NetApp, Equinix team up to deliver bare metal storage as a service

Global software and storage firm NetApp and Equinix have announced the launch of a new Bare-Metal-as-a-Service (BMaaS) storage solution, which integrates NetApp Storage with Equinix Metal.

Equinix Metal consists of physical servers and arrays that are offered to customers as a service. Its co-location centres are strategically located near public cloud data centres to enable fast interconnection.

The company has been offering its Pure Arrays service since 2021. Same year, NetApp started offering a version of its storage-as-a-service (STaaS) Keystone Flex Subscription with the data centre operator. 

The NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal solution combines Equinix's co-location centres with NetApp arrays and Keystone billing. This allows customers to store and access data on NetApp arrays without the need to install, manage, and operate the necessary infrastructure in their own data centres. 

"As organisations in the Asia Pacific region accelerate their cloud journey, they need to establish a robust data infrastructure that enables a flexible and secure hybrid multicloud experience. This includes on-premises, in any cloud, and anywhere in between," said Matthew Swinbourne, CTO of Cloud Architecture at NetApp Asia Pacific. He added, "With NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal, organisations will be able to focus more effectively on driving innovation and critical business tasks."

Sandeep Singh, SVP and GM for enterprise storage at NetApp, said that organisations can now easily and efficiently migrate a wider range of workloads to the hybrid multi-cloud than ever before. He also claimed that NetApp is a leader in delivering native cloud and first-party solutions on all three major public clouds, providing customers with a unified hybrid multi-cloud experience.

Under the NetApp-Equinix partnership, customers are provided with a single-tenant environment that is tailored to meet their capacity and performance requirements. This environment is delivered as part of a compute, network, and storage stack, allowing customers to run their applications under a single contract and support mechanism. Equinix offers an automated provisioning platform, and customers have the flexibility to scale their storage resources up or down as needed.

NetApp said in a statement that when its storage is combined with Equinix Metal's high-performance bare metal servers, users can enjoy fast data access, low latency, and the ability to handle demanding workloads, including AI.

This offering is considered a hybrid multi-cloud solution because Equinix Metal colocation centres have connectivity to all major public cloud environments. This means that NetApp cloud services, such as Cloud Volumes ONTAP and NetApp first-party services like AWS FSx for ONTAP, Azure NetApp Files, and Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, can be added to NetApp Storage on Equinix Metal.

At the end of last year, Equinix had a total of 236 International Business Exchange (IBX) colocation data centres worldwide, with 26 of them being Metal locations.