Network Appliance, Inc. (Nasdaq:NTAP), a provider of enterprise network storage solutions, has announced it has joined the SAS R&D Partner Program as a platinum level member. This enables Network Appliance to collaborate on global technology research and development with SAS, the leader in business intelligence and data warehouse solutions. As part of the global alliance, the two companies will work closely to provide seamless platform integration and develop best practice guides that help customers easily and efficiently deploy SAS and NetApp solutions in large-scale enterprise environments. NetApp storage is particularly valuable in SAS business intelligence infrastructures for its ease of management, high data availability, and scalability, which augment application effectiveness and lower total cost of ownership.

SAS software processes and extracts relevant information from massive databases that power external transactional environments such as ERP systems. The storage infrastructure for SAS applications must therefore be highly available, plug seamlessly into heterogeneous environments, and, in today's world of exploding data, be simple to scale and manage.

Based on extensive usage of the Network Appliance storage platform in its core development organization, SAS understands firsthand the improved access capabilities that NetApp solutions offer customers. Together, the two companies are developing cost-effective storage solutions that ease overall management complexity of large data warehouse environments, improving enterprise efficiencies and preserving the investment in valuable information resources.

"The approaches one would use for managing and analyzing gigabytes of data don't scale well to support data volumes in the terabyte or petabyte range, which is where customers are going," noted Doug Cockrell, senior director, Host Systems R&D at SAS. "We see a future of unified network storage solutions addressing these data volume requirements. Our extensive use of NetApp solutions at SAS and our ongoing collaboration around the Direct Access File System (DAFS) have us convinced that Network Appliance has solutions to serve enterprises today and the vision to build the storage infrastructure for tomorrow."

"As critical information becomes exponentially more important to enterprise growth, the need for greater business intelligence also increases. We are pleased to be working more closely with SAS in delivering solutions for discriminating enterprises whose decision makers demand rapid access to valuable business intelligence information without adding complexity to the overall management process," said Phil Williams, vice president of alliance marketing at Network Appliance.

"By consolidating disparate database information and ensuring accuracy, business intelligence software can be a very powerful tool, providing enterprise leaders with easy access to the information that drives business decisions," said Colin White, president, Intelligent Business Strategies. "By coupling SAS software with NetApp storage solutions, customers are better enabled to meet ever-increasing data requirements and are assured of a solid foundation for making more informed business decisions quickly, due to the increased availability and reliability of the architecture."

Network Appliance is a world leader in open network storage solutions for today's data-intensive enterprise. Since its inception in 1992, Network Appliance has pioneered technology, product, and partner firsts that continue to drive the evolution of storage.