NetApp AFF - All Flash Reviews

Performance is the number-one most valuable feature, for sure. Flexibility and the multi-tenancy are also valuable.

The compression we needed, the rates we get, are inline with the performance, which is the reason we bought it; we have a lot of applications that use it. The compression and the dedupe stays in storage but on our other products, we'd lose performance because of that. On the All Flash FAS, we don't have any performance issues at all, so it's a big differentiator for us.

It provides financial benefits, because we don't have to spend as much on storage, because of the dedup and the compression and the performance it gives us. We don't have to buy anything else because of it.

There’s one thing that would make it easier to work with. There are differences between using the OnCommand: the GUI vs command line. There are still differences. There are things you can do from the command line that you can't do from the GUI. If they could make the GUI do everything that the command line does, that would be the best. That would earn it a perfect rating, for sure.

There are certain configurations/settings on cDOT that you can only make by using the CLI. My point for room for improvement was that, if they could make all the configurations/settings available in the GUI, then you would be able to pick one or the other for managing the cluster. Today, you either have to only use CLI or a mix of GUI/CLI.

We've had no stability issues. We've never had a problem. We've only been using it for about six months, but we haven't had a single issue of any kind. We're happy with it.

We've added on shelves to it. That's one of the reasons we bought it too. We bought it for a certain set of applications and we've already expanded that now; used it for other things too. That's why I bought more storage on it. The flexibility we have, all the connections it has, it's helped us without having to buy either more storage systems or other products. We've just been able to grow what we have.

We've previously had several other vendors. We used Hitachi. We used their HNAS product. We had Celerra from EMC. We've had a couple of other older vendors that aren't even around anymore.

We switched from HNAS because of the performance, both in application and backup performance. It was not nearly what it needs to be. Their storage pools and the way we could grow the HNAS environment was nothing compared to what the NetApp does. All of those things together made that an easy switch.

It's definitely saved us in storage costs. It's saved us in reliability, in downtime. We’ve had downtime with our HNAS, a couple times. That was the factor that got rid of it in the end. We invested in that product, and it was a pretty important feature of some of the applications that used it. We kept going with it and staying with it because we invested in it. But we had too many outages, too many problems with it.

In the end, we decided that it was not worth it, financially, to keep it. We got rid of it, and invested in NetApp, and all those reliability and performance issues went away. It's been 100% since day one.

We've had other vendors, and we've used their solutions. The performance hasn't been what it is on NetApp or the compression dedup rate hasn't been what it is on NetApp; with those other vendors, we get one of the two. We get both of those with NetApp; better performance, better compression, all of those things without sacrificing performance.

Look at NetApp first. The flexibility they offer, the performance, and all the features they have. I can't think of anything that we can't do with that product. That's where we go to first now. We have a lot of other products. We have a lot of other storage vendors: Hitachi, IBM, EMC. We've had other NetApp FAS products, not just the All Flash one. We still have other NetApp FAS products.

Since we've had the All Flash FAS, because of its reliability and everything that goes with it, it’s the first thing that the application people ask for. When we talk to them about needing more storage, they always ask for NetApp first. It's kind of the standard now, which is fine by me because I like it.

It's reliable; it's fast; it does everything that we need it to do; it's relatively easy to work with.

For me, the most valuable feature it has been the capability to provide fast VDI services for our call center. In North Carolina, we get some harsh winters, a lot of ice; not really snow, but some ice. Call center workers can't come in to work. We still need to field the calls when they come in. With the VDI platform, we're allowed to let them use their home computers to call in and use the services like they were in the office. The low latency that the all-flash provides, allows for the actual call center software to work flawlessly. It's like they are in the office and it's been working out great.

It's been a great product in my quiver.

As an example, if we miss a call reporting a fuel leak, that can cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. Missing those calls is not possible. With this product, we can turn around agents across the globe, left and right, just turn them on and they provision so quick that they don't even know that stuff is happening. If a VM happens to mess up, we can delete it and provision a new one. It's super-fast.

Make it a little bit cheaper, but I don't think I would change anything of the system. Right now, each release has surprised me. Actually, I'm very happy with the results.

I’m looking forward to them coming out with SnapMirror to AltaVault; that's going to be awesome. Right now, I have to use a third-party product to do backups from my FAS systems over to the AltaVault. Then, it goes over to Amazon S3. With the SnapMirror, innovation I can go directly from my NetApp straight to it. I no longer have to have a third-party product to do it. That's coming up, I believe, at the end of the year.

Their platforms are always rock solid.

You can keep adding shelves and it works.

I haven't had to use tech support. The product's been that good.

We knew needed this type solution based on a lot of research. We needed to provide an experience similar to the desktops. That really pushed us towards the flash array.

I did not previously use a different solution; we were just using regular desktops. We did not have an environment to support at that time.

Initial setup was very easy; it took maybe 30 minutes to do.

The choice was really simple: either going with a hybrid FAS or an all-flash FAS. We did a quick bake-off and the all-flash won hands down.

We did not consider any other vendors.

The most important criteria for me when considering vendors to work with has to be their interoperability between the platforms. NetApp has clearly done that.

Look at the full product range that NetApp has to offer. They have something for everybody. Their portfolio is so wide. If you're a DevOp shop, look at SolidFire. There are products for the Edge consumer, ROBO, and cloud. All of them talk together with the data fabric.

We are using it for storage.

Before, retrieving data or searching for something on the application would take some time. But since we migrated to NetApp, retrieving of the data happens quickly. It's fast.

In addition, we can easily manage the volumes on the NetApp application. We are getting very good, high performance and it has simplified our data management jobs, such as creating volumes. If our hard drive fails, we can reinitialize the process, and do many other things. It's very helpful.

NetApp has helped to reduce support issues due to performance or troubleshooting as we do not have such issues. We have not faced any performance issues since installing this device.

In addition, the ONTAP data management software has simplified our operations. We use it for high-availability of our file system. If any hard drive goes down, it will automatically be recovered.

We use NetApp AFF to support cloud integration and SAP Oracle. It has made the Oracle WebLogic site very fast and we can deploy the machines very easily. We can assign storage to the server visually, and use it to manage the storage.

The speed of data retrieval is the most valuable feature. We mostly use it for our SAP database and we are getting good IO from the hard drive.

Also, NetApp AFF helps simplify data management with unified data services across SAN and NAS environments.

I have been using the NetApp AFF A400 system for the last three months.

We have had no issues with its stability. It has been up 100 percent of the time since we installed it.

We can increase the storage if needed.

Currently, 60 percent of our storage is in NetApp. Another 20 percent is in HPE, and we use Synology storage for the NAS.

Their support is very good. Whenever I have contacted them, whoever has dealt with me has been good.

But the cost of support is quite high.

Positive

Our HPE system was old so we switched to a new one.

The deployment was not complex, but it was done by our vendor team. Still, it was easy. It was not a big deal.

Our experience with our vendor team was good. They are quite a good technical team with good knowledge.

We only installed it three months ago so it's too soon to talk about ROI.

There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost. The cost is very high compared to other devices. The HPE storage we used before was less expensive. NetApp is also more expensive than Dell EMC.

We evaluated Dell EMC and HPE storage.

The NetApp interface was very easy, as was managing things. Our experience with HPE, which we used before, was that it was quite a complex system to manage when it comes to the storage and volumes.

A centralized storage solution for Telecom organizations. Where NetApp FAS 6200 was connected to HP-UX, AIX, Linux, VMware, and Windows, this storage is used by the OLTP solution (database and application) as well as a data warehouse application.  

1. Operational load to system administrators has been reduced by utilizing the user-friendly storage.
2. Earlier the Bill Run process (monthly bill processing for post paid telecommunication subscriber) was taking two to two and a half days in each cycle, while storage was a old model XP from HPE. After migrating to NetApp, it is has come to only six hours.
3. The business copy solution has become faster using SnapMirror.
4. Assured by RAID-DP, the organization started hosting their OS in NetApp rather than using local HDD of server. It improved the system performance, especially in the area of swapping/paging. Also, SAN boot ensured a higher level of redundancy in the OS. 

1. The Snap: including the Snapshot and SnapMirror. They are good for taking a copy of production, which can be used for reporting, contingency, backup, etc.
2. Scripting: NetApp is actually more ONTAP. It has a very good command-line interface, which is user-friendly to system administrators when implementing automation using scripting. 

The graphical interface is still heavy and slow. Needs more improvement in this area.

Yes. It was a bug in an older version related with NVRAM. However, they have fixed it in both the FW and ONTAP levels.

No issues.

The technical support team is really cooperative. I have experienced slow responses several times, if the ticket has only been opened in portal. On the other hand, a single phone call to them improved the case support tremendously.

Also, if the AutoSupport is well configured, then you need not to do a monitoring. You will get call and mail when any issue is completed. 

Earlier used EVA, MSA and XP from HPE. In order to enhance our capacity, we proceeded to switch to NetApp. Interestingly, after proceeding to NetApp, we discovered more features, which we had not even thought about.

Setup was simple and easy.

Implemented by vendor (local partner and OEM engineer). They are really experienced.

So far, I understand the cost is less than many other storages of same/similar performance benchmark. If you go for Replication, Vault, and NAS, please ensure that the license has been ordered at the very beginning. However, licenses can been added or modified without rebooting the system at any time.   

We considered the product from EMC.

This can be used as a storage (SAN/NAS) as well as a SAN's volume controller

It is the flexibility of configuration. It is optimized for flash, so we do not have to manage the configuration of what optimizes flash, but we do have the flexibility to configure what optimizes our environment.

It has improved our applications' overall performance, and it has simplified our management of it.

We use it for all of our VMware infrastructure as well as for our X-ray data storage, for the short-term storage. We use both block and file storage.

Now, we can manage failed disks in our SAN before we replace them or manage how quickly they are replaced. All these kind of decisions, we can make. This flexibility is critical to having a comfort level with our environment.

Being able to move SVMs from one cluster to another.

We have had two issues:

1. There was a server and one of the heads rebooted because there was a system failure. We were unaffected, because the system stayed up and running. So, that was awesome.
2. We had an issue, which was a self inflicted outage. Unfortunately, that one actually took our entire environment down. This was our own fault.

Overall, the stability has been pretty amazing.

Scalability is excellent. There has never been a question as to whether it could scale out. It has been more a question of, "Do we have the finances to be able to do it?"

They have always been good about being responsive. I love the auto support. The people that we get on the phone are usually pretty knowledgeable, and if they are not and they don't know what to do, then they hand it off to somebody who does.

We also have Pure Storage.

It was pretty straightforward.

We did have a rep on site as well that helped us with the installation. We have used it as part of a cluster to connect with other methods.

NetApp does a good job of being able to provide a lot of options for its customers and supporting those options with information. Even before AFF, we always used NetApp for mission critical stuff.

It offers everything we need.

If you are considering this solution, ensure you do the research and know what you are actually getting. Also, make sure you know what your needs are before you start doing that research.

The most valuable feature is the support. If we have any issues, we can call into NetApp and their support is really good.

Speed and reliability of the data's access is the main reason why we went with All Flash. We mainly use All Flash for file storage.

With the new all solid state, it has really good performance.

We have had NetApp for many years. It's been reliable. If we have a disk go bad, they send it out with all the auto support features. We're hands off and all that stuff is being done behind the scenes. That's really valuable.

The primary use case is to put all of our data on NetApp, all of our primary data anyhow. Our SQL databases are Oracle databases. We even have all of our SIF shares on there right now just because we don't have that much. We're probably looking at 120 terabytes of data. We don't have that much, so we are able to put everything on All-Flash.

It would be nice to have better integration between SRM and VMware, as I've had some issues with that. Though this may just be our particular system and may not be a global issue.

Also, maybe include additional instructions on how to set it up properly.

We have been a NetApp customer for many years, so we had all SATA/SAS drives before. Just last year, we got the All Flash FAS system. Every year, it gets better.

We have been with NetApp for many years and haven't had any issues. If we do, NetApp is there to support us.

It's really good.

We had a vendor come in and they set us up.

Obviously depending on the price point, NetApp is obviously a little more expensive than your generic Dell SAN solution or whatever.

It's reliable. The speed is good. We've tried to push the thing to the max and it's almost impossible. The CPU of our host gets limited before the storage gets limited, therefore backup solutions for it is easy.

Depending on what your needs are, obviously NetApp would be the way to go.

The valuable features of All Flash FAS, as well as the ONTAP, are the ability to have the storage efficiency of compaction, compression and in-line dedupe; being able to maximize the original investment for additional components to our Epic environment; also being able to SnapMirror and FlexClone to refresh our Epic instances in a streamlined manner that prevents us from having to do a lot of file copy.

We have consolidated on to UCS and Nexus on NetApp. The FlexPod model has made it very easy for our support staff. We don't have to support a large number of other types of vendors and such. Support from the two partners, including VMware, makes it easier for us to be able to manage it and get to the root cause of problems that we have encountered.

The way that we're using All Flash and FlexPod with All Flash is for an Epic environment. Because Epic dictates how they want things done, all the features that we're getting from ONTAP, for all the things that I’ve mentioned, really meet our needs.

One of the areas in which we are going to be looking at All Flash is for our MetroCluster environment. There is one feature that I would really want at this point: They are only talking about an eight-node MetroCluster for NAS, so I would want that also for SAN. We're very interested in moving towards All Flash for that over the next couple of years and we would definitely want to make sure that we can scale the MetroCluster beyond just four nodes; two nodes per site.

We've been up and running for over a year in production with Epic and we've had zero down time. We have been able to upgrade without impact to the application.

It's very scalable. The cluster will go up to eight nodes currently, and more. We can easily scale it, as well as being able to replicate it to our other data center.

We looked at VCE or the EMC equivalent. That was really the main consideration. HP was also considered, for 3PAR. Epic's recommendations for storage played a key role in the decision. Their comfortability with ONTAP and their flash. At the time, they were not very comfortable with the XtremeIO that was being offered up, what has happened with that product and the instability with that product. We're very glad that we did go with NetApp.

There were other factors too. Cost seemed to be lower with NetApp, but in the grand scheme of things the hardware component was a much smaller amount in the budget when you look at the entire cost of implementing Epic. Definitely cost plays into it. The elegance of the solution is another big key. The manpower required to administrate VCE and to patch it really requires someone to hand hold the entire upgrade process, whereas with NetApp it's a lot more flexible, it's intuitive and doesn't quite require that same level of administrative work.

I don’t recommend looking at any one specific vendor, but one of my biggest concerns is having a lot of different components that are brought together. I like having things simple, lowering the number of interdependencies for the storage platform; whatever makes that less likely and less prone to have failure. The other vendors out there that we have looked at have always been bringing different solutions together and having it be a construct of many parts. That played a big role; the most important thing for this hardware to do was to stay up and running, and required the least amount of manpower that we would have to hire and administrate. Ultimately, that's why we chose NetApp. It's an elegant solution.

The GUI that does the daily maintenance and system manager with SnapMirror and deduplication are very useful for us.

We used the system manager for developed distribution.

Also, the latencies are extremely low, below 0.5 milliseconds.

I'd say we're using only about one fifth of the formal capabilities of the systems. We're still running Oracle DW and 50% of the system is consumed, but this is not causing any issues during daily business.

We're also able to move volumes across aggregates.

We've used it for about three months for Oracle EW and VMware. We have it with 50TB flash and an SSD shell.

We've had no problems with deployment.

It’s very, very stable, no issues at all. The primary system is flash, which is very responsive, with latency very low, below 1.5ms. We are early adopters of it.

The scalability is excellent. We still can grow a lot into it and add more databases.

The level of technical support depends on the ticket. It’s generally good, and sometimes excellent. Some cases are not as completed as I would like them to be. On average, it’s 7 out of 10.

Previously, we used EMC.

Deployment was really very easy because we were somehow experienced with moving the system into other data centers. We went into a similar exercise about the end of last year where we moved into different areas of the data centers and have been running two data centers. We used Data Guard for Oracle workloads so the downtime was very low because we simply had to switch over during migration. The skill set was already there in the company. We almost did not need any system administrator. They provided the amounts for running NFS.

We got a partner to do the setup. Their knowledge was there and we had no issues.

It's working as expected, but we didn't calculate an ROI.

We did not, and when I joined, I proposed using NetApp and this was accepted.

I would absolutely encourage everybody to implement such a system because it's really, really performing so good and latencies are just excellent. We're on the SSDs which have been productive for three months.