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Cloud Manager 3.8
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Cloud Manager transition to SaaS

Contributors netapp-bcammett
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We've introduced a software-as-a-service experience for Cloud Manager. This new experience makes it easier for you to use Cloud Manager and enables us to provide additional features to manage your hybrid cloud infrastructure.

The previous Cloud Manager experience

Cloud Manager software was previously comprised of a user interface and a management layer that sent requests to cloud providers. To get started, you would deploy Cloud Manager in your cloud network or on-premises network and then access the user interface that runs on that instance.

That experience has changed.

The new SaaS experience

The Cloud Manager interface is now accessible through a SaaS-based user interface that you log in to from NetApp Cloud Central. You no longer need to access a user interface from software that runs in your network.

In most cases, you need to deploy a Connector in your cloud or on-premises network. The Connector is software that's needed to manage Cloud Volumes ONTAP and other cloud data services. (The Connector is actually the same as the existing Cloud Manager software that you have installed.)

Benefits

This SaaS-based approach provides several benefits:

  • It enables us to offer additional management capabilities for Azure NetApp Files and Cloud Volumes Service without needing to deploy software in your environment.

  • You can easily switch between your Cloud Central accounts.

    If a user is associated with multiple Cloud Central accounts, they can change to a different account at any time from the User Settings menu. They can then see the Connectors and working environments that are associated with that account.

    screenshot switch account

  • You can easily switch between Connectors (what you know today as the Cloud Manager software) that are installed in different networks or different cloud providers.

    screenshot switch service connector

The local user interface

While you should perform almost all tasks from the SaaS user interface, a local user interface is still available on the Connector. This interface is needed for a few tasks that need to be performed from the Connector itself:

  • Setting a proxy server

  • Installing a patch

  • Downloading AutoSupport messages

You can access the local user interface directly from the SaaS user interface:

screenshot local ui

Instance, VM, and machine type changes

To ensure that adequate resources are available for new and upcoming features in Cloud Manager, we've changed the minimum required instance, VM, and machine type as follows:

  • AWS: t3.xlarge

  • Azure: DS3 v2

  • GCP: n1-standard-4

When you upgrade the machine type, you'll get access to features like a new Kubernetes experience, Global File Cache, Monitoring, and more.

These default sizes are the minimum supported based on CPU and RAM requirements.

Cloud Manager will prompt you with instructions to change the machine type of the Connector.