NetApp SnapCenter Reviews

It is used for VMware and Microsoft SQL databases. We use it for ordinary backups. Nothing special.

I like the instant backups and recovery feature that SnapCenter provides within NetApp storage systems. That's mostly why I'm using it.

I would like to see replication support between systems. Right now, it's kind of limited.
We manage them separately from the storage system interface, not from SnapCenter. It would be nice if it was integrated into SnapCenter.

I would rate the stability at four out of five because it's a complicated product. In terms of integrating with systems and software, sometimes you need to watch your software versions and the changing environment. But that is its design, so there is nothing you can do about it.

It's stable. I haven't had any stability issues with it.

SnapCenter handles scaling very well. In my opinion, it's for small or medium businesses but not for enterprise. It has great value because it's cheap and everything is bundled with the NetApp system, so it's best for small customers. Big enterprises usually use complete backup systems. There's no way you can it can propose SnapCenter as the primary backup system in an enterprise, in my experience. There is nothing wrong with the software, it's just that big enterprises have serious backup systems.

We use different backup solutions for systems that SnapCenter doesn't support. We use Commvault. We started using SnapCenter this year. We had a few new NetApp systems and it was cheaper to use SnapCenter than Commvault because it's included and bundled with the system. It's better to use SnapCenter than to pay for Commvault. It's better value.

The initial setup is pretty easy. It's very good. The whole process of implementation is pretty easy and straightforward. There's nothing to improve here.

Usually, it takes less than one hour to deploy it and get it operational. Our implementation strategy is to check the whole compatibility matrix. That makes it go easily. Deployment generally requires one or two storage engineers, as well as a DB or VMware admin. Four people is enough.

It ordinarily works without any maintenance needed, but to monitor all the backup stuff might take half an FTE.

We see a financial value with SnapCenter because we don't have to license Commvault, which is pretty expensive.

NetApp has great licensing models. It has two bundles: You can buy Premium or SnapCenter, and that's a great thing. You have all the replications included but, as I mentioned before, there should be some improvements in the management the replication for SnapCenter.

We have not looked at other systems. We have a primary backup system and SnapCenter for particular systems, and that satisfies our requirements.

Check the compatibility of all components before, although it's pretty common. After you check the compatibility, then deploy SnapCenter and the plug-ins. Don't try to implement and then troubleshoot. It makes things more complex.

Backup and recovery software solutions are very important for every company. SnapCenter is pretty cheap, and that's important as well. Sometimes, customers don't want to pay a lot for backup solutions. That is why SnapCenter is good.

We do implementations from time to time, where customers have no backup solutions at all. It's better to have something that is actually free rather than nothing. Case by case, if we have no backup system, we use SnapCenter, but I don't think the number of our installations will grow significantly.

I would rate SnapCenter at seven out of ten because of the lack of replication management, which is very important.

We use it as a backup solution.

I think there is no improvement for our organization, it's just a new tool.

For us, it's the Exchange plugin because we have a lot of customers that use SnapManager Exchange and have to migrate to SnapCenter.

Plugins should be developed in shorter times. Performance generally could be a little bit faster.

Sometimes it works fine, sometimes not. It depends on the complexity of the customer's environment.

No experience at this time, as it’s relatively new in our environment.

Depends on the technician on the phone. We’ve had both good and bad experiences.

Yes, SnapManager Products. Because of EOA we had to switch to SnapCenter.

Initial setup took one day, but it is complex. You have to deploy servers with high requirements on server power, you have to create users, you must deploy plugins, etc.

As a service provider, we implement the solution by following best practices.

Looks good.

Yes, we were looking at other software products. If a user already has a backup solution, for example Commvault, it's easier to sell and implement an agent for this product.

You should always look at best practices and the interoperability matrix.

It's used for backup and restoring of virtual machines from VMware. I have some experience with SnapCenter but only on the installation. I don't work directly with the end customers.

The simplicity of backup and restore directly with VMware is an advantage and the time to backup and restore is reduced.

The easy installation of the plug-ins to the host is the most valuable feature.

The compatibility with other manufacturers, like Oracle and Hyper-V, could be improved. I would like to see it be more compatible with other software.

So far, it's very stable, although I don't know what it's like for the end customer. From my side, it seems to be very stable.

I had a customer with two sites, and the scalability was great. I had to install SnapCenter on both sites and it was very straightforward. The two sites communicate with each other.

I have used NetApp's technical support for this solution and it went very well. They asked me for some logs, identified the problem - we easily got to the point, where the issue was - and the problem was resolved. 

Some of our customers were using Veeam and Commvault before using SnapCenter. They did not replace the other tools, they are doing some backups with them as well. The solutions are complementing each other.

The initial setup is straightforward. Other than one issue, a networking problem on the customer's side, I have had no issues. Installation is very fast, very straightforward. Deployment, with all the features installed and configured, takes about one day.

I am using the Standard license, the free version. There is an Advanced license but I don't know its price.

Try it and buy it. Try the product to see the features, the easy installation, and how easy it is to implement and to work with.

We have five or six end customers, users, who are system admins. For deployment and maintenance, it requires two people.

I would rate SnapCenter at seven out of ten. The tool could be faster.

The primary use case is for our backup strategy. We run almost all our backups over SnapCenter and we are migrating the rest.

It saves us a lot of money and manpower. We automate everything in our environment. We can just run some scripts over it and update all agents automatically, and we don't have to take care of each individual client. We can do that from the central SnapCenter station. That's a huge benefit for us.

A simple example of a way it has improved the way our organization functions is that if we have to update or analyze any backup errors, in the past we would have to go directly to the server, log in, and go to the log directory. We had to analyze it directly on the server itself. But now, we have a centralized, single pane of glass and we can use the SnapCenter GUI, which saves also a lot of time for our operating teams.

For the applications team, for the SQL admins, they log in to the GUI more because they can run their SQL restores out of the SnapCenter UI. They have the benefit that they can now restore their resources on their own. In the past, they had to open a ticket and say, "Oh, we have to restore that volume and that LUN," and then the storage and backup team had to restore it and give the information back. Now, the application owner or service owner can do that by himself. So that's a huge benefit for them.

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.

Another good feature is the user permission settings. We have different kinds of groups which can do different kinds of operating tasks in SnapCenter. Previously, that was not even possible.

It is stable. I haven't heard anything from our operating teams that it was not working.

The scalability itself is great, overall. 

One thing I know of which will come out in the next release is a fix for a scalability issue we have right now. 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 scans all SVMs. If I back up 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, which should come out in the next month or so.

Overall, the scalability is fine. It's working and running well in our environment.

We have a split of SnapCenters for different types of databases. We have a SnapCenter for Exchange, we have a SnapCenter for HANA databases, we have a SnapCenter for SQL databases. The amount of backups taken over a single server is really huge in our environment. We have around 400 or 500 HANA databases, for example. Splitting them up is just a precaution we've done to ensure that it's not running into any scalability issues on the single server. That's why we decided, internally, to split it up. But we haven't seen any real scalability issue or something like that up to now, except the SVM thing.

We had some bugs. We always opened cases for them, or I had direct contact with the engineers. They were always fast. It was good working together. They were always interested in what the problem was and how to solve it with us. Our experience was that they're really good.

We used the SnapManager products before, and Snap Creator. The Snap Creator and SnapManager products were discontinued by NetApp. And they're not centralized, so it's definitely a benefit for us that SnapCenter has a centralized UI and centralized interface and centralized REST API. That's a huge benefit in the end for our administration.

The SnapCenter setup, itself, is not that complex. The SnapCenter setup is very easy. You just have to install it and then it's running. It's intuitive. The first time you see the UI, you need a few minutes to find everything.

However, our environment makes it more complex. We have different kinds of customers with different setups. They have a single domain, they have no domains, or they have trusts with our domains. So it's more our environment which is hard to maintain. 

But SnapCenter's doing a good job there, with the additional support they introduced, and the functionality is working.

Right now our implementation strategy is that we're running only HANA databases and MS SQL databases SnapCenter. We're on the way to migrating our MS SQLs backups at the moment. Afterward, the other databases will follow, like Oracle, Db2, MySQL, etc. So the strategy is clear to set everything to SnapCenter.

The implementation took relatively long because we started with the 1.0 version which wasn't that good at the start. We talked a lot with the engineers to get to 2.0 and 3.0. Since 3.0, it has been really usable for end customers. That was the release where we were really able to use it. We're managing it as a team. At first it was missing support for a team, such as permissions, permission groups, and not just single users. Back then, if I created a backup job, for example, I was the only one who could edit it and see it.

It was just our team and NetApp's.

We haven't calculated anything yet, but I can say that the migration from SnapManagers to SnapCenter saves a lot of manpower in our operating team. They save the time to log in to each server, and they save the time of running resources for our application guys because they can do it themselves. It saves a lot of resources on our operating and storage teams.

It's free. The license is included with other NetApp products.

We didn't evaluate any other options. Our strategy is a clear NetApp strategy. We have a single-vendor strategy on the storage side. We use only NetApp in our environment. Therefore there was no thought of looking at other applications vendors. When you buy NetApp storage systems, you already have it included in the price. So it wouldn't make any sense to use another backup resource like Veeam, because of the additional license costs.

You should definitely plan some time to understand the concepts behind it. What we've seen is that each backup and user permission has its own defaults. You have to plan some implementation time. You can't simply install it and then it's working. It takes some time to understand how it is working.

But it's definitely a huge improvement because you can easily automate it. If you have a larger environment, as we have, use the REST API. It's a lot faster and a lot better for scaling.

We requested improvements that they have already implemented. For example, there were some GUI improvements, especially for the scalability, where there was no search available. You just had a static list and not a search field to limit the results. And in the last release was the fulfillment of a request where they provide workgroup support, and not just servers in one single domain, because we have multiple domains.

For the day-to-day maintenance, we've automated almost everything in our environment. We use the REST API from SnapCenter. Everything is direct from an external tool we have called UC4. It's rare that we log in to SnapCenter itself and administrate anything there, for our main backup operating team.

We have seven storage and backup administrators and there are nine people using it on the applications team. We want to expand it to our SAP colleagues, and they're 60 people or so, but that's in progress. We also have 300 outsourcing customers and 200 additional customers we run the backups on. We have a total of about 4,000 systems. It's quite a bit to administrate.

Right now, I would rate it as a nine out of ten. If they fix the problem with our SVMs I would give it a ten. Overall, it's good, it's working.

We use it for Oracle, on the client side.

In our company, we are mostly using SnapCenter software in our test environment. There are many customers using NetApp products, but most of them don't use SnapCenter software in their production environment. So we do not have a lot of experience with it in production systems. We are testing it in our data core environment and our test environment. We check the software's features and new features, and sometimes we do troubleshooting as well.

We test VMware Snapshot, Hyper-V Snapshot, database Snapshots, for example, MS SQL and Oracle.

It allows us to easily take a Snapshot and use it with any backup tools.

We can also take Snapshots on the application side. If we want to restore an SAP or an Oracle machine, a normal Snapshot won't do it, but we can do so with SnapCenter.

We can back up according to application types and not bind. All the features are good for NetApp storage. SnapCenter is the top application. It makes it very easy to work with backup tools.

The replication feature needs improvement in future releases.

SnapCenter is stable.

We haven't had to use technical support for SnapCenter yet.

We were using NetApp's previous software, SnapManager: SnapManager Exchange, SnapManager SQL, SnapManager for Hyper-V, and SnapManager for VMware, etc. SnapCenter is the software which collected all the different kinds of SnapManagers into one bundle. That's why we started using it.

The initial setup is not complex. It's easy, but we have to know which version is used on the customer's side. For example, we have to know which version of ESX they are using and whether the Oracle or SAP machine is a virtual or physical machine. If we make a mistake at setup time it will be a problem for an application or Snapshot.

Deployment takes one hour. We set up step-by-step.

There are two kinds of licenses: a controller license, which is the SnapCenter Standard Capacity license, as well as the SnapCenter Advanced Capacity license.

We are using Commvault Backup software in our environment. Commvault can also manage Snapshots of NetApp, but SnapCenter is very easy for us.

It's really useful if you are using NetApp storage. If you have NetApp storage in your environment and want to take a Snapshot, I recommend purchasing this software.

We have five users of it in our organization. In most environments, one person is enough to manage the software.

I would rate it at eight out of ten. It's useful. If you don't have a backup application, you can use SnapCenter.

We use SnapCenter for our VMware, SQL, and Oracle environments providing application-consistent and centralized backup and recovery from disasters, and cloning. It maximizes NetApp Snapshot, SnapMirror, SnapVault and cloning technology.

It's a centralized, easy-to-use solution empowering RBAC management, monitoring, notifications, extensive logging, and backup schedules for standalone as well as groups of the same types of environments. The cloning capabilities accelerate development.

We previously had the NetApp SnapManager Suite which made the transition to SnapCenter smoother. SnapCenter is better integrated into our new NetApp storage as well as ONTAP Cloud, providing tighter, relevant problem reporting. This has helped in troubleshooting any problems that arise.

Here are just some of the valuable features:

1. Quick cloning of DB environments when development or testing is critical. I love the new clone split feature and the clone update without re-cloning. 
2. Centralized management of backup plug-ins without having to manage them at the host. You can perform host/agent download and push of updates. 
3. Tight integration with NetApp storage, both on-premise and cloud. 
4. Detailed backup reporting and suggested troubleshooting. 
5. PowerShell commands can be run without having to access via the GUI.

1. The Dashboard view needs to be more compressed with better ease of access and drill-down features. 
2. DB plug-in cloning should have similar SnapManager features which allow reuse of specific cloning parameter features.
3. Reinstate Linux filesystem backups of storage volumes (which existed in the prior version).
4. Add integration into OCUM and Active IQ.
   

The solution is very stable.

In a short period of time, we have seen the product scale quickly in feature enhancements and adjustments to the product, thanks to their quick development.

Because of our prior experience with SnapManager, we had a smooth transition to SnapCenter.  When we had a need to reach out to technical support we would work directly with level-2 or global support engineers who are knowledgeable about the product.

SnapManager Suite for VMware, SQL, and Oracle.

The initial setup was straightforward, using online reference documents.

We did an in-house implementation, with additional assistance from our NetApp Enterprise Solution Architect.

We evaluated Veeam, Rubrik, Symantec, and Commvault.

• Evaluate in-depth features you require
• Validate interoperability (very critical)
• Thoroughly inventory every existing component of the business that will use it or be impacted
• Evaluate the installation, configuration, and ease of use with an eval or vendor
• Do a price comparison, once all components needed are identified

We use HANA Database for SMB. This is where we are using SnapCenter to manage all our Snapshots, backups, etc.

It's all together managing both storage and backup, which makes it easier for troubleshooting issues and the automation part of it. SnapCenter is the one that's making it possible to make everything work. 

The ease of access and management from both storage and backup being all in one area, where it integrates with SnapVault and other features with NetApp. However, this is not the case for databases where we used to take consistent Snapshots. 

For OnCommand Insight, they could do cloud-based stuff as well. It would be nice if they could integrate everything inside, so it would be easier for management: One tool used for everything.

I want to see a few more features add that will help our team in managing solution better.

I have not had any issues so far. It has been pretty stable.

It can scale well.

We had to engage the engineering teams on this one point, and the support that we received from NetApp was awesome.

For ERP SAP, we were using a Dell EMC solution previously, but a few things changed from the application teams perspective on what they needs were. So, this drove us to think about other solutions and not just fix on one solution that had been working fine for them. We wanted something that had both cost effectiveness, but also brought both backup and storage together in one platform. This made the difference in going with NetApp SnapCenter.

The initial setup was complex. We were one of the first customers to implement this product, which made it difficult. Even connecting SAP to NetApp was not straightforward.

We used NetApp consultants, who were great.

We only looked at Dell EMC and NetApp. The ease of access, then cost, were the factors in choosing NetApp.

Gather the requirements and see what your application team needs.

Our ERP structure is on the SnapCenter. We also keep on it SQL Servers, VMware products, etc.

It has greatly improved our DR activity. 

Assisting backups.

We would like to see more granular repording and reporting in bigger sets available in SnapCenter. 

Our ROBOs has told me that stability is good. However, we have been hit by bugs.

I have not looked yet at scalability because we are using single instances right now.

We have experience some difficulties with our current support. We are engaging in engineering level support because some of our problems are more technical.

We were having some data corruption problems in our biggest environments, so we started looking into it NetApp solutions, that's why we went for SnapCenter (after doing a PoC).

The initial setup was straightforward.

We used NetApp Professional Services. Our experience with them was good. We have a long standing relationship with them.

We looked Dell EMC and NetApp. One of the features in our requirements was going from a SAN environment to a NAS. These types of features are why we went with NetApp.