HotLink is one of those companies that are always on the move and coming up with new ways to simplify IT management complexity. I've been fortunate to meet up with Lynn LeBlanc, the founder and CEO of HotLink, over the last two years in person at trade shows like Citrix Synergy and VMworld. And I've also been fortunate to have the opportunity to catch up with her remotely as well. Recently, the company made an announcement about collaborating with NetApp to extend NetApp private storage for Amazon Web Services to VMware environments. So to find out more, I reached out to her once again and asked the following questions.
VMblog: HotLink recently announced a collaboration with leading storage
provider NetApp. What does this collaboration mean for enterprises?
Lynn LeBlanc: Enterprises want to integrate existing on-premise VMware data
centers with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in order to take advantage of the
flexibility, scalability and cost savings of the largest and most comprehensive
public cloud computing platform available. At the same time many enterprises
need full control and security over critical data. By combining HotLink's
transformation technology and management plug-in solutions for VMware vCenter with
NetApp Private Storage for Amazon Web Services, enterprises can cost-efficiently
deploy a turnkey solution that integrates VMware vCenter management, NetApp storage,
the computing power of Amazon EC2 and the high-speed, low-latency data transfer
of Amazon Direct Connect into a high-performance hybrid IT computing, storage
and management infrastructure for VMware environments with full workload
portability between VMware and AWS.
VMblog: Why would enterprises need this joint solution? And what are the
benefits or use cases that would be applicable?
LeBlanc: The HotLink and NetApp joint solution is
designed to support several high-performance use cases within the enterprise,
including disaster recovery, business continuity, cloud bursting and testing
and development. The combined solution uniquely offers unified hybrid
management for VMware and AWS, workload portability, data control and security,
low-latency data transfer, and the pay-as-you-go economics and scalable compute
power of Amazon.
HotLink's DR Express solution and
transformation technology offers enterprises the ability to extend their VMware
vCenter environments for comprehensive virtual machine (VM) protection in AWS
including VMware backup, replication, disaster recovery and business continuity
- at a price point comparable to basic backup solutions. The addition of NetApp
Private Storage for AWS and qualified Amazon Direct Connect providers give enterprises
full replication of on-premises data along with the sub-5 millisecond response
times between NetApp storage and AWS for the lowest latency hybrid IT
environment available.
Additionally, HotLink's Hybrid Express
solution extends the VMware vCenter administration, deployment and management
of the on-premise virtual data center to Amazon EC2, including hybrid cloning,
snapshots, templates, workload conversion and migration. This is perfect for cost-effective
cloud bursting and development and test environments. The addition of NetApp Private
Storage for AWS and Direct Connect service providers allow enterprises to run
high-performance workloads in AWS with high-speed data response times and full
security and control of critical data.
VMblog: Enterprises are turning to the cloud for disaster recovery
and cloud bursting. How does this joint solution meet this need?
LeBlanc: To benefit from the flexibility, scalability
and cost savings of the public cloud, data centers need the capability to
easily combine hybrid IT resources into a holistic solution that spans computing,
storage and management. Together, HotLink and NetApp make this hybrid solution
possible, without the complexity and prohibitive costs of past deployments. Whether
the application is disaster recovery and business continuity or cloud bursting
for peak load, the holistic solution delivered by HotLink and NetApp provides
the best of all worlds for VMware data centers: unified hybrid management, workload
portability, complete data control, low-latency data transfer, and the
attractive economics and scalable compute power of AWS.
HotLink transformation technology unifies AWS with VMware vCenter
to provide robust VM protection, including backup, replication, disaster recovery
and business continuity. AWS data protection site setup, maintenance, testing
and recovery of protected VMs are fully automated. Workloads can be restored in
AWS within minutes of a failure and are managed together with on-premises VMs.
With AWS as the mirror site, capital costs for computing are zero.
VMblog: How does this announcement play into the trend of
enterprises implementing hybrid infrastructures? And why are companies turning to
this infrastructure model?
LeBlanc: Enterprises have aggressively
virtualized their server resources, largely with VMware, over the past five
years because of the dramatic cost savings over physical server
infrastructure. However, for many
applications, even greater cost savings can be achieved by running those
workloads in a pay-as-you-go, scale-as-you-need public cloud service like
Amazon. At 8 cents per hour for computing and 8 cents per GB for storage, AWS
provides practically unlimited resources at a trivial cost that's affordable
for any size IT shop and simply cannot be achieved by most on-premises
operations. This economic model becomes particularly attractive for highly
variable or seasonal workloads that scale horizontally and for infrequently
accessed use cases like disaster recovery.
However, integrating existing data
center operations with public cloud resources and managing data and workloads
across both platforms historically posed huge IT challenges. By combining
HotLink's transformation technology and NetApp Private Storage for AWS,
companies can unify hybrid management, easily move workloads, retain control of
their data and leverage AWS's scalable compute power and unique pay-as-you-go
economics ¾
all critical components of an effective hybrid IT strategy.
VMblog: How does this collaboration provide enterprises with the
ability to use Amazon services, but retain control and security over the data?
LeBlanc: NetApp Private Storage for AWS enables enterprises to build
an agile infrastructure that accommodates a mix of VMware and AWS resources to
best meet business needs and economic interests while providing control and
data mobility. When combined with qualified AWS Direct Connect service
providers, customers have high-performance, low-latency data transfer between
NetApp storage and AWS for the lowest latency hybrid IT environment available.
HotLink's technology provides the management and workload interoperability
between VMware and AWS that completes the solution stack for easy and
cost-effective, hybrid on- and off-premises use cases.
VMblog: Why is HotLink working with NetApp for private storage and
Amazon as the public cloud provider? Why not other providers or clouds?
LeBlanc: Currently, NetApp is the only major storage provider that has
embraced AWS and productized specific high-performance storage offerings that
are integrated with AWS computing. Prior to the collaboration with HotLink, the
NetApp Private Storage for AWS solution addressed data but did not offer a
solution for virtual machine portability or unified management. The integration
with HotLink provides a comprehensive hybrid solution that includes integration
with VMware vCenter and virtual machine interoperability and portability
between VMware and Amazon EC2. HotLink began offering solutions for VMware and
AWS integration more than a year ago because of Amazon's very attractive
economic model and scale of public cloud operations. Today, AWS is
substantially ahead of the competition for infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)
offerings. As other IaaS public cloud
platforms demonstrate greater market traction over time, HotLink will expand
its offerings to support them.
VMblog: So is this a new product? And what technologies make up the solution?
LeBlanc: The joint
HotLink and NetApp solution combines several technologies from each vendor to
provide a fully integrated, high-performance hybrid IT infrastructure for
VMware environments with a total cost of ownership that is second to none. The key technologies that comprise the
solution are:
-
HotLink Transformation Technology:
VMware vCenter plug-in solutions that extend full administration and management
capabilities to AWS as well as integrated workload conversion and migration to
and from AWS.
-
NetApp Private Storage for AWS:
Secure, high-performance integration between NetApp and Amazon EC2 with
seamless data mobility between NetApp on-premises and NetApp in qualified
Direct Connect data centers.
-
VMware vCenter Server: Platform for
administering and managing VMware vSphere hosts
and virtual machines for centralized visibility, proactive management and extensibility.
The joint solution
is available through a network of VARs in North America, including Blue River
Information Technology, Clearpath Solutions Group, Day1 Solutions and
Integrated Archive Systems.
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Once again, a special thank you to Lynn LeBlanc, CEO and founder of HotLink, for taking time out to speak with us. Always a great conversation when speaking with one another.