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Learn about ASA r2 storage systems

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The NetApp ASA r2 systems deliver a unified hardware and software solution that simplifies the experience for SAN-only customers. On an ASA r2 system, ONTAP software and System Manager are streamlined to support essential SAN functionality while removing features not needed in SAN environments.

The following are classified as ASA r2 systems:

  • ASA A1K

  • ASA A90

  • ASA A70

  • ASA A50

  • ASA A30

  • ASA A20

  • ASA C30

Storage units and consistency groups

ASA r2 systems introduce the use of storage units with consistency groups:

  • A storage unit makes storage space available to your SAN hosts for data operations. A storage unit refers to a LUN for SCSI hosts or an NVMe namespace for NVMe hosts.

  • A consistency group is a collection of storage units that are managed as a single unit.

ASA r2 systems use storage units with consistency groups to simplify storage management and data protection. For example, suppose you have a database consisting of 10 storage units in a consistency group, and you need to back up the entire database. Instead of backing up each storage unit individually, you can protect the entire database by backing up the consistency group.

Data protection and security

To help secure your data against malicious attacks such as theft or ransomware, ASA r2 systems support an onboard key manager, dual-layer encryption, multifactor authentication, and multi-admin verification. You can also replicate snapshots to a secondary location and use SnapLock for SnapVault to protect the destination snapshots from being accidentally or maliciously deleted.

Supported protocols, multipathing, and configurations

ASA r2 systems support all SAN protocols (iSCSI, FC, NVMe/FC, NVMe/TCP). All protocols support symmetric active-active architecture for multipathing so that all paths between the hosts and storage are active/optimized. The iSCSI and NVMe/TCP protocols support network and direct-attachment configurations for all supported ONTAP versions. The FC and NVMe/FC protocols support network configurations for all supported ONTAP versions and, beginning with ONTAP 9.19.1, also support direct-attachment configuration. ASA r2 systems do not support cluster mixing with ASA, AFF, or FAS systems.

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