.1.1 AES-128-GCM encryption (~1.7 times faster than CCM in ONTAP 9.0!)
If you have questions or concerns about upgrading to ONTAP 9.1, then you can contact EACS Limited on 0044 845 337 9146 who will be happy to talk about any of the above with you.