NetApp ONTAP

overview netapp ontap is a powerful data management software and operating system developed by netapp, designed for hybrid cloud environments it forms the core of netapp's intelligent data infrastructure and is engineered to provide unified storage solutions, supporting a wide array of workloads and data types across on premises, cloud, and hybrid deployments key capabilities and features unified storage ontap supports a broad range of storage protocols, including file level access (nfs, smb/cifs) and block level access (fc, fcoe, iscsi, nvme of) this allows it to serve data to diverse applications and client types from a single platform hybrid cloud integration a defining characteristic of ontap is its native ability to span and operate seamlessly across on premises data centers and major public clouds (like aws, microsoft azure, and google cloud) this facilitates data mobility, tiering, and consistent data management regardless of location data protection and security ontap incorporates a robust suite of data protection features these include snapshot™ copies efficient, point in time copies of data with minimal performance impact snapmirror® asynchronous and synchronous replication for disaster recovery and data distribution snaplock® write once read many (worm) functionality for data immutability and compliance snapvault® disk to disk backup capabilities autonomous ransomware protection ai powered defense against ransomware attacks with high accuracy and guaranteed recovery netapp volume encryption built in encryption for data at rest storage efficiency ontap employs several technologies to optimize storage capacity and reduce costs, such as inline data deduplication eliminates redundant data blocks inline data compression and compaction reduces the physical space required to store data thin provisioning allocates storage on demand automatic data tiering (fabricpool) moves less frequently accessed ("cold") data to lower cost object storage, either on premises or in the cloud, while keeping active ("hot") data on high performance tiers scalability and performance ontap is designed to scale nondisruptively, allowing for increases in capacity and performance without interrupting operations it supports all flash arrays (aff) for high performance workloads and hybrid flash arrays (fas) for a balance of performance and capacity management and automation netapp provides tools like bluexp™ for unified control and management of ontap environments across the hybrid cloud bluexp leverages aiops for predictive analytics, automated workflows, and actionable insights to simplify operations and improve system health ontap also offers rest apis for automation and integration high availability features like high availability (ha) pairs and metrocluster provide continuous data availability and resilience against hardware failures or site wide disasters encrypting data at rest a key security feature of netapp ontap is its ability to encrypt data at rest, ensuring that sensitive information stored on its systems is protected from unauthorized access to manage the encryption keys for this, ontap supports integration with external key management servers (ekms) through the key management interoperability protocol (kmip) kmip is an open standard that defines the communication between key management systems and encryption systems by supporting kmip, netapp ontap allows organizations to centralize and streamline their encryption key management practices instead of relying on locally managed keys, which can be complex to administer and secure at scale, ontap can securely retrieve and manage encryption keys from a dedicated, hardened external key manager, such as the {{futurex}} {{k3}} or {{ch}} the benefits of integrating netapp ontap with an external key manager via kmip are significant centralized key management organizations can manage all their encryption keys from a single, centralized platform this simplifies key lifecycle management (generation, storage, distribution, rotation, and destruction) across diverse encryption applications and appliances, not just netapp storage enhanced security external key managers are purpose built, hardened appliances designed to securely store and manage cryptographic keys they often incorporate robust access controls, fips 140 2 level 3 validated hardware security modules (hsms), and comprehensive auditing capabilities, providing a higher level of security than managing keys directly on storage systems improved compliance and auditing many industry regulations and data security standards (e g , gdpr, hipaa, pci dss) mandate strong key management practices using an ekm helps organizations meet these requirements by providing detailed audit logs of all key management operations and ensuring a clear separation of duties between storage administration and key management scalability and interoperability as data volumes and the use of encryption grow, a centralized ekm can scale to manage a large number of keys and clients the kmip standard promotes interoperability, allowing ontap to integrate with a variety of kmip compliant key managers, including the confirmed compatibility with futurex solutions this gives organizations flexibility in choosing their key management solutions simplified key rotation and revocation regularly rotating encryption keys is a security best practice an ekm simplifies this process, allowing administrators to automate key rotation schedules in the event of a security incident or a compromised key, keys can be quickly revoked or destroyed from the central ekm operational efficiency by offloading key management tasks to a specialized ekm, storage administrators can focus on managing storage infrastructure, while security teams can manage cryptographic keys according to established policies and procedures in summary, netapp ontap's kmip integration with external key managers like the {{futurex}} {{k3}} or {{ch}} empowers organizations to strengthen their data security posture, meet compliance mandates, and simplify the complexities of encryption key management in modern it environments