The AFF A700s (s — “slim”) model from NetApp is a high—performance system on SSD drives, characterized by efficiency and fast data access. It is based on the NetApp A700 solution and is focused on replacing AFF8080 devices in small-scale deployments. The maximum “raw” or “marketing” capacity in terms of Netapp AFF A700s is 79 PB.
In new installations, the vendor recommends using AFF A700s in corporate environments of all possible scales at various levels. The device shows efficiency in solving critical resource-intensive tasks and is characterized by fault tolerance, high availability and energy efficiency.
NetApp hardware
AFF A700s features, scalability and key parameters
The AFF A700s is technologically implemented in a 4RU form factor chassis and supports the following numbers and types of drives/media:
- up to 24 2.5-inch SSDs – SFF- mostly chassis (4U);
- up to 24 2.5-inch SSDs – SFF- on additional chassis (2U).
The device supports the following hardware configurations:
- cluster HA-pair for 2 nodes with (or without) switching capability;
- cluster (system) up to 12 HA pairs in NAS mode;
- cluster (system) up to 6 HA pairs in the SAN.
Supported MetroCluster specifications:
- 2 nodes;
- 4 nodes: a pair of clusters with 2 nodes (with or without switching) and a fabric-attached data storage system;
- 4 nodes: a cluster with 2 storage nodes for each of the sites;
- 8 nodes (exclusively for NAS): 4 clusters with 2 nodes (with or without switching) and fabric-attached storage, a total of 8 nodes on each site.
The following maximum number of active ports can be set for 1 HA pair of AFF A700s:
- 8 FC 32/16/8 Gb;
- 16 QSFP+ (40 GbE);
- 24 SFP+ (10GbE).
To achieve maximum capacity, the system can be expanded by connecting 216 drives per HA pair (2,592 disks in a cluster of 12 HA pairs) or up to 6.6 PB per HA pair (up to 79 PB in a cluster of 12 HA pairs).
The cache memory in the AFF A700s is 1024 GB per HA pair (a total of 12.3 PB per cluster of 12 HA pairs).
Built-in ONTAP System Manager software with a standard set of functions:
- SyncMirror — mirroring at the RAID level;
- SnapMirror — replication (automatic asynchronous or synchronous);
- Snapshot — instant creation of snapshots of the FS (file system);
- FlexClone — instant database backup without the use of virtual machines.
AFF A700s (ONTAP) has plugins for working with Hyper-V, vSphere, SharePoint, SnapManager, Oracle, Exchange, XenServer, SQL Server, SAP, etc.