The centre will serve as a testbed for the company's partners and customers.

 

As part of its commitment to its markets in Southeast Asia, storage and data management solutions provider, NetApp, unveiled its first regional innovation centre in Singapore. The NetApp Innovation Center (NIC) was built to an estimated tune of US$1.5 million, and represents a part of the California-headquartered company's larger strategic growth plan that was first rolled out in December last year.

Essentially, the NIC will be a platform for the Nasdaq-listed company's partners and customers from Southeast Asia to test, trial and examine business applications on the next generation storage technology infrastructure. This means that mission-critical applications from Microsoft, VMware, Oracle, SAP and Symantec are deployed at NIC so customers can experience, in real-time, the company's storage technologies that support data storage and management requirements.

According to Suresh Nair, Managing Director, NetApp ASEAN, "With customers seeking new ways to address business challenges and demands, it is critical today to demonstrate solutions that deliver real competitive business advantage. With the launch of the Center, this vision is realised as customers and partners now have a platform to collaborate and work towards business leadership with innovative technologies."

 

Range Of Technologies

The NIC also showcases a broad range of virtualisation technologies and solutions, which demonstrates the ability to dramatically improve server utilisation and provide rapid recovery in the case of data centre failures.

"We have built an environment where our partners can cost effectively trial and demonstrate their own solutions with simulation scenarios, performance and stress tests to customers from around the region," Nair says. These include data archiving, back-up, data recovery, de-duplication and contingency planning, which the NIC can demonstrate how low total cost of ownership can be realised in a multi-protocol environment.

Through live demonstrations and credible testing, ASEAN partners will be able to build strategic relationships with visiting customers, facilitating creative informational exchange and entrepreneurial initiatives in the region.

Presently, Southeast Asia is one of the fastest growing regions for the company, with an annual revenue growth rate of over 60 per cent in FY2008. Aside from Singapore, NetApp has established presence in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, and Brunei.

NetApp believes that Singapore represents the pillar of the company's regional operations because some of its best talents and its Southeast Asia headquarters are based in the Republic.