NetApp Snapshot Reviews

One thing about Snapshot is that it can be used for so many things. Say, for example, I want to take a backup of my database at a scheduled time, I can take a snapshot of that on whatever schedule I want. The snapshot takes just a few seconds to record. During the capture and while taking the snapshot, the database is frozen for me for only a few seconds that the snapshot takes. I can now mount that particular snapshot — or any snapshot — and then begin to do a clone of this database. This means I do not have to take the database offline to do a backup.  

That is just one example of what this product can do. Many companies find it very, very useful to use this feature for their backup purposes. I do understand that quite a number of enterprise-class backup solutions like NetBackup and other backup solutions in this category now have integrated snapshots into their solutions as well following NetApp's lead. It just shows that other companies are aware of the fact that it is a very good feature as a way of dealing with backups.  

In another case, some of my customers do backups every hour and some backup every two hours, depending on their requirements. The reason for that is they want to protect themselves in case there is any corruption or anything happens to their data. If so, they can roll back to the most current and the most useful version of their database.  

Snapshot also comes in very handy with their cloning feature. Say, for example, you want to create a new product and you want to make sure that you test the product on your live database, but you obviously do not want your development to have any impact on your live database. This is an instance where it is useful to do what NetApp calls a clone.  

You create the clone and a current snapshot is embedded in the clone. So now you can take a copy of that volume of whatever you wanted to clone, and then you can begin to use this for the development of your new product. The footprint is very small in the sense that it is already data that you modified and that takes up very little space. You cannot modify any of the live data and you cannot add any new data. The actual memory space that you are using by working with the clone is almost zero but it is the same data captured at the moment where the snapshot was created.  

So those are a few very good advantages that the Snapshot product has. The ability to clone is unique. The cloning feature is called FlexClone.  

In the FlexClone, I currently have not seen a need for any particular improvements because it is already so flexible and so robust. I do not think that most of my customers have actually exercised the features that are already embedded within the design of FlexClone.  

I am not seeing how these features that the customers already have but do not often need to take advantage of really need to be improved. They are very useful when needed, but just are not often used. We are talking about clients in demanding industries like in banking and financial industries, and also in oil and gas. If they do not need more functionality and can perform the tasks that they need without interruption because of the current feature set, there is really nothing to add.  

There is one thing about documentation. The documentation is always very good. But you know, there are some people who are very lazy when it comes to reading documents. This is more of a problem than the application.  

If there is a problem with the product itself, I don't know what it is. If NetApp wants to have a bigger share of the market, I would suggest they look at the pricing in comparison to the competition and make the appropriate change. The pricing should be lowered. If the pricing could be made more attractive, then without a doubt they are going to have more customers and they will advance in the marketplace. No doubt about that.  

I have been working with NetApp Snapshot for about 16 years as a reseller.  

NetApp is extremely stable. No doubt about that.  

Scalability is very good. For example, if you start with the most elementary package, you can easily migrate to the mid-range package. All you need to do is change your contracts. Once you address your contracts, the product is already scaled to the mid-range. The same thing applies to the enterprise. Because of the way it is structured, you have the entire structure of the product already there. The solution that we use for the entry-level is the same solution that we use for the mid-range and also the same structure we use for the enterprise version. So the only thing that makes a difference are the contracts. This structure makes it very easy to scale — vertically and also horizontally. So the scalability aspect of the product is very, very good.  

We have all types of customers. Our clients are small, medium or enterprise companies. If they are a small company just starting, there is a NetApp version for them and they can start with the minimum contract. If they are a medium-sized company, there is a version available for their needs. If they are an enterprise-class company, they can start with the enterprise contract. Mid-sized and small clients can scale up as they need to just by paying more to upgrade the contract. It is very scalable.  

One last thing is that you can have both NAS (Network-attached Storage) and SAN (Storage Area Network) in the same storage component. So when they buy the product they can use the same storage for both NAS and SAN and everything is embedded in the system.  

When it comes to the technical support system, they keep tabs on whatever they know has been reported and what has been resolved as far as bugs. They know what patches or updates were issued to resolve the problem. If you have any issues, you report them straight-away. All the people within the loop of the support team are copied on the report so they all know what is going on. That information is also available to the central support family as if you have one dedicated technical service representative.  

They take immediate action to make sure that whatever problem has been reported is taken care of within the specified time that you purchase from NetApp. So if you purchase to have a resolution within four hours or within twelve hours, as long as the fix is available, you will receive your resolution within that time. To the best of my knowledge, NetApp has been able to keep to those timelines and meet the demands.  

If it is the next delivery day, then they will send the bug fix to your office. It is very easy to repair things. You locate the component that needs to be replaced, you remove it and put in the new one and you are ready to go, straight-away. It is very easy.  

In my old position as the managing director of the company, I did not go into that level of detail with the clients as far as being directly involved in the setup. There were other people who we sent out on location. So I have a broad overview of what NetApp software needs for the setup.  

I think that NetApp is very easy to set up. To put it in perspective for someone that has never worked with this product before, this usually means that they will be starting a migration into NetApp. They start this by doing the initial installation of NetApp. Then they create your aggregate data set, then you create your volumes, then you create your nodes. Then you map your nodes to your server and then you are good to go. So it is very straightforward from that perspective. It may be more complex if a client has special requirements. This is the same for most products.  

As far as their licensing costs, the licensing is paid on a yearly basis. The organization pays for the licensing based on the software and the capacity that they choose. Once the license expires, you can renew it for another year up to the time that the software is supported. As soon as the support ends for the software it is unavailable. You have to update the license and you need to re-purchase storage.  

Updating is really not an alternative anyway in a competitive market because technology is not stagnant. Technologies advance for many reasons and there are more capabilities available all the time. It is much better for the user if they make sure to keep tabs on the technological advancements.  

My advice to people who are considering NetApp as a solution is that rather than just looking at the solution and what it does, they should look at it in relation to their business requirements.  

I believe that the sophistication of Snapshot is not necessary for every company because of what you have to pay for it. Any company that needs to make backups can use the products from any vendor who sells a product in this category because the product is going to make the backups. The advantage you have with Snapshot, in addition, is to have the availability to make very quick backups. So even if you do not want to use the resources to backup data by uploading it to separate storage, your backup is still available for you intact within NetApp, and you can then do the uploading. So that is a very good feature. No doubt about that.  

But this idea of evaluating need applies to all companies with respect to what they are doing. They need to consider which product fits them.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this NetApp Snapshot product as a ten-out-of-ten.  

In the case of Snapshot, you can quickly grasp how to use something within a minute by reading the documentation. Instantly, after you start using it, the process always becomes ingrained in your brain. The software is so well developed and mature that the processes are not changing often. To the best of my knowledge as someone who is using NetApp for 14 years, it is an important thing to have the processes in the application as well-thought-out and stable. Although there have been improvements over time, NetApp is a very stable application that is easy to stay familiar with.  

In fact, it may not be the application that needs to change so much as the clients using it. They may need to get some storage devices replaced because of the Snapshot features are so robust. That is also how NetApp gained ground in the market with that particular app: by being the leader.  

I am using the on-prem deployment model of this solution. 

Compared to the traditional way we did backups, with Snapshot it takes us less time. It has improved my organization by saving us time. 

The speed is the most valuable feature. The interface is user-friendly and we can do a lot of customization with it. 

It's very stable. We had one bug, but regardless, the solution worked as expected and we didn't feel any impact regarding the bug. It was very straightforward to install the parts and the service keeps running, so I'm happy with the solution.

Scalability is different from the other solutions that we have used. We haven't needed to scale yet but if we were to, it has good capabilities. We have around 200 users using this solution. 

Their technical support is very good. 

We used standard backup solutions by Dell EMC. We actually preferred Dell EMC solutions. 

The initial setup was very straightforward. The deployment took around half a day. 

We used an integrator's help for the deployment but it was very simple to install and to use. It's very straightforward.

It's not too expensive. 

I'm quite happy with the solution and the integration it has with other products. I would recommend it to someone considering it. 

I would rate it with a nine out of ten. Not a perfect ten because there is one point off to give it room for improvement. 

We have VMs deployed throughout the organization and we use this solution to take storage snapshots at the VM-level.

The most valuable feature is the integration with Azure. We are able to easily do Azure backups and restores.

The dashboards are in need of improvement.

The configuration could be improved by providing more options, in particular, during the initial setup phase.

It would be helpful if more functionality could be built around migrating files from on-premises to Azure because we have had issues when using Snapshot with very large database files, from 18 TB to 32 TB.

I have been using NetApp Snapshot for more than two years.

NetApp Snapshot is stable and we have been depending on it for more than two years.

We have had to contact technical support a couple of times because of some issues that we were facing, and we are satisfied with the support. Our issues were resolved.

The initial setup is straightforward, although if they provided more options then it would be better. I cannot recall the length of time required to deploy the solution, but one of the restorations that I performed recently took three hours.

NetApp Snapshot is a product that we depend on and I recommend. It has helped us in the case of installations and other issues. Our main complaints are about the dashboard and configuration options.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The data protection provides peace of mind.

More reliable and accessible data protection than backups alone.

Specialized applications like SnapManager for Exchange (SME) are finicky.

My experience with SME is that it is not as stable at the overall Snap platform (which is part of ONTAP, not a separate product like the SnapManager products). SME does a fine job of backing up Exchange databases, but due to the HA nature of DAGs, there are times when a primary database switches from server to server. When this happens, SME does not elegantly handle that transition; as a result, there can be missed snapshots. This means gaps in your recoverable timeframe.

I'm not sure how to fix the issue as I'm not a software developer. I'm sure there are complexities that I don't see.

More than six years.

Only with SME, especially going between versions. So, rarely.

No.

Very good.

Straightforward, once you fully comprehend the concept. It's not 'simple', but it works well and is comprehensible.

Do it! Don't not do it.

We primarily use the solution for backup and disaster recovery.

The solution is fast and it doesn't use any disc space at all. You can also take as many snapshots as you like. These are the solution's most valuable features.

The solution has already updated the one thing I didn't like about it. At the last update they maximized the count of Snapshots. It used to be 255, and now it's 1000. 

The price could be a bit lower.

The solution has perfect stability.

Scalability is good. It's very easy to expand if you need to. We've been happy with the scalability offered. We have about 2000 users currently.

I think that technical support is very helpful. If I have a problem, they contact me and help me solve it.

We didn't specifically use another solution. We use HPE systems in tandem with NetApp, so I wouldn't say that NetApp was replacing any other product.

The initial setup is very easy.

I have handled the installation a few times by myself, so in most cases I don't need any help from the NetApp or any other support team.

We're using the on-premises deployment model.

I would recommend the solution. I'd rate it nine out of ten.

I am using the solution for backup purposes in a private cloud environment

The most valuable features of this solution are the snapshot and clone capabilities.

This solution is easy to use.

I would like to see cloud features added to the next release of this solution.

This is a very stable solution.

This solution is scalable. We have approximately seventy-five users.

We have no plans to increase our usage at this time.

The solution has been working so I haven't had to contact technical support.

I am using HPE 3PAR in addition to this solution. We have not switched.

The initial setup of this solution is complex.

The Professional Services group from NetApp implemented my storage solution, and the deployment took one day.

The price of this solution is fair. It is not expensive.

This is a very good storage solution, but it is not extraordinary.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

In the current environment we keep Snapshots for only five days. So we go into the backup solution of using Veeam and VMware.

What I find most valuable, is the simplicity of the technology. It has a user-friendly interface.

I think the automation needs some improvement. It is not very user-friendly and could therefore be adapted a little. 

The solution is very stable.

In my opinion one would easily be able to scale on this solution. We currently have about ten users.

The technical support is very good and I will rate it ten out of ten.

The initial setup was really easy and straightforward.

If I have to rate this solution out of ten, I will give it a ten. It is a very good product and in the next version the developers can perhaps work on more automation.

The feature that's most valuable is the ability to take a snapshot from a machine or VMware.

The solution needs to ensure it has higher availability or business continuity.

The solution is very stable.

The scalability is good.

Technical support was good. We used them when we were upgrading the solution.

The initial setup was straightforward.

The pricing of the solution is good.

We are using the private cloud deployment model. We just upgraded to the latest version of the solution.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten.