NetApp on Monday announced enhanced integration with Microsoft to deliver enterprise-class data protection solutions to cloud service providers by leveraging the Microsoft Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Hosters. Although enterprise-class data protection has historically been too expensive for most small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) to implement themselves, NetApp and Microsoft now enable service providers to offer enterprise-class data protection to their SMB customers. Additionally, NetApp announced the availability of new professional service offerings and additional resources and guidance for service providers to build a variety of enterprise-class cloud services.

"SMB customers have many of the same disaster recovery and business continuity requirements as large enterprise organizations, but often times don't have the necessary skill set or budget needed to achieve the desired results," said Laura DuBois, program vice president, Storage Software and Solutions, IDC. "Solutions that address this gap by providing enterprise-level data protection along with the support and guidance needed to deploy will be integral in helping SMBs realize the true benefits of a cloud infrastructure."

The Dynamic Data Center Toolkit provides sample code and guidance for building cloud services powered by Windows Server® 2008 R2 with Hyper-V and the Microsoft System Center Suite. NetApp is currently the only storage vendor to integrate seamlessly with the Dynamic Data Center Toolkit, enabling service providers to leverage NetApp's industry-leading integrated data protection capabilities such as disaster recovery, clustered failover, and backup and recovery. These unique solutions enable service providers to expand their service offerings to accelerate their business, while offering and meeting stringent service-level agreements (SLAs) for their customers. Additionally, NetApp storage efficiency capabilities help service providers reduce their costs -- savings that are passed along to SMBs.

"SMBs are demanding enterprise-class disaster recovery solutions, and hosting service providers are in a tremendous position to fill that demand as more SMBs move toward hosted IT services," said John Zanni, general manager of Worldwide Hosting for the Communications Sector at Microsoft. "We're pleased to be working with NetApp as part of the Dynamic Data Center Alliance to enable hosting service providers to offer these disaster recovery solutions, and to take another step to move beyond commoditized hosting services to become full-service IT providers to their customers."