Configuration analysis for Cloud Volumes ONTAP
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The well-architected dashboard in NetApp Console analyzes storage system configurations regularly to determine if there are any configuration issues with your Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems. When issues are found, the dashboard shows you what the issues are and explains what needs to change to ensure your storage systems achieve peak performance, cost efficiency, and compliance with best practices.
Key capabilities include:
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Daily configuration analysis
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Automatic best practice validations for NetApp ONTAP storage systems and partner storage providers
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Proactive observability
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Insights to action
How it works
Workload Factory analyzes your workloads running on supported cloud storage systems deployments daily. The analysis provides well-architected status, insights, and recommendations.
After the daily analysis completes, configurations appear as "optimized" or "not optimized" in the Well-architected dashboard for the deployment. You'll find configuration issues by category and a list of configuration issues and recommendations. You can review the recommendations for configuration issues. Some issues can be fixed automatically by Workload Factory, while others require manual intervention. In this case, Workload Factory provides detailed instructions to help you implement the recommended changes.
You can dismiss the analysis of configurations that do not apply to your environments. This avoids unnecessary alerts and inaccurate optimization results.
You can also create custom rules in plain language to validate your environments against your organization's standards and NetApp best practices. Test rules with a dry run, then schedule them to run across your environments. Learn more about custom rules.
Why it matters
Workload Factory applies best practices to large storage, database, and VMware environments by combining ongoing assessment with recommendation insights and remediation. Automated fixes applied in the NetApp Console reduce human error, ensure uniform management, and preserve performance and reliability across your workload infrastructures.
Analysis requirements
For a complete Cloud Volumes ONTAP system analysis, you must deploy a NetApp Console agent to set up connectivity between your systems and the NetApp Console.
Best practices and recommendations for Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems
The well-architected dashboard assesses storage configurations to provide an in-depth view of ONTAP configuration best practices and for compliance with the Azure Well-Architected Framework. The assessment also recommends improvements and fixes.
The well-architected analysis categorizes configurations in the following pillars of the framework: reliability, security, operational excellence, cost optimization, and performance efficiency.
Reliability
Reliability ensures that workloads perform their intended functions correctly and consistently, even during disruptions.
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Snapshot policy
Schedule local snapshots for efficient backup and quick restores. Snapshots are instant, point-in-time images of your volumes.
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SSD capacity headroom
The SSD storage tier capacity should not exceed 80% utilization. This might impact data reads and writes to your capacity pool storage tier and impact the throughput capacity of your system. When capacity runs out, data volumes become read-only. Services trying to write new data also fail.
Security
Security emphasizes protecting data, systems, and assets through risk assessments and mitigation strategies.
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Autonomous Ransomware Protection with AI (ARP/AI)
NetApp Autonomous Ransomware Protection with AI (ARP/AI) helps enhance cyber resiliency and protect your volumes from ransomware threats. We recommend enabling ARP/AI for all volumes.
Operational excellence
Operational excellence focuses on delivering the best architecture and business value.
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Volume capacity headroom
We recommend that volume capacity doesn't exceed 80% utilization. This might impact data reads and writes to your application. Volume capacity increases can be manual or automatic using the volume autogrow feature.
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FlexCache write mode
For optimal performance, we recommend the FlexCache write mode that best suits your workload. Write-around mode provides better performance for read-heavy workloads with small files, while write-back mode provides better performance for write-heavy workloads with large files.
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FlexCache replica size
We recommend enabling volume autosize and scrubbing on cache volumes to maintain optimal size and focus the cache on frequently accessed (hot) data for peak efficiency.
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ONTAP version compliance
Upgrade to the latest ONTAP version for full compatibility, support, and access to new features.
Cost optimization
Cost optimization helps you get the most value for your business while keeping costs low.
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Overprovisioned SSD capacity
An overprovisioned SSD capacity tier adds unnecessary costs. We recommend reducing the SSD tier capacity while maintaining a 20% free space buffer. A decrease operation takes several hours to several days, and other file system operations are unsupported during this time.
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Cold data tiering
Enable cold data tiering to move cold data from the SSD storage tier to lower-cost storage. We recommend applying a tiering policy to every volume. Azure Blob Storage serves as the capacity tier for inactive data.