NetApp AFF - All Flash Reviews

I use NetApp AFF in our cloud service infrastructure to provide data storage and management for our customers. 

NetApp AFF has indeed improved our growing organization by providing stability and efficient IT maintenance. We have also found the product's quality to be excellent. 

The most valuable feature of NetApp AFF for us is its ability to manage multiple IP spaces for our customers in a shared environment. This is important because we offer VPN services, and this feature helps keep customer data separate and secure while ensuring our services work smoothly over the long term.

In terms of improvement, IO performance could use some enhancement. Additionally, I would like to see additional security-related features in NetApp AFF, particularly in the realm of ransomware protection.

I have been working with NetApp AFF for seven years.

It is highly stable.

NetApp AFF is fairly scalable.

I would rate the support for NetApp AFF as average. It has been a mixed experience, with some good interactions and others not meeting our expectations.

We have used different storage solutions like EMC, HP, and others before making the switch to NetApp AFF.

The deployment of NetApp AFF was a bit complex, mainly due to the extensive functionality it offers. 

NetApp AFF has helped reduce support issues related to performance tuning and troubleshooting. It has helped reduce operational costs and has proven to be cost-effective for our organization compared to other storage equipment from different vendors. It has also helped reduce our operational latency. Overall, I would rate NetApp AFF as a ten out of ten.

We are using NetApp AFF primarily for file servers.

NetApp AFF has helped our organization because they're reliable, and the file shares are available to everyone all the time.

The most valuable feature of NetApp AFF is the reputation of the company.

NetApp AFF could improve SAN storage because it feels as if it was not put together at the beginning, it functions as an afterthought. Additionally, the cloud features could be more mature.

I have used NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) within the past 12 months.

I rate the stability of NetApp AFF an eight out of ten.

We have plans to increase our usage of the solution in the future.

I rate the scalability of NetApp AFF a seven out of ten.

I rate the support of NetApp AFF a seven out of ten.

Neutral

The initial setup of NetApp AFF is straightforward.

NetApp AFF is a good investment, but it is expensive.

NetApp AFF is an expensive solution.

I would recommend this solution for NAS but not for SAN.

I rate NetApp AFF a seven out of ten.

It is used for separating locations from a network cluster and also to store the data and create a backup on another location for bigger companies.

NetApp is like a one-point central management. For example, one can put everything on the right version and control the whole environment from one software solution. It's easy to have an insight into monitoring and stuff. The solution is easy to manage.

The user interface should be more user-friendly and configuration could be easier.

I have been using NetApp AFF for two years.

It is a fairly stable solution. There is rarely a problem and everything runs fine.

It is a fairly scalable solution, though some things are more easily scalable than others but the possibilities are endless. Presently, sixty customers are working on the solution.

The customer support team of NetApp is good.

The initial setup is not very simple. As I always use the CLI for configuration, it is easy. But the nodes' and cluster configuration can also be done with GUI.

The solution is deployed by connecting everything in different locations and then implementing the solution that will be sold to customers. The deployment is done by three engineers, which include two senior engineers and myself.

The customers need to pay for the license.

I would recommend NetApp to people with a budget and looking for a simple solution for a small environment. But for complex environments, NetApp can be an overkill.

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

This is a storage solution. 

I like that you can switch protocols and features on and off, depending on how I architect my domain. From the business side of things, it supports file formatting, the main protocols, and the hot swapping of disks and features. 

This is an expensive solution that could be cheaper.

I've been using this product for several years. 

The stability is good. 

If it's a data center enterprise-fed product, it is scalable. Some of the base models are not scalable, but these products are generally scalable.

Deployment time depends on the size of the organization. If you have engineers, the implementation can be done in-house. 

It's important to ensure that your use cases are suitable for the product prior to investing in the purchase of it. I recommend this solution and rate it eight out of 10. 

We use the solution mostly for virtual workloads, VMware, databases, and also the VDI infrastructure.

We can provide all the SLA performance-wise and high availability to the business. We are trying to maintain compliance with all business SLAs.

The ONTAP cluster, the scale-out, and the architecture are great.

We are a large-scale company, and our growth has been pretty significant over the last five or six years. We like the scale, and the way NetApp grows, so that's why we use it. It's mostly for block storage.

NetApp data helped to reduce our operational latency to some extent. We've saved maybe 20%.

We have not been affected by ransomware since using the solution. 

The NetApp support could be better. NetApp can improve a lot on hardware upgrades and proactive support.

In the past, AFF has helped optimize our costs. However, not anymore since NetApp has increased its prices. The optimization we had previously is not the case anymore.

Recently, we have had some support issues that we definitely have some concerns with.

I've been using the solution for eight to ten years. 

The stability is good. I'd rate it eight out of ten. 

The solution is scalable. We are in a large enterprise, so that fits our requirements. There is about 30 to 35 petabytes of data and a block size of close to 25 to 30 petabytes of data.

Technical support could be better and should be more proactive. 

We've also had some production outages. Due to one upgrade, for example, there was a significant outage.

Neutral

I'm also familiar with Dell EMC.

We've used PowerMax, and we have used StorageGRID. 

We use AFF as this is the main environment for our corporate environment.

NetApp has been in the environment for quite some time, so we have built that comfort level with the product. 

I was involved with the initial deployment of the solution. The setup was complex on our end. Our internal processes are difficult as we have such an extensive environment. For example, we must go to security and do all the reviews and assessments. It's our internal program. There's nothing on NetApp.

We worked directly with a third party on the deployment and with NetApp. Overall, the experience was okay.

The pricing has definitely increased significantly as compared to other competitors.

I have not used NetApp BlueXP.

We are looking into FSx ONTAP. We are trying to do the pilot program on FSx ONTAP, and we will probably use that in the cloud in AWS.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. We've only really had some support issues and some issues around performance sometimes. 

Our primary use case is running NFS exports for our local on-premises VMware and our CIFS for local shares.

I like the ability to snapshot, and the cloning features are valuable to us as well. I like that I can quickly and efficiently snapshot the data and move it to wherever I need to locally or in the cloud. Also, I know that when I take the snapshot that all of the data will be there and that it will be usable when I need to use it.

The reliability of NetAPP AFF is another valuable feature.

Blue XP has made it a single pane of glass so that we can see both on-premises and the cloud. We don't have to worry about going back and forth. It has made everything seamless in terms of the look and feel for the admins.

We use other NetApp Cloud Services solutions such as FSx, Cloud Volumes ONTAP, BlueXP, and Cloud Manager. We're just starting to dip our toes into FSxN. We run all of our student services, our general ledger, and all of our classroom-related items off of CVOs. It has been very reliable for us.

We've been using NetApp AFF since 2019.

We have been running NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) since 2019, and we've not had one unplanned outage since then. It's been a reliable workhorse for us.

We've had to upgrade our available storage three times, and it was all seamless. There is a cost every time, but there hasn't been an outage. It's been quick and seamless, and we haven't had any issues with scalability.

We have 8,000 undergraduate students and 2,000 graduate students, and we facilitate another 5,000 university staff. We run all of our campus-wide phone systems and CIFS on it, along with our local VMware environment. We have about 10,000 to 15,000 people relying on NetApp AFF every day.

Whenever we have a problem, the technical support staff usually contact us before we contact them. We've never had an issue with technical support, so I'd give them a rating of ten out of ten.

Positive

As far as a return on investment, it's freed up a lot of our time so that we do not have to worry about the little things that usually take up the majority of our day. Our time can be spent in other areas, whether that's helping with other products, developing new ones, or helping end users.

It can get a little expensive if you need to add more disks. The cost is a pain point for us, especially in terms of expansion.

Overall, I would rate NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) at ten on a scale from one to ten.

Our whole storage environment is based on NetApp. We provide an enterprise network that offers storage for various entities that require on-demand storage, including databases, web pages, and other large-scale storage requirements. We are also getting into AI-generated content, which requires even more storage space.

NetApp provides an opportunity to scale out if necessary. Because NetApp has so many different systems and products, we can provide as much storage as needed. We could implement it anywhere because it always has backward compatibility.

The organization I work for adopts Zero Trust and prefers NetApp for that. It's embedded in pretty much everything we do. We also use other competitors, like Dell, but in terms of storage, nothing is as good as NetApp. We're getting into the AI realm because the organization I work for understands that it's coming fast. We're talking to them about storage possibilities for AI-related resources that will soon be needed. 

NetApp offers the best value in terms of storage and compatibility. The solution is compatible with every product we use, including Dell and Cisco. NetApp is at the forefront of innovation. They've been doing this for a long time, and they provide excellent support to their partners. 

We once lost some virtual machines and we could restore the virtual machines quickly from our NetApp backup. 

We don't have any challenges with NetApp. We only need to update it on emerging software and versions that are put out or any enhancements that they've included or things that they've deprecated. NetApp's product is superior, so our engineers must stay on top of all the features and things that they've taken away.

We've used Dell EqualLogic and VMware vSAN storage. Dell EqualLogic servers may not work with other server types, whereas NetApp is compatible with everyone. We've already spoken with our NetApp sales reps, and they're in the process of getting us quotes on the new AI-focused systems. Our organization must scale fast and avoid a bottleneck where we can't scale as needed on demand. 

I rate NetApp solutions 10 out of 10. We are using maybe 50 percent of NetApp's capability. There's so much more that we don't touch on. Coming to these events, you learn about the new and upcoming software they've been working on. 

We have a workload class that requires better performance. 

The tool has lowered latency. 

In the current atmosphere, private cloud is improving. NetApp AFF needs to provide flexibility in terms of hardware and capital expense. 

I have been working with the product since 2017. 

NetApp AFF does a good job in terms of support. 

The product's deployment is straightforward. 

The tool's ROI is primarily on the performance workload. We have seen ROI with the tool's use. 

You need to be careful with the licensing since it can become expensive 

We evaluated Dell, Hitachi and Pure. 

NetApp AFF has improved efficiency and sustainability. It has simplified our infrastructure and reduced the costs for staffing and equipment. 

The product has doubled performance. 

We also have Dell Storage. 

I rate the product a nine out of ten.