IBM SAN Volume Control vs NetApp OnCommand Insight comparison

"The virtualization layer has been great."

"With SVC it is very easy to manage and to use for migration, meaning that when we want to move or to keep control of the volume or update a server database, it is very easy. That's why we use it."

"The solution is easy to use, easily configurable, and easy to upgrade, manipulate, and add new storage."

"The most valuable features of IBM SAN Volume Control are the copy services, performance metrics, and analysis. Additionally, they have upgraded and introduced visual volumes."

"The product has an ultra-low latency."

"It has helped us optimize our storage."

"This gives me better performance numbers and gives me more information about where my loopholes are, where I need to target my customers, where I need to go back and retain storage."

"The most valuable feature is the security. When we identify a vulnerability, it is easy to mitigate it. NetApp provides the solution. It's also easy to create and move volumes."

"Being able to immediately look at my data. See the sizing, where I'm at on different virtual machines."

"What I found most valuable in NetApp OnCommand Insight is that it gives me a complete view of the environment, particularly an end-to-end view. I can locate my searches and view my storage devices. I can also find my recent servers and other host devices. I can then map all those into a single view, so that I can learn about the performance of my devices, or if there's a bottleneck at a particular place. I like that I can view all those information in NetApp OnCommand Insight. I like that very much. I also like that NetApp OnCommand Insight has a very good interface that allows you to create and customize reports, and it also offers a bundle of reports as well."

"I am very happy with the stability. When your customers don't notice anything wrong, that's the biggest win for a product."

"Scalability: If you're from a large enterprise, it's easy for us to go into customer environments and pull the data out. It's very security-friendly."

"Once we gathered and saw what we were doing with everything, we saved close to a petabyte worth of data by being able to delete old data and move stuff around. Thus, we became more efficient."

"Patch management and upgrades must be made easier."

"IBM support can be very slow."

"I would like to see the usage of virtualized storage boxes improved. I'd like to see this feature fixed, especially for SVC controller, and to be able to hold more storage."

"IBM SAN Volume Control could improve by better integrations with other vendor systems. IBM SAN Volume Control can store the environment and are able to integrate with Veeam, but I don't know if they can integrate as well with SVC or other vendors' systems."

"They just need to put in the snap volume because now they use what is called a flash copy. This means that you have to take all the volume instead of NetApp which uses their snapshot."

"NetApp OnCommand Insight is a pretty good tool, and the only concern I have with it is the price. Its price is quite high and could be improved because the licensing feature of this particular tool is on a per GB basis instead of the price being for the complete tool itself. The more you discover, the more you need to pay, and this makes NetApp OnCommand Insight more costly when compared to other tools which are available in the market."

"I would like them to develop voice commands so that I can say to the product, "Create a volume.""

"Enhance SNMP monitoring in order to broaden the number of storages that can be discovered."

"From 7-Mode to C mode a migration happened and many features, like FTP and SFTP, were dropped. We have been using it, but there needs to be better communication when features are dropped because there are end users using it who might find it a shock: "Oh, why was that dropped?""

"I would like to see better graphics. We have seen regular graphs and pie graphs. I am sure that there are better ways to show this information."

"I'd like it to be more stable, simpler, and get Java out of it."

"When we first went to Cluster Mode, we had a lot of problems. Setup took a few months. We had people onsite, including one of the top guys from NetApp for a while. Going from 7-Mode to Cluster Mode was rough."

"The UI: They have been growing and changing. There's been some growing pains with that, but they are moving into the new HTML5 interface, which is fantastic."

"The initial price of IBM SAN Volume Control is steep."

"With SAN Volume Controller, we need to license by terabyte."

"We like that it is one license and everything is bundled in together."

"The cost: It is expensive as a solution. You need to be an expert to get anything out of it and we don't have that kind of expertise."

"The company has saved money by narrowing down issues faster using servers and performance."

"We just made a major investment back in May of this year, so we'll have it for another four and a half or five years easily. Thus, we have a five year bumper to bumper agreement."

"Pricing by terabytes, not the end of the world, and that's okay. Stop if I want this, I have to buy that. Just release it as a single product."

"Pricing for NetApp OnCommand Insight could be cheaper. On a scale of one to five, I would rate its price a four."

"For me, it is always too much. Licensing is on TBs, and I think, nowadays that is outmoded."