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Azure NetApp Files vs Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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 (12th), Public Cloud Storage Services (13th)
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

"Simply try it out because it's worth the effort to have a look at it."
"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."
"I like the SnapMirror feature in Azure NetApp Files. It helps me create backups with snapshots and makes data recovery and compression."
"It's like the Porsche of storage solutions in the cloud."
"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."
"The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring downtime, which is a strong point. Based on the money spent, we can get performance improvements and high availability."
"Since we have NetApp's internally, we use the SnapMirror predominantly for this process in the cloud which is beneficial."
"This solution definitely makes us more efficient in being able to provide storage quickly to our customers in the Azure Cloud."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward if you have a basic setup."
"Cisco has a lot of published information and documentation that helps users understand the product and its offering very well."
"You can scale it easily."
"The initial setup process is straightforward."
"The solution is very, very stable, it doesn't crash or freeze, and it's very reliable."
"The solution is agile and it has APIs for integration."
"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."
 

Cons

"This solution is very expensive compared to the alternatives."
"It is expensive in small environments, which could be better. The reason is the four terabyte minimum."
"We would like for the files which are coming in that we can version them. So, if a file is accidentally deleted, there should have a recycle bin option where we can go back, and at least once, clean it up."
"The solution needs to improve it's ABS environment."
"Azure NetApp Files is expensive."
"Azure NetApp Files could improve by being more diverse to integrate better with other solutions, such as Splunk and the on-premise version. There are some use cases that are not covered natively by Azure. It is not the best solution because it is not external from the cloud which for me is the best type of solution."
"I would like to see multi-zone redundancy so that I don't have to worry about it. I just back up my data to that one SMB share and I know that it's replicated to a different region."
"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."
"They should provide an entire cloud offering, from architecture to network security features."
"Improvements are needed in UI and multi-tenancy for this solution."
"The tool should improve its security on the XDR part."
"The product is very expensive."
"The solution needs to be more simple."
"For many clients, the main problem with the solution is the price. Cisco is very expensive. If they could somehow make the pricing more competitive, that would be a big draw."
"Cisco can improve their product by being agnostic, not just specific to Cisco components but also supportive of other vendors."
"You don't get all the solution's benefits if you have older switches."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is very expensive compared to the alternatives."
"The pricing depends on your scaling and consumption."
"The licensing fees for this solution vary, ranging from a single shelf to a full suite."
"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."
"We are currently on a pay-as-you-go model with the storage that we use."
"It is expensive, especially with NetApp Ultra Storage."
"The price of Azure NetApp Files could be better."
"Our pricing has not been determined because we are still waiting on additional features."
"The tool's pricing is balanced with the market."
"The solution is extremely expensive and has additional fees for things like monitoring."
"The tool's pricing is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Construction Company
14%
Media Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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, NetApp, IBM and others in Cloud Migration. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.