NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Reviews

It provides flexibility for our VM environments. We use it to transport data between on-premise systems and the cloud.

AWS is the biggest and most common use case for integration with ONTAP.

We have a number of systems that we run on-premise and have not been moved to AWS for various reasons. ONTAP allows us to manage our portfolio across two domains. 

It manages our environments with a single purview of data management, especially as each variant of ONTAP uses identical metadata and file system formats. Then, data can be universally managed and manipulated throughout the data fabric.

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

The navigation on some of the configuration parameters is a bit cumbersome, making the learning curve on functions somewhat steep.

I would like them to make upgrading simpler. I would like it if they could offer a simpler upgrade guide which you can generate through their website, because their current version is full of dozens of complicated CLI commands. 

It is very stable and versatile, but you need to have an advanced degree to administer or monitor it.

Since it has seamless integration with AWS, scalability is not an issue.

NetApp ONTAP and AWS work really well together. ONTAP was designed to run within Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud instances. Once Cloud Volumes ONTAP is installed, Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes are assigned to the Cloud Volumes ONTAP EC2 compute instance to create the equivalent of a Data ONTAP storage array.

Purchasing this solution through the AWS Marketplace was simple, which was why our organization chose to go through it. The AWS consumer-based pricing model makes it easy for developers to use their credit cards to spin up virtual servers immediately.

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.

We are making good use of the product. It has a lot of features and is an efficient/stable product. The recovery using Snapshots is a big plus, alongside the flexibility in volume creation for Unix, as well as Windows environments. Its challenges are on the learning curve, as well as its pricing could be improved.

We use it to store all kinds of data, both structured and unstructured.

The way that it has helped our organization is that it requires less time to manage. It's almost like a set-it-and-forget-it type of solution. We don't have to do too much maintenance. Compared to other products, it doesn't need so much babysitting. It's easy to set up and it works. It does the things it is expected to do.

In addition, it provides unified storage no matter what kind of data you have. It has multi-protocol support. It does shares and it does block, so it's a one-stop solution that can fit all of your needs. You don't need multiple solutions for your different types of data.

The most valuable features are that it's 

• reliable
• simple 
• performs well.

It also helps to keep control of storage costs.

The only issue I can think of is metrics, but I think they have improved that in the newer versions already. There should be an easy place to see all your metrics.

I've been using NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP for more than 10 years.

It's very stable. We haven't had any issues since setting it up. It all depends upon the disk. The faster it is, the better the performance.

It is a very scalable solution. We are looking at how we can grow in the cloud and it can definitely scale in the cloud.

The support is good in general but the initial, frontline support could be improved. Because I have already been using the product for so long, when I call support I would rather talk to somebody who is a little bit more advanced or senior, rather than talking to the first-level support. Usually, it takes some time to reach out to their senior support. The advanced support is good. The frontline support can still be improved.

Positive

We've used Dell EMC in the past. We switched because NetApp definitely provides us with multi-protocol support and it is a one-stop solution.

It's fairly easy to set up. For a new SAN it takes a couple of hours to get the setup done. The additional configurations take another three or four hours. You can get the whole thing, a new system, set up within a day so that it is ready to go to testing.

Our implementation strategy is that we use CIFS shares and NFS shares in our environment. We also have block storage for SQL and Oracle. That has been our general plan all along. We separate these protocols by virtual servers. Once the necessary cabling is done, it's a matter of setting up the network interfaces for each, provisioning some storage, and testing things out. Overall, it's fairly straightforward.

I strongly recommend the solution. The biggest advantage is that it works as expected. There's less maintenance so you don't need too many people to support it and you save money in the long run.

Our primary use case is data replication to the cloud.

Using Snapshot copies and thin clones for operational recovery is convenient. This technology makes things very easy.

The unified file and block-storage access across clouds and on-premises infrastructure have made things easier for us. It means that we do not face significant roadblocks.

The most valuable feature of this solution is that it makes our data readily available and we don't have to go through a lot of trouble to access it.

We would like to have support for high availability in multi-regions.

There is no support for Microsoft Azure.

I have been using this solution for three years.

The stability is very impressive and we have had no issues with it.

Scalability is not an issue because it is really expandable. If you don't know the structure of the business you can scale up, scale down, and do everything graphically.

We have not used NetApp technical support directly. We have been speaking with partners who are in our region.

We used the NetApp Cloud Manager to get up and running, and we found it very simple. It was very easy, and you don't have to be an engineer to get it working.

Partners from our region assisted us with the deployment. CW did a good job starting from scratch and getting everything up and running. When I would give a requirement, they would come up with all of the options that were available.

I have tried Pure Storage and EMC RecoverPoint, but ONTAP is easier to use.

I love this solution. They have a lot of features and they explore the market really well, whereas other vendors fail to do those things. ONTAP keeps evolving with the needs of the market and follows the trends.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

My primary use case of ONTAP is for all of my data.

We have DR and we once had a problem with electricity and the data moved to the other side of the DR and the user and I didn't know about it. ONTAP has avoided this from occurring in the future.

The most valuable features are that it's easy to manage and it's reliable. 

I haven't had to restore the Snapshot copies and thin clones. Every time I check, it's working.

I don't use the inline encryption.

In the next release, I would like to see more options on the dashboard. 

Local support needs improvement. 

It's very stable.

Scalability is easy.

Their technical support is very good. 

We previously used HPE 3PAR and we switched because of the complexity we had with HPE. It was easier with NetApp.

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

We used an integrator for the setup. They were good. 

We chose NetApp because after we did the pilot, we saw the difference between both of the companies.

I would rate it a nine out of a ten. I give it this rating because of my experience with it and the ease of implementation. To make it a ten it wouldn't cost money.

My advice to someone considering this solution would be to go for it. 

Our primary usage is as a repository for the application servers. It's mostly for NFS, with very good replication options and backup features. There are also tools that we need to put there and replicate between our on-prem and AWS locations.

We tried to use EFS, for example, but one of the cons of EFS was that the performance was degraded once we had a lot of files and very large storage. It took it a while to handle everything. Also, backing up was harder and we needed a third-party. With NetApp it's much easier. Performance is very good and there was no need to change our environments, our speeds, or our automation because we have NetApps on-prem as well. When you have 100,000 files on smaller volumes, or you have bigger volumes with millions of files, it's almost impossible to work with EFS. With NetApp we didn't even feel it. It's all flowing really well.

The snapshot ability we're using is very good, SnapMirror. For example, we have a vault account and we can SnapMirror our volumes to that vault account. It has a NetApp that sits on it as three buckets and acts as our offset backups.

The FlexClones make all the management easier for us.

They're making the right improvements right now. The only issue we had lately was that outside our VPC we could not reach the virtual IP, the floating IP. I heard that they have fixed that as well. That's a good advantage.

We've been using it for two years already.

The stability has been very good. The only time that it was down was because someone took the machine down. That was in the beginning and then we fixed the permissions. But it wasn't an issue on NetApp's end that caused the system to go down.

Both performance and scalability are really good. We started with a small system but have grown really fast. We needed to change the type of system and the license. We were able to do that online with no issues. Doing so, and going with the bigger type of system, also gives us better performance. 

So if you need more performance, you can always change the type of system. Working with NetApp, they provide us with a consultant, if needed, to determine what the best type of system is for our use case, based on the performance that we need. They're flexible.

We're growing all the time. We have several sites already and we're adding more sites when needed. We are keeping the on-prem as well because it doesn't always make sense to move to the cloud. It depends on budget, the CapEx and OpEx. But we are growing.

The support has been great. Every time we've had a question or something that we didn't know how to do, a setup issue, they have helped us. There was one time that we set up a new one on a new version and there was a small bug that was fixed really fast. It wasn't within how the system functions, it was a bug in the deployment part. They helped us really quickly and we were able to manage that as well.

There was a lot of downtime with our previous solution. Also, the performance wasn't what it should be. Any update that we did required downtime, and there were quite a lot of updates because there were a lot of bugs. That's where Cloud Volumes ONTAP is very good because they're using the same software as in their devices. There are no special needs or special bugs. They're using a very mature a solution.

The initial one we set up was more complex until we understood the parts. There is a manager that is doing everything for you, but you need to know which IP, what are the prerequisites, etc. It took a while to understand that. But once we did the first one, it became very easy to deploy. My team can now do it in one or two hours, with all the integration that we need.

In terms of an implementation strategy, we get the requirements from the business. Whenever we need a new environment, for example, my team sets it up really fast. We can set all the configuration like any other systems we have: with our monitoring tools, the backup, snapshots; everything the same way. It's easy to manage and replicate things to look the same.

Migration was pretty easy. We could use SnapMirror or we could use NetApp's XCP Migration Tool. That was pretty awesome. It replicated the data faster than any other tool that I've seen. That was a big help.

For deployment, there are two guys from my team who work together. Of course, we have a network guy setting up all the network stuff, and there's the cloud team that is doing that part of the configuration. Once we have all the prerequisites, they can set it up really fast.

For maintenance, it requires less than one person. We have a small group, about eight people for 150 systems, which manages systems worldwide, not just on the cloud but also on-prem. It's part of managed systems and it's being managed with the management tools. We don't see that as something where we need to add more people if we add another system.

We used a third-party, mostly for the cloud itself, for the VPC configuration, the environment-related stuff that my company uses. But we did not use one for NetApp itself.

Since we're a SaaS business, we need to have stable environments for our customers. We can't have downtime every week or so. Stability is very important for us, as well as a guarantee that data is being backed up. If someone, even by mistake, deletes something, there is a way to recover it. Stability, availability, performance, all these kinds of things, mean we're eventually getting more customers and more satisfied customers.

We've been working with NetApp on pricing. They allow a special price if you are working closely with them. Since we have a lot of NetApp systems, we got some kind of discount. That's something they do for other customers, not just for us. The price was fair.

In addition to the licensing fees, you're paying Amazon for your usage, the instances, the storage. It's using EBS drives or S3 buckets. So there are all the Amazon fees that you usually have. But overall, we compared the price we have with NetApp and the price for going with DFS and there was a difference, but it was worth the performance, stability, and to have the capabilities NetApp has for doing backups. All these features are covered.

It's NetApp. It's what we know. Our NetApp on-prem has been really good, so we continue to maintain that.

There is a 30-day trial that you can use to get a feel for it. You can work with NetApp in case you have questions in deploying it. They're helpful with that. If you're planning big, to deploy in several sites or a few systems, and you have plans for the future, you can always talk with NetApp and work on getting the right price for you and what makes sense. It depends on your growth and how big your footprint is. They will help you, of course. 

I would rate it between nine and ten out of ten. I don't have any complaints. Maybe it could be cheaper but as for how it functions, it's really doing what it needs to do.

The primary use case is storage of medical records.

The solution’s unified file and block-storage access across our infrastructure is invaluable. Without it, we can't do what we do.

The consistency of storage management across clouds affects our storage operations by making everybody go to object-based storage, which is not a bad thing. I don't care what cloud provider that you use, they all are based upon what AWS comes out with, which is their S3 object-based storage. NetApp is doing that with with StorageGRID, and that's why we have one and a half petabytes of StorageGRID now, because we have developers and they all want to use object-based storage. Everybody likes puts and gets, but I still prefer traditional NFS.

The ability to Snapshot and SnapMirror between locations is the most valuable. The solution’s Snapshot copies and thin clones in terms of operational recovery works very effectively. If you want to automate it, use SnapCenter 2.0. Otherwise, do it manually. It's not that hard to do.

I suspect ONTAP will just end up being a portion that runs on StorageGRID. Ultimately, everything will be object-based, then you'll just have a little dock of ONTAP that will do your NFS and CIFS.

The on-premise NetApp is very stable. I can't speak to the cloud side.

It just works. I don't have problems with it.

It's very scalable. I even insisted when we ordered the latest ones that we get the interconnect switches. So, if we want to expand, we already have those in place.

We have used technical support. As long as they don't call me at four o'clock in the morning to tell me that a drive failed and they are sending me another one, I like it. They have a tendency to do that. 

We previously used Commvault.

I have used NetApp before at two previous companies. 

Compellent is what they already had when we acquired this other company. It would just crash constantly. It is not worth it.

It is pretty easy. It is sort of wizard based.

I have done it numerous times.

We did the last deployment ourselves.

It is reliable, and Commvault is not reliable.

Dell EMC sucks. They are not innovative. They haven't done anything in years.

NetApp is the best solution out there.

I would rate it as a 10 out of 10. I've been using the solution for a number of years. I have watched it increasingly get better, not worse.

The solution’s Snapshot copies and thin clones has affected our application development speed by speeding it up. However, we do so much through Ansible that this is really irrelevant. Theoretically, you should never care about your virtual machines. Your data should always be on NFS or CIFS exports so if a virtual machine gets messed up, you just blow it away and redeploy it. I can redeploy it faster than you can log into it and troubleshoot it, but the data's always here.

With dedupe compression, it does reduce our organizational footprint. Unfortunately, we have to hold on to everything for 20 years.

We are getting ready to use the solution’s inline encryption using SnapMirror.

We use this primarily to consolidate our services and block services.

We are using Linux and eventually, we are going to use SnapMirror. So far, we have seen benefits from using this solution. When we started this process there were some very specific goals about log and files being stored in a single static device. This is achieved with a RAM solution. We are also able to integrate with the cloud, which is another goal we achieved. The solution has also saved us on costs, of course. We calculated that we are saving $1,000,000 across three years.

The consistency of storage management across clouds has effected our storage operations. Essentially, one of the benefits of open NetApp is that ONTAP is pretty much the operating system for any mirrored device, so it doesn't matter if it is in the cloud or on-premises, or whether you use other NetApp products, you pretty much have a safe interface with ONTAP. We like that.

One of our goals is to unify file our block file services into a single storage device. At the same time, we want to replicate on-site services to the cloud. That's also a benefit for us because that way we can move it to the cloud if we need to.

Replication to the cloud is the most valuable feature. Deduplication and compression are also very important to us. We are in the process of adopting the cloud. We are going to AWS and we are trying to do a safety technician call out with integration to the cloud. NetApp allows us to move some of the volumes to the cloud, at the same time that we continue providing the cloud services that we have on-premises.

We are in the process of doing various plans for all equipment in order to do acceptable recovery of products in the new environment.

Maybe I need more speed, but so far, I don't have any feedback for improvements.

I would like to see something from NetApp about backups. I know that NetApp offers some backup for Office 365, but I would like to see something from NetApp for more backup solutions.

The stability is great. We have been doing different scenarios about errors from controllers, to disks, and so far it is very stable. We have not had any issues. We upgraded our own version and did not have any issues there, either.

This is another issue that we like from ONTAP. There are products for different scales. It is very easy to use.

When we deployed everything, we opened a case with support for two minor issues we had with some servers. They're great. They were willing to help, easy to communicate with, and respond very quickly. They already found the issue and resolved it.

We used NetApp Cloud Manager to get up and running with Cloud Volumes ONTAP. That is how we deployed it. Their configuration wizards and ability to automate the process were very easy. The wizard is very easy to follow. There are videos, so you don't really need a lot of skill. If you understand integrations and have a basic knowledge of the cloud, you can quickly connect your equipment. It's good.

We did evaluate other solutions.  We evaluated the main players in this area, like EMC.

There are some features that we really liked from NetApp. One of them is the ability to consolidate files and blocks. Other vendors have some mirror solutions, but they are not in the maturity level that NetApp is. We also really like that NetApp has a product for the cloud that is really working and is proven and valuable. Other vendors do not have that, or if they have it, you need to deploy something in the middle. That is something that we like. We don't need to deploy anything. We can just run the backup directly from the OS and spin out the solution.

Try not to focus only on the current issues, but also look into the innovation process of NetApp. It is very impressive how they have been able to develop and continue trying to develop products for the cloud. Try to gain a deeper understanding of established needs and requirements for files and blocks.

I would rate this solution as ten out of ten.

It just gives us the capability to get cloud resources.

The primary use case for ONTAP Cloud is getting data into the cloud.

We are using the product for our future planning in the following:

• Disaster recovery in the cloud
• Backup in the cloud
• Development in the cloud.

• SnapMirror
• SnapVault
• Fast, persistent storage in the cloud

Just more scale out. It can only do two nodes. One SVM, which would be okay as long as I can scale easily.

It needs to be matured with more capabilities.

So far, so good.

It's limited. We're trying to figure out better methods as we need to scale out more.

We have built-in support. It is good. They are an onsite resource.

We needed persistent storage in the cloud for platforms, and there's really not options right now in AWS or Azure.

We also use Avere Gateways. That's pretty much it.

I was the one who evaluated and approved the use of ONTAP Cloud.

It functions and I think in the future it will be a reasonable method of getting NFS and the cloud.

The most important factor that lead us to use OTC versus a native cloud storage solution was having enough fast capabilities and social capabilities. It is extremely important that our storage enable us to render and integrate on-premise systems with cloud services. Cloud integration is also very important for us in our selection of a future on-premise storage system.

We use AWS cloud service.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: We are 95% on NetApp on-premise. We wanted compatibility with their on-premise solutions.