NetApp’s Network Attached Storage (NAS) solutions have gained significant popularity recently due to their advanced features, scalability, and ability to address modern data storage challenges effectively.
Also, NetApp NAS supports multiple protocols such as NFS, CIFS/SMB, and iSCSI, allowing it to handle a variety of workloads in a unified storage environment.
There are business scenarios where the NetApp drive must be integrated with Azure Services like Azure Logic Apps. However, Azure Logic Apps does not provide a built-in connector for NetApp.
So, there are below options to connect with NetApp from Azure Cloud —
Using Managed File System Connectors in Azure Logic Apps — which requires a data gateway to be installed on NetApp server.
Using a mounted Azure File share on NetApp.
Using Built-in file system connector in Azure Logic Apps Standard which does not require any data gateway to be installed on NetApp server.
Using Cloud Volumes ONTAP in Azure with a NetApp BlueXP connector on Azure VM — useful in scenarios when NetApp need to be directly integrated with Azure storage services. The downside is additional cost to maintain Azure VM.
In this article, I will talk about how the File System Connector can be used to connect to NetApp from Azure Logic Apps standard without any data gateway —
Here is the sample workflow where we are reading a file from blob storage and creating a file on the NetApp server using File System connector -
Step 1 — Reading the file from Blob storage
Step 2 — Creating a file server connection with the NetApp drive hosted on Premises.
Step 3 — Providing the file metadata on the NetApp server connected in Step 2
Step 4 — Saving the workflow and running it from the Logic app console
Here you can see the workflow has ran successfully and the file is uploaded to the NetApp server -
Troubleshooting
Please note that this built-in file system connector mounts a file share on the Logic App standard server which essentially act as a Data Gateway and sync the file to the NetApp server.
One of the most common issues you might face that the file share is not reachable from the Logic app and you might get an error like:
The service provider action failed with error code 'InvalidServiceProviderConnection' and error message 'The mountpathC:\mounts\FileSystemdoes not exist as the provided connection is invalid.”
This issue mainly occurs if the NetApp server is not connected successfully from the Logic App. Please ensure that you are using fully qualified domain name or IP address while making the connection in the Step 2.
Also, NetApp server should be reachable from the Azure Logic App so make sure the NetApp server IP is whitelisted in the outgoing firewall.
Summary
NetApp NAS is becoming popular these days because it combines performance, versatility, and cloud readiness, making it ideal for enterprises navigating the complexities of modern data management. From Azure logic apps, File system connector can be used to connect to connect to NetApp without any data gateway to be installed on NetApp.
Hope this article will help you in connecting to NetApp server from Azure Cloud.
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