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Azure NetApp Files vs Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] comparison

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Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure NetApp Files
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (9th), Cloud Storage (13th), Public Cloud Storage Services (14th)
Cisco CloudCenter [EOL]
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Rajat Wadhwa - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at IBM
Cross-region replication has delivered seamless disaster recovery for enterprise storage needs
In terms of improvement, I would say cost reservation; the cost is a bit high. If we compare Azure Files and Azure NetApp Files, I know that customers are using less of Azure NetApp due to the cost. If they bring the cost a little bit closer to what Azure Files offers, it can be a great product in the market and bring a lot of business to NetApp. Backup is quite critical. As of now, Azure NetApp Files requires you to use Azure NetApp Backup solution, which is in public preview at the moment. I would definitely expect NetApp to come up with that solution so that customers can start using it because they do not have confidence in backup as it is still in preview. They are still doing some testing and research on that product, which is not officially released for use by multiple customers.
ZT
Director Of Technology at a non-profit with 11-50 employees
Useful features for configuring down to ports but extremely expensive
Our company uses the solution's GUI interface to configure and monitor ports. We look at usage and determine if there are any issues.  Cisco is a very qualified company and has been in business for many, many years.  The solution is useful because you can configure all the way down to ports.  You…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is that the sixty-terabyte database snapshot can be done in less than two to three minutes."
"You can change it non-disruptively. You can increase the size and decrease the size online, which is a huge benefit compared to Azure disks. It just works seamlessly. You don't need to stop the instances."
"Its security and ease of use are most valuable."
"I think the easiest part is, when you do a comparison, it is the throughput versus the cost. And it's much easier to set up."
"It's elastic, so it scales with our demands. We can start small, then with the addition of customer loads, we can expand on-the-fly without the need to reprovision something."
"Since we have NetApp's internally, we use the SnapMirror predominantly for this process in the cloud which is beneficial."
"We recommend this solution to our customers because of its ease of use, availability, and security, but they don't usually go for it because of its price."
"The critical features of this solution are SnapMirror for replication, data protection, and SnapLock."
"I can define all components and create a blueprint for consumption across all services."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward if you have a basic setup."
"The solution includes a lot of features and is useful because you can configure all the way down to ports."
"You can scale it easily."
"Cisco has a lot of published information and documentation that helps users understand the product and its offering very well."
"However, for the rest of the solution, the product is doing a great job for what we require."
"The tool is really at the center of our whole digital transformation."
"Upgrades are very simple as well because they've allowed us to get updates directly in the CloudCenter Suite manager. If you need to do an upgrade to your setup afterward, you just push a button and it rolls out the parts and retires the old ones. It's seamless and very simple compared to what we've done before."
 

Cons

"The deployment process is somewhat complex compared to other storage solutions."
"We were looking for a clustered solution that has over-complicated things because we had it in AWS, which is Amazon. There was a solution for clustered NetApp. That meant there would be two NetApps that were not clustered because there was no solution for a cluster. We would like there to be an HA cluster solution."
"This solution would be improved with more innovation."
"We would like to see more paired regions for the replication."
"The initial setup was not straightforward. We had help from the NetApp team."
"It is about four times the cost of premium storage on Azure, so in order for us to use it, we'd have to be willing to increase our storage costs by four times."
"The solution needs to improve it's ABS environment."
"The pricing definitely needs to be improved."
"The solution needs to be more simple."
"The product is very expensive."
"The tool should improve its security on the XDR part."
"We're moving away from it due to the fact that they discontinued the product and introduced something new that does not fit our purpose."
"The improvement I would like to see is not one thing particular to CloudCenter. I'd say it's more of a message that the system is still using a lot of the different products and if they would all just fit better together, they all could be faster together."
"Improvements are needed in UI and multi-tenancy for this solution."
"I'm not a big fan of CloudCenter. I don't have anything against it, however, the on-premise version has been so hard to upgrade and maintain."
"You don't get all the solution's benefits if you have older switches."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution’s combination of the ease of use, simplicity, and reduction in IT management versus the cost has helped a lot. It is very fast to deploy. It's very easy to maintain. You don't have to do a lot in the cloud to maintain this thing, so it gives good performance. It's fast to deploy, easy to maintain, and it gives a better performance. These are the most basic three criteria for any application. This saves cost because the manpower you need to deploy is going down. You're getting better performance and not buying new resources. You have resources available in the cloud. It's just a couple of clicks, then you're good to go."
"Its price is double the price of the premium disks, which is the main reason why customers don't go for this solution in the end."
"In the cloud, pricing depends on how you manage it. It's not necessarily cheap, but it's all about optimizing charges and showing the cost back. So, it's more about managing the expenses rather than being inherently expensive or cheap."
"The pricing depends on your scaling and consumption."
"The licensing fees for this solution vary, ranging from a single shelf to a full suite."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"Our pricing has not been determined because we are still waiting on additional features."
"It is expensive in small environments, which could be better. The reason is the four terabyte minimum. A one terabyte minimum would be better."
"The solution is extremely expensive and has additional fees for things like monitoring."
"The tool's pricing is balanced with the market."
"The tool's pricing is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
6%
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Media Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?
Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure NetApp Files?
On pricing, I would rate it around eight. It's highly priced, and there's no cost reservation option available compared to Azure Files. If NetApp could bring that kind of model for customers to sav...
What needs improvement with Azure NetApp Files?
In terms of improvement, I would say cost reservation; the cost is a bit high. If we compare Azure Files and Azure NetApp Files, I know that customers are using less of Azure NetApp due to the cost...
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Also Known As

NetApp ANF, ANF
CliQr, CliQr CloudCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Restaurant Magic
NTT, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), CollabNet, Pratt & Miller, PZFlex
Find out what your peers are saying about Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, NetApp and others in Cloud Migration. Updated: September 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.