IBM Spectrum Scale vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

IBM and NetApp are both solutions in the Cloud Software Defined Storage category. IBM is ranked #3 with an average rating of 9.0, while NetApp is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8. IBM holds a 27.7% mindshare in CSDS, compared to NetApp’s 31.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

IBM Spectrum Scale

Read 11 IBM Spectrum Scale reviews

487 Views
380 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Read 62 NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP reviews

629 Views
372 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Scale

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Spectrum Scale and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Cloud Software Defined Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Scale vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Report (Updated: November 2024).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

November 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Spectrum Scale

Ranking in Cloud Software Defined Storage

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (7th)

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Ranking in Cloud Software Defined Storage

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Storage (1st), Cloud Backup (10th), Public Cloud Storage Services (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Cloud Software Defined Storage category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Scale is 27.7%, down from 32.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 31.5%, up from 30.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Software Defined Storage

Featured Reviews

JanithRanasinghe

Depute CIO at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

Parallel file access efficiency and good file management with good scalability

We are using GPFS Scale for parallel file access. It's primarily for file management We use GPFS Scale for parallel file access, the file management, and it's an essential part of our operations. It's the only feature we are using since we have not explored other options. I wish there were some…

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Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at Evolent Health

Allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution

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. Multiprotocol support in NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is beneficial because it allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution. This feature eliminates the need to purchase different types of storage.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"We use GPFS Scale for parallel file access, the file management, and it's an essential part of our operations."

"It has been pretty reliable throughout the years. As far as capacity is concerned, it can handle most heavy loads."

"Allows us to share files across multiple environments."

"Technical support has been very helpful. They provide us with pretty good solutions that we can implement moving forward."

"Its great servicing high availability. That is what it is used for."

"It makes our file system sharing a lot easier, even across different continents. We have had file systems shared across different continents with no performance degradation."

"It is a scalable solution."

"GPFS monitoring is the best feature."

More IBM Spectrum Scale pros

"We use the mirroring to mirror our volumes to our DR location. We also create snapshots for backups. Snapshots will create a specified snapshot to be able to do a DR test without disrupting our standard mirrors. That means we can create a point-in-time snapshot, then use the ability of FlexClones to make a writeable volume to test with, and then blow it away after the DR test."

"Its features help us to have a backup of our volumes using the native technology of NetApp ONTAP. That way, we don't have to invest in other solutions for our backup requirement. Also, it helps us to replicate the data to another geographic location so that helps us to save on the costs of backup products."

"NetApp's Cloud Manager automation capabilities are very good because it's REST-API-driven, so we can completely automate everything. It has a good overview if you want to just have a look into your environment as well."

"The ability to do a straight SnapMirror from our on-prem to the cloud with no other data transitions is excellent."

"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."

"SnapMirror helps mirror metadata and data volumes between endpoints in a data fabric."

"The most valuable feature is the ease of file storage."

"This solution has helped us because it is easy to use."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

Cons

"They should probably simply the Red Hat implementation portion. This portion was not as straightforward as I would like it to be."

"The pricing and licensing model for this solution are complex and it is sometimes difficult to explain it to customers."

"Maybe it needs integration with HA."

"We do have some issues where Spectrum Scale does not work as expected. We have seen our Spectrum Scale servers go down unexpectedly, but because we have a cluster, it does not take out the entire organization."

"I believe there is no graphic user interface, so they should include it."

"The main issue that we have now is with the encryption. They want to use more metrics in encryption, which is not working very well."

"I wish there were some graphical user interface to access the GPFS file system creation and monitoring."

"The solution's pricing could be better."

More IBM Spectrum Scale cons

"Something we would like to see is the ability to better manage the setup and tie it to our configuration management database. We manage our whole IT infrastructure out of that database."

"When it comes to support provided by NetApp, they have room for improvement. Every time we go through their support, we end up answering the same routine questions."

"I would like this solution to be brought to all the three major players. Right now it's supported only on AWS and Azure. They should bring it to Google as well, because we would like to have flexibility in choosing the underlying cloud storage provider."

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

"The product is more restricted with underlying cloud."

"There is room for improvement with the capacity. There's a very hard limit to how many disks you can have and how much space you can have. That is something they should work to fix, because it's limiting. Right now, the limit is about 360 terabytes or 36 disks."

"I would like to see more information about Cloud Volumes ONTAP using Google Cloud Platform on NetApp's website."

"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."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is costly but reliable."

"The licensing is based on the number of terabytes."

"The licensing model is complex and depends on factors such as the number of processing cores and the amount of storage."

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

"I know the licensing is a bit on the high-end. That's when we had to downsize our MetroCluster disks and just migrate to disks that were half used. We migrated into those just to reduce maintenance costs."

"Compared to other storage vendors, NetApp, is not always able to compete with their pricing. Yet, we acknowledge the ease of use ONTAP brings with the AWS integration."

"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."

"We find the pricing to be favorable due to the educational sector we belong to."

"We purchased the product directly from NetApp."

"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."

"The AWS consumer-based pricing model makes it easy for developers to use their credit cards to spin up virtual servers immediately."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Government

Educational Organization

54%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Scale?

It is a scalable solution.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Scale?

I don't think it's a high price compared to alternatives.

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What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Scale?

I wish there were some graphical user interface to access the GPFS file system creation and monitoring.

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

The solution's pricing is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp's support could improve.

See all answers

Comparisons

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 30% of the time

Portworx Enterprise vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 16% of the time

DDN IME vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 15% of the time

VMware vSAN vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 7% of the time

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Scale Competitors

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 13% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 11% of the time

Zerto vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 3% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale

December 2024

Download IBM Spectrum Scale product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

December 2024

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

Also Known As

No data available

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

Learn More

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IBM

NetApp

Overview

IBM Spectrum Scale is a cluster file system that provides concurrent access to a single file system or set of file systems from multiple nodes. The nodes can be SAN attached, network attached, a mixture of SAN attached and network attached, or in a shared nothing cluster configuration. This enables access to this common set of data to support a scale-out solution or to provide a high availability platform. IBM Spectrum Scale has many features beyond common data access including data replication, policy based storage management, and multi-site operations. You can create a cluster of AIX nodes, Linux nodes, Windows server nodes, or a mix of all three. IBM Spectrum Scale can run on virtualized instances providing common data access in environments, leverage logical partitioning, or other hypervisors. Multiple IBM Spectrum Scale clusters can share data within a location or across wide area network (WAN) connections.

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

November 2024

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Scale vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Scale vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: November 2024.

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