NetApp AFF - All Flash Reviews

NetApp AFF is a data storage system that replaces old ones. It has primary applications or primary workloads and the typical storage business cases.

The most valuable features of the solution are the software bundle, replication, and cloud connectivity.

NetApp AFF is a highly expensive solution, and its pricing should be reduced.

I have been using NetApp AFF for five years.

I rate NetApp AFF a nine out of ten for stability.

The solution is scalable. However, you cannot buy one disc at a time. You have to buy a pack of two discs, which is expensive. You also have to buy the support and the software. Scaling the solution is not super cheap. Our clients for NetApp AFF are usually enterprise businesses.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

NetApp AFF is a highly expensive solution.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten.

The solution's data protection features support our business continuity plans. Typically, customers buy on-premises systems and may have some connections to the cloud. I would recommend NetApp AFF to other users because it's reliable and has a lot of features.

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

We are using it for configuring NAS as well as the SAN environment.

Most of our business-critical systems are provisioned from the NetApp AFF system. Compared to others, we have a minimal latency. Configuring the DR for high availability or migrating the volumes from one box to another is pretty easy with NetApp AFF.

One of the features that I like in NetApp is cluster configuration where multiple systems can be configured in a single cluster. Its advantage is that we can easily migrate the workload from one system to another without any downtime. With zero downtime, we can migrate the systems. That is one of the advantages of NetApp AFF.

NetApp AFF reduces operational latency depending on the systems, the SAN infrastructure, and the server. It is a maximum of one or two milliseconds, and some of the systems do work in 0.5 milliseconds latency.

For performance tuning, there is a tool called Unified Manager as well as the Active IQ system. The initial troubleshooting is very easy. From the administrator front directly, we can log in to Active IQ. It analyzes the logs in the system and suggests what needs to be improved. From a performance point of view, there is a tool called Unified Manager that shows us a clear picture of the historical volume latency. These tools help us to manage the system very easily, but if there is still something that we are not able to figure out through these tools, then we reach out to the support team.

We have snapshots, and we have even configured storage-based replication with this product. The majority of our virtual workloads are provisioned from this product as well. Our workload VMs are provisioned in this storage.

For replication and snapshots, it is more user-friendly and easy to use as compared to some of the other OEM products, such as HPE 3PAR and Dell Unity. 

Migrating from a public cloud to on-prem or on-prem to a cloud can be a bit complicated. They have their own solution, but it should be easy to use.

We have been using NetApp AFF for the last three to four years.

The product is very stable. The hardware is very stable. The operating system is also very stable.

It is scalable.

I do not face any challenges with NetApp. The support team or everything else is good. If we face any kind of breakdown or any challenge, we can easily reach out to the NetApp backend team. That is one of the advantages of NetApp. I would rate their support a ten out of ten.

Positive

We have worked with the Dell Unity and VNX products. We migrated from Dell to NetApp because of the advantage of configuring the unified storage, such as NAS and SAN, in a single box.

Apart from that, the end customer preferred to configure DR, and NetApp has its own solution with this device. The end customer also wanted the snapshot feature, and NetApp has its own feature.

In addition, every four or five years, when the system gets old, we need to migrate the workloads to a new system. NetApp has an advantage there because we can purchase a new system and configure it in the same existing cluster. Once it is configured in the existing cluster, from the back or from storage to storage, we can do the migration without any downtime. That is one of the advantages of NetApp.

We have not worked with other NetApp solutions much. We only tested ONTAP and the AWS or the Google Platform Service with NetApp, but we are not using it in our production environment.

It is easy to deploy and use. It takes three to five hours. One person is enough for it.

The installation or the initial setup is done by OEM or NetApp engineers. After the initial setup is done, our internal team takes care of the other activities. After the management connectivity and physical parts are established in the backend, our in-house engineer takes care of it.

If you have a virtual environment with the SAN and NAS workloads, NetApp is very suitable. Apart from that, if you are looking for a DR solution, it is very easy to configure DR in NetApp. NetApp also has its own object storage, so object storage is also available in the existing platform and existing versions. If you are using any in-house S3 type of solution, that is available in this.

Overall, I would rate NetApp AFF a nine out of ten.

Our main use revolves around database management, specifically for Oracle and SQL databases, including large databases, and for handling unstructured file data within our organization.

We've been addressing our evolving needs, and it was a logical progression as our systems demanded greater resources and improved performance, so it became the go-to solution for meeting those requirements. The simplified infrastructure allows our storage team to allocate their efforts to other important tasks. They can focus on aspects like backup, automation, and proactive administrative duties, rather than constantly dealing with performance problems or troubleshooting issues.

Its top-tier performance ranks as the most valuable aspect. 

Secondly, the reduced frequency of drive failures leads to less time and resources spent on maintenance and replacements. I am highly satisfied with its exceptional, consistent performance, ensuring that applications run smoothly and reliably. It has proven to be highly effective, with the added benefit of utilizing a range of additional features, whether we're dealing with flash or lower-end disk storage solutions. 

It has greatly contributed to efficiency and improved performance in our operations, indirectly impacting cost management.

Offering the ability to actively write data on a single volume spanning multiple clusters is significant.

I have been using it for approximately four years. 

The stability is quite remarkable. Occasionally, there may be a component failure, but it's typically a non-issue due to the redundancy and built-in safeguards in place.

Scalability is commendable. You can easily expand the system by adding nodes or disks, and we've done this several times with successful results.

It stands out as one of the few vendors that provide a pretty good level of customer service. I would rate it eight out of ten.

Positive

Before adopting NetApp, we relied on Direct-Attached Storage solutions.

In terms of ROI, it meets our expectations and fulfills the intended purpose for which we acquired it.

The pricing is competitive when we compare it to other products.

We considered a few different competitors. However, what set NetApp apart was the fact that it offered a single array capable of handling both block and file storage.

When considering and evaluating NetApp, one of the key advantages to take into account is the unified single OS. You don't have to purchase different products and then struggle to make them work seamlessly together. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

We adopted it primarily for performance and space-saving benefits.

Since it's an all-flash solution, it significantly enhances performance, and it also offers substantial space savings. 

Despite having used it for a while, our usage remains somewhat consistent, but we continue to experience cost savings, and we've seen a remarkable performance improvement compared to the days when we were reliant on traditional hard drives like SAS drives. 

It plays a crucial role in mitigating support issues, especially those related to performance tuning and troubleshooting. One of the notable aspects is how it seamlessly communicates with ActiveIQ, both online and on the website, providing valuable insights into security vulnerabilities and other pertinent information. 

It has significantly contributed to cost savings. In the past, we would spend around a hundred thousand dollars for a NetApp system, but now our expenses have reduced to sometimes just thirty or forty thousand dollars, depending on our specific needs. 

Additionally, the physical footprint is much smaller, leading to cost savings in terms of rack space within the data center, as well as reduced power consumption and related expenses.

There are two compression technologies available within it, and they are valuable because they allow for significantly higher data storage capacity and the retention of a larger number of snapshots on the system. This is crucial because it enables organizations to avoid the need to invest in additional costly storage. 

Given the high cost of storage, having these compression technologies in place ensures efficient data deduplication and other storage optimization techniques, allowing for the retention of a substantial amount of data on the system.

To enhance the already excellent administration, one area for potential improvement could be in terms of integration.

I have been using it for seven years now.

The stability is impeccable, scoring a perfect ten out of ten.

The scalability capabilities deserve a perfect score of ten out of ten.

I would rate its support services eight out of ten.

Positive

Various other departments within our organization have their own storage solutions, so we had EMC Xtremio and EMC Xtremio in use. Additionally, we've implemented Pure Storage for a separate area of our operations.

The initial setup was quite straightforward, and we had an engineer who handled most of it. It was impressively easy and hassle-free.

I find the pricing to be reasonable, particularly with the recent inclusion of features like snap locking and ransomware protection within the ONTAP license instead of having them as separate licenses.

When I first joined the company twenty-three years ago, they evaluated various storage solutions before ultimately selecting NetApp. The key factor that led to this choice was NetApp's snapshot technologies.

The system has proven to be incredibly reliable and dependable. For smaller organizations seeking high-performance, straightforward management, and cost-effective solutions, I would recommend considering AFF. I would rate it ten out of ten.

I use it primarily as a database storage solution, supporting various applications such as Oracle, VMware, and NFS SAN. It serves as a versatile storage platform for multiple use cases.

NetApp AFF has been highly beneficial for our organization as it caters to the growing demands of applications that require faster performance. 

Flash storage significantly enhances the administrator's role and contributes to lower latency, with some applications now running at sub-millisecond speeds, reducing overnight support calls. 

Compared to our previous setup with SATA and SAS, the transition to all-flash storage has been remarkable.

This transition has had a positive impact on our operations by significantly reducing the need for cooling and power resources. The reduced cooling requirements have opened up more space for future expansion.

One of the most valuable aspects is its robust data management features, such as compression, deduplication, and in-line data optimization. These features provide immediate storage efficiency gains without requiring additional post-processing. 

Furthermore, the ONTAP feature intelligently monitors volume efficiency and can automatically adjust or pause in-line efficiency processes when suboptimal performance is detected. This automation prevents resource wastage and ensures a more efficient and streamlined process, although manual adjustments remain an option.

It would be valuable to have more visibility and control options. Instead of having everything enabled by default, it would be helpful to be able to activate specific features as needed selectively. This would enable the monitoring of data efficiency in real-time without manual intervention. 

A graphical user interface displaying efficiency metrics, such as compression and deduplication rates, would be a great addition. This way, I could easily access this information without resorting to command-line operations and screenshots, streamlining the process.

I've been using NetApp AFF for about four years, but before that, I had a professional service background. In total, I have approximately eight years of experience.

Its stability features are excellent.

Scaling is straightforward, and we are pleased with the process.

While there have been a few issues that NetApp hasn't been able to resolve for our specific company, the majority of problems I've encountered have been effectively addressed with their support. Overall, we are quite satisfied and I would rate it eight out of ten.

Positive

The reduction in operational latency is quite significant, approximately around 40%. Efficiency gains have led to significant cost savings for us. We no longer need to invest in additional storage capacity unless we anticipate a substantial increase in I/O operations from our applications. We only purchase storage when it's necessary, ensuring that we acquire precisely what we need and understand the performance of our current aggregate effectively.

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

We use NetApp AFF for daily maintenance. It's used to provision volumes for customers and other departments. 

NetApp AFF helps simplify infrastructure while improving business performance. Our databases and sensitive stuff are on all-flash arrays. Our team knows what to expect with all-flash, and we've been doing it for a while. We're happy with it.

We have fewer support issues because putting things on all-flash is much better. We still have to troubleshoot. That's always something we need to do. The speed of flash is always an advantage. Our customers are happy with it and don't complain too much. 

We use the NFS and SIP protocols a lot. The NFS is the most valuable feature.

The upgrade process could be a lot quicker, but it's still good as it is. The failovers and things like that are harder than expected. 

I have used NetApp AFF for almost 10 years. 

NetApp AFF is highly stable. 

The scalability is good. We can add extra controllers and create clusters. It's very doable. 

I rate NetApp AFF support eight out of 10. It's excellent. We've had no issues. 

Positive

We had normal disk storage instead of flash. NetApp AFF  offers much better performance. Higher throughput and less latency.

We have seen a return. Things are running better. It's less work for us, so it's good.

NetApp AFF seems to be fairly priced compared to other solutions like Oracle. 

I rate NetApp AFF nine out of 10. It's an excellent product. Use it, and you'll be happy. 

We primarily use the solution for service deck storage.

Scalability is the most valuable feature. The ones that I use are hot spot-able. If we need more, we can just throw in another drive. 

I like the fact that if my drive goes bad it doesn't crash automatically and the system will try to auto-save that data by moving it to one of the hot spots. Then we can just pull out that drive and throw our brand new one in and we'll remove it from the 2020 or 2040s. We went from 600 GBs to 1.2 TBs. We have plenty of storage. 

I like how easy it is to discover an issue and either resolve that issue or fine-tune that app to premium support to find that resolution. 

We've reduced operational latency. We use the 40 GB connection. In terms of latency between our storage and the VMs that we use, latency is almost nonexistent since we have the server and FAS so close together. We use a 40 GB fiber-optic connection on the back. We don't see any latency at all. We've reduced it to less than 5%. While you can never reduce it to zero, it's barely noticeable at this point. 

There are no big areas needed for improvement. 

Whenever we use it, I've never had a problem that couldn't be fixed with just a phone call. I've never really had any absolute dead zones on it. I can't think of a way to make it better than it already is.

The size of NetApp could be better. They're always about 40 pounds without the hard drives in them, so it would be great if there's a way to make them smaller yet keep the functionality. That would reduce the physical footprint.

I've been using the solution since 2012.

I haven't really come across any stability problems. It's pretty stable. It's fantastic. 

Data recovery is awesome. If we ever have any issue with having to recover any data on there due to the system and the way we have it set up, we can have it back within an hour. That's thanks to our backup system and the connectivity that we have between NetApp and our backup. 

We're using one with between 30 and 35 virtual servers. However, we have those together with 14 other stacks of the same size. 

I like the fact that they're very hands-on in finding that resolution for us. We've faced a lot of problems since we break the system on purpose just to make sure that when we go out to the fields and use it, if we have the same problem, we know how to fix it.

Technical support is excellent. We've never had a problem with them, and they always came back to us with an answer. Within 24 hours, we have our fix.

Positive

We have always used NetApp. We did not previously use a different solution. 

I've never deployed the solution. I've just worked with it directly. 

The best benefit I've seen using it was the data distribution between two different FASs for data backups. It should be fast, and it's super reliable. It's easy to do, and it's an almost hands-off way of setting up. That's where the ROI is for us. 

I've never worked with pricing. I can't speak to the exact costs.

We thought about using Dell, however, when it came to cost-effectiveness, we stayed with NetApp. I like the way NetApp is coded and its maintenance configuration. I know how to set up a NetApp; I prefer that over Dell.

AFF hasn't necessarily helped us to optimize FAS as we've always used it, and it's never been detrimental for us to use it.

I have not been affected by ransomware since deploying AFF. I wouldn't say that is due to any extra attention. The environments that I use it on, we're behind several mitigations for that.

We do not use any other NetApp services at this time. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

We primarily use the solution for databases, including Oracle, SQL, PostgreSQL, and VMware. 

We're moving some data warehouses over as well as our main financial system.

The NVMe flash cache is the most useful feature. It lowers transactional speed even more.

We have found the ease of use to be excellent. Everybody's got expertise in it.

AFF helped reduce our operational latency. Since we started using it, we've improved by 20%.

AFF has helped us optimize our costs. We partnered with StorageGRID on that, and so we tier our data with StorageGRID and use AFF for the hot data, and then we tier it off to StorageGRID, which is really helping with that.

I do not have any notes for areas of improvement. 

There's a lag with StorageGRID. It's off of this tier-three disc. After a few days, we sluff it off to StorageGRID, and then if all of a sudden, they need to restore that data, it takes a while to spin it back up and write it back to that. What would be great is if they could actually make StorageGRID so that it's pretty fast and has a fast recall. That being said, that's a recovery issue. 

In the past, NetApp designed it so that you have a 70% threshold. You would never fill up past 70% since you need to have that room available. Whereas with Pure, I can fill it up to 110% of what they listed and it's still going at full speed. NetApp can't do that. They need to build in more capacity to ensure users don't lose 30% of a buffer off the top. 

I've been using the solution for six years. 

The stability is fantastic. They're really coming as close to a high availability system as you can get.

In the past, with the controller failover, you'd have to rely on the other controller. It was a little bit hit or miss. AFF has really stepped it up to where I'm not lagging on performance when it fails over if it's an upgrade, update, or something like that. I don't have to worry as much about controller failure anymore.

Scalability is great. It's just expensive. That's why we would go with StorageGRID. Due to supply chain issues, I already know that these flash drives are so expensive. We're paying through the roof for those drives even on a discount. Therefore, while scalability's great, we can't really afford it. I can't go and buy a $4 million system. 

Technical support is pretty good. It is hit or miss. For the most part, it's good.

The main complaints I get from the engineers are that they'll just say, "it's a future release, and that future release is just too far down the road, and we need to get that done right away." Whereas we see a pain point now, and we would like to see them fix our problems right now. That said, we understand we're not the biggest customer on planet earth. 

Neutral

Before AFF, we used Hitachi. We switched to simplify from the fiber channel over to NAS. We were looking to simplify and make the network the cost point instead of having fibre channel expertise and network expertise.

I was not involved in the initial setup of the solution. 

We've probably optimized our costs by 70%.

We have seen ROI in terms of less latency on applications and users being able to get more done more quickly. The experience is really good with StorageGRID unless you're doing restores, and then they've got to restore that data. That's the only thing that's lagging. That said, the return on investment has been great since the DBAs and the other customers get more done and get more cycles accomplished with that enhanced IOP performance.

The pricing is palatable; we can swallow it. We're a longtime customer and we view our relationship as a partnership, not just a one-time deal. They have taken good care of us.

We looked at Dell, Pure, and EMC, among other options. 

I like Pure. Pure has very low-cost copies of point-in-time databases that they can spin up immediately, and the developers, the database administrators, can have that hanging off the same disc at a low cost. It's just built off of the existing data, and I haven't seen NetApp come up with anything like that yet.

The Snapshotting, SnapMirror, SnapVault technologies, and just having all of those technologies, are really nice so that we can get a copy, SnapMirror, for example, in the data center, and we can have that spun up really quick. That's NetApp's technology and that's the advantage there.

I have not used BlueX, their cloud management aspect.

We haven't seen any ransomware attacks. Security's pretty closed off. They're not going to tell us if something happens, so it's hard to gain visibility. We'll just know that we've got to do a restore or something. That said, we haven't lost anything.

We do not use any other NetApp cloud services. We just use StorageGRID and the AFF right now. FSX looks intriguing. We'd be willing to test it in the future. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It's a good product.