Dell VPLEX vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

"The best part of the solution is the virtualization layer due to the fact that, for all our pain points during migration, we use the virtualization with VPLEX."

"With VPLEX, we are able to automate this process where failovers between sites now occur automatically."

"The support is good, and you don't have to wait long before things get done."

"Due to the large number of models and different brands it is a very good solution to virtualize volumes."

"VPLEX offers a large compatibility matrix and valuable features."

"The business continuity is sorted, as the data is in two data centers, i.e., readable and writable, and if one side goes down, there is no downtime and the other side continues non-disruptively."

"The solution works well. It's very reliable."

"Mobility enables us to carry out an internal migration of data."

"The FlexClones make all the management easier for us."

"The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site."

"The initial setup was straightforward. We started with a small pilot and we then moved to production with no downtime at all."

"In terms of administration, the portal which provides the dashboard view is an excellent tool for operations. It gives you volume divisions, usage rates, which division is using how much data, and more. The operations portal is fantastic for the support team."

"CVO provides all the functionality any customer would need on cloud; it's a single solution that covers everything."

"The solution’s unified file and block-storage access across our infrastructure is invaluable. Without it, we can't do what we do."

"If you have a fair amount of experience with NetApp, you can work on it very easily."

"The ease of use in terms of how the product works is valuable. We are able to work with it and deploy the storage that we need."

"Maybe setup a one-to-many cluster, instead of just a 1-to-1."

"Much room for improvement exists."

"The solution is expensive and requires more budget, so people in the SMB segment do not prefer it."

"There can be delays in getting performance reports."

"The licensing model for enterprise storage (EMC VMAX) and integrating the solution into the actual storage frames instead of a separate product."

"With Dell VPLEX, there are some bugs with Broadcom."

"Today, it needs a huge effort that is not acceptable during disaster recovery."

"The price is a problem with EMC due to the fact that it's more expensive than the other vendors."

"The pricing could be improved. It is a good product, but it is very expensive for me."

"I would like to see something from NetApp about backups. I know that NetApp offers some backup for Office 365, but I would like to see something from NetApp for more backup solutions."

"We have used technical support. As long as they don't call me at four o'clock in the morning to tell me that a drive failed and they are sending me another one, I like it. They have a tendency to do that."

"The data tiering needs improvement. E.g., moving hard data to faster disks."

"When it comes to a critical or a read-write-intensive application, it doesn't provide the performance that some applications require, especially for SAP; the SAP HANA database has a write-latency of less than 2 milliseconds and the CVO solution does not fit there."

"One area for improvement is monitoring. Since we are using turn-on and turn-off, based on a schedule, it becomes a little bit difficult to monitor the instance and the replications, etc."

"I would like to see more aggressive management of the aggregate space. On the Cloud Volumes ONTAP that we use for offsite backup copies, most of the data sits in S3. There are also the EBS volumes on the Cloud Volumes ONTAP itself. Sometimes what happens is that the aggregate size just stays the same. If it allocates 8 terabytes initially, it just stays at 8 terabytes for a long time, even though we're only using 20 percent of that 8 terabytes. NetApp could undersize that more aggressively."

"I would like NetApp to come up with an easier setup for the solution."

"We struck a great deal with Dell EMC, so for us, VPLEX was not very expensive."

"VPLEX is a little bit expensive in my personal opinion."

"In addition to the standard licensing fees, there are fees for Azure, the VMs themselves and for data transfer."

"Cloud is cloud. It's still expensive. Any good solution comes with a price tag. That's where we are looking to see how well we can manage our data in the cloud by trying to optimize the costs."

"They give us a good price for CVO licenses. It is one of the reasons that we went with the product."

"The pricing of this solution is definitely higher than what the typical Azure Files and AWS solutions charge, but given the features and the stability NetApp has provided, we are okay with it. We are not complaining about the pricing."

"Our licensing is based on a yearly subscription. That is an additional cost, but because of the storage efficiencies that the NetApp gives, even with the additional cost of the NetApp license, you still end up saving money versus straight Azure native for storage. It's definitely worth it."

"They have a very good price which keeps our customers happy."

"It is expensive. There are no costs in addition to their standard licensing fees."

"Once we deploy the pay as you go model, we cannot convert this product as a BYOL model. This is a concern that we have."