Modern enterprise environments require infrastructure that combines scalability, strong isolation, and high-performance storage services. OpenNebula and NetApp together deliver a tightly integrated solution for secure multi-tenant cloud environments supporting virtualized and containerized workloads.

Together, OpenNebula and NetApp provide a unified platform that combines cloud orchestration, enterprise storage services, Kubernetes automation, and AI infrastructure management under a single operational model.

Unified Storage Integration with NetApp ONTAP^® 

OpenNebula integrates with NetApp ONTAP storage systems through NAS and SAN storage interfaces and supports CSI-based storage provisioning for Kubernetes workloads.

Storage resources are exposed as datastores within OpenNebula and managed through the same unified control plane used for compute and container orchestration. 

Enterprise Storage Capabilities

The integration leverages key NetApp ONTAP capabilities including snapshots for point-in-time recovery, replication for data availability and disaster recovery, deduplication and compression for improved storage efficiency, and FlexClone for instant, space-efficient cloning of images and datasets, accelerating environment provisioning while minimizing storage consumption. OpenNebula can also leverage ONTAP snapshot technology to support efficient incremental backups without requiring guest-side agents.

Together, these features enable fast provisioning and efficient use of storage resources while maintaining data consistency across environments and supporting both operational agility and enterprise-grade reliability. 

High Availability and Performance at Scale

NetApp SAN integration supports multipath iSCSI connectivity, enabling path redundancy, improved resilience, and load distribution across storage networks, ensuring high throughput and resilience in distributed environments.

Parallel host operations and automated configuration reduce operational complexity, especially in large-scale deployments.

Streamlined Volume Lifecycle Management

OpenNebula enables full lifecycle management of NetApp-backed storage volumes, including provisioning and attaching volumes to workloads, resizing and modifying storage allocations, cloning volumes for rapid environment deployment, and deleting or reassigning storage resources as needed. 

These operations are executed through NetApp’s storage APIs, ensuring consistency, reliability, and predictable behavior at the infrastructure layer while reducing operational overhead for administrators.

Security and Multi-Tenancy

Multi-tenancy is enforced through OpenNebula’s role-based access control (RBAC) and isolation mechanisms. This allows multiple tenants to securely share infrastructure while maintaining strict separation of workloads and controlled access to resources.

OpenNebula and ONTAP communicate through authenticated and encrypted API interfaces, while OpenNebula’s RBAC and tenancy controls ensure secure separation of users, projects, and workloads.

A Unified Operational Model

By integrating NetApp storage directly into OpenNebula, organizations gain a single control plane for managing compute, storage, and containerized workloads.

This unified model reduces operational fragmentation, improves scalability, and enhances control over infrastructure resources. The combined solution is equally suited for traditional enterprise applications and modern AI infrastructure. OpenNebula provides unified management of virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters, and GPU resources, while ONTAP delivers scalable storage services for AI datasets, model training environments, and inference workloads.

It enables enterprises to deploy secure and high-performance cloud environments while maintaining efficiency, governance, and flexibility. Organizations modernizing from legacy virtualization platforms can leverage existing ONTAP investments while adopting OpenNebula as a unified cloud and virtualization platform.

Read the full press release here | Learn more on the dedicated landing page 

To learn how OpenNebula and NetApp support secure and scalable enterprise cloud infrastructure, contact our team or explore the technical integration details to see how the solution works in practice.