The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's support to be top-notch because it is an area that has changed a lot in the product. NetApp's support has changed mainly because of the franchise that offers support on behalf of NetApp. NetApp needs to ensure that the agents who work in the franchise companies need to be qualified enough to offer support across Africa. The only challenge with NetApp products is how the support people are handling the support services now.
The only major drawback is the replication between EF-Series units. Both the EF-series and NetApp are marketing this feature, but it is not functional yet. However, I believe NetApp is actively working on improving this feature and implementing the replication feature between storage systems.
I've observed an issue when creating a new storage solution with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. If we turn off the cache on the controller, we encounter packet flooding. It's a technical issue that I believe could be addressed for better functionality, although it doesn't seem critical.
A disadvantage of NetApp stems from the fact that it does not have a product, like Isilon, that offers object-oriented storage. NetApp needs to focus on making its product more compatible with other tools and curb the extra charges they attach to their standard licenses.
Information Technology Manager at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
2022-01-05T07:23:05Z
Jan 5, 2022
We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily.
Learn what your peers think about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
The solution should really build out a more hyper-converged product. In Indonesia, there are many competitors for hyper-converged products, such as Nutanix and VxRail from Dell. Those products in particular are so strong. They need to improve the NetApp for hyper-converged solutions. Whereas, NetApp for storage is still pretty strong in Indonesia. The dashboard could be simplified. There are many, many features on NetApp, and they could be combined onto one centralized dashboard for ease of use and access.
System Administrator at a government with 201-500 employees
Real User
2021-03-18T16:14:18Z
Mar 18, 2021
Its pricing should be better. Its price is competitive, but they need to improve the pricing. They have different licensing models, which they need to improve. My expectation was cloud integration, which they have, but it is a different license. Therefore, people cannot enjoy it. If I want to use it, I need to pay extra. There is a cost involved for everything, but it should reach everyone. It is similar to having a Rolls-Royce, but you need to pay extra for the key. If you want the key, you need to pay.
Director at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
2020-10-04T06:40:32Z
Oct 4, 2020
All-Flash is made by Solid State Disk, it's not like HDD or spinning disk. The price is important, and we would like to have it less expensive. Better integration with other brands is important so we would like to see it easier to integrate.
There is a lot of room for improvement. What I don't like is that they do not create barriers in the areas. The data management is based on the software and they do not use segmentation on the storage. That is the main problem - there is no segmentation. You cannot segment the data on the database. You put the data there but you don't know where the data goes on each disk. The information will be there but there is no segmentation. There needs to be improvement in data segmentation. In future releases, I'd like to see federation and segmentation. Those are the big problems with NetApp at the moment. Compared to HP, Dell and HPE 3PAR, they cannot do the federation which is very important. We have to do remote replication and work with two or more storage sites in different locations. If I have a site and I have a second or third site - they require working federation and NetApp cannot do this right now.
For us, in our country, the solution is a bit expensive. They should try to work on a better pricing model for our market. NetApp could improve the speed of the rebuilding rate.
We cannot share data in what is described as a trunk port, which is a disadvantage. Technical support is an area that needs improvement. In the next release, I would like to have staged access. The administrator would be able to connect to all of the storage and see real-time performance and issues, not only in the web interface. If the administrator is working on the console they should have access to all interfaced controllers.
We need a center related to NetApp in Egypt so that we can deal with them directly. If the pricing of equipment were more discounted in Egypt then it would be better. The implementation could be faster.
The pricing could be cheaper and it should have documentation in more languages, specifically, Russian. They should develop faster building for the next release.
IT Storage Specialist - Solutions Architect at Sorint.Lab
Real User
2019-07-10T12:01:00Z
Jul 10, 2019
The product might be improved with additional features for encryption. I think they do not do enough with encryption and that would make it more flexible and useful. I would also like to features that better support the product implementation with cloud solutions. If the problem we need to resolve is with cloud solutions, the product is not so easy compared to other products for easily integrating the cloud data. A cloud solution is important to implement.
One thing that may need to improve is the software monitoring as it is based on a work station that is serviced to give support to the management. The manager may not be as fast on board the controller, so it needs something else to make it easier to manage. Managing the storage is, therefore, the only single point of failure.
The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.
The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's support to be top-notch because it is an area that has changed a lot in the product. NetApp's support has changed mainly because of the franchise that offers support on behalf of NetApp. NetApp needs to ensure that the agents who work in the franchise companies need to be qualified enough to offer support across Africa. The only challenge with NetApp products is how the support people are handling the support services now.
The only major drawback is the replication between EF-Series units. Both the EF-series and NetApp are marketing this feature, but it is not functional yet. However, I believe NetApp is actively working on improving this feature and implementing the replication feature between storage systems.
I've observed an issue when creating a new storage solution with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. If we turn off the cache on the controller, we encounter packet flooding. It's a technical issue that I believe could be addressed for better functionality, although it doesn't seem critical.
The initial setup phase of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is not straightforward and needs improvement.
A disadvantage of NetApp stems from the fact that it does not have a product, like Isilon, that offers object-oriented storage. NetApp needs to focus on making its product more compatible with other tools and curb the extra charges they attach to their standard licenses.
We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily.
The solution should really build out a more hyper-converged product. In Indonesia, there are many competitors for hyper-converged products, such as Nutanix and VxRail from Dell. Those products in particular are so strong. They need to improve the NetApp for hyper-converged solutions. Whereas, NetApp for storage is still pretty strong in Indonesia. The dashboard could be simplified. There are many, many features on NetApp, and they could be combined onto one centralized dashboard for ease of use and access.
Its pricing should be better. Its price is competitive, but they need to improve the pricing. They have different licensing models, which they need to improve. My expectation was cloud integration, which they have, but it is a different license. Therefore, people cannot enjoy it. If I want to use it, I need to pay extra. There is a cost involved for everything, but it should reach everyone. It is similar to having a Rolls-Royce, but you need to pay extra for the key. If you want the key, you need to pay.
All-Flash is made by Solid State Disk, it's not like HDD or spinning disk. The price is important, and we would like to have it less expensive. Better integration with other brands is important so we would like to see it easier to integrate.
I would like to have the ability to replicate data between All Flash and other NetApp storage systems. Better monitoring should be implemented.
The price of the All Flash solution is very high.
There is a lot of room for improvement. What I don't like is that they do not create barriers in the areas. The data management is based on the software and they do not use segmentation on the storage. That is the main problem - there is no segmentation. You cannot segment the data on the database. You put the data there but you don't know where the data goes on each disk. The information will be there but there is no segmentation. There needs to be improvement in data segmentation. In future releases, I'd like to see federation and segmentation. Those are the big problems with NetApp at the moment. Compared to HP, Dell and HPE 3PAR, they cannot do the federation which is very important. We have to do remote replication and work with two or more storage sites in different locations. If I have a site and I have a second or third site - they require working federation and NetApp cannot do this right now.
For us, in our country, the solution is a bit expensive. They should try to work on a better pricing model for our market. NetApp could improve the speed of the rebuilding rate.
We cannot share data in what is described as a trunk port, which is a disadvantage. Technical support is an area that needs improvement. In the next release, I would like to have staged access. The administrator would be able to connect to all of the storage and see real-time performance and issues, not only in the web interface. If the administrator is working on the console they should have access to all interfaced controllers.
We need a center related to NetApp in Egypt so that we can deal with them directly. If the pricing of equipment were more discounted in Egypt then it would be better. The implementation could be faster.
The pricing could be cheaper and it should have documentation in more languages, specifically, Russian. They should develop faster building for the next release.
The product might be improved with additional features for encryption. I think they do not do enough with encryption and that would make it more flexible and useful. I would also like to features that better support the product implementation with cloud solutions. If the problem we need to resolve is with cloud solutions, the product is not so easy compared to other products for easily integrating the cloud data. A cloud solution is important to implement.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any improvements other than perhaps better integration with some of our Cisco products.
One thing that may need to improve is the software monitoring as it is based on a work station that is serviced to give support to the management. The manager may not be as fast on board the controller, so it needs something else to make it easier to manage. Managing the storage is, therefore, the only single point of failure.