Azure NetApp Files
Establish enterprise-grade, high-performance Azure file shares powered by NetApp.
Trusted Azure file storage with flexible performance and pricing.
OVERVIEW
Migrate and run complex file-based applications
- Set up Azure NetApp Files in minutes and manage performance easily, as with any other Azure service, using the familiar Azure portal experience, Azure CLI, Windows PowerShell, or Azure NetApp Files REST API. Support for multiple file-storage protocols in a single service, including NFSv3, NFSv4.1, SMB3.1.x, and Object Rest API, enables a wide range of application lift-and-shift scenarios, with no need for code changes.
- Remove complexity with Azure NetApp Files by enabling enterprise line-of-business teams and storage professionals to migrate and run demanding file-based applications with no code changes.
- Enable efficient and cost-effective data migration with the Azure NetApp Files migration assistant, leveraging ONTAP's built-in replication engine for smooth transition from on-premises storage, other hyper scalers, or Cloud Volumes ONTAP to Azure NetApp Files.
- Optimize costs by choosing from various service performance levels. The Flexible Service Level allows you to choose performance and capacity separately, reducing overprovisioning. Enabling cool access moves inactive data volumes to a cool tier, further reducing costs.
- Experience continuity without compromise, cost-effective scalability, and operational simplicity with Azure NetApp Files Elastic Zonal Redundant Storage (ZRS), an advanced high-availability service level for Azure NetApp Files. Whether you’re running Azure Kubernetes service and containerized apps, cloud native applications, or general file shares, Azure NetApp Files Elastic ZRS helps ensure continuous data access with zero data loss, even if an entire Azure Availability Zone becomes unavailable.
FEATURES
Secure, high‑performance file storage at enterprise scale
Multiple protocols support
Support for multiple protocols enables lift and shift of both Linux and Windows apps to run easily in Azure.
Wide range of performance tiers
Multiple performance tiers allow for close alignment with workload performance requirements.
Smooth and secure Azure experience
Deep integration with Azure enables a highly secure Azure experience, with virtually no learning or management overhead.
Data protection
Azure NetApp Files offers data protection and disaster recovery features to ensure data availability, redundancy, and resiliency. These features include snapshots, backups, cross-region replication, cross-zone replication, and cross-zone region replication.
Broad certifications
Leading certifications, including SAP HANA, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), enable migration of the most demanding workloads to Azure.
SAP HANA, Oracle, database, and other high-performance sensitive workloads
Run mission-critical, I/O-heavy enterprise applications such as SAP HANA, financial systems, and line-of-business apps with low latency and predictable performance.
High-performance computing (HPC)
Accelerate compute-intensive workloads with high throughput and sub-millisecond latency.
Electronic design automation (EDA)
Meet the extreme input/output operations per second (IOPS), parallel file access, and low-latency demands of chip design, verification, and simulation pipelines.
VMware workloads
Run file-based data stores, user directories, and shared application storage for Azure VMware Solution (AVS) clusters.
AI training and data pipeline workloads
Learn how Azure NetApp Files supports multiple simultaneous protocols with Object REST API, Network File System (NFS), and Server Message Block (SMB). This provides tight integration with Azure AI capabilities such as Azure AI Search, Microsoft Foundry, DataBricks, and Microsoft OneLake that speeds up inferencing with retrieval augmented generation (RAG) use cases.
General file shares
Keep corporate user data, including home directories or departmental file shares, accessible even during zone outages, helping ensure continuous employee productivity and business continuity.
Containerized applications
Run Kubernetes-based applications with high-performance shared volumes using Azure Kubernetes Service with Azure NetApp Files. Azure NetApp Files Elastic ZRS keeps Kubernetes and container workloads running even during zone outages by promptly synchronizing data across zones and enabling rapid, automated failover and providing higher availability.
SAP shared files
Combined with Azure NetApp Files Elastic, achieve zero data loss and fast automated failover for SAP shared files, ensuring nonstop, highly available operations for critical SAP workloads.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
Support scalable, low-latency profile storage for Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) and custom VDI environments.
Security
Embedded security and compliance
34,000
Full-time equivalent engineers dedicated to security initiatives at Microsoft.
15,000
Partners with specialized security expertise.
>100
Compliance certifications, including over 50 specific to global regions and countries.
Pricing
Get the file storage you need at competitive prices
Azure NetApp Files offers four performance tiers—standard, premium, ultra, and flexible—to match your workload needs. Optimize costs with file storage reservations or cool access.
CUSTOMER STORIES
Discover how customers are accelerating with Azure NetApp Files
RESOURCES
Get started with Azure NetApp Files
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
- Azure NetApp Files is available in a large number of Azure regions and continues to be rolled out in new Azure regions. See the most current availability information by region.
- Azure NetApp Files can support any POSIX-compliant workload that requires shared file storage.
The service is offered in four performance tiers to fit your workloads:- Standard for static web content, file shares, and database backups
- Premium for SAP HANA, Oracle, databases, enterprise apps, VDI, analytics, VMware environments, technical applications, and messaging queues
- Ultra for most performance-intensive applications like those in high-performance computing (such as electronic design automation and others)
- Flexible for applications such as Oracle or SAP HANA and for creating high-capacity volumes with low-throughput needs
Azure NetApp Files Elastic provides zone-redundant service which is an advanced high-availability service level for SAP shared files, AKS and containerized apps, cloud‑native applications, or general file shares.
Get more information on solution architectures that use Azure NetApp Files. - NFS and SMB, on top of Azure NetApp Files, can be used for the SAP application layer. NFSv4.1 shares are supported by SAP to be used for SAP HANA data and log volumes with various HANA-certified Azure virtual machine types.
- Azure NetApp Files provides rich data protection capabilities, instant snapshots, clones, short-term clones, tiering, and backup integration—all powered by NetApp ONTAP.
- Azure NetApp Files provides various cost optimization capabilities such as reservation, cool access tiering, short-term clone, and flexible service level (reducing overprovisioning).
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