NetApp Keystone best fits which customer requirement?

• A. CapEx-heavy purchase with perpetual licensing
• B. Storage-as-a-Service with flexible OpEx consumption
• C. Mandatory purchase of hardware
• D. One-time up-front payment with zero scalability

Answer: (B)

NetApp Keystone is a Storage-as-a-Service model that lets customers pay for storage resources on a flexible, OpEx-based basis rather than up-front hardware purchases. It provides elastic capacity that can be scaled up or down as needed, with predictable monthly costs, and can be used in on-prem, cloud, or hybrid setups. This aligns with customers who want to move from capital expenditures to operating expenditures and avoid over- or under-provisioning through a service-like, pay-as-you-go model. The other scenarios describe heavy upfront CapEx, mandatory hardware purchases, or a single upfront payment with no scalability, which don’t fit Keystone’s flexible, consumption-based approach.