ONTAP 9 is on a new cadence model, which brings a new release every 6 months.

Today, ONTAP 9.4GA is available here!

http://mysupport.netapp.com/NOW/download/software/ontap/9.4

Also, check out the documentation center:

docs.netapp.com/ontap-9/index.jsp

NetApp published a general overview blog on NVMe with Joel Reich here:

https://blog.netapp.com/the-future-is-here-ai-ready-cloud-connected-all-flash-storage-with-nvme/

Jeff Baxter’s blog is here:

https://blog.netapp.com/netapp-ontap-9-4-is-ga-modernize-your-it-architecture-with-cloud-connected-flash/

We also did an overview podcast:

And a few others on ONTAP 9.4:

And a lightboard video:

This is a brief list of the new features…

Cloud!

Fabric Pool enhancements include:

Tiering to Microsoft Azure Blob storage

Tiering of active file system data

Predictive performance with the object storage profiler

Predictive space savings for Fabric Pool before you enable it

Efficiency!

Increased Snapshot limits – 1,023 per volume!

Background aggregate level deduplication scanner

Automatic enable of all storage efficiencies on data protection volumes

Support for 30TB SAS attached SSDs

Deduplication across snapshots and active file system

Reduced node root volume sizes on new platforms

Performance!

End-to-end NVMe support (NVMe attached drives in the new A800 + NVMe over fibre channel support)

SMB multichannel support

100GbE Ethernet support

Security!

Secure purge of files (crypto-shred!)

Secure boot via UEFI on new platforms

Validated ONTAP images

Protected controller reboot

I went into more detail about the features in the RC blog here:

ONTAP 9.4RC1 is now available!

For more information, check out these brief videos for some lightboard action on new ONTAP 9.4 stuff:

ONTAP 9.4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wBqF1M9ZII&sns=tw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wBqF1M9ZII&sns=tw Cloud Tiering with FabricPool in ONTAP 9.4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF_qh9LEjzo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF_qh9LEjzo AFF A800

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hHs8ABOr0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hHs8ABOr0 What are NVMe and SCM?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSaECslHPOo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSaECslHPOo NetApp ONTAP Data Management Software

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_FSuBoczRM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_FSuBoczRM NetApp Cloud Volumes for Google Cloud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl8pyG_Qv_M

Some other information on the launch can be found as follows:

GCP Cloud Volumes for NFS with native access to the GCP tool suite (Google Cloud)

https://blog.netapp.com/sweet-new-storage-service-from-netapp-for-google-cloud-platform/

Storage Grid Update 11.1

https://blog.netapp.com/storagegrid-11-1-and-netapp-hci-the-perfect-one-two-punch-for-scaling-your-environment/

A800 and the A220

https://blog.netapp.com/the-future-is-here-ai-ready-cloud-connected-all-flash-storage-with-nvme/

ONTAP 9.4 with first to market NVMe/FC support

http://www.demartek.com/Demartek_NetApp_Broadcom_NVMe_over_Fibre_Channel_Evaluation_2018-05.html