NetApp SnapCenter Reviews

The major use case for NetApp SnapCenter is that our customer previously used Commvault. For huge VMs with sizes of five TB or 10 TB, taking the file level backup in Commvault took a long time, often two or three days to complete that job. The customer migrated to NetApp SnapCenter with the same workload, and now those jobs are getting completed immediately.

The positive impact from NetApp SnapCenter is significant. While Commvault took two to three days to complete jobs, especially with VM sizes above 8 TB or 10 TB, the same workload configured for NetApp SnapCenter completes in a few seconds. This process utilizes the basic NetApp feature called Snapshot, which takes a snapshot with specific schedules and creates a backup job. While Commvault works at the file level, NetApp SnapCenter works at the block level, which accounts for its speed.

NetApp SnapCenter has improved our organization by significantly reducing backup times and improving overall efficiency.

Role-based access control and multi-factor authentication are security features available in NetApp SnapCenter. The one-time password comes to our multi-factor authentication tool; we work with Cisco Duo, and that OTP is generated through that tool, which we use to access the device.

There are different options through which we can migrate workloads without downtime. The user interface is very easy to handle and not complicated.

There are multiple features that make NetApp SnapCenter valuable. In case of any job failure, we get an alert over email. For jobs replicating from site A to site B, we know how long it will take to complete that replication. All that information is available in the console, and there aren't any difficulties or objections that need to be improved.

We have not started much with the automation capability in NetApp SnapCenter. Regarding the integration aspect, I am not certain about its complexity, as this was built by the OEM NetApp team.

I have been working with NetApp SnapCenter for almost one and a half years.

NetApp SnapCenter is stable enough for our use cases. Even though we have used multiple products in the private cloud, with NetApp, we haven't found any glitches. When hardware or software issues arise, the team is able to fix them immediately.

NetApp SnapCenter operates on software licensing, though I am not certain about the scalability options.

The technical support from NetApp is excellent. On a scale of ten, I would rate it nine out of ten.

Positive

Commvault and NetApp are both different products. Commvault is purely for backup, while NetApp is purely on the storage front.

The installation of NetApp SnapCenter is initially quite difficult, and we have support from NetApp OEM. We require OEM support at least during the initial implementation.

Some potential challenges during implementation include that NetApp SnapCenter has to be integrated with multiple tools. We need to integrate with NetApp storage and VMware, where the workloads are running. Also, if we have database servers, we need to integrate with those specific databases as well. The integration requires the configuration and the creation of policies, and thus we require vendor support, OEM support, for the initial implementation.

The return on investment has been demonstrated through significantly reduced backup times and improved efficiency.

The product team handles the commercial aspects of pricing.

We evaluated several backup solutions before choosing NetApp SnapCenter.

We are still using the same products in the NetApp family. We have procured different products, but they remain in the same family.

We are using NetApp NVMe AFF A700 for one of our customers. The difference between the A800 and the A700 is that in terms of CPU, the A800 can handle more workload compared to the A700.

We predominantly work with NetApp storage, but we also coordinate with the backup team and other cloud teams for migration and other tasks. We work with NetApp SnapCenter, SnapMirror, and Commvault.

I would assess the centralized management aspect of NetApp SnapCenter through another product called BlueXP in NetApp. Through BlueXP, we can manage multiple storage arrays centrally. If you have multiple sites and devices, those can be handled through a single GUI.

All features are in place, and nothing needs to be added because everything needed is already available.

I rate NetApp SnapCenter a nine out of ten.

SnapCenter is a product for customers who want centralized management of their backup and recovery processes. Customers need application-aware backups, like Oracle Database and Microsoft SQL Server, or any application designed on the NetApp storage volume.

So, if a customer uses VMware, this tool or software is centralized and installed on a separate system, server, or virtual machine. It connects to the NetApp service system on one side and to the application on the other. This gives customers the ease of managing everything from a central command and control, instead of using multiple tools to do the same job.

SnapCenter is just a tool, which actually makes the entire features visualized for the customer, like the cloning feature. The cloning is basically a feature of NetApp, which can be managed or used by using SnapCenter. 

A cloning feature can also be used by CLI command instead of using SnapCenter, but obviously, the customer has ease of management, like all the others in UI solutions.

This is basically the best UI solution from NetApp. So the cloning feature is to clone a snapshot from another snapshot or a clone of a volume. It is used for testing and development purposes. A safe, efficient snapshot. It also saves storage space. Normally, you need separate spaces to create Unity and test environments. If the users use the cloning feature, they can save storage space and start using the particular feature. The customer uses it to save space instead of buying another capacity upgrade.

So, by using capacity upgrades, the customer can use the NetApp volume feature alone, which covers volumes and snapshots. It is a feature that gives the customer the best value for their purchase.

NetApp SnapCenter's integration with hybrid cloud environments:

When it comes to backup and recovery procedures, NetApp SnapCenter connects with other NetApp software and cloud backup tools. It integrates the SnapCenter, the on-premises system, and the cloud. It's good to have central control and authority that connects the devices or storage systems in your data center with your data on the cloud.

When you need to backup and restore from your data center to the cloud or vice versa, SnapCenter serves as a centralized tool. Additionally, you can use other tools, such as cloud backup software and NetApp Cloud Volume ONTAP. SnapCenter connects with Cloud Volume ONTAP instances available on major cloud service providers. This gives customers the benefit of a hybrid strategy, having local backup and a remote NetApp setup on the cloud.

For example, customers have a primary production site and a disaster recovery site on the cloud, benefiting from the services available on major cloud service providers like Azure. SnapCenter's capability allows customers to leverage these services efficiently.

NetApp SnapCenter's automation capabilities:

When we use a GUI tool, automation is a basic feature that centralized GUI or UI tools should have. Customers can schedule all workflows, snapshots, and backups. The restore process should not be automated, but the backup schedule can be easily automated.

For example, a customer may need daily, hourly, weekly, or monthly backups at certain dates and times. Automation is essential since people cannot work 24/7. Automation ensures that backup and recovery procedures run smoothly. SnapCenter and other live management backup recovery tools can schedule snapshots and maintain backups.

Additionally, the users can use the auto-delete function to save space by deleting old backups after a certain period. This scheduling is part of the backup strategy, including retention policies for how long backup sets should be available in the storage system. This is how SnapCenter's automation capabilities support a comprehensive backup and recovery strategy.

Ability to meet compliance and data governance requirements:

Compliance requirements often necessitate daily or monthly backups. To meet these requirements, you need to demonstrate to the governing authority that backups are performed and successfully completed. SnapCenter is a valuable tool that enables you to provide this evidence. It allows you to show the compliance authority that the customer is performing backups according to the compliance department's regulations. Therefore, this tool, or rather product, is very effective in helping customers meet these specific requirements.

It is basically centralized command control software. When the users visualize the workflow of the backup, the management and the customer storage administrator know the ins and outs of the backup and recovery. They can make the strategy for their backup and recovery and the certainty of their backups and restore.

Strategic planning:

Also, it is easy to make a strategy when you have visualized the inflow and outflow of the backup and recovery. With the CLI or native way, without any UI or management tool, you might not be able to create any strategy at all. This is especially important when you have multiple storage systems inside your data center or organization. You need a tool that connects and visualizes the workflow of the backup and recovery from all the storage systems and NetApp storage systems installed within the organization.

It is very important when you have multiple storage systems, and you need to manage your backup and recovery workflow.  

Ease of Management:

Unlike other storage vendors, NetApp has its own product called SnapCenter. Other vendors need to acquire third-party software or integrate with other software to manage storage systems. NetApp has its own solution, which is SnapCenter.

NetApp's SnapCenter gels well with their storage systems and products.

Ease of management is already there. It's a fine software with easy installation, management, and understanding. It's not a complicated software to understand.

There is always a chance for improvement. One thing that might be improved is the ease of management. It might be made a little less complicated.

NetApp SnapCenter is basically a software product offered by NetApp. The software comes with the NetApp box. We've been selling NetApp boxes since around 2010 or 2012, so we have a lot of experience selling NetApp products.

NetApp made the NetApp storage system, and they made the NetApp SnapCenter for their storage systems. So the compatibility is not in question, actually. And, it would impact stability. 

It's truly compatible and it's really good, built for NetApp. So I would rate it nine point nine.

This product is built for scale. You're able to handle multiple storage systems and multiple sites. So, it's at least a tool for large-scale or medium-scale organizations. I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten.  

If there's a small organization that needs application-aware backup, for example, if you need an application-aware backup, you need SnapCenter. For example, Oracle Database, SQL, or Microsoft Exchange Server. You need the backup and restore for these particular products, then you need SnapCenter to manage the application-aware backup. 

There is no native or CLI way to perform the application-aware backup because when you need application-aware backups, there are agents installed on the application side. These agents are SnapCenter agents. So you need SnapCenter for organizations that want application-aware backups or application-consistent backups.

Suitability for All Organizations:

If you have a requirement for application-aware backups, even if you are a smaller organization, you need SnapCenter. On the other hand, if you are a medium or large enterprise organization, it means you have a bigger setup with a lot of storage systems and branches. You can use the same SnapCenter product. So, it is suitable for every organization, from small to medium and medium to large, depending on the scale of the storage environment.

Customers are very happy. Based on the feedback we've received, the support has been good. 

Positive

I would rate my experience with the initial setup a nine out of ten, with one being difficult and ten being easy. 

It's really pretty much easy and straightforward. It's not complicated. But, the customer needs training.

Deployment time: It took just a few hours. That's a simple answer, but it all depends on the setup scale. It takes time to configure and deploy, especially if you have a lot of systems, storage systems, data centers, or need to connect to a cloud service provider. The whole deployment time depends on the scale. 

But regarding the installation, it's pretty much within hours. You need a system, and you need to deploy it over there.

If you have a license, you don't need to buy anything extra. If you have multiple storage systems and want to manage them with a central tool, you are covered.

I would recommend SnapCenter and NetApp products and services to customers, particularly backup administrators, who want an easy-to-use feature set.

Since this is a very specific solution for a specific use case where NetApp has no competition, I would rate it a nine out of ten.

SnapCenter is mainly for the backup environment, allowing you to save data for your data projection.

You can quickly deploy new virtual environments. It provides efficient and easy-to-use data protection. If a file goes missing or corruption occurs, you can restore it swiftly using the snap restore feature, allowing you to return to work almost immediately.

SnapCenter could improve its integration with other backup solutions, such as Veeam. While SnapCenter works well for backup, some users prefer to use their existing backup products. Although integration with Veeam is possible, there can be occasional issues where the process does not work as smoothly as desired.

I have been using NetApp SnapCenter as a contract deployment engineer for six to seven years.

The product is stable.

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

The tool is very scalable. It is very flexible and scalable in a cluster environment. Three users are using this solution.

We use it weekly because of its automation capabilities. It regularly checks to ensure everything is backed up and snapped. Additionally, it provides monitoring and reporting features.

The initial setup is easy enough, but you get stuck on some of the menus. Otherwise, it's fairly easy enough to get to work.

Depending on customer requirements, if they have a schedule in place and clear objectives for how they want to use it, the process can be completed within a day. Otherwise, it might take a couple of days.

I rate the initial setup a seven out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

I did the deployment in-house.

The solution is expensive.

NetApp SnapCenter is highly efficient because it allows you to automate the creation of snapshots. Instead of manually creating snapshots using IMS or HMS, you can schedule and automate them, specifying the timing and frequency. This eliminates the need for daily manual intervention and streamlines the process. SnapCenter also enables you to assign specific user roles to manage these tasks, enhancing efficiency.

SnapCenter ensures that your LPOs and RTOs are extremely quick. Although it may seem expensive initially, after using it for a while, you'll appreciate the efficiencies and gains it provides.

I recommend the solution.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Positive

Our partner firm, an IT firm, was using NetApp SnapCenter for training and educational purposes. They were partnering with an organization to train staff.

NetApp SnapCenter is complex, and I know about some training materials for the solution. Most banks and financial institutions use the solution. The partner firms get engineers or train them from scratch to support the financial institutions. Financial institutions prefer on-premise data and have few things in the cloud.

Since the solution's initial setup is complex, it should make training documents available in the public space.

I only used NetApp SnapCenter for training purposes for about six months.

NetApp SnapCenter is a very stable solution.

NetApp SnapCenter is a scalable solution. Around 30 users use NetApp SnapCenter in our organization. The solution is mainly used for educational purposes every three months because they have new recruits every three to six months.

The partner firm with NetApp SnapCenter has a professional consultant. We don't have many people in the field. When you want to deploy the solution, a consultant will often do it.

A senior manager, an engineer, and a technical admin staff are needed for the solution's deployment and maintenance.

It takes about one hour to deploy NetApp SnapCenter.

NetApp SnapCenter is a good solution. I would recommend NetApp SnapCenter to other users. Users need a consultant or a NetApp skilled engineer to use the solution.

Overall, I rate NetApp SnapCenter an eight out of ten.

The product’s most valuable feature is cloning. We can clone the backups and restore them to different locations.

Whenever we try to restore the test network, a few VMs stop working. The product lags in terms of availability.

We have been using NetApp SnapCenter for two years. At present, we are using the latest version.

I rate the platform’s stability a ten out of ten. It is a very stable product.

I rate the platform’s scalability a nine out of ten. We have five to ten users for it in our organization.

The platform’s technical support services are excellent.

NetApp SnapCenter’s initial setup process is relatively easy and comfortable. It is flexible and reliable as well. It took eight months to complete.

The product is inexpensive.

If you are looking for a product that integrates with different vendors, you should opt for NetApp SnapCenter. I rate it an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for snapshots and for backups.

We have found that the snapshotting mechanism is better than VMware.

The solution is stable.

The initial setup isn't extremely difficult.

Technical support has been very helpful when we have issues.

The solution is free to use for our company.

The usability of the solution could be much better. It's something the solution could improve upon.

The UI, the User Interface, needs to be improved. It's not as clean or modern as it could be.

Some of the granularity isn't there when you compare it to solutions like Rubrik, which are much slicker.

I've only been working with the solution for a couple of months. It hasn't been that long.

The solution is very stable. We haven't really experienced any bugs or glitches. I can't recall the product crashing or freezing. The reliability is pretty good in terms of performance.

We have not yet tested the scalability. I cannot speak to how easy it is to do so.

Currently, I am the only person in the company that is using the product.

We have dealt with technical support in the past. We've found them to be very, very good. They are helpful and responsive, They are knowledgeable. We are very satisfied with the level of service they provide to us when required.

We had previously used solutions VMware. However, we found that sometimes of the answers were too long when you use VMware snapshots. Therefore, we decided to switch to a different product altogether.

The initial setup is neither straightforward nor complex. It was somewhere in between. It has a moderate amount of complexity.

We use the solution for free. The price couldn't be any lower for us. We have no complaints in that regard.

I've looked at Rubrik in the past. I find it to be much slicker in its capabilities. It offers much more granularity.

We are using the latest version of the solution. I cannot speak to the actual version number.

I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

If new users or companies are considering the solution, I would advise that they make sure they read the documentation in full. It's the best advice I can offer a new user.

It's for storage. We sell a call center and voicemail solution and we store the recordings there. We also store the configuration file there. We use it for redundancy. We are using an HA proxy for redundancy so if one fails we can use another node.

We have new software releases every month, or every week, and we can implement them directly on our system without worrying about the backup because we have SnapCenter. We can just roll back if there are any issues with the new software.

It helps with workflow because we used to need to create a Snapshot every time we wanted to upgrade things in vCenter but we don't need to do that because we have SnapCenter. It cuts down the time compared to what we previously needed to do.

It's very helpful because SnapCenter is already integrated with VMware Snapshot, so it's very easy to use.

I have an issue with SnapCenter because sometimes a VM cannot be backed up. All the other VMs have already been backed up, but this one particular VM is not being backed up because it has errors. It's causing a problem in the whole thing because after the next round of backups, not all the backups are removed. It's because we have an error on a particular VM where it could not create a Snapshot. That is really annoying because we need to check for that issue every week.

The way SnapCenter works is that it makes a backup of all the VMs and then it removes all the old backups. If one VM cannot be backed up for some reason, it has already created a new backup for all the VMs but it cannot remove the old backups. It ends up creating so many backups in VMware and it will cause a performance problem if the condition is not fixed.

It's really a huge issue. When one VM causes this problem it's too much. It could just skip that one VM and do the remove for the rest of the VMs. That's how it needs to work.

It is stable. We don't have any issues with SnapCenter.

SnapCenter has no issues with scalability. We have plans to increase usage in the future. When we add new customers, that will increase our usage of SnapCenter.

Technical support is good. They are responsive and really helpful. If I want, I can contact them directly.

The deployment took about a week. I had some issues and I needed to contact NetApp support.

The setup was complex. When you deploy SnapCenter it requires integration with vCenter which is a firmware thing and it doesn't always work the first time. I had an issue that I thought was coming from SnapCenter but it was coming from VMware. NetApp needs to create documentation on the firmware setup.

Our implementation strategy was just to follow the recommendations and, if there were any issues, to ask the NetApp support agents. They were very helpful in finding the issue.

The integration required just one person, me. We have five people supporting it, from our engineering team.

If we were to lose that data it would mean we would lose customers.

Just try it.

I would rate SnapCenter at eight out of ten because it needs some improvement, as I outlined above.

Primary use case is covering fast backup and restore for customers, mostly for SQL databases, some Oracle database systems in servers, and some file share backups with Snapshots with the possibility of restore.

SnapCenter is usually an additional software, which is not the main backup software. Most companies have already found a backup solution and are using SnapCenter to be able to do a fast restoration of their data. Therefore, they are using two solutions at once, side-by-side. Companies will have their primary backup solution and SnapCenter as a redundancy because the primary solution isn't favored to recover data so quickly.

The biggest advantage of the product is you can provide a quick restore. We have some companies with policies which require us to be able to restore their data back up and running in maximum 15 minutes. We can achieve these customer policies for RPO and RTO using SnapCenter.

Most customers are able to restore their full backup of the database in two to three minutes (15 minutes is the maximum). This way, they have another 10 minutes in their time window to restore SQL transaction logs, etc. 

The main advantage is its fast backup and restore.

The Microsoft environment is its biggest disadvantage due to the central management of all the actions. Because the SnapCenter server is where we deploy everything, it also affects the Microsoft environment, which can cause many difficulties when resolving issues like Windows update problems. 

We had less issues with SnapManager, the previous product before SnapCenter came out, where there were standalone installations. We are having issues with SnapCenter because of its central management. While it is fine if it's working, sometimes it's quite heavy to figuring out what's wrong, and mostly the problems are because of some Windows updates. We would like NetApp to develop some better diagnostics to report when an installation is performing uncharacteristically. This would allow us to resolve issues and do troubleshooting instead of opening a support case for these issues.

Some of the minor functionalities from SnapManager did not transfer over to SnapCenter. These should be added in future releases. I know that NetApp is currently working on this.

It is very stable. But if you have a bigger Microsoft environment, there are issues sometimes mostly caused by MS updates.

There are no limitations on the scalability for customers with their environment size. We currently have about ten customers using this solution with the biggest installation containing up to 40 servers.

We have been very satisfied with the technical support's help. Their knowledge level is great. For a noncritical question, they will get back to us within a day.

The initial setup is straightforward and easy. If you are familiar with the products and know what to do, it's quite straightforward. 

We do our customer implementations. We use our customer requirements with their RPOs and RTOs, then find out which plugins of SnapCenter that we should use for them. If it is an installation of servers, then we do some testing of the functionalities, backup, and restoring of their test environments. Afterwards, we implement their production systems and documentation.

It took about five or six of us to do the deployment (including installation and configuration) of the client's SnapCenter server and storage.

Our implementation strategy depends somewhat on the implementation strategy of the company who we are doing the implementing for. The time frame for deployment depends on the environment size, number of servers, etc. It can take from one month from the beginning of the project to the production. However, we also had one company, where we had to write a lot of documentation and do a lot testing, which lasted around nine months.

Companies tend to maintain their own SnapCenters. Some companies can maintain it with one person depending on their policies. It usually takes ten people in bigger companies to manage their parts of the storage with SQL admins, storage admins, and network admins.

The licensing is well-designed because it's already included in some packages with NetApp storage. Therefore, for most customers, it's okay as the SnapCenter license is already included in some NetApp bundles, making it cheaper to use SnapCenter as a second solution.

I have also used Veeam, Dell EMC NetWorker, Commvault, and HPE Data Protector. I have worked with these solutions for installations.

The problem with SnapCenter is not the backup solution. While it can help with backup and quick restore, our customers use SnapCenter (the previous version: SnapManager) as an additional tool for backup, not as the primary backup. We have no customer using SnapCenter as a primary backup.

Backing up SQL and Exchange is our primary use case.

We are putting a new SharePoint infrastructure into production - we're upgrading SharePoint - and our users need a test environment for that and they need it refreshed every day. These are big databases. My colleague is able to create a clone of the production database on a daily basis, through scripts, or through SnapCenter's command line interface which comes in handy. He puts in a new database every day for our users.

I'm not sure this would be possible otherwise. I don't know how many databases SharePoint consists of but there are a lot and they're big. If you need a clone of your databases every day, I don't know if it would be possible to do so overnight, using a traditional backup and restore. I don't know if it would be ready the next morning for users to use. But with SnapCenter, now, it is ready.

The difference is that it's more manageable. Backup timeframes are shorter, restore timeframes are shorter, and we have one portal through which we can control everything.

A feature that stands out is cloning databases. If you have a SQL database and it's huge, like one terabyte, the classical SQL way would be to do a backup-restore to create a clone of your database for test purposes. With SnapCenter now, we can clone a database but through the Snapshot technology. That means if you right-click and you click Clone, the one terabyte database is there instantly. It's instantly presentable to our users and in test mode. Clones or duplicates of the original can be used for testing or acceptance. 

Also, the backup process finishes very quickly. In the old way of running a SQL backup, you would wait for SQL to read the whole database - and here I'm talking about a full backup. It would have to read through one terabyte of data. That's not necessary anymore. Now you snap the storage in which the SQL database exists, and the backup consists of pointers on disk, as far I understand.

I feel a little bit that during the whole process of putting this software into production we were like a beta program. It was full of bugs. I have made something like 20 calls to NetApp regarding this product. I've used a lot of products in my life and this one has needed the most interaction with the company that made it, to get it working properly in production. There were a lot of bugs and things that didn't work.

For example, we had a problem with truncating our Exchange log files. Exchange creates log files of the mailbox databases. After a full backup of Exchange, those log files were being cleared. It was not working. So we created a backup with SnapCenter of our Exchange environment but the logs were not truncating. Finally, we got in contact with someone from NetApp in Holland and he directed us to a university somewhere here in Holland and they explained to us what they did to fix it.

It has improved over time.

And the GUI is still so-so. I' don't use the GUI that often anymore because it's really slow, refreshing disks, refreshing hosts, and you have to click a lot.

In addition, we had a major production problem due to SnapCenter, because we also use SnapCenter to back up our whole VMware environment. When we did an upgrade of the SnapCenter Server and its plugins - because SnapCenter puts plugins on the host and, in this instance, it puts a plugin on our VMware server - SnapCenter was then supposed to snap our virtual machines and then the whole volume on which the virtual machines reside, and then delete the snaps. This last step, deleting of the snapshots, did not happen. It wasn't deleting snapshots anymore. Our fault was that we didn't record this. We didn't have any measurement of the number of snapshots which were on our VMware infrastructure. After two weeks there were 14 snapshots of each VM in our whole park, and this created a huge performance issue. After we discovered this, we had to delete them and then everything ran fine again.

So after the upgrade of the plugin, there was a bug. We could only work around this bug through manual scripting. Now, we are running a beta plugin from SnapCenter to overcome this problem. So, there have been a lot of bugs.

It's a beautiful product. You can put multiple systems in it but I think they're still really in the stage of developing it. They used SnapDrive before, and now its SnapCenter of course, to create a more general approach, which is great. But they should have tested more and more.

Other than the bugs I mentioned it has been stable.

I can't say anything about scalability because we only have 12 physical hosts in SnapCenter and 20 VMware instances with about 400 virtual machines. We're not a huge ballpark. We're a hospital and we have 6,000 employees. I think that if you are a really big company you would need multiple SnapCenter Servers, but I'm not sure.

For my environment it's perfect: one server, a lot of gigabytes in total memory, http use. It works. And we plan on increasing our usage. Every server which comes into production will now be connected to SnapCenter.

In our organization, almost everything is working with SnapCenter. There are just a couple of SQL Servers that need to be rebuilt, new clusters. My colleagues should finish that somewhere in the first quarter of 2019.

The technical engineers who work at NetApp, here in Amsterdam, are really helpful and willing to help. They're really nice guys and we have no problem with them at all. 

We are using Data Protector backup software and SnapCenter. Before SnapCenter we used SnapDrive from NetApp. Before that, we were using EMC Legato NetWorker. We switched to SnapCenter because our colleagues here were already using NetApp. We're a hospital, we don't need high-end banking server rooms with Fibre Channel. This is an NFS solution so we decided to implement this storage. It was an all-in-one package: backup, file services, and VMware. That was really what convinced us to buy SnapCenter.

For normal sysadmins who are working with the product for the first time and who haven't taken a course on it, the setup is complex. And that's especially true for someone who didn't have any NetApp or snapshot technology knowledge prior to this. It's such a universal product - you can work with iSCSI, you can work with VMware, you can put file systems on it - you can do a lot with it. But our main provider of this software did not have any usable knowledge or experience with it either. They used whitepapers which were not that clear. It really could be better.

To install it and for everything to be working it took one to two full days, about 16 hours. That's a lot of time. At times we were saying, "No, this is not working, try it again. Let's try this, let's do this, what does the whitepaper say? How do I interpret this? Oh, let's call NetApp." It was not really that transparent.

We didn't really need any implementation strategy because we started with just one server. We had our regular backup and that continued to do what it does. Then, in addition to the regular infrastructure, we were building this. We did not really have an implementation plan. We said, "Okay we have a test SQL Server, we're going to put it in SnapCenter and see what it does."

We did not use any integrators or consultants. It was just my team. The server was installed and, afterward, we were implementing our servers into this product. I just took it on and did it myself.

Our SQL DBA took some things on also, but that was after I had explored the product and got rid of a lot of bugs with NetApp. It's an extensive software package. You have policies, you have schedule times. There was one person doing the SnapCenter integration, and that was me. Perhaps it would have been better for us to have someone from NetApp in the house. But there's a price hanging over that, of course.

What we should have done initially was put more responsibility for it in the hands of our main supplier and say, "This is not working, we need to do it differently," instead of me fixing all the problems.

Those quicker backup times, and quicker presenting of new environments: From an admin's perspective, this is a great product. But I cannot translate that into financial gain.

Hire someone who has already installed the product ten times, an experienced SnapCenter installer who can implement this product very easily and who knows all the ins and outs and bugs and which patch he should run. Get guidance.

In terms of maintenance, I convinced my colleagues, our Exchange people and our SQL people, to use it often and look into it. We all get alerts if SnapCenter fails or if a backup does not complete, but I'm the main person who is looking at it. There are three people in our organization using it: our Exchange admin, our SQL admin, and our VMware storage admin (me).

SnapCenter is an eight out of ten. In general, it's a great product, and it does what it's supposed to do, but it's buggy. They should spend some more time on the web GUI for users who don't use the CLI that often. I thought, initially, it was slow because of the resources we gave to SnapCenter Server, but that wasn't it. It has slow reaction times and does not radiate security.