Arriving at Insight I was astounded at the size of the event:

• 2000+ delegates
• 26,600 hours of Technical Learning
• 200+ breakout sessions

As expected, new storage hardware was discussed in detail with the new FAS2240 receiving a lot of attention.

The FAS2240 is aimed at the SME market and as such has a price to match. Perhaps the most impressive feature of this hardware is its scalability; capable of storing up to 432Tb with the ability to transform the FAS2240 into a standard disk shelf which can be incorporated without any data migration into a larger NetApp storage platform. This all fits in very nicely with the new “Start Right, Keep it Simple, Grow Smart” strategy.

Storage Efficiency technologies are an area that NetApp are very proud of. So much so that Dave Hitz (Founder and Vice President of NetApp worldwide) made it the topic for his breakout session and keynote speech. What was very impressive is some of the statistics that were covered:

Using FlashCache, SATA can be used instead of SAS to achieve the same performance meaning less than half the cost, power and rackspace. Oh and you get double the storage capacity!

Deduplication carried some very impressive figures, so far worldwide has saved NetApp customers over 5 Exabytes of data!! To put that into perspective that’s 5,000,000,000 Gb! The message with Deduplication was simple..

Just turn it on!

So what can we expect NetApp to bring over the next year or so?

Well, the term “infinite and immortal” has become more popular in recent months with NetApp folk, this is their vision of the future for their storage platforms. Infinitely scalable in both size and performance and immortal through hardware resiliency. Reflecting back on the breakout sessions I attended it’s clear to see that they’re on the right track.

With Data ONTAP 8.1 cluster-mode (due early 2012) linear scale-out performance can be achieved by simply adding another node which in turn adds to the overall reliability and resiliency of the storage cluster as a whole.

There is also a strong belief that ‘Big Data’ will be the cloud of 2012, with NetApp’s recent announcement of the e-Series aimed at High Performance Computing, Seismic data and full motion video data capture they may be ahead of the curve.

We wanted to find out how good the price changes where, in short…fantastic! for example a FAS 2020 (NetApp entry level model) with 12 x 500Gb SATA drives is now less that £9,000, that’s about 1/2 the price they had been previously!

We think this brings NetApp’s outstanding and versatile technology right into the reach of  Small to Medium businesses, who want to see their business data more effectively managed.

 These pricing changes are on the FAS2000 series and announced by NetApp in the following Press Report.

“NetApp Expands Offering for Midsize Enterprise Customers with New Entry-Level Storage System and Aggressive New Entry Price Points

New FAS2040 Adds Increased Capacity and Performance to Award-Winning Family; FAS2020, with Its Reduced Price, Is Now More Attractive to Smaller IT Organizations

SUNNYVALE, Calif.—September 15, 2009— Showing its commitment to Midsize Enterprise and distributed enterprise customers, NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) today announced the new FAS2040 storage system, providing customers with increased performance and capacity to handle demanding Microsoft® Windows® consolidation and virtualization workloads all on the same system. NetApp also announced significant price reductions for its FAS2020 systems and associated software, which are now preconfigured with high-capacity drives and include all protocols. These systems provide excellent value for midsize customers while enabling channel partners to sell into a broader customer base.”

Good move NetApp.

The Full Official NetApp Press Release