You have the ability to connect a third-party storage back end, EMC VMAX in our case, and have all NetApp functionalities available. NAS on EMC VMAX was not possible in the past. It is nice to be able to connect to other storage and use all the NetApp functions (Snapshot, SnapClone, SnapMirror).

It was also the start of virtualization and we used V-series for ESX (Dev and Prod). Now, we have everything on FAS (NAS and SAN).

The main features of this solution are the reduction of readings (thanks to flashcache), the grouping of environments within the hardware (creation of Vservers and namespaces); and the versatility that this solution gives us to be able to move environments within it.