NetApp ONTAP Reviews

We are a storage provider for a government entity. We serve data to profilers and other government entities.

ONTAP allows us to scale and grow as needed and also be flexible in the way we operate.

The most valuable features are:

• It's scalable.
• It's easy to failover and failback.
• There's no downtime.

They should make the storage arrays more easily tied to your accounts.

It's very stable, and definitely become more stable over time. When Clustered Data ONTAP first came out, there were quite a few bugs. However, with the latest releases, we have been pretty happy.

Scalability is good. We're happy with it.

It should be easier to put in tech support cases. For example, sometimes you have to call in for a bad disk. You have to stay on the phone for 20 minutes to speak to a person just to get a new disk. They should streamline the online support and chat. 

Most people wouldn't have this problem, but we have multiple site numbers we have to deal with. A lot of times it's just easier to go through the 20-minute conversation than trying to find for them the specific storage problem.

Over time, systems age and the amount of FAS that you could fit into a rack three years ago was a lot different than what you can now. We needed to find something flexible which allows us to customize solutions as we go.

NetApp is typically more complex than normal storage systems. I like it though. There's a lot more granularity and you can configure it the way you want it. 

We used Professional Services, and we do it on our own as well. So far, our experience with Professional Services has been great. We're still in the process. They give us guidance. We have our own way that we like to deploy, but it's nice to have their input and information. Just having them there to be able to bounce an idea off of is helpful.

We have seen ROI as we can fit a lot more storage in one rack.

We use multiple different vendors for different scenarios.

I'm pretty happy with ONTAP.

We are using the NetApp solution to host our tier-two storage workloads. We use it for virtualization and as a database for applications such as Microsoft Exchange, SQL, and Oracle.

With the NetApp Data ONTAP Cluster, we get some features that are particularly helpful. For example, we can always add to and remove nodes from the cluster. The ability to move volumes online from the storage side, from one aggregate to another aggregate, or from one node to another node, keeps up the performance which helps us a lot.

Especially with the all-flash arrays, we would like to see better storage efficiency and deduplication. In terms of manageability, it would be great if NetApp would add more native reporting tools into the dashboard so that we don't need to use the third-party tool for analyzing our environments or to generate any reports. This would be especially helpful for companies that need to generate some chargeback for the customers.

Vendors in the market are trying to simplify their technologies. They're working to make anything from the hardware and installation to the management of the array, simpler. And I think it would be great if NetApp worked to make the whole process simpler to help customers achieve their goals easier and faster. For example, NetApp could work to simplify tech refresh or migration. Some more reporting tool would be great as well.

It's been stable. We've been using NetApp for a long time and we've never really had any major issue with it.

Scalability is good. The older Data ONTAP 7-Mode scalibility was a bit challenging. Clustered ONTAP is scaled-up technology since you can always add the node to the cluster. 

We have been NetApp customers for a long time. For the most part, we're receiving good support. Sometimes there are situations in which we need help from our NetApp rep, SE, or someone who knows how to escalate the cases for faster support. But our overall experience with their support is good.

We always do our due diligence, whether it's a tech refresh or just moving on with another new project. We compare different technologies based on our requirements. Often when we have a chance, we also perform a PoC. We bring that technology into our data center and then we perform our tests on it. We have scorecards and then we go through every aspect based on our requirements, our customers, and project needs. Then we decide if it makes sense to move on with a new technology or product.

We used NetApp themselves as well as a company called Red8.

Instead of just considering the brand name, whether it's NetApp or any other vendor, my advice is always for a company to define their requirements. Once the requirements are identified, set the expectations and then consider NetApp as a possible solution because we have worked with it and have had a positive experience. If the data is consistent, my advice would be to move on with NetApp.