Infrastructure control analytics extended to NetApp

CICirba’s analytics automate VM routing decisions based on all the required constraints including workload utilisation, business, technical, software licensing, and complex storage requirements. Cirba’s VM placements uniquely enable organisations to make better use of NetApp storage by balancing demand across virtual and physical storage resources, freeing up stranded storage capacity and ensuring the right match between workload requirements and storage tiers. Cirba also provides virtual and cloud infrastructure management teams with visibility into when resource shortfalls might adversely affect associated VMs and where excess resources exist for NetApp and other storage infrastructure connected to NetApp OCI.

“Only Cirba enables organisations to optimise VM placements in a way that proactively balances demand to make the most efficient use of all IT resources, including storage assets. This helps leverage existing investments in element management frameworks and is a key step in moving forward automated cloud operational models and software-defined infrastructure,” said Andrew Hillier, CTO and co-Founder of Cirba.

Cirba provides NetApp storage customers with:
· Intelligent workload routing: Cirba’s analytics optimise VM routing and placement decisions considering all workload requirements, including complex storage needs such as multi-disk requirements storage, tiering, and interconnect bandwidth usage. This ensures workloads have access to the resources required without over-specifying and over-allocating.
· Physical and virtual storage reservations: Through detailed analysis of demand pipelines, Cirba can provide a comprehensive picture of demand on storage assets today, as well as planned demand in the future. This enables storage to be reserved for future application deployments and provides an accurate view into when storage resources will run out so purchasing plans can be confidently made without over-provisioning.
· Ongoing control: Cirba models the complete storage picture linking NetApp physical storage to logical datastores and the VMs connected to those resources, alerting users to which VMs may be at risk of a shortfall and where excess resources exist. This includes analysing multi-level thin-provisioning, as well as the performance and health at each level.

As part of Cirba’s NetApp OCI support, Cirba can analyse storage resources connected to OCI, such as NetApp, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi Data Systems, HP and IBM storage. Cirba is a member of the NetApp Alliance Partner Program and collaborated with NetApp to expand the company’s storage capabilities.