Downtime isn’t just inconvenient, it’s expensive. For global teams working on chip design or video production, even a few hours of disruption can derail schedules and cost millions. That’s why SVM Disaster Recovery (SVMDR) has been a cornerstone of ONTAP since version 9.8. It enables non-disruptive movement of storage virtual machines during outages, keeping critical workloads online. But until now, if you relied on FlexCache for performance, you had to sacrifice resilience.
The Trade-Off
FlexCache accelerates data access across distributed environments by caching data close to where teams work. But before ONTAP 9.18.1, FlexCache and SVMDR didn’t work together. That meant a tough choice:
- Use FlexCache and scramble to manually reconnect clients during DR events, or
- Skip FlexCache and suffer WAN latency.
For industries like EDA, media, and financial services, that trade-off was far from ideal.
Closing the Gap in ONTAP 9.18.1
With ONTAP 9.18.1, that limitation is gone. FlexCache and SVMDR now work seamlessly, delivering performance and resilience without compromise. Here’s what that means for you:
- Non-disruptive failover for clients: Whether connected to the origin or a FlexCache volume, clients stay online. No session drops. No manual reconnections. Applications keep running, even during a DR event.
- Feature parity with legacy environments: This closes one of the last gaps between ONTAP and older systems, making modernization easier.
- Resilience + Performance: You get the speed of FlexCache and the safety net of SVMDR in one integrated solution.
Think of FlexCache as your high-speed express lane for data access. Now, with SVMDR support, that express lane comes with a built-in detour plan—so even if the origin takes an unexpected turn, your business keeps moving.
Why This Matters for Real Workloads
Consider an EDA workflow: chip designers in California, verification teams in India, and simulation farms in Europe all need access to the same massive datasets. FlexCache accelerates these workflows by caching data close to where teams work. Without SVMDR, an origin outage meant idle teams and manual recovery steps. With ONTAP 9.18.1, caches keep serving data while the origin seamlessly fails over, design cycles stay on track, and tape-out deadlines don’t slip.
Or take media and entertainment: studios often distribute terabytes of high-resolution video across global editing teams. A disaster at the origin site could derail production schedules and cost millions. Now, FlexCache combined with SVMDR ensures editors keep working, even if the primary site goes dark, because cached content remains available and the origin recovers without disruption.
Ready to Eliminate Trade-Offs? Dive deeper into the technical details, check out the ONTAP 9.18.1 Release Notes
