Chief Administrative Officer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
2024-03-01T15:49:00Z
Mar 1, 2024
NetApp StorageGRID, like AWS S3, adheres to standards for decoupling data from metadata. However, the product faces challenges in this area, particularly concerning the storage of metadata. Unlike some other solutions, StorageGRID stores all metadata in the first storage node, and expanding metadata capacity necessitates adding more storage nodes. This design choice, using Cassandra database for metadata storage, can lead to significant costs as organizations may need to add more storage nodes solely to accommodate metadata requirements, even if additional storage capacity isn't needed. The challenge lies in the taxing aspect of managing both small and large objects efficiently. On average, the metadata space for objects ranges from 1.3 to 2 KB, regardless of object size. While this variability is common across platforms, it poses specific challenges within StorageGRID. Managing small object transactional records stored as objects creates pain points within storage groups. One key improvement I'd like to see in StorageGRID is enhanced visibility for management purposes. For instance, tracking delete markers, which is a standard mechanism, becomes challenging when bucket versioning is enabled. Currently, there's a lack of visibility in this area, unlike what is offered by AWS. However, I'm aware that product enhancements are underway to address this limitation. While StorageGRID's documentation is comprehensive in some aspects, it could be stronger in providing details on certain events and metrics.
The only thing missing is flexibility in configuration to cater to specific customer requirements. Another area of improvement is marketing. NetApp's marketing of StorageGRID isn't optimal. They should present it more effectively, especially in regions like Pakistan. Here, I haven't seen any marketing campaigns from NetApp for StorageGRID or the Solid State Platform (SSP). While StorageGRID is a globally recognized product, I haven't seen any marketing efforts from NetApp in Pakistan. Even competitors are promoting object storage solutions here, but NetApp seems less efficient in selling StorageGRID. There might be one or two customers, but even as a NetApp partner, I'm not aware of any major sales. I've been trained on StorageGRID, and it is a good product. I'm unsure why it hasn't gained traction in Pakistan compared to other countries. So, I just recommend improving the marketing campaigns in Pakistan. I'm pretty confident that if we have one example of successful StorageGRID implementation in Pakistan, other customers will follow suit.
Marketing is a very weak area of NetApp in Pakistan. They are not investing in the Pakistan market. Improvements need to be made in the customer support area.
Senior IT-Ingenieur at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
2022-01-23T17:06:16Z
Jan 23, 2022
The price is something that NetApp could improve, as with most companies. NetApp is known for not being the cheapest storage option, which is also valid for StorageGRID. There are other storage options on the market which we are aware of and have done proofs of concept for, but you cannot really compare the list prices because, as a big user of NetApp storages, we have totally different prices than some list prices. Still, the price information we got for other options are almost always less expensive than StorageGRID.
We had issues in a few areas because we couldn't do it from GUI. There is a separate tool for accessing the object and removing it and this created quite a challenge while exiting the data on StorageGRID and removing it. Aside from that it's quite a manageable solution.
I would like to see them integrate more with the monitoring platforms. It is a bit difficult to get automated monitoring of the system. The processes around installation and upgrade need improvement.
Enterprise Storage Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
2018-10-24T08:08:00Z
Oct 24, 2018
The only real issue that we have run into is, when we are cloning, we cannot do a thin provision clone, it has to be a full clone. If we could have this added in the future, it would save us a little bit of space. Other than that, everything has been as advertised.
Lead Infrastructure Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Real User
2018-10-23T08:13:00Z
Oct 23, 2018
The GUI should work a bit better. ONTAP is great. They should take the lead of ONTAP and apply that to StorageGRID. There was a small amount of confusion when working with StorageGRID and Active Directory for access. We had to do things three to four times resulting in our engineer troubleshooting a couple of things. The location of the menu, along with what is inside the menu: configurations, settings, etc., is not straightforward to users. Most users are Windows-based. So, when make logical changes to the menu which are not similar to Windows, users and administrators get confused. The redundancy and reliability are great, but I also see room for improvement there. I would like to see more efficiency in the storage and dedupe/compression solutions.
Store and manage unstructured data at scale using NetApp StorageGRID for secure, durable object storage. Place content in the right location, at the right time, and on the right storage tier, optimizing workflows and reducing overall costs for globally distributed rich media.
The product's continual innovation and enhancement in integration capabilities with other NetApp solutions could be better.
Data retrieval speed could be better.
NetApp StorageGRID, like AWS S3, adheres to standards for decoupling data from metadata. However, the product faces challenges in this area, particularly concerning the storage of metadata. Unlike some other solutions, StorageGRID stores all metadata in the first storage node, and expanding metadata capacity necessitates adding more storage nodes. This design choice, using Cassandra database for metadata storage, can lead to significant costs as organizations may need to add more storage nodes solely to accommodate metadata requirements, even if additional storage capacity isn't needed. The challenge lies in the taxing aspect of managing both small and large objects efficiently. On average, the metadata space for objects ranges from 1.3 to 2 KB, regardless of object size. While this variability is common across platforms, it poses specific challenges within StorageGRID. Managing small object transactional records stored as objects creates pain points within storage groups. One key improvement I'd like to see in StorageGRID is enhanced visibility for management purposes. For instance, tracking delete markers, which is a standard mechanism, becomes challenging when bucket versioning is enabled. Currently, there's a lack of visibility in this area, unlike what is offered by AWS. However, I'm aware that product enhancements are underway to address this limitation. While StorageGRID's documentation is comprehensive in some aspects, it could be stronger in providing details on certain events and metrics.
The only thing missing is flexibility in configuration to cater to specific customer requirements. Another area of improvement is marketing. NetApp's marketing of StorageGRID isn't optimal. They should present it more effectively, especially in regions like Pakistan. Here, I haven't seen any marketing campaigns from NetApp for StorageGRID or the Solid State Platform (SSP). While StorageGRID is a globally recognized product, I haven't seen any marketing efforts from NetApp in Pakistan. Even competitors are promoting object storage solutions here, but NetApp seems less efficient in selling StorageGRID. There might be one or two customers, but even as a NetApp partner, I'm not aware of any major sales. I've been trained on StorageGRID, and it is a good product. I'm unsure why it hasn't gained traction in Pakistan compared to other countries. So, I just recommend improving the marketing campaigns in Pakistan. I'm pretty confident that if we have one example of successful StorageGRID implementation in Pakistan, other customers will follow suit.
The integration with more apps has room for improvement. The matrix with the hardware during the sizing has room for improvement.
Marketing is a very weak area of NetApp in Pakistan. They are not investing in the Pakistan market. Improvements need to be made in the customer support area.
Beyond the initial setup, this product is a little bit difficult to configure. This is something that could be easier to do.
The price is something that NetApp could improve, as with most companies. NetApp is known for not being the cheapest storage option, which is also valid for StorageGRID. There are other storage options on the market which we are aware of and have done proofs of concept for, but you cannot really compare the list prices because, as a big user of NetApp storages, we have totally different prices than some list prices. Still, the price information we got for other options are almost always less expensive than StorageGRID.
We had issues in a few areas because we couldn't do it from GUI. There is a separate tool for accessing the object and removing it and this created quite a challenge while exiting the data on StorageGRID and removing it. Aside from that it's quite a manageable solution.
We want to move towards Azure in the cloud. Right now, the system is all physical.
I would like to see them integrate more with the monitoring platforms. It is a bit difficult to get automated monitoring of the system. The processes around installation and upgrade need improvement.
The only real issue that we have run into is, when we are cloning, we cannot do a thin provision clone, it has to be a full clone. If we could have this added in the future, it would save us a little bit of space. Other than that, everything has been as advertised.
The GUI should work a bit better. ONTAP is great. They should take the lead of ONTAP and apply that to StorageGRID. There was a small amount of confusion when working with StorageGRID and Active Directory for access. We had to do things three to four times resulting in our engineer troubleshooting a couple of things. The location of the menu, along with what is inside the menu: configurations, settings, etc., is not straightforward to users. Most users are Windows-based. So, when make logical changes to the menu which are not similar to Windows, users and administrators get confused. The redundancy and reliability are great, but I also see room for improvement there. I would like to see more efficiency in the storage and dedupe/compression solutions.