NetApp creates storage systems and software that help customers around the world store, manage, protect, and retain one of their most precious assets: data. To better support its customers, NetApp offers AutoSupport, an integrated and efficient monitoring and reporting technology that constantly checks the health of NetApp systems. Customers leverage the My AutoSupport portal on the NetApp Support site for proactive systems management capabilities and insight into storage configuration, capacity, utilization, efficiency, and health-check information.

Business Challenge: Processing Massive Volumes of Data

AutoSupport collects over 600,000 data transactions weekly, consisting of unstructured logs and system diagnostic information. Approximately 40% of that data is transmitted during an 18-hour period each weekend, creating the potential for I/O bottlenecks that could affect service-level agreement (SLA) windows.

As the NetApp customer base is expanding, AutoSupport data is growing at approximately 7 TB per month. Related storage requirements are doubling every 16 months. NetApp’s AutoSupport team proactively identified the need to upgrade its storage environment in order to accommodate continued growth.

NetApp’s CIO Cynthia Stoddard explained, “I sit on thousands of customers’ data and what I do with that data is essential to the company. I need to react and help customers do more with their systems.”

AutoSupport needed a Big Data storage and analytic solution that would allow it to: store, manage, and analyze increasing volumes of unstructured data; gain insights from these large, complex datasets; and scale for continued growth.

"NetApp AutoSupport data is extremely valuable to us," said Marty Mayer, Director, NetApp AutoSupport. "Our customers depend on us to utilize the data to respond in a timely manner when potential problems and issues arise. Additionally, we actively analyze customer storage system data for fitness and health checks that help optimize the investment our customers have made in NetApp."