Data Center

Review: NetApp ONTAP Manages Data in a Scalable and Secure Platform for Federal Agencies

With zero-trust architecture, enterprise data management builds a modern foundation for mission-ready resilience.

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John Breeden II is an award-winning reviewer and public speaker with 20 years of experience covering technology.

Federal agencies are under both growing mission demands and escalating cyber-risk. They must not only store and protect enormous volumes of data across on-site, cloud and edge locations, but also need to ensure seamless access, secure sharing and compliance with federal mandates. And the legacy storage silos, point solutions and static infrastructures that agencies used to rely on are straining under those pressures.

That’s where NetApp ONTAP can help out. It’s a unified data operating system built for both hybrid and multicloud operations. Designed for highly regulated and secure environments, the platform has been hardened for zero trust and certified for government use.

ONTAP provides a consistent management plane whether the deployment is in a data center, GovCloud region or edge device cluster. In a test environment, it was able to unify the management of multiple data types, workloads and applications, regardless of where they were running. Managing an application at the edge was just as easy as one operating in the cloud or even on an on-prem array.

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Scalability Reducing Management Burden and DOD-Level Security

The ONTAP tools such as Snapshot and FlexClone also performed well. For example, we were able to achieve near instant recovery of data while also reducing our overall storage footprint using deduplication and automatic cloud data tiering. For feds, having that scalability and unified control would reduce the management burden for federal IT staff managing complex, distributed infrastructures.

In fact, using ONTAP to unify data management would allow agencies to begin to fully modernize their storage and data infrastructures without having to rip and replace tons of legacy equipment. For agencies wrestling with fragmented storage landscapes, that would mean fewer silos and a clearer roadmap for cloud-enabled mission services.

From a security and compliance perspective, ONTAP also scores strongly. AWS’s Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP earned both FedRAMP High and Moderate impact level authorizations, making it one of the few platforms that can operate all the way up to high-security environments. For DOD agencies, it was certified using the DOD Security Requirements Guide (SRG) for Impact Levels 2, 4 and 5. All of that means that both civilian and defense agencies can use ONTAP to move sensitive workloads over to managed services in the cloud while preserving all federal compliance requirements.

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Removing Migration Barriers and Unifying Complex Environments

Of course, no advanced platform is going to be a perfect fit out of the box. Agencies considering ONTAP should review their existing data architecture, network connectivity and cloud readiness. While ONTAP removes many common migration barriers, effective data governance, lifecycle policies and change management remain critical to realize full value.

Likewise, consuming managed ONTAP services (such as FSx for ONTAP) may require agencies to adjust their procurement, security monitoring or operations models. Even so, the end result would almost certainly be worth that effort, especially for agencies struggling to manage extremely complex environments.

For federal agencies moving from siloed storage to a data-centric, mission-ready infrastructure, ONTAP presents a compelling, future-proof option. It ties strong cyber resilience, hybrid-cloud flexibility and unified data services into a single platform built for government demands.

SPECIFICATIONS

PRODUCT TYPE: Data management software and unified storage platform
DEPLOYMENT: On-premises, hybrid and cloud
SUPPORTED ENVIRONMENTS: NAS (NFS/SMB), SAN (iSCSI/FC/NVMe-oF), object (S3), container, hybrid-cloud, multicloud
CAPABILITIES: Unified file/block/object support, tamperproof snapshots and clones, automated tiering, global deduplication, cloud tiering, integrated data protection, zero-trust security architecture, autonomous ransomware detection
ADDITIONAL TOOLS: AI-powered operational services (via NetApp Console) analytics/observability (via Data Infrastructure Insights), cybersecurity hardening compliance packages

Smarter Federal Data Management Through NetApp’s Intelligent Data Infrastructure

Federal agencies are generating and storing more data than ever, and much of it sits isolated across multiple networks and clouds. NetApp’s data platform, which enables users to build Intelligent Data Infrastructure, aims to solve that challenge by unifying storage, management and analytics under a single, AI-driven framework that can deliver the performance that mission-critical applications require, exactly when needed.

At its core, the platform blends unified storage, integrated data services and AI-powered operational insights to give agencies end-to-end visibility and control over their data no matter where it resides. By layering observability and automation on top of ONTAP’s core architecture, the framework helps IT leaders identify inefficiencies, detect anomalies and optimize workloads without adding new management complexity.

For mission environments, this approach offers tangible benefits. Reducing data silos improves continuity and collaboration between departments. Built-in cyber-resilience and zero trust features enhance protection against ransomware and insider threats. Meanwhile, AI-enabled optimization continually tunes storage and performance so that high-priority applications, such as logistics tracking or intelligence analysis, get the resources they need at any time, even if it means giving those applications temporary priority over everything else.

Ultimately, the NetApp data platform is is about giving federal agencies a flexible, future-ready foundation for an Intelligent Data Infrastructure. As the government accelerates its use of artificial intelligence and data-driven decision-making, NetApp’s approach provides a way to manage that data securely and intelligently across hybrid and multicloud environments.