IBM Spectrum Scale vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

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Bernd Stroehle.

Enterprise Architect at kosakya

Deliver improved performance in data processing and foster extensive AI initiatives

I find IBM Spectrum Scale to be an excellent product known for its fast parallel file system. It achieved the best results when integrated with IBM hardware. Even though it is complex, it provided significant performance advantages in large-scale data management. Its fault tolerance mechanisms and integration capabilities make it popular for extensive AI initiatives and data processing tasks for organizations like Daimler Benz and Bosch.

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Madhusudan Srinivasmurthy

System Engineer at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Saves us a lot of time, and the administration is simpler

NetApp's Integration with AWS has helped us because we had a tough time transferring data when we used an ONTAP competitor as our storage partner. They don't have integration with AWS tools, so we had to figure it out on our own. ONTAP has built-in integration and allows us to replicate a copy to our second data center. Everything is in one channel. It's possible without the technology, but it's more time-consuming. NetApp saves us a lot of time, and the administration is simpler.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

"Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

"I would rate this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The profile share is a valuable feature."

"It has been pretty reliable throughout the years. As far as capacity is concerned, it can handle most heavy loads."

"Its great servicing high availability. That is what it is used for."

"The high performance of the solution is its most valuable aspect. If you compare it to other storage solutions, it's much better."

"We can have multiple systems within the same file system."

"I find IBM Spectrum Scale to be an excellent product known for its fast parallel file system."

"It makes our file system sharing a lot easier, even across different continents. We have had file systems shared across different continents with no performance degradation."

"It is incredibly scalable and stable."

More IBM Spectrum Scale pros

"One thing I have noticed is that it is very simple to move the data where we need to move it, delete it, or archive it if we need to archive it to StorageGRID."

"I like how you can easily pair on-prem with the cloud and the cloud backup feature. I like the whole integration with on-prem and the cloud for SnapMirror relationships."

"SnapMirror helps mirror metadata and data volumes between endpoints in a data fabric."

"Another feature which gets a lot of attention in our environment is the File Services Solutions in the cloud, because it's a completely, fully-managed service. We don't have to take care of any updates, upgrades, or configurations."

"With NetApp, you can integrate malware scanning or malware protection. This is something valuable that is not offered in SaaS solutions typically."

"Lastly, the API and web services are fairly good. That is an important feature too. We write some code to do different things. We have code that runs to make sure that everything is being backed up as we say it is and we try to also detect places where we may have missed a backup."

"NetApp's XCP Migration Tool... was pretty awesome. It replicated the data faster than any other tool that I've seen. That was a big help."

"The initial setup was straightforward. We started with a small pilot and we then moved to production with no downtime at all."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

Cons

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."

"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."

"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."

"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"It would be helpful if there was a graphical user interface that could walk you through the deployment process. The instructions surrounding setup aren't the best. They need to be more step-by-step."

"I wish there were some graphical user interface to access the GPFS file system creation and monitoring."

"This is probably the biggest challenge, getting everything upgraded, because it just takes time. We wish it was a faster solution to be able to do everything at once, but you have do each node individually. The more nodes, the longer it takes."

"Making it a little easier to add bad file sets would help. There is a transition to how you add storage and how you add a file set, so making that a little smoother would probably be my recommendation."

"They should probably simply the Red Hat implementation portion. This portion was not as straightforward as I would like it to be."

"The solution's pricing could be better."

"The initial setup is complex, especially if trying to avoid erasure coding, as it requires more discs. Avoiding erasure coding can significantly increase costs."

"Integration with other vendors is not available."

More IBM Spectrum Scale cons

"It would be fantastic if NetApp could offer a solution that's as user-friendly as Google Drive for seamless cloud storage integration."

"The key feature, that we'd like to see in that is the ability to sync between regions within the AWS and Azure regions. We could use the cloud sync service, but we'd really like that native functionality within the cloud volume service."

"We want to be able to add more than six disks in aggregate, but there is a limit of the number of disks in aggregate. In GCP, they provide less by limiting the sixth disk in aggregate. In Azure, the same solution provides 12 disks in an aggregate versus GCP where it is just half that amount. They should bump up the disk in aggregate requirement so we don't have to migrate the aggregate from one to another when the capacities are full."

"I would want more visibility and data analytics where we can see anomalies within the shares within the GUI."

"I would like this solution to be brought to all the three major players. Right now it's supported only on AWS and Azure. They should bring it to Google as well, because we would like to have flexibility in choosing the underlying cloud storage provider."

"The solution could be better when we're connecting to our S3 side of the house. Right now, it doesn't see it, and I'm not sure why."

"The only area for improvement would be some guidance in terms of the future products that NetApp is planning on releasing. I would like to see communication around that or advice such as, "Hey, the world is moving towards this particular trend, and NetApp can help you do that." I do get promotional emails from NetApp, but customer-specific advice would be helpful, based on our use cases."

"When Azure does their maintenance, they do maintenance on one node at a time. With the two nodes of the CVO, it can automatically fail over from one node to the node that is staying up. And when the first node comes back online, it will fail back to the first node. We have had issues with everything failing back 100 percent correctly."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

"The product is very expensive."

"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The solution is costly but reliable."

"The licensing is based on the number of terabytes."

"The licensing model is complex and depends on factors such as the number of processing cores and the amount of storage."

"Our licensing costs are folded into the hardware purchases and I have never differentiated between the two."

"They have a very good price which keeps our customers happy."

"In addition to the standard licensing fees, there are fees for Azure, the VMs themselves and for data transfer."

"Cloud is cloud. It's still expensive. Any good solution comes with a price tag. That's where we are looking to see how well we can manage our data in the cloud by trying to optimize the costs."

"Make sure you investigate what your requirements are going to cost you using the native cloud solutions versus what NetApp is going to cost you, to make sure you have a business case to go with NetApp."

"Compared to other storage vendors, NetApp, is not always able to compete with their pricing. Yet, we acknowledge the ease of use ONTAP brings with the AWS integration."

"The pricing could be improved. It is a good product, but it is very expensive for me."

"It is not a cheap solution because we need to pay for the license and pay for Azure resources as well."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

27%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Government

Educational Organization

46%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Scale?

It is a scalable solution.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Scale?

IBM Spectrum Scale is very expensive with complex pricing models usually based on the amount of storage used or the n...

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Scale?

There is room for improvement in the web interface. There could be more information available, such as charts and gra...

What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the licen...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

The solution's pricing is reasonable.

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp's support could improve.

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Comparisons

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 27% of the time

DDN IME vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 15% of the time

Portworx Enterprise vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 14% of the time

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 9% of the time

VMware vSAN vs IBM Spectrum Scale

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Scale Competitors

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 17% of the time

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 10% of the time

Wasabi vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 2% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

IBM Spectrum Scale

Download IBM Spectrum Scale product report

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

Also Known As

No data available

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

IBM Spectrum Scale is a cluster file system that provides concurrent access to a single file system or set of file systems from multiple nodes. The nodes can be SAN attached, network attached, a mixture of SAN attached and network attached, or in a shared nothing cluster configuration. This enables access to this common set of data to support a scale-out solution or to provide a high availability platform. IBM Spectrum Scale has many features beyond common data access including data replication, policy based storage management, and multi-site operations. You can create a cluster of AIX nodes, Linux nodes, Windows server nodes, or a mix of all three. IBM Spectrum Scale can run on virtualized instances providing common data access in environments, leverage logical partitioning, or other hypervisors. Multiple IBM Spectrum Scale clusters can share data within a location or across wide area network (WAN) connections.

IBM

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

NetApp

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Information Not Available

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

IBM Spectrum Scale vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP