NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for AWS comparison

"We're able to use the SnapMirror function and SnapMirror data from our on-prem environment into Azure. That is super-helpful. SnapMirror allows you to take data that exists on one NetApp, on a physical NetApp storage platform, and copy it over to another NetApp storage platform. It's a solid, proven technology, so we don't worry about whether data is getting lost or corrupted during the SnapMirror."

"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."

"The biggest advantage is that it works as expected, there's less maintenance so you don't need too many people to support it, and you save money in the long run."

"It is much easier to control data since we can run queries across all our platforms with just one solution. Not only that, we can also monitor all the platforms with Active IQ, where we can see all the alerts, messages, and space consumption through a single application. This is regardless if the data is on-prem or AWS. It is much more efficient."

"For example, it saves my clients between 50 and 60 percent."

"ONTAP has been very stable for us, specifically in the cloud environment. It allows us to have high availability as well as standalone systems if that's what we want within our specific workloads. Also, on-premise has been a very stable environment. We have very few outages and when we do, we work with support to get systems back online in a timely manner."

"I love this solution."

"It offers ease of use and a comprehensive suite of applications, including features like SnapMirror, SnapVault, and unified snapshot management, all bundled into a single product."

"The NetApp Cloud Volume Services for AWS has been helping migrate workloads onto the cloud. We did migrate a couple of native applications into AWS using this, and it was helpful."

"We've just been dealing with general pre-requisite infrastructure configuration challenges. Once those are out of the way, it is easy."

"How it handles erasure coding. I feel it the improvement should be there. Basically, it should be seamless. You don't want to have an underlying hardware issue or something, then suddenly there's no reads or writes. Luckily, it's at a replication site, so our main production site is still working and writing to it. But, the replication site has stopped right now while we try to bring that node back. Since we implemented in bare-metal, not in appliance, we had to go back to the original vendor. They didn't send it in time, and we had a hardware memory issue. Then, we had a hard disk issue, which brought the node down physically."

"The product is more restricted with underlying cloud."

"The support is good in general but the initial, frontline support could be improved."

"Their support and development teams can collaborate better to resolve an issue."

"NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP does have a bit of initial complexity for users who are new to the system."

"We would like to have support for high availability in multi-regions."

"Cloud Volumes ONTAP's interface could use an overhaul. Sometimes you have to dig around in Cloud Manager a little bit to find certain things."

"We'd like the solution to be less expensive and offer lower latency."

"We purchased the product directly from NetApp."

"The deal with the seller was acceptable; the pricing is reasonable."

"It is not a cheap solution because we need to pay for the license and pay for Azure resources as well."

"If we wanted to use the AWS solution, we would have to manage two or three different platforms and pay more money than what we should have to pay, as some of the features don't even exist. If we wanted to, we could use AWS cloning, but it is useless because it uses more space, is more expensive, and takes more time."

"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 standard pricing is online. Pricing depends. If you're using the PayGo model, then it's just the normal costs on the Microsoft page. If you're using Bring Your Own License, which is what we're doing, then you get with your sales contact at NetApp and start figuring out what price is the best, in the end, for your company."

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

"The cost is quite high."