This page provides an overview of Google Cloud NetApp Volumes and how it works.
About NetApp Volumes
NetApp Volumes is a fully managed, cloud-based data storage service that provides advanced data management capabilities and highly scalable performance.
NetApp Volumes helps to accelerate deployment times, manage your workloads and applications, and migrate workloads to the cloud while keeping the performance and features of on-premises storage.
NetApp Volumes lets you move file-based applications to Google Cloud. It has support for Network File System (NFSv3 and NFSv4.1) and Server Message Block (SMB) protocols built-in, so you don't need to re-architect your applications and can continue to get persistent storage for your applications.
Key features
NetApp Volumes offers the following features:
Fully-managed service: provides fully-managed service with no operations, integrated with the Google Cloud console
Volume provisioning: provisions volumes from 100 GiB to 100 TiB in seconds
Multiprotocol support: supports NFSv3, NFSv4.1, and SMB 2.1, 3.0, and 3.1.1 protocols.
Automated snapshots: protects data with automated, efficient snapshots.
Volume replication: enables business continuity with asynchronous volume replication across Google Cloud.
High availability: provides high availability with options for multi-region redundancy, backed by the NetApp Volumes service level agreement
Rapid cloning: accelerates application development with rapid cloning
Multiple service level offerings: offers multiple service levels based on location, allowing you to pick a service level that best fits your needs:
Standard: highly available, general purpose storage with advance data management capabilities. The Standard service level offers features based on your region or location.
Performance: up to 16 KiBps per GiB of storage pool capacity shared by all volumes in the pool or volume capacity.
Sample use cases: common enterprise workloads such as Network File System (NFS) and Server Message Block (SMB) file shares, SAP shared files, and Google Cloud VMware Engine.
Premium: highly available, high-performance storage with advanced data management capabilities.
Performance: up to 64 KiBps per GiB exclusive to volume.
Sample use cases: performance-critical workloads requiring low latency, for example, Windows and enterprise NFS, self-managed databases and file shares, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), and VMware Engine.
Extreme: highly available, high-throughput storage with advanced data management capabilities.
Performance: up to 128 KiBps per GiB exclusive to volume.
Sample use cases: performance-critical workloads requiring high throughput and low latency, for example, Windows and enterprise NFS, self-managed databases and file shares, VDI, and VMware Engine.
NetApp Volumes offers three service levels: Standard, Premium, and Extreme. Performance, features, and capabilities vary by service level. Furthermore, capabilities and features of the Standard service level depend on location. The following table summarizes the features across service levels and your location:
| Features | Service level type | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | Standard (Preview) | Premium | Extreme | |
| Regions | us-west2
us-west3
us-west4
us-central1
us-east4
na-northeast1
na-northeast2
eu-southwest1
eu-west2
eu-west3
eu-west4
eu-west6
as-southeast1
as-northeast1
au-southeast1
|
au-southeast2
eu-west1
us-west1
as-east1
as-south1
|
us-west2
us-west3
us-west4
us-central1
us-east4
na-northeast1
na-northeast2
eu-southwest1
eu-west2
eu-west3
eu-west4
eu-west6
as-southeast1
as-northeast1
au-southeast1
|
us-west2
us-west3
us-west4
us-central1
us-east4
na-northeast1
na-northeast2
eu-southwest1
eu-west2
eu-west3
eu-west4
eu-west6
as-southeast1
as-northeast1
au-southeast1
|
| Performance | Up to 16 KiBps per
GiB of provisioned volume capacity |
Up to 16 KiBps
per GiB of provisioned pool capacity |
Up to 64 KiBps per GiB
of provisioned volume capacity |
Up to 128 KiBps per GiB
of provisioned volume capacity |
| Volumes | ||||
| High availability | Zonal with the option for
volume replication |
Zonal | Zonal with the option
for volume replication |
Zonal with the option
for volume replication |
| Capacity | 100 GiB to 102,400 GiB | 1 GiB to 102,400 GiB | 100 GiB to 102,400 GiB | 100 GiB to 102,400 GiB |
| Granular resizing | Yes, the volume can increase and decrease in 1 GiB increments | Yes, the volume can increase
and decrease in 1 GiB increments |
Yes, the volume can increase
and decrease in 1 GiB increments |
|
| Volume snapshots | Up to 255 snapshots per volume | Up to 255 snapshots per volume | Up to 255 snapshots per volume | |
| Volume clones | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Volume reversion | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Volume backups | Yes, in Preview | No | Yes, in Preview | Yes, in Preview |
| Service level changes | No | Yes, between Premium and Extreme | Yes, between Premium and Extreme | |
| Protocols | ||||
| SMB version support | SMB 2.1, 3.0, and 3.1.1 | SMB 2.1, 3.0, and 3.1.1 | SMB 2.1, 3.0, and 3.1.1 | |
| SMB workgroup mode | Only domain mode | Only domain mode | Only domain mode | |
| SMB access-based enumeration (ABE) | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| SMB3 encryption | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| SMB continuously available shares | Microsoft SQL Server and FSLogix | No | Microsoft SQL Server and FSLogix | Microsoft SQL Server and FSLogix |
| NFS version support | NFSv3 and NFSv4.1 (TCP/UDP) | NFSv3/TCP | NFSv3 and NFSv4.1 (TCP/UDP) | NFSv3 and NFSv4.1 (TCP/UDP) |
| NFS extended group support | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| NFSv4.1 security identifiers | Yes | N/A | Yes | Yes |
| NFSv4.1 numeric IDs | Yes | N/A | Yes | Yes |
| NFSv4.1 ACLs | Yes | N/A | Yes | Yes |
| NFSv4.1 Kerberos | krb5, krb5i, and krb5p |
N/A | krb5, krb5i, and krb5p |
krb5, krb5i, and krb5p |
| NFSv3 and NFSv4.1 | On the same volume | N/A | On the same volume | On the same volume |
| SMB and NFSv3/4.1 | On the same volume | N/A | On the same volume | On the same volume |
| Active Directory integration | ||||
| Organizational Unit support | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Active Directory site support | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| LDAP signing and sealing | Yes | LDAP signing only if required by domain controller | LDAP signing only if required by domain controller | |
| AES support for Kerberos | Yes | Always on | Yes | Yes |
| Support local Backups Operators group | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Support defining Windows Security Operators | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Active Directory as LDAP server | NFSV3 and NFSv4.1, RFC2307bis schema | NFSv3, RFC2307bis schema | NFSv3 and NFSv4.1. RFC2307bis schema | NFSv3 and NFSv4.1. RFC2307bis schema |
| Active Directory as Kerberos server | SMB and NFSv4.1 | SMB | SMB and NFSv4.1 | SMB and NFSv4.1 |
| Volume replication | ||||
| Volume replication to other locations | Yes, to Standard service
level pools only |
No | Yes, between Premium and Extreme pools only | Yes, between Premium and Extreme pools only |
| Replication schedules | 10 minute, 1 hour, and
daily intervals |
No | 10 minute, 1 hour, and daily intervals | 10 minute, 1 hour, and daily intervals |
| Access to destination with
active replication |
Read-only | No | Read-only | Read-only |
| Access to destination with
stopped replication |
Read-write | No | Read-write | Read-write |
| Replication can switch directions | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Snapshots in replication | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Backups | ||||
| Manual backups | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Backup schedules | Daily, weekly,
and monthly |
No | Daily, weekly, and monthly | Daily, weekly, and monthly |
| Backup restores | Full-volume, in region | No | Full-volume, in region | Full-volume, in region |
| Backup vault location | Regional, same region | No | Regional, same region | Regional, same region |
| Networking | ||||
| Shared VPC support | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
How it works
NetApp Volumes provides fully managed NFS and SMB remote file systems as a service. Service administrators create and manage remote file systems as volumes and share them with NFS and SMB clients over a network. Clients such as Compute Engine VMs mount file system volumes, their users, and the applications within the client store files in the file system volumes. You can control access using Windows or UNIX-based permission models.
Tools to use NetApp Volumes
You can use Google Cloud NetApp Volumes using the following tools:
Google Cloud SDK: the Google Cloud command line interface lets you interact with NetApp Volumes through a terminal
Google Cloud console: the Google Cloud console provides a visual interface that gives you a holistic view of your applications and projects
NetApp Volumes architecture
NetApp Volumes uses the Google Cloud Private Service Access framework, which creates a private connection linking your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) to the NetApp Volumes VPC. The Google Cloud private service access framework assigns private addresses (RFC 1918) or non-private addresses (non-RFC 1918) to it using the Service Networking API and VPC peering constructs.
Network peering
Network peering is integrated in the storage pool creation workflow. All volumes in a pool are accessible from Network-attached storage (NAS) clients on the same VPC, but are subject to NAS access control. For Shared VPC, this enables data access across different projects. You can't attach a single volume or pool to multiple VPCs.
Independent of data access at the VPC level, all resources belong only to the project they're created in and can only be managed within that project Identity and Access Management (IAM) protects management access.
Regional availability
NetApp Volumes is available in several regions. For details about regional availability, see NetApp Volumes locations.
Use cases for NetApp Volumes
NetApp Volumes expedites the deployment of various cloud-based applications through the rapid provisioning of shared file services and offers a rich set of storage management features. Primary use cases include file services, DevOps, and databases.
File services
NetApp Volumes is a fault-tolerant, scalable storage platform for creating a cloud-based file system that you can access with standard NFS or SMB protocols. With its high performance capabilities, NetApp Volumes delivers enterprise-level network-attached storage solutions on Google Cloud that are similar to an on-premises experience, which include the following complete range of supporting features:
Read-only and read-write client access control
Connections over both NFSv3 and NFSv4.1 protocols
Active Directory (AD) integration and SMB connections
You can use file services as you migrate workloads or create new applications in Google Cloud. For example, you can use an SMB share to support individual user or group file sharing across Windows clients. You can also use SMB share to support file and profile sharing for virtual desktops. Alternatively, you can use NFS or SMB volumes to share files between your applications, or as a backup destination.
NetApp Volumes helps you migrate existing workloads to Google Cloud and provides you with a platform to develop and maintain a file storage solution in the cloud, which reduces hardware, procurement time, cooling, power use, and minimizes physical space.
Enterprise applications
You can rehost your applications which are deployed on-premises to NetApp Volumes. NetApp Volumes continues to preserve their core capabilities for file storage workflows. This includes a subset of enterprise applications that typically don't require refactoring.
By using NetApp Volumes, you can create fully managed NFS shares for Linux-based applications and SMB shares for Windows-based applications in seconds. You can scale them up or down for capacity and performance without any impact on your workflows or users.
You can preserve application service delivery life cycles with quick snapshots and copies for development, testing, and staging environments, which further accelerates production releases and minimizes lead times.
Persistent storage for stateful Google Kubernetes Engine applications
NetApp Volumes provides fast, reliable, and persistent storage for your stateful applications that run on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
Most containerized enterprise applications have state and configuration data that need to be backed by persistent storage. Persistent storage allows your application state and configuration data to remain accessible through rapid container creation and destruction during various application execution sequences such as upgrades, scaling, and rollbacks.
GKE lets you build, deploy, manage, and run containerized applications. GKE accelerates the development and deployment of highly portable applications through a declarative, self-healing, autoscaling platform. For more information, see GKE documentation on how to deploy a stateful application.
The following use cases are applicable for stateful applications:
Persistent storage: provides persistent storage for your GKE applications with read-write-many (RWX) access mode or shared access to storage. You can mount persistent volumes as read-write by many nodes at once using the RWX access mode.
Persistent volumes: expands an existing persistent volume after creation.
Provisioned persistent volumes: uses dynamically and statically provisioned persistent volumes.
Label storage volumes: labels storage volumes for better identification and management in multi-cluster environments.
Access to persistent storage through NFSv3 and NFSv4.1: supports access to persistent storage through NFSv3 and NFSv4.1 using a Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver.
Databases
You can use NetApp Volumes to quickly access primary databases or snapshot copies of open source or enterprise databases.
NetApp Volumes supports different levels of performance for each file system. Database administrators can allocate individual storage pools for hot or cold data, which allows them to control the use of high-performance and high-capacity storage. You can use NetApp Volumes to ensure file systems are available and resilient against system failures, which simplifies the setup for reliable database services in the cloud.
What's next
Review the NetApp Volumes product overview.