NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs VMware vSAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and VMware vSAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Cloud Software Defined Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. VMware vSAN Report (Updated: September 2023).
745,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It offers ease of use and a comprehensive suite of applications, including features like SnapMirror, SnapVault, and unified snapshot management, all bundled into a single product.""The most valuable feature is its exceptional performance and storage efficiency.""One of the features our customers like is that it can be used from one cloud provider to another. They can use it from Azure to AWS or vice versa. That way, they don't need to use the same provider for backups. If something goes wrong on the primary site, having the same data in another cloud service provider is important.""ONTAP is great for helping you migrate on-premise workflows to cloud environments.""Snapshots are one valuable feature within ONTAP, but CVO's appeal is that it acts just like the on-prem solution. It's the same OS, but in the cloud. We can continue to use ONTAP as we did on-premise.""The good thing about NetApp is the features that are available on the cloud are also available on-premises.""CVO gives us the ability to access data as quickly as possible, which is critical because of the mission set we handle. Some things cannot wait. For example, we tried having the data in the cloud itself, but it took too long for us to retrieve it from cold or deep storage. If we have it ONTAP or on-prem, it's so much easier to pull it within minutes.""It makes sure we have control of the data and that we know what it's being used for. The main thing for us is that we need to know what applications are consuming it and responsible for it. The solution helps us do that."

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"The most valuable feature of VMware vSAN is you do not have to use additional hardware for storage. The operation of VMware vSAN does not take a lot of effort. If you have VMware technology on your site, then it's easy for the operational support of the system.""The ease of use is great.""Easy-to-use, and easy-to-scale product.""VMware vSAN is an easy to use and easy to manage storage solution. Deploying and upgrading are easy. Technical support is very good.""The valuable feature of the solution is the total hyperconverged facility.""There is not a lot of maintenance required.""Allows us to implement more quickly, and to ease the maintenance.""I think vSAN's stability is good. It's an underlying solution for both on-prem and in the cloud, especially the VMC on AWS stuff too. VMware has been around for a long time, so it's pretty stable."

More VMware vSAN Pros →

Cons
"We have customers that are still using IBM mainframes and that very old SNA architecture from IBM. There are questions about how you interconnect the data on the mainframe side... But I don't know if it's worth it for NetApp to invest in developing products to include mainframes for a few customers.""The cost needs improvement.""It would be fantastic if NetApp could offer a solution that's as user-friendly as Google Drive for seamless cloud storage integration.""Their support and development teams can collaborate better to resolve an issue.""The encryption and deduplication features still have a lot of room for improvement.""Something we would like to see is the ability to better manage the setup and tie it to our configuration management database. We manage our whole IT infrastructure out of that database.""The solution is not stable when using single nodes. This is a problem. NetApp should work on this solution to make it more stable with HA nodes and resolve this issue.""The support is good in general but the initial, front-line support could be improved. Because I have already been using the product for so long, when I call support I would rather talk to somebody who is a little bit more advanced or senior, rather than talking to the first-level support. Usually, it takes some time to reach out to their senior support."

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"Customers who are using Essentials Plus or even Essentials have to pay for technical support. However, they should not have to pay for support.""The pricing model is sometimes a challenge for us because their licenses are very costly.""The updating process could be easier.""One area that could be improved is the management feature.""As a software-based product, it requires a lot of system resources.""This solution could be improved by having more than one controller for the environment. VMware depends on one controller for the whole environment, whereas Nutanix has one controller for each node. Because there is only one controller with VMware, if there was any drop, then the whole environment would stop working. In Nutanix, I have five nodes—there is one controller for each node and it depends on a virtual controller—so if the controller of any node is down, the whole environment will still work.""The monitoring feature in VMware vSAN could be better.""The solution functions as the marketing says, as long as you follow certain rules."

More VMware vSAN Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The pricing of this solution is definitely higher than what the typical Azure Files and AWS solutions charge, but given the features and the stability NetApp has provided, we are okay with it. We are not complaining about the pricing."
  • "Overall, the pricing of NetApp is aggressive and the pricing becomes more aggressive as the amount of data increases. The cost for a given volume of data that you are storing becomes lower. The greater the volume of data, the cheaper the license."
  • "Make sure you investigate what your requirements are going to cost you using the native cloud solutions versus what NetApp is going to cost you, to make sure you have a business case to go with NetApp."
  • "The pricing could be improved. It is a good product, but it is very expensive for me."
  • "It is not a cheap solution because we need to pay for the license and pay for Azure resources as well."
  • "If we wanted to use the AWS solution, we would have to manage two or three different platforms and pay more money than what we should have to pay, as some of the features don't even exist. If we wanted to, we could use AWS cloning, but it is useless because it uses more space, is more expensive, and takes more time."
  • "The cost is quite high."
  • "We find the pricing to be favorable due to the educational sector we belong to."
  • More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The product is quite expensive, regarding the open source solution."
  • "There is a license to use this solution and we pay approximately $30,000 annually. There were not any additional fees required other than the license. The solution is expensive."
  • "We pay a yearly licensing fee."
  • "I have been told that if I used VxRail it would be cheaper than the system we are using now with buying the products separately. The solution is expensive overall."
  • "The price of the solution package depends on the nodes and other factors. The cost some of our customers paid was $500,000. The licensing cost for the components is very good."
  • "The cost of the solution is high and if it could be reduced the customers would be very happy."
  • "There is a license required for this solution, it is a one-time payment. However, if they want support for the solution, it can be paid annually or for three years."
  • "Its price could be improved."
  • More VMware vSAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:CVO gives us the ability to access data as quickly as possible, which is critical because of the mission set we handle. Some things cannot wait. For example, we tried having the data in the cloud… more »
    Top Answer:The pricing of CVO is fair across the board. It's exactly where it should be for the data we're getting. The price-performance ratio is right where we need it to be. I've seen solutions that cost more… more »
    Top Answer:I would want more visibility and data analytics where we can see anomalies within the shares within the GUI.
    Top Answer:While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major… more »
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We found… more »
    Top Answer:HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us HPE SimpliVity has… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    951
    Comparisons
    556
    Reviews
    11
    Average Words per Review
    745
    Rating
    8.8
    3rd
    out of 39 in HCI
    Views
    27,992
    Comparisons
    21,030
    Reviews
    47
    Average Words per Review
    451
    Rating
    8.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO
    vSAN
    Learn More
    Overview

    NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is a versatile solution that is used primarily for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, disaster recovery, backup tiering, DAR, and file sharing and networks. The solution offers valuable features such as cloud manager, backup and compliance, data analysis, and unified storage. 

    Cloud Volumes ONTAP helps organizations improve performance, reduce costs, and simplify management. It is easy to use, cost-effective, and can be deployed in the public cloud, making it an ideal choice for organizations looking to optimize resource usage.

    VMware vSAN is a software-defined storage product that is used in collaboration with VMware ESXi hypervisor and that provisions and manages storage based on policies, regardless of the underlying hardware. The solution enables you to prime your business for growth through its seamless evolution (it is integrated with vSphere and requires no new tools), its flexibility, and its multi-cloud capabilities. As an industry-leading software, VMware vSAN provides high levels of performance with minimal impact on CPU and memory.

    VMware vSAN Features

    VMware vSAN has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Storage policy-based management (SPBM): VMware vSAN supports storage policy-based management for automated management of storage profiles.
    • Software-defined data-at-rest encryption: With this VMware vSAN feature, you can prevent unauthorized access of data at rest.
    • Multiple nodes: VMware vSAN provides clusters that can include as few as 2 nodes or as many as 64 nodes.
    • High security and availability: VMware vSAN offers stretched clusters, allowing more than one virtualization host server to be used in the same setup, promoting higher security as well as availability.
    • Deduplication: VMware vSAN’s deduplication compresses data to ensure efficient storage management and security.
    • HCI mesh updates: VMware vSAN clusters can share storage capacity with non-HCI Sphere clusters and can adopt HCI without having to scale computing resources and storage or replace existing servers.
    • Simplified file services: With VMware vSAN’s file services, backup of file shares is simplified. You can use APIs that allow backup and recovery software vendors to integrate with your VMware vSAN file services, which enables backup software to track new data and add scalability enhancements to files.

    VMware vSAN Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing VMware vSAN. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO): VMware vSAN helps you reduce upfront costs for businesses because it can be easily deployed on inexpensive x86 servers. In addition, its highly scalable infrastructure and quick deployment also save organizations time and money, making it an efficient storage solution. 
    • Good manageability: VMWare vSAN is easy to set up, manage, and provision, without sacrificing performance. 
    • Scalability: VMware vSAN is agile and allows administrators to scale storage on demand, quickly, and efficiently via policies and rules.
    • Simplicity: VMWare vSAN is simple to configure since it is embedded in the vSphere hypervisor. Installing it using the vSphere Web Client can be done quickly. 
    • Reduced risk: VMWare vSAN reduces the risk associated with digital transformations by utilizing existing tools, skill sets, and solutions.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the VMware vSAN solution.

    PeerSpot user Yves S., CEO, Cloud Evangelist at Comdivision Consulting GmbH, says, “vSAN gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources. We have an overall larger host infrastructure, and we split that up for specific customer test and use cases. In that specific scenario, we can easily add more hosts or reduce the number of hosts in the environment.”

    A reviewer who works in Infrastructure Security explains, “The ease of use is great. The initial setup and upgrade process was pretty straightforward. And, technical support is great.”

    Laurent N., Director at Softlogic, comments, "The feature that I have found most valuable is that it is easy to deploy. It is easy to create and delete virtual servers. It is easy to create the load balancing and the clustering."

    Offer
    Take Control with Unified Cloud Storage

    Sign up for a 30-day trial to see how Cloud Volumes ONTAP can help you optimize cloud storage costs and performance, while enhancing data enterprise-grade protection, security, and compliance - wherever your data lives.

    Learn more about VMware vSAN
    Sample Customers
    Rohit, AdvacnedMD, D2L, Trinity Mirror, Eidos Media, WireStorm, Cordant Group, JFK Medical Center, ALD Automotive, Healthix, City of Baton Rouge, ON Semiconductor
    Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company18%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    University8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization43%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Healthcare Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization44%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Financial Services Firm5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business10%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise76%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business10%
    Midsize Enterprise49%
    Large Enterprise42%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise52%
    Large Enterprise34%
    Buyer's Guide
    NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. VMware vSAN
    September 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
    745,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is ranked 1st in Cloud Software Defined Storage with 19 reviews while VMware vSAN is ranked 3rd in HCI with 42 reviews. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is rated 8.8, while VMware vSAN is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP writes "It's easy to set up and schedule replications from the cloud manager". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware vSAN writes "Gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources". NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is most compared with Azure NetApp Files, Amazon S3, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), Google Cloud Storage and Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store), whereas VMware vSAN is most compared with VxRail, HPE SimpliVity, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and Red Hat Ceph Storage. See our NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. VMware vSAN report.

    See our list of best Cloud Software Defined Storage vendors.

    We monitor all Cloud Software Defined Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.