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NetApp SnapCenter vs Oracle Data Guard comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

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

NetApp SnapCenter
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
48th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle Data Guard
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of NetApp SnapCenter is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Data Guard is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates well with various applications , provides a cloning feature for creating snapshots or clones of volume and a centralized command
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.
Azhagupandi Parthiban - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers near-real-time replication for data consistency and continuously introducing new features through upgrades
There are various advantages. First of all, easy to deploy. The only difficult part is the cost factor, licensing. In other ways, the implementation is very, very important. Like, we have not encountered any major challenges with replication. We were able to achieve near-real-time replication. Also, with the switchover failover, we were not getting any technical issues. It's a pretty stable product. Once you configure it, it goes through the rollback, and then Data Guard introduces this snapshot thing. So once the restoration happens, we can go back to the original thing, and we make that a standard. It's a pretty decent and key function for Oracle. So, enterprise organizations go for Oracle only for features like these.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support has been very helpful when we have issues."
"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, which means if you right-click and you click Clone, the one terabyte database is there instantly."
"The most valuable feature is the RBAC, the Role-Based Access Control. In our managed service, we can have different layers of security."
"The most valuable feature is that it's centralized. In the old SnapManager days, we had software for each server. Now, with a centralized system, we're able to manage all systems remotely, and all agents remotely, and update them remotely. That's a huge benefit for us."
"The support from NetApp is very good, and I would rate it as ten points."
"The way that it interconnects with VMware is really handy, because you can go right into your vSphere client, where you spend a lot of the day anyway, right-click on one of the VMs where you have backups running for however long, and you can restore either some files or restore the entire thing."
"The central pane view is the most valuable feature. You have one console where you can monitor all your jobs, as opposed to going to different vCenters."
"It's very helpful because SnapCenter is already integrated with VMware Snapshot, so it's very easy to use."
"The most important feature is that if I want to test the database at the disaster recovery site, I can take a snapshot, test it, and then revert it back to the original state without needing to restore the complete database from the primary data center to the disaster recovery."
"The most valuable aspect for me is undoubtedly the failover capability and the assurance of data safety provided by Oracle Data Guard."
"It's a very good solution if you want to protect your data across two data centers, or you have a middle man or many administrators who use these solutions for protecting their data. It's very reliable compared to other solutions that are most often not storage-based."
"One of the most valuable features is real-time replication. The version we're using is reliable and easy to deploy."
"Oracle Data Guard is a free solution. When you apply for Enterprise Manager, it comes for free with the solution."
"The most valuable feature is the application or promotional code used in the production protocol to transfer data to the secondary database, situated on the DR site."
"The solution has been stable so far."
"The solution can scale as needed."
 

Cons

"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."
"What I did witness lately are issues with some Microsoft KBs, the updates. But it happened only once, and not on a major platform, it was on a small one."
"We have hundreds of servers and systems and hundreds of customers and they're separated in a multi-tenancy way in NetApp SVM. Right now, the problem is that it always scan all SVMs. If I backup Customer A, it scans all SVMs, or tries to scan all SVMs, if there is a backup relationship on the storage. But it doesn't have the permissions, so we run into timeouts or the backup just takes too long. They're fixing that in the upcoming release..."
"We tend to have a lot of Hyper-V... so now we have two management consoles and we would ideally like to leverage SnapCenter to include Hyper-V."
"The documentation could be a little bit better so that we could handle more of the troubleshooting ourselves, rather than having to go through support."
"I want to see a few more features add that will help our team in managing solution better."
"We have experience some difficulties with our current support. We are engaging in engineering level support because some of our problems are more technical."
"Since the solution's initial setup is complex, it should make training documents available in the public space."
"The predominant issue lies in the communication link between the secondary and primary databases."
"Oracle Data Guard is stable, but you need to keep monitoring the system all the time. You need to keep monitoring the archives."
"One thing that can be improved is the GUI. It would be good to have a very nice GUI to easily configure and administer, providing different presentations to the database administrator. The feature that can be included is the integration with third-party monitoring systems, that is, monitoring systems from other vendors, not only from Oracle."
"Oracle could be improved by the ability to manage it on the cloud. This on-premises version is secure and reliable, but I'm sure that they will soon provide a cloud solution that will be even better. In one to two years, we will probably move to the cloud—we have already moved to the cloud with Microsoft Exchange, but our databases are still on-premises. I would prefer managing a cloud version of Oracle."
"The only difficult part is the cost factor, licensing. Another area of improvement is support."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The pricing of the solution is quite high. They should do what they can to bring it down so that it is more reasonable for customers like us."
"The database administration needs improvement. With Oracle, we have a lot of features for administrating data, but it might be too many. It needs to be simplified. It should be automated. Looking at Enterprise Manager, there are too many KPIs in place."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We have a site license, so it comes with the product."
"It's free. The license is included with other NetApp products."
"It comes free with the amount of equipment we purchase from NetApp. In terms of pricing, zero is my favorite number."
"Pricing is very good because if you already have NepApp controllers, then it's included."
"We see a financial value with SnapCenter because we don't have to license Commvault, which is pretty expensive."
"The product is inexpensive."
"The license for SnapCenter was included with the storage array."
"This is the best solution if you want something similar that's less expensive than Oracle Grid."
"The cost of the Oracle license will depend on the negotiations with Oracle."
"It is not a cheap product, but if you look at the price, features, availability, scalability, and maturity, it is a very good product."
"​Oracle Data Guard is a feature available only in Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, and is available for extra cost."
"The licensing cost is significantly high."
"The cost is expensive."
"If you want to have everything automated and done smoothly, you have to add additional licenses."
"It's a cost-effective solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
19%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about NetApp SnapCenter?
Most banks and financial institutions use the solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp SnapCenter?
The product should be free because it is just software to administrate systems purchased from NetApp, which are already expensive.
What needs improvement with NetApp SnapCenter?
The interface usability needs improvement. It should be more user-friendly and easier for customers to use.
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?
Ik fluister:VM Host Oracle en DataGuard hebben we per toeval vervangen door Zerto :-) tijdens de Zerto implementatie en VPG werden de Host Data in write-ack Block-Level gerepliceerd. Qua licentie 1...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?
It is a very useful administrative IT tool. It saves on costs. I strongly recommend Data Guard. I've been using it for eight years and I would strongly recommend it. I'd rate Oracle Data Guard a se...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?
We're Oracle partners. We've worked with databases 11G and 12C. If a company is planning to implement Oracle solutions, I would suggest they also implement Data Guard. I'd rate the solution nine ou...
 

Also Known As

SnapCenter
Active Data Guard
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

All for One Steeb AG, Accenture
Athenahealth, Discover Financial Services
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp SnapCenter vs. Oracle Data Guard and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.