NetApp ONTAP Reviews

• SnapVaulting
• SnapMirroring
• Backing up

We are saving more disk space which saves us more money.

Aggregate data, compaction, and deduplication for ONTAP are its most valuable features, so we can save space.

It is stable.

We haven't had any issues with the technical support. When we've used the technical support, they have been helpful.

Previously, we have 7-Mode technology. Now, we have cDOT. We changed because now we can move volumes without any interruptions.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We deployed the solution ourselves.

They could reduce the price.

We looked at NetApp and Dell EMC. We chose NetApp because it was cheaper, more scalable and ordered.

It is a robust product. If you buy it, you will have no issues.

We use it as a file-based storage. We store a lot of unstructured and application data. Mostly data which needs to be shared across multiple mount points.

It gives us a location to store data across multiple mount points. It gives us functionality to provide Snapshots and backup outside of traditional backup solutions.

• It is easy to use. 
• It has been stable. 
• We haven't had any problems with it. 
• Getting support from our VAR and the vendor has been good.

The stability is great.

Being able to scale out at cost-effective capabilities doesn't compare to some of our other storage solutions, but it is coming along. NetApp ONTAP could improve its scalability.

The technical support is good.

We did not have another solution previously. 

We had specific use cases for file-based storage, and that's what drove us to NetApp.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We used Datalink for the integration. They've been good.

Recently, we have seen ROI.

NetApp and Dell EMC were on our shortlist. We mostly chose NetApp because of its functionality. 

• Do a proof of concept (PoC).
• Understanding the high availability of the storage solutions, especially if you have rack resiliency requirements. 
• Understand how the solution is designed and configured.
• Understand what your performance requirements are.

One of the classic use cases is the high availability for both block and file. However, many different technologies within NetApp are of interest to our customers.

NetApp has a variety of different features and technologies on offer. 

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. 

It's a stable product.

The solution can scale well. 

The integration with other products, both security and third-party products such as Lenovo and others doing OEM solutions, that would be ideal. We'd like to have these with ONTAP on top. We'd like integrations with different types of backup solutions and so on. 

The price could be lower. 

We have a good sense of feature sets in the pipeline for the product and therefore are largely satisfied with both its capabilities and the roadmap. 

I've been using the solution for five years or so.

The stability is great. I'd rate it ten out of ten. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The product scales very well. I'd rate it nine or ten out of ten. It expands easily. 

The solution works well for large or mid-size companies. 

Within our company, none of us is using NetApp storage as we are providing our customers with solutions.

From our portfolio, we're selling a lot of Dell EMC and NetApp. We're selling Huawei, and we're selling other storage space as well, such as some IBM. With that said, if you compare Dell EMC and NetApp, it's mostly based on the integration, technologies, and flexibility where we see NetApp being a better fit for many of our customers, yet not for all.

We have been working with NetApp a lot. Doing implementations is not a problem for us. 

95% of the time, clients can handle the initial setup. However, we primarily work with enterprise accounts, and those, even with a simple setup, can often lead to complex requirements.

The pricing is okay. I'd rate it three out of five in terms of affordability. It is not a cheap solution. However, it is quite stable and offers good value. 

We did evaluate this solution against other options. 

I'm actually a partner of Lenovo and NetApp. We're integrators. We set the solution up for our clients. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

Based on my 20 years within the IT industry, NetApp is the best system out there. It is just not the cheapest. That said, looking at what it can do with Lenovo and other vendors make it a good option. 

ONTAP is currently being used for data backups, migration of data, and volume management.

The most valuable feature is the ability restore and backup our virtualized servers on demand.

Its usability, scalability, and dependability are very good.

We are always looking for more security enhancements and ways to continue to provide security encryption, whether it's data in rest or security in transit. We would also like to have more enhanced encryption beyond the regular TLS and 256-bit. 

The stability is great.

The scalability is good. We were able to deploy multiple infrastructures underneath the cloud environment by utilizing ONTAP. It scales well with our environment.

We were previously using Dell EMC for our backup solution. After we created a virtualized environment and used the ONTAP appliance, we were able to provide a seamless process for backups and recoveries.

We chose this solution primarily because our customers were gearing towards NetApp.

The initial setup was straightforward. We started off with a small environment, which was used as a test environment initially. Therefore, we were able to deploy it into a much larger environment once we understood what we were doing.

We used an integrator for the deployment who was good. We used a provider through ClearChart, who partnered up with NetApp, and provided engineers who assisted with the integration of ONTAP. 

Ultimately, we chose NetApp because we were able to identify its strengths over other competitors.

Stay open to different technologies, as it's an emerging market. I do recommend the ONTAP product. I often offer colleagues a chance to come in and utilize our test environment to explore the different options around.

The product is good and sound. Our customers have been extremely satisfied with how we are using the product.

We use it for the security business. We use it mostly for capacity-oriented purposes, rather than performance-oriented.

It's a major product for us. We are dealing with security stuff so the encryption features in NetApp really help, as well as the deduplication. We are able to minimize the storage hardware. The compression and deduplication have helped reduce our overall cost of storage.

The valuable features include replication, Snapmirror. That's really useful for us. Also, FlexGroup is useful as it is capacity-oriented, so we can keep extending the space.

I'm waiting for end-to-end NVMe.

It's been running for years and years and we haven't seen any issues.

Scalability is good. The NAS can expand to 24 nodes for the FAS series, and for SAN it can expand to 12 nodes.

We have had to use tech support and the response has been good.

We switched from our old solution because of the features. We went with NetApp because of the redundancy, availability, scalability, and cost.

The initial setup was easy. It took just a few commands.

We used a reseller. Our experience with them was good.

We did a PoC with a few other products.

ONTAP has been in use for over 25 years, that's one of the major advantages when compared to start-ups and other companies. It's also global, NetApp has support all over and, in case of an emergency, their response is good. When there is an issue, many people jump onto the call to try to resolve it.

NVMe over Fabrics is margin-technology at the moment, but the future will be NVMe. All storage, end-to-end, will be NVMe protocol. The speed of NVMe is good. The current existing technology is SCSI-based, one command per Cube, but with NVMe you can run 65,536 commands in each Cube, meaning 65,536 Cubes. That is really fast. In terms of NVMe over Fabrics with existing Fibre Channel infrastructure, if the hardware supports it, it should be good. As the protocol improves, there should be end-to-end support for the NVMe protocol.

We don't use this product for machine-learning, or AI, real-time analytics or other groundbreaking types of applications.

The primary use case is as an application file server.

It is able to restore back several points during the day if there is a production issue.

• Flexible consumption
• Being able to scale as we need to
• Data production
• SnapMirror

I would like to see Synchronize Snap mode in the next release.

Stability is good. We haven't had a severe outage in years.

Scalability is very good, especially how it has matured over the past few years in cluster mode. We can now add nodes without disruptions.

Technical support has generally improved, especially the tickets for Cloud IQ where you are able to go through and it intelligently tells you how it has changed over time. That's pretty nice.

Performance: We outgrew the box. Or, the support was ending. It was one of those two scenarios.

The initial setup was straightforward. It came in a box ready to go.

We used a reseller for the deployment, Applied Computer Solutions out of LA, who was very good. We've been using them since 1997.

The data compression and deduplication have kept us from buying more disks these past three years.

Try it out, get your hands on it, and see what it does.

Every year, I am impressed with the product. It has gotten better over the years with cluster mode, but it is not 100 percent perfect. There are certain technical limitations with being able to use it for SAN, but it's improving.

As an automotive company, we are able to run some applications on NetApp ONTAP.

The MFS report is the best feature for us.

I believe that the next release should be a bit cheaper.

I have been using this solution for about ten years.

NetApp is very stable, this is why we went with this product.

This is a scalable solution.

Support is very good. They are available 24/7 and respond within four hours.

We used EMC in the past. It was good at the time, but it was crashing a lot. This is why we switched to NetApp.

The initial setup is straightforward as it is done by NetApp themselves and it does not require any maintenance on our side.

ONTAP is expensive, but most storage systems are now-a-days and everything is included with the license - there are no additional fees.

This is a stable environment that is easy to manage and good to work with - eight out of ten.

We basically use NetApp Storage as mass storage within our offering. We also use it for backup storage, storage for emails, and sometimes for archiving. Mostly it is actually general-purpose file storage. 

The solution has very good Snapshot features. Everybody goes to NetApp for Snapshot. Their Snapshots are very good. We use it for local backups. We also have a DR set up. We use Snapshot or SnapMirror for the DR applications. We also use Snapshot for backup purposes as well. Snapshot is the one thing I would say is actually the most useful feature for us.

NetApp is very stable.

They have all the latest features. 

Their support is good. 

The performance of the hardware is good. 

We're actually looking at a software-defined version of NetApp. They already have a software-defined product called ONTAP Select. NetApp's ONTAP version for the cloud is called the Cloud Volumes ONTAP. We are looking for the Cloud Volumes ONTAP, an on-premises option. Right now, the only option we have is the cloud and that's only available with AWS and Google. We already had some discussions with NetApp about it. It usually takes two or three months and a lot of money on a software-defined solution. If we gain access to it, we can run it on a virtual machine and it will still give all the features without having to buy their hardware.

The pricing could be lower.

The setup can be a bit complex, depending on the environment.

We have been using the product for a long time. I would say we've used it in total for 10 or so years, however, in different offerings. The names have changed and the company also changed quite a bit.

I've been working with the solution for ten years, and I've rarely had any issues. I consider the product to be extremely stable. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's good.

The solution can scale very, very easily.

Technical support is good. I don't have any issues with them. Most of my interactions are very, very good except for maybe one or two cases over the course of ten or so years. Mostly I find it very useful. They are very responsive and knowledgeable. 

The setup up is a bit complex within our environment. We actually tweak it to our requirements. The integration for backup purposes, for example, we use NetBackup. However, then the solution that we have is a bit complex for backups, especially if we want to actually do a Snapshot version only. We actually take full backups every day. Our solution is actually a bit tweaked for our real requirement. I would say it is actually not very complex. That said, it is not very easy either. It is somewhere in between. There is some level of complexity in our solution.

To apply and maintain the product you need a team, definitely. To deploy it, it depends on how you set up your environment. In our environment, one person can deploy it because we have most of the tasks automated. For us, it is not very difficult to deploy. however, then you also need the dependency. For example, to build a network, you are required to connect the device to the network, and then to set up the backup. You need a team as it requires some integration with the network, with the backup, and whatnot. There are many, many things to do.

In our environment, we only need two people. That is due to the level of automation we have. To operate it, you also need a team. How big the team is depending on the service level. You may have to have people in shifts. In our team, we have many people. It's a global offering at this stage. So we have a presence everywhere. That requires a huge team. There are maybe 10 plus members supporting it around the clock.

The cost is quite high. They need to work on making it a bit more affordable. We buy the equipment as a one-time purchase and then also purchase five years of support. It's a CapEx model.

We are service providers. We are offering something called a virtual private cloud. Our offering mainly the virtual private cloud. It is a cloud offering by DXC.

The product is basically a multi-tenant cloud. The cloud is hosted on our premises. We have data centers across the globe. Around 24 data centers in different regions. It's a global offering. We automated it and we have it set up for provisioning or portal enabled. It is not as good as Amazon or AWS, however, it is still a lot of cloud.

You can request a portal, however, then you cannot scale to that scale that Amazon currently is. That said, there are some customization possibilities. It is slightly cheaper than the hyperscaler cloud and that is why most customers prefer it. They find it really useful and cheaper than a public cloud offering, and it still has the same performance level.

I would recommend the product. I don't see any reason why you would have to look for a different vendor. The one thing that they can improve is the cost. That's pretty high. That is the only concern. Otherwise, they are very, very good in all other areas. Their hardware, software, their support, etc., are all good.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. We've been very happy with the product overall.