A small manufacturing plant wants HA ONTAP on-prem with commodity hardware, redundant networking, and VMware HA. Which NetApp solution fits best?

• A. Cloud Volumes ONTAP
• B. ONTAP Select 2-node cluster
• C. AFF A250
• D. StorageGRID mini-cluster

Answer: (B)

This item tests selecting an on-prem NetApp deployment that uses commodity hardware and provides VMware-friendly high availability. ONTAP Select lets you run the ONTAP data-management software as virtual machines on standard x86 servers you already own, enabling an on-premises setup with common networking and hardware. By deploying a two-node ONTAP Select cluster, you achieve high availability and data protection while preserving the ability to serve NAS/SAN workloads to VMware guests (via NFS/SMB/iSCSI) and to leverage redundant networking paths. This matches the requirement for on-prem, commodity hardware, redundant networking, and VMware HA.

Cloud Volumes ONTAP would place ONTAP in the cloud or hybrid environment, not strictly on-prem. AFF A250 is a purpose-built all-flash appliance, which goes beyond commodity hardware and the stated preference for an on-prem, cost-effective solution. StorageGRID mini-cluster focuses on object storage, not the NAS/SAN workloads typically used with VMware HA. So ONTAP Select 2-node cluster is the best fit.