Senior Storage Administrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 10
Helps us manage data quickly
Pros and Cons
  • "It simplifies data management for NAS environments with its ease of management, ease of share creation, and Active IQ feature. These features are good overall. It helps us manage data quickly and sufficiently. Also, compression features, like dedupe, give us a good ratio."
  • "There is room for improvement in terms of support. I have noticed that if I sometimes call their customer care for a particular issue, they will give me another number and ask me to call that other team. It would be better if they could do a warm transfer. That would save customers time from calling all the numbers again and speaking to another team."

What is our primary use case?

We are mostly using it for ESX, i.e., a mix of both CIFS and NFS shares, and NAS purposes. 

We have a team of four core NetApp trained people from the storage team who are managing NetApp. Two of them are in the learning stage, and I am one of them. 

What is most valuable?

Performance-wise, NetApp is very good. 

The NetApp FlexVol feature is helpful because we can copy large amounts of data in minutes as well as include data quickly. That is definitely one of its plus points as well as it being all-flash. 

It simplifies data management for NAS environments with its ease of management, ease of share creation, and Active IQ feature. These features are good overall. It helps us manage data quickly and sufficiently. Also, compression features, like dedupe, give us a good ratio.

We are using ONTAP 9, which has simplified our operations.

What needs improvement?

There is room for improvement in terms of support. I have noticed that if I sometimes call their customer care for a particular issue, they will give me another number and ask me to call that other team. It would be better if they could do a warm transfer. That would save customers time from calling all the numbers again and speaking to another team. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using NetApp AFF for almost two years.

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NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS)
March 2023
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability has been pretty good.

There has been a lot of improvement on drive failures after the patch. Now, drive failures are negligible, which is a plus point. 

Previously, there were SAP instances where we used to have a lot of issues, such as performance issues, P1, etc. However, with NetApp, those have been almost negligible.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We can extend the solution, per our wishes, which is also good. The environment for this solution is about eight to 10 petabytes. 

The solution has been widely accepted by our management. 

How are customer service and support?

I would rate their technical support as nine out of 10. Sometimes, it depends on to whom I am speaking. However, most of the time, technical support has been very good, apart from one or two negligible instances.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were using a different vendor for virtualization, then we switched to NetApp. The feedback from the VMware team is that things have improved. 

We were using Oracle Veritas previously. Sometimes, their technical support was not that user-friendly. While the hardware was good, it needs to be good going end-to-end. So, if we had an issue, then they were not as helpful, technical support-wise, as we have seen from NetApp. Apart from that, the features that NetApp provides overall are better than what Oracle used to provide.

I have worked on HPE products, but that has primarily been on 3PAR, which is mostly for SAN protocols.

How was the initial setup?

I was not a part of the initial setup.

What was our ROI?

The data rate is faster because there are no spindles on it.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are using Commvault for backup purposes.

What other advice do I have?

If you are looking for long-term stability, performance improvement, and data compression, NetApp is the answer.

There are a few sites where our other vendors' contracts are running out. Most of those are getting replaced with NetApp. That is definitely in the pipeline.

I would rate this solution as nine out of 10. I am holding back one point for future improvements.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Lead Infrastructure engineer at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Real User
Great speed, easy to set up, and offers excellent throughput
Pros and Cons
  • "The speed is great. That's probably number one in terms of features we appreciate."
  • "The initial setup has a lot more steps in it than are probably necessary for a base deployment, unlike other vendors where it's more straightforward. It could be a little bit more streamlined."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for virtualization. We run VMware on it.

How has it helped my organization?

Before running AFF we ran regular SAS Disk Arrays. NetApp AFF greatly improved the performance.

What is most valuable?

The speed is great. That's probably number one in terms of features we appreciate.

The throughput is excellent.

It's useful for running production databases on.

NetApp AFF has reduced our operational latency. It has close to doubled it.

What needs improvement?

The setup process could be easier. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I used NetApp AFF for six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I never had any major outages or issues with the platform.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scaling is easy enough. Users can just throw another shelf in. It's easy to add hardware. 

How are customer service and support?

Support is good. I've never had any issues long term.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We've used Dell EMC in the past, and we use Pure now. 

Pure is easier to manage just from an interface perspective, however, I would say the performance of both is close to equal. We chose AFF primarily for the level of performance. That said, the team that works for me has more experience with Pure. The issue we have is that the footprint is way smaller.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved in the initial deployment of AFF. I've done it quite a few times and I find the process to be straightforward.

The deployment could be easier. Pure setup is way easier in comparison but I had no problem setting AFF up. 

The initial setup has a lot more steps in it than are probably necessary for a base deployment, unlike other vendors where it's more straightforward. It could be a little bit more streamlined.

What about the implementation team?

I handled the deployment myself. 

What was our ROI?

We haven't quite witnessed an ROI. Eventually, it becomes cheaper as we go along instead of going all cloud, however, in the end, it's probably pretty close to equal.

They sped everything up initially. However, are there other products that have a better ROI? Maybe. Pure probably has a better ROI overall and especially when you start talking about Pure Evergreen and the way that they do their maintenance. That's a big difference that helps a little bit with the cost long term.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is  pretty in line with industry standards.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other storage issues. 

What other advice do I have?

We are a NetApp customer.

So far, the solution has not optimized our costs. 

Since using the solution, we have not been hit by ransomware. 

We do not use any other NetApp cloud solutions together with AFF.

In terms of rating the product by itself, I would give it a nine out of ten due to some of the usability differences that I know now. Overall, against other vendors, I would probably rate it eight out of ten based on the footprint size and some of the longer-term support features.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Buyer's Guide
NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS)
March 2023
Learn what your peers think about NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2023.
687,256 professionals have used our research since 2012.
System Administrator at a leisure / travel company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Data retrieval speed has improved and management of volumes is easy
Pros and Cons
  • "The speed of data retrieval is the most valuable feature. We mostly use it for our SAP database and we are getting good IO from the hard drive."

    What is our primary use case?

    We are using it for storage.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Before, retrieving data or searching for something on the application would take some time. But since we migrated to NetApp, retrieving of the data happens quickly. It's fast.

    In addition, we can easily manage the volumes on the NetApp application. We are getting very good, high performance and it has simplified our data management jobs, such as creating volumes. If our hard drive fails, we can reinitialize the process, and do many other things. It's very helpful.

    NetApp has helped to reduce support issues due to performance or troubleshooting as we do not have such issues. We have not faced any performance issues since installing this device.

    In addition, the ONTAP data management software has simplified our operations. We use it for high-availability of our file system. If any hard drive goes down, it will automatically be recovered.

    We use NetApp AFF to support cloud integration and SAP Oracle. It has made the Oracle WebLogic site very fast and we can deploy the machines very easily. We can assign storage to the server visually, and use it to manage the storage.

    What is most valuable?

    The speed of data retrieval is the most valuable feature. We mostly use it for our SAP database and we are getting good IO from the hard drive.

    Also, NetApp AFF helps simplify data management with unified data services across SAN and NAS environments.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using the NetApp AFF A400 system for the last three months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    We have had no issues with its stability. It has been up 100 percent of the time since we installed it.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We can increase the storage if needed.

    Currently, 60 percent of our storage is in NetApp. Another 20 percent is in HPE, and we use Synology storage for the NAS.

    How are customer service and support?

    Their support is very good. Whenever I have contacted them, whoever has dealt with me has been good.

    But the cost of support is quite high.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Our HPE system was old so we switched to a new one.

    What about the implementation team?

    The deployment was not complex, but it was done by our vendor team. Still, it was easy. It was not a big deal.

    Our experience with our vendor team was good. They are quite a good technical team with good knowledge.

    What was our ROI?

    We only installed it three months ago so it's too soon to talk about ROI.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost. The cost is very high compared to other devices. The HPE storage we used before was less expensive. NetApp is also more expensive than Dell EMC.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We evaluated Dell EMC and HPE storage.

    The NetApp interface was very easy, as was managing things. Our experience with HPE, which we used before, was that it was quite a complex system to manage when it comes to the storage and volumes.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Sr Infrastructure Engineer at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Optimizes costs and overall storage and makes migrating to the cloud easy
    Pros and Cons
    • "The Snapshots and just the overall flexibility of the product have been great."
    • "Some of the graphical user interface changes in the later versions of NetApp have not been as good as the older ones, like in the 9.5 era."

    What is our primary use case?

    We share data between systems as well as sharing data between our off-brand mainframe.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We got AFF as an upgrade from our existing older platform. We used to have an older version of NET. We had NET 7 Mode, and we had it for a very long time. AFF gave us a lot more performance. It is just a more reliable platform.

    What is most valuable?

    The Snapshots and just the overall flexibility of the product have been great.

    Using AFF helped reduce our cost of licensing.

    AFF has helped us with saving or optimizing our costs.

    We have been able to optimize overall storage.

    So far, we have not been affected by ransomware attacks since implementing AFF.

    Being based on ONTAP makes migrating to the cloud much easier to take advantage of. We can figure out the cloud SVMs in a very similar fashion. That's been a big help. It's a technology we already know, so we can pretty much apply anything from ONFREM to FSx.

    What needs improvement?

    There are no specific areas that need improvement. There aren't any particular features we'd like to see in the next release.

    Some of the graphical user interface changes in the later versions of NetApp have not been as good as the older ones, like in the 9.5 era. Just from overall usability from our tier three team, we've had to go in and fix some things after they go and do a deployment since there are certain options that used to be there that aren't.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It's been very stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    For our uses, it's been fairly scalable.

    How are customer service and support?

    Technical support has been great. We had to reach out to NetApp before when we had an issue or a hardware problem. They were helpful.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Before using AFF, we had some of the older FAS 8040 systems. We still have a couple in operation and some from way back in 7-Mode still on our current cluster.

    We have been a NetApp shop for a while and just wanted to continue working with them.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was straightforward.

    What about the implementation team?

    We did have a partner work with us to kind of get it up and running so that was a big help. Our experience with them was very good.

    What was our ROI?

    While I don't have the numbers to quantify it, I have seen an ROI.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The pricing seems reasonable.

    What other advice do I have?

    We started to look to use BlueXP for managing our FSXN instances.

    We will be using it to help migrate from an on-prem to a cloud environment. We are starting to migrate some of our workloads as we work on closing one of our data centers. So, we'll probably be using that for migration purposes.

    I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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    Enterprise Architect at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Excellent ONTAP cluster, scale-out, and architecture
    Pros and Cons
    • "We are a large-scale company, and our growth has been pretty significant over the last five or six years. We like the scale, and the way NetApp grows, so that's why we use it. It's mostly for block storage."
    • "The NetApp support could be better."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use the solution mostly for virtual workloads, VMware, databases, and also the VDI infrastructure.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We can provide all the SLA performance-wise and high availability to the business. We are trying to maintain compliance with all business SLAs.

    What is most valuable?

    The ONTAP cluster, the scale-out, and the architecture are great.

    We are a large-scale company, and our growth has been pretty significant over the last five or six years. We like the scale, and the way NetApp grows, so that's why we use it. It's mostly for block storage.

    NetApp data helped to reduce our operational latency to some extent. We've saved maybe 20%.

    We have not been affected by ransomware since using the solution. 

    What needs improvement?

    The NetApp support could be better. NetApp can improve a lot on hardware upgrades and proactive support.

    In the past, AFF has helped optimize our costs. However, not anymore since NetApp has increased its prices. The optimization we had previously is not the case anymore.

    Recently, we have had some support issues that we definitely have some concerns with.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using the solution for eight to ten years. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability is good. I'd rate it eight out of ten. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The solution is scalable. We are in a large enterprise, so that fits our requirements. There is about 30 to 35 petabytes of data and a block size of close to 25 to 30 petabytes of data.

    How are customer service and support?

    Technical support could be better and should be more proactive. 

    We've also had some production outages. Due to one upgrade, for example, there was a significant outage.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Neutral

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I'm also familiar with Dell EMC.

    We've used PowerMax, and we have used StorageGRID. 

    We use AFF as this is the main environment for our corporate environment.

    NetApp has been in the environment for quite some time, so we have built that comfort level with the product. 

    How was the initial setup?

    I was involved with the initial deployment of the solution. The setup was complex on our end. Our internal processes are difficult as we have such an extensive environment. For example, we must go to security and do all the reviews and assessments. It's our internal program. There's nothing on NetApp.

    What about the implementation team?

    We worked directly with a third party on the deployment and with NetApp. Overall, the experience was okay.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The pricing has definitely increased significantly as compared to other competitors.

    What other advice do I have?

    I have not used NetApp BlueXP.

    We are looking into FSx ONTAP. We are trying to do the pilot program on FSx ONTAP, and we will probably use that in the cloud in AWS.

    I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. We've only really had some support issues and some issues around performance sometimes. 

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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    Cloud Storage Engineer at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
    Real User
    Is reliable and scalable, and can quickly and efficiently snapshot the data
    Pros and Cons
    • "I like the ability to snapshot, and the cloning features are valuable to us as well. I like that I can quickly and efficiently snapshot the data and move it to wherever I need to locally or in the cloud. Also, I know that when I take the snapshot that all of the data will be there and that it will be usable when I need to use it."
    • "It can get a little expensive if you need to add more disks. The cost is a pain point for us, especially in terms of expansion."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our primary use case is running NFS exports for our local on-premises VMware and our CIFS for local shares.

    What is most valuable?

    I like the ability to snapshot, and the cloning features are valuable to us as well. I like that I can quickly and efficiently snapshot the data and move it to wherever I need to locally or in the cloud. Also, I know that when I take the snapshot that all of the data will be there and that it will be usable when I need to use it.

    The reliability of NetAPP AFF is another valuable feature.

    Blue XP has made it a single pane of glass so that we can see both on-premises and the cloud. We don't have to worry about going back and forth. It has made everything seamless in terms of the look and feel for the admins.

    We use other NetApp Cloud Services solutions such as FSx, Cloud Volumes ONTAP, BlueXP, and Cloud Manager. We're just starting to dip our toes into FSxN. We run all of our student services, our general ledger, and all of our classroom-related items off of CVOs. It has been very reliable for us.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We've been using NetApp AFF since 2019.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    We have been running NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) since 2019, and we've not had one unplanned outage since then. It's been a reliable workhorse for us.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We've had to upgrade our available storage three times, and it was all seamless. There is a cost every time, but there hasn't been an outage. It's been quick and seamless, and we haven't had any issues with scalability.

    We have 8,000 undergraduate students and 2,000 graduate students, and we facilitate another 5,000 university staff. We run all of our campus-wide phone systems and CIFS on it, along with our local VMware environment. We have about 10,000 to 15,000 people relying on NetApp AFF every day.

    How are customer service and support?

    Whenever we have a problem, the technical support staff usually contact us before we contact them. We've never had an issue with technical support, so I'd give them a rating of ten out of ten.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    What was our ROI?

    As far as a return on investment, it's freed up a lot of our time so that we do not have to worry about the little things that usually take up the majority of our day. Our time can be spent in other areas, whether that's helping with other products, developing new ones, or helping end users.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    It can get a little expensive if you need to add more disks. The cost is a pain point for us, especially in terms of expansion.

    What other advice do I have?

    Overall, I would rate NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) at ten on a scale from one to ten.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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    IT Manager at a wholesaler/distributor with 201-500 employees
    Real User
    Top 10
    Extremely stable and can scale but the pricing is not the best
    Pros and Cons
    • "Technical support has been okay."
    • "During the initial setup, you need to know what you are doing."

    What is our primary use case?

    I primarily use the solution for asically all my main data for all my ESXi hosts.

    What is most valuable?

    The product suffices and works.

    The product is scalable.

    The stability has been very good over the years. 

    Technical support has been okay.

    What needs improvement?

    This particular solution is coming up at its end of life.

    During the initial setup, you need to know what you are doing. There's a learning curve. There are simpler options available. 

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using the solution for seven years, although I am in the process of switching off of it right now.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability and performance over the years have been good. In the seven years I've had it, it has totally crashed twice on me. The stability is pretty damn good. You have to admit that.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The scalability is okay. You can scale it if you need to. 

    Currently, we have 70 users on it. 

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Their tech support is okay.  When I have issues like what I had, I usually just reach right out to my sales rep and they direct me in the right direction.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I just switched over to Pure, so my flash storage is more than adequate now.

    However, previous to this solution, we did not use a different product.

    How was the initial setup?

    In terms of the initial setup, you need to know what you're doing with it. That's another reason why I'm going over to Pure. It's much simpler.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    I'm not impressed with their pricing.

    What other advice do I have?

    I'm just a customer and an end-user.

    I've got kind of a unique situation happening right now. I've got a NetApp DS2250 that's starting to fail - or started to fail about four months ago. I ordered the Pure Storage, and I got it in, cutting all the in-between stuff out. I was waiting for some 10 Gig switches to come in from Cisco, however, with a chip shortage, everything has been delayed. I'm still not getting those in until September. Pure Storage is not actually up and running. I'm limping along with my NetApp right now.

    My advice to those considering the solution is to know what you are doing before you get started. 

    I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten. I don't like the pricing and you do need to know what you are doing to use the product effectively, however, the stability is excellent. 

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Manager at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Is easy to use and flexible, and provides the best speed for our applications
    Pros and Cons
    • "Snapshots, snap clones, backups, flexibility, and agility are valuable features. I like that NetApp AFF is easy to use. We can automate everything for our backups and use cases. It's fast and simple, and provides storage to all of our VMware ESX hosts. It expands easily as well."
    • "After the three-year prepay, the extended warranty is a little expensive."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use it to create our volume groups for our ESX hosts, VMware, file storage, and Flash Pool for our images. We use it as a tier storage to our NetApp storage grid.

    What is most valuable?

    Snapshots, snap clones, backups, flexibility, and agility are valuable features. I like that NetApp AFF is easy to use. We can automate everything for our backups and use cases. It's fast and simple, and provides storage to all of our VMware ESX hosts. It expands easily as well.

    Our latency is fine, and NetApp AFF provides us the best speed for our applications.

    In terms of optimization of costs, NetApp AFF is a little expensive, but I don't mind paying for it.

    The ability to connect to CVO and ANF is great, and as a result, it has a lot of flexibility.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using NetApp AFF since 2016.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    We haven't had any major problems with stability.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It scales well, and we haven't had any problems. We also have site storage with AFF C190, and being able to integrate with our other sites has been great. We have about 16 clusters in two different data centers for AFF.

    How are customer service and support?

    My experience with technical support has been good. We have a primary TAM and pay for that service. They are very good at responding to our requests and needs, and I'd give them a ten out of ten.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We were on spinning disks with NetApp before, but we also had IBM XID. We switched to NetApp AFF because we were already heavy users of NetApp. We liked the cost, flexibility, and the ability to adapt to all of our workloads. Now, we're a single storage provider or user.

    What was our ROI?

    Our ROI is that we've been able to reduce our storage footprint by 30% by going to a single storage provider. We can FlexVol our environment.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    I think the pricing and licensing are a little high, but compared to those of other storage vendors, it's within reason. After the three-year prepay, the extended warranty is a little expensive.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We evaluated IBM and Dell EMC, and Dell EMC was too expensive, and it didn't have the flexibility that NetApp had.

    What other advice do I have?

    On a scale from one to ten, I would rate NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) at ten.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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