NetApp AFF - All Flash Reviews

The primary use case depends on business requirements and customer challenges.

NetApp offers two types of all-flash storage systems for different business requirements and challenges. They are also offering end-to-end NVMe-based storage systems within their all-flash product range.

NetApp AFF-A series and NetApp AFF-C series (recently introduced) are two different all-flash product verticals as per the following list:

• AFF-A Series: A150, A250, A400(Midrange), A800(High-end), and A900(High-end)
• AFF-C Series: AFF C190, AFF C250, AFF C400 and C800

The primary use case for AFF-A series models is where you need unified storage systems with extreme performance, end-to-end NVMe enterprise, or all-flash arrays, requiring the lowest latency and supporting twice as many workloads.

The NetApp AFF-C is the best fit where customers need a Unified(NAS+SAN) All-flash with capacity and affordable price. It is built on quad-level cell (QLC) flash technology to make it more affordable.

The organizations experiencing performance issues and looking to move from HDD to SSD flash and don’t want to pay an extra cost to get submillisecond performance for business-critical workloads, NetApp AFF-C is the best fit for them.

Organizations can reduce data storage footprint and lower power and cooling costs, helping to adopt "Green IT." Organizations can run more applications with fewer disks to maintain. They can also achieve a good ROI in making their product/services more fast in production.

The organizations can get extreme performance by using NetApp end-to-end NVMe enterprise all-flash arrays (like A150 and A250). The NVMe enterprise provides the lowest latency, supports twice as many workloads, and improves application response time.

All of NetApp's all-flash series storage arrays come with the NetApp all-flash software bundle by default.

NetApp also offers both "SAN-only" and "unified" options to make more flexible choices for customers. 

There is a very long list of features that come by default in the NetApp all-flash software bundle; however, what I like the most are in-line deduplication, compression, and compaction, which saves up to 90% of expensive disk space, especially in a virtualized server environment. 

The "autonomous ransomware protection" secures customer data from intruders.

NetApp introduced the C-series all-flash storage with the capacity to make their product line even more flexible and cost-effective. There is no significant improvement required that I could find so far.

However, NetApp should have a local presence in Pakistan. This will obviously boost the product sales cycle in Pakistan.

Other storage vendors get business only due to their presence specifically in Pakistan even if they are offering fewer or limited features in their product line.

We have been selling NetApp Storage Systems for the last 10+ years as a partner/reseller.

We're still in the process of the migration, so we're hoping that it will help with business and serving customers. We're hoping that it will be faster. We had previous file limitations with our old technology. We're hoping to better utilize the NetApp arrays to serve our expanding and growing business.

If the data is deduplicated, we'll hopefully begin to save space. We're also hoping it will allow our business clients to access their data faster, and we'll be able to read and write it faster as well using all-flash technology.

The C400 flash arrays have been very valuable so far.

We'll use it to secure data, back up that data, and replicate it to other data centers. We'll leverage it to take a holistic approach to data replication, backup, and accessibility.

We're assuming accessing and writing files will be a lot snappier with opening files will be faster. That's what we're looking at. We're hoping for a lot of speed.

We don't have it in production yet. We don't have areas for improvement right now. Once we put it into production and get client feedback, we'll have more visibility.

We did use a different solution. We made the change based on the price point and being able to open more files.

We looked into Dell and another big player in the space. We chose this solution based on the price point and the all-flash technology.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. We just got it. We're expecting it will be faster and that we'll see some good compression and deep replication on our data.

The evolving cybersecurity landscape and proliferation of AI influenced our technology decisions. It's a factor in every decision that we make. The security is very important. I know other vendors provide similar types of types of security, and data tech and data security as well.

We're using it all just for NAS right now. We possibly might use it
for SAN in the future and then maybe archiving.

We're very new to AI and it will be a consideration in the future. Cybersecurity for sure will also be a priority and data optimization is the most important. 

NetApp has always been one of the best storage solutions on the market.

We are an 85% NetApp shop, and it has been extremely helpful. We've been able to save a lot of money with the introduction of the use of the tiering aspect and the flex groups. We're able to move data around on the fly.

From a VMware perspective and from a high-performance computing perspective, it is able to churn data as fast as we will do it. It's been great. We're able to identify a lot of data thanks to Cloud Insights. Generally, about 80% of data is not in use. To be able to tier that data automatically has been key. Then, being able to move the data to a specific place or on the fly to a different aggregate with a different disk has been a big benefit.

The solution has helped streamline our internal operations. It helps a lot with the use of WFA - workflow analytics. It allows us to provision storage quickly. And with the use of BlueXP, we're able to monitor, manage, and do some other general things with ease and quickness in terms of provisioning. We're a cloud shop now, and we use Azure. So we use a lot of AFF and a lot of CDOs. And so we now have the ability to provision things a lot faster. The upgrades are a lot faster. The bills are a lot faster. It's definitely progressed yearly.

We're working with Cloud Volumes ONTAP and BlueXP. We have some on-premise stuff. That said, we're actually moving to the Keystone site next week. We're going to be replicating or migrating data from the on-premise site to Keystone. We're also collecting data from Delphi and SLB. They're moving 15 to 20 petabytes in. Everything we're doing, we're using NetApp's XCP solution. We're using Cloud Sync to do all these moves. We're using a lot of stuff.

The cloud service is a lot better. I've dealt with initial cloud providers from a hybrid solution that was not necessarily up to par. The level of administration or support with some of the other solutions just doesn't compare. Once we got this solution, everything just went smoothly.

To get the performance in Azure has been a challenge. We're moving everything to Azure.

I've personally been using the solution myself since maybe the year 2000.

We're currently introducing Cloud Insight to help us manage users better. We're implementing that now. In terms of expansion, we're opening pretty much everything.

We're in the middle of a large migration project involving 12 to 13 petabytes of data, which has been a big project lately.

One of the best things is the support Itself. I've never had an issue with anything. The support was a lot better than any others I had to deal with.

With other solutions, the level of management that's needed was a challenge. The management aspect of this solution is better. BlueXP, the storage manager, the CLI, all of that stuff, it just makes life a lot easier. I've worked with a lot of other solutions. I don't want to mention them.

We did look into EMC, Dell, Hitachi, and Microsoft. From a storage management perspective and a NAS perspective, this solution is better. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. It's the best in the industry.

The proliferation of AI and the evolving cybersecurity landscape hasn't influenced our technology decisions yet. We are in the process of moving towards AI. It's coming, and we're definitely looking at it.

We've been a NetApp shop for 12 years. We do periodically try other solutions, however, that's gone by the wayside. We're basically a NetApp and Microsoft shop.

Our upcoming investments will be prioritized around storage and security - and AI in the future. The key is to save money. We're moving things and disabling machines that are no longer needed. From a performance perspective, we're always trying to find different solutions that will help customers. We're working to get to data a lot faster.

The ease of data access has enabled faster service delivery for customers. It is easy to get whatever data they like quickly across sites. That has made it much easier for us, but it is also quicker and easier for them to request things, and then they can get what they need.

We have one pane of glass. We do not have to waste a bunch of time. We can streamline even simple things like logging into individual applications or individual NetApp hardware. We can automate things and govern who has access to what, not only on the application and software side but also on the hardware side, and I love that. It keeps everything secure.

This week at NetApp INSIGHT has been great because it has offered a lot of additional information on things that we are looking into. We are new to NetApp, so ONTAP has been the thing that delivered the most value to our organization and changed things for us. Based on where we came from, it is a ten out of ten. Based on where we may be able to go with it, in terms of the expandability of the feature set and the vision that we have been hearing about this week, it is definitely a nine or maybe a ten.

We would not have been able to have the data access and the ability to control it the way we needed without this technology. We have multiple ways of access. We have flexibility and backup and disaster recovery opportunities for replication that we did not have before. That really helped.

We wanted data security through our NetApp technology investments. We wanted the ability to govern multiple pieces of hardware across multiple sites through a single pane of glass. We wanted to get very granular with what groups get what and all that. There is now a significantly easier way to handle all of that. We can do that more quickly for our business.

Previously, we were pretty limited in disaster recovery, backup solutions, and things like that. Snapshots and other features have dramatically improved our situation.

When it comes to AI, at this point, you cannot get away from AI. You are being shoved into it quickly. NetApp has allowed us to adapt to that. The journey is accelerating, and we are able to adapt much more quickly to it.

We are able to expand our flexibility in both data access and data security. It will allow the business to be freer to request things from us and to innovate in their space. They are free from having to worry about whether we have the technology to handle that or whether we have the expertise to handle that.

It provides simplicity. Previously, there was not any kind of unified structure to our multisite storage infrastructure. We now have multiple sites where we have been able to install NetApp, and through ONTAP and BlueXP, control all of them from one pane of glass, which has been very powerful for us.

We talked to almost everyone such as Dell EMC and Pure Storage. NetApp was the only one we found to be cost-effective, which obviously was a huge concern, and it also had the unified ability. The feature set was just head and shoulders above what we saw.

We are not a huge company, but we are big enough. We have lots of sites in the US and also in Europe. The ability to make that feel smaller was a big deal for us.

We have plans to expand how we use this solution in the future. There is a ton of growth opportunity in terms of how we technically use the product, and it is also exciting how our clients will experience the speed and access security in their actual jobs.

We hear a lot about ransomware, security, early detection, and proactivity. That is the space where we are focused because it feels that we are playing catch up constantly on that.

Our upcoming investments will be prioritized around data storage in general, but cybersecurity is right up against it. They go hand in hand. Our clients are asking for more and more transparency about how we are protecting their data while also serving them well. 

I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. I hope the same vision will continue.

We are a semiconductor manufacturer. We use the solution for our data for manufacturing, design, research, and development. Our customers are satisfied. We deliver products on time, sometimes ahead of time. For our customers, the solution has contributed to the stability and the performance has contributed to the way we actually roll out our products. Partially our customer satisfaction is coming from the fact that we are always on time and our quality is high. And of course, storage reliability is one of the components of that.

The performance, reliability, and stability are all very good. 

NetApp has helped to streamline our internal operations and adapt to changing market conditions. Storage tools and protocols, like SnapMirror or FlexCache, have enabled us to move data more quickly and with more ease and handle distributed data pretty much without any additional hassle.

Over the years, the main features have been great, and the introduction of Snapshot has become really big. Most recently, it's been the addition of FlexCache.

We'd like to see data move faster. We have distributed data around the world and we'd like to synchronize and move data faster between our locations.

We'd like to have faster reaction time to particular needs.

We have been using NetApp since 1996.

We plan to deploy more servers to more locations and enable FlexCache for most of our data.

The customer support, the amount of experts that the solution has as a company, and then making them available to us, has been great.

There are a lot of competing companies, in particular, EMC and Pure Storage. We have the most familiarity with this product since we've been using it for over two decades.

We haven't tried everybody in the world, and we probably don't want to say that the solution is the best since we don't want them to rest on their laurels. That said, I would easily rate NetApp nine out of ten.

Now, all other companies are copying that solution's success.

The most important aspects of any solution are cost and innovation.

As a pharmaceutical company, our data is very sensitive. It's critical to recover in the event of any incident. NetApp played a major role in our backup and recovery services.

The RPOs and RTOs are excellent. When we had a ransomware attack, NetApp helped us recover. NetApp has streamlined operations by providing faster operating responses and making data more accessible to users. The equipment they offer helped increase our performance.

I administer the solution, so I'm not involved with the design and decision-making, so I can't speak about our future planning. However, most of our files are on NetApp, which we have 50 sites using. I don't know about AI or other emerging technologies we may adopt. We haven't used AI, but the company is looking at that and security-related features, like AI-based ransomware technologies. ONTAP is on the roadmap. 

We plan to expand. All our storage is on-prem, but we plan to shift to the cloud, depending on the application requirements. Our roadmap includes migrating to the cloud and implementing AI. 

NetApp's backup and recovery are the primary features we use. We also appreciate data protection. NetApp's technology and hardware support all our requirements. Snapshot technology is hugely beneficial for backing up our data. 

Our environment is NAS-based. I don't have much exposure to NetApp on the block storage side. At the file level, the protocols they support are easy to use. This improves resiliency and helps us run the environment.

Our block storage is primarily Dell EMC, and we use NetApp for our AFF at the file level. We've heard many things about NetApp's block solutions, so it may be an excellent opportunity to look at NetApp from the block side of things and migrate. Dell EMC is relatively expensive, whereas NetApp is more cost-effective. I would like to explore all the new technologies and move our block storage to NetApp.

We did many POCs with companies like IBM, EMC, and NetApp and how they handled the file-sharing structures. NetApp came out on top for how it handled the files. It also beats the competitors in cost-effectiveness, which is the first thing a company looks at. 

I rate NetApp nine out of 10. 

The replication of data from on-premises to the cloud is very easy when we are using the SnapMirror technology. 

Being able to use FlexCache is the best part of this solution. It is something that on-premises users are using for their production. There are some users who want to use the same volume from the cloud. FlexCache helps us in providing that.

We have a unified storage to access the file and NAS. We can do all the things in the same solution. We do not need any other product or storage mix.

CVO and AFF technologies have delivered the most value to our company. I would rate AFF a ten out of ten, and I would rate CVO a nine out of ten. We are still exploring the cloud. AFF is completely packed, and with CVO, we have a few challenges that we are trying to solve. Taking a snapshot and cloning are some of the best things that we are doing with these technologies. CVO also offers cost-effectiveness.

Their customer support can be better. When we have an outage, we need to wait until the issue is escalated to L3 which takes a lot of time. If that can be improved, it will help a lot. If there is any issue, we should be able to resolve it immediately instead of waiting for so long to get a qualified resource from NetApp.

We have a NetApp partner and we also have a point of contact from NetApp with whom we have regular calls every week. We can see what the new products are and we try to adopt the new ones. 

If there are any issues, we can get NetApp support to get them resolved. Their customer support can be better.

We considered another solution that is used only for SAN and is server block storage. With this solution, we get both SAN and NAS within the same storage device. We chose this solution due to its flexibility.

We have had a few outages on the CVO where the host needed more performance but the CVO that we selected in terms of disk type and other things was not able to support that workload. To support that workload, we moved the host to ANF instead of CVO. 

We are moving towards AI, but we are not fully involved as of now.

We have plans to increase its usage both on-prem and on the cloud. Data is constantly growing. We need more capacity. New business needs require new storage. New projects require more storage.

Cost saving on the cloud is the goal we have. We do not know how much exactly it will come out to be because it is on a usage basis. It can grow constantly, and then for one month, it can come down. We need to make sure that the cost is constant.

Our upcoming investments would be prioritized around data storage and cybersecurity. Data storage is the main thing that we cannot avoid. Cybersecurity is something that we need to make our environment secure.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We're a hospital, and we do a lot of imaging tasks. Specifically with our cardiology imaging, we had a lot of issues with the data transfers to the FASM. Once I moved all of that over to the AFF, all of that went away.

NetApp AFF has helped reduce operational latency. From going from our old FAS systems to AFF, I already see massive performance improvements.

For years, my company used EMC, and EMC really wasn't doing what we needed it to do. 

Some of our sales reps invited my boss and a previous administrator to NetApp INSIGHT. From there, they got to see everything work. The administrator got the certification and they actually bought it right there. AFF just fits the bill for the company. 

AFF has helped us simplify our infrastructure. 

The simplifications have improved our operations. Our operations used to be one to two hours, just trying to set up simple shared drives and things. Now, I do it in a couple of minutes. It's taking a lot of weight off of me.

NetApp helped to reduce support issues like performance tuning. It's the auto-support features and everything that just fires off to NetApp and they're back to me within minutes of those auto-supports firing off. It's things that would normally take days to resolve, now take minutes using NetApp.

ActiveIQ is the most valuable feature. It's a central point for me to be able to kick into everything every day. I log in first thing and make sure there are no issues, and it helps me with my day-to-day.

NetApp AFF has absolutely helped to simplify our infrastructure. One hundred percent. It's still getting us very high performance for our business-critical applications.

There are features that are available but we haven't purchased them. We haven't delved into the cloud environment too much. BlueXP offers a lot of options that I would like to see, but it's not available with what we currently have. 

They should make these features a little more affordable.

I've been using it for less than a year. We've had it at our company for years, but I've been working with it since March. 

I've never had any major issues out of it other than the drive or node failure. The way it's configured is not an issue. We never saw any dip in performance or anything. 

Scalability is fantastic because we work with new clinics all the time. Usually, I have to spin up some new volumes for those, and it's no problem at all. We're looking at Keystone right now, and that's going to help it quite a bit more.  

The customer service and support are fantastic. A couple of weeks ago, I had a drive go down, and they had one out to me the next morning.  

I had a control board go down on one of my nodes a few months ago, and they sent a guy out to me the next day.

Positive

We previously used different solutions. We opted for AFF because of its flash capacity. The all-flash capacity is fantastic.

I enjoy understanding how the setup works. I never have any issues with it. 

The previous guy set it up before me, and I've picked it up and run with it. I haven't really had any issues since then.

We saw an ROI in terms of turnaround times on our data. It provides patient care at a much faster speed than what we normally would be able to.

In future releases, I would like to see some nonprofit licensure tiers because it's a nonprofit hospital, so it's competing with more commercial licensing. It gets a little more expensive for the nonprofit.

My company evaluated different options, but AFF was definitely one of the front runners.

Overall, I would rate NetApp AFF a ten out of ten.