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ONTAP features for Virtual Desktop Service

Contributors banum-netapp sureshthoppay
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The following ONTAP features make it attractive choice for use with a virtual desktop service.

  • Scale-out filesystem. ONTAP FlexGroup volumes can grow to more than 20PB in size and can contain more than 400 billion files within a single namespace. The cluster can contain up to 24 storage nodes, each with a flexible the number of network interface cards depending on the model used.

    User's virtual desktops, home folders, user profile containers, shared data, and so on can grow based on demand with no concern for filesystem limitations.

  • File system analytics. You can use the XCP tool to gain insights into shared data. With ONTAP 9.8+ and ActiveIQ Unified Manager, you can easily query and retrieve file metadata information and identify cold data.

  • Cloud tiering. You can migrage cold data to an object store in the cloud or to any S3-compatible storage in your datacenter.

  • File versions. Users can recover files protected by NetApp ONTAP Snapshot copies. ONTAP Snapshot copies are very space efficient because they only record changed blocks.

  • Global namespace. ONTAP FlexCache technology allows remote caching of file storage making it easier to manage shared data across locations containing ONTAP storage systems.

  • Secure multi-tenancy support. A single physical storage cluster can be presented as multiple virtual storage arrays each with its own volumes, storage protocols, logical network interfaces, identity and authentication domain, management users, and so on. Therefore, you can share the storage array across multiple business units or environments, such as test, development, and production.

    To guarantee performance, you can use adaptive QoS to set performance levels based on used or allocated space, and you can control storage capacity by using quotas.

  • VMware integration. ONTAP tools for VMware vSphere provides a vCenter plug-in to provision datastores, implement vSphere host best practices, and monitor ONTAP resources.

    ONTAP supports vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) for offloading SCSI/file operations to the storage array. ONTAP also supports vStorage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) and Virtual Volumes support for both block and file protocols.

    The Snapcenter Plug-in for VMware vSphere provides an easy way to back up and restore virtual machines using the Snapshot feature on a storage array.

    ActiveIQ Unified Manager provides end-to-end storage network visibility in a vSphere environment. Administrators can easily identify any latency issues that might occur on virtual desktop environments hosted on ONTAP.

  • Security compliance. With ActiveIQ Unified Manager, you can monitor multiple ONTAP systems with alerts for any policy violations.

  • Multi-protocol support. ONTAP supports block (iSCSI, FC, FCoE, and NVMe/FC), file (NFSv3, NFSv4.1, SMB2.x, and SMB3.x), and object (S3) storage protocols.

  • Automation support. ONTAP provides REST API, Ansible, and PowerShell modules to automate tasks with the VDS Management Portal.