NetApp AFF - All Flash Reviews

As a pharmaceutical company, our data is very sensitive. It's critical to recover in the event of any incident. NetApp played a major role in our backup and recovery services.

The RPOs and RTOs are excellent. When we had a ransomware attack, NetApp helped us recover. NetApp has streamlined operations by providing faster operating responses and making data more accessible to users. The equipment they offer helped increase our performance.

I administer the solution, so I'm not involved with the design and decision-making, so I can't speak about our future planning. However, most of our files are on NetApp, which we have 50 sites using. I don't know about AI or other emerging technologies we may adopt. We haven't used AI, but the company is looking at that and security-related features, like AI-based ransomware technologies. ONTAP is on the roadmap. 

We plan to expand. All our storage is on-prem, but we plan to shift to the cloud, depending on the application requirements. Our roadmap includes migrating to the cloud and implementing AI. 

NetApp's backup and recovery are the primary features we use. We also appreciate data protection. NetApp's technology and hardware support all our requirements. Snapshot technology is hugely beneficial for backing up our data. 

Our environment is NAS-based. I don't have much exposure to NetApp on the block storage side. At the file level, the protocols they support are easy to use. This improves resiliency and helps us run the environment.

Our block storage is primarily Dell EMC, and we use NetApp for our AFF at the file level. We've heard many things about NetApp's block solutions, so it may be an excellent opportunity to look at NetApp from the block side of things and migrate. Dell EMC is relatively expensive, whereas NetApp is more cost-effective. I would like to explore all the new technologies and move our block storage to NetApp.

We did many POCs with companies like IBM, EMC, and NetApp and how they handled the file-sharing structures. NetApp came out on top for how it handled the files. It also beats the competitors in cost-effectiveness, which is the first thing a company looks at. 

I rate NetApp nine out of 10. 

NetApp allowed us to refresh our old systems with the new NetApp platforms. It allowed us to increase our capacity, our performance all over, and we are looking forward to utilizing more products in the future.

The ATL process, or the authorized-to-operate process, has been beneficial to the organization.

The ONTAP management software gave us the most beneficial bang for our buck. It allows our operation teams to manage the systems more easily than our previous tech solution.

The mirroring of two different sites is great. We're huge on that. We were not able to easily get that done with our previous solution. Using ONTAP and their SnapMirror technology allowed us to easily utilize their advantages in that space.

We want to consolidate under one solution. It'll be easier if we just had all of one product. That's what we're looking forward to.

They should just keep building on what they currently have. If they can continue to make it easier and more efficient and listen to customer feedback or do anything to automate the process will help a lot.

We're just getting into the solution and building on it. I can't say what needs to be improved.

Once we fully flesh out all of its capabilities, we will probably be able to provide some proper feedback.

Maybe more integration with other tech vendors and products, such as hypervisors. I know they're working well with Microsoft and VMware. However, they could integrate with more. If they can integrate more, it would be better.

We do have plans to expand in the future. We plan to continue to spread the solution across our sites where we need it the most. Hopefully, we'll have an all-in-one solution rather than having multiple storage solutions across our enterprise.

There's no competing option for us. We are a little bit on the budget side. This solution was able to deliver what we needed as far as requirements within our budget. Previously, we had Dell, and we're moving on to NetApp across the whole enterprise. 

In the future, we might look at something else depending on our use cases and requirements. As of right now, this solution is the one.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The evolving cybersecurity landscape and proliferation of AI have been influencing our technology decisions a lot recently. We just recently made a commitment to AI in the space.

NetApp has enabled us to transition from legacy configurations and continue to do some of the same things we did before implementing NetApp storage. It helps us with simple things, like allowing us to grow a file system immediately. Customers can do their own self-restores. 

I've combined other NetApp systems into one of our newer platforms, taking other file-sharing solutions native to Windows or Mac and creating file shares, yielding a better return on our investment. At the same time, we are providing better resources and more efficient channels for files.

When we had another vendor, backups were not done efficiently, so we lost critical data. That's why we went with this solution. It has required us to think differently about how we will implement it. Anything we do needs some aspect of AI involved to help us because we don't have enough resources in terms of money or labor power. 

We have considered using WEKA.io or S3, but we have a solid history with NetApp. We have it in multiple layers, so we can't make those shifts without interrupting many business systems. Ease of use is one of those critical things. We're familiar with it. Making those changes is too much of a lift and would be costly. 

When you evaluate what it costs to bring in a new vendor or platform versus what you've already invested in that app, it makes that decision easy. Right now, I plan to start doing some more data tiering. We bought a storage grid we use for backup but want to use for data tiering. S3 will be a protocol we can use for clients needing to access things from various platforms. 

We want to add more. We want to build out our source grid infrastructure because that can allow us to do data tiering, backups, and another protocol to enable users to use data more efficiently. It's also secure, and all those things are part of our effort to be more efficient. You can't have one without the other. 

Our organization recently underwent a major upgrade, and we're expecting exponential data growth over the next few years. We must embrace what we currently have and the building blocks to grow and understand the demand. We have to do that seamlessly, but we can't do it with the same resources we have now. 

We could not consolidate resources between NFS and Sys services without the NetApp appliance or something like it. 

I rate NetApp 10 out of 10. 

NetApp is highly flexible. We can do things on the fly. Because the nodes are rock-solid, there is less downtime and maintenance. We don't have any downtime due to NetApp storage.

Our internal operations are rather static. We're a healthcare company, so we have the same product line. We don't have to fluctuate too much due to market pressure. The integration with VMware has streamlined the IT operations, where we can use vCenter to do half our BlueXP work.

One of the biggest challenges we had recently was SnapMirror. SnapMirror is rather old, but that shows how good it is. It hasn't been reinvented in so long. We're on-prem right now. I think hybrid integration with BlueXp to manage both storage types will greatly benefit us. We're not heavily involved in AI, but I am so happy that NetApp is with ARP and Cloud Insights. 

We plan to expand our NetApp usage to include more AI and ransomware protections. I want to strengthen our security posture with MFA and multi-admin approvals. We want to get off VMware and go right to Kubernetes. 

Our future investment will focus on cybersecurity. We've had partners who were attacked, infected, and went down. I won't give names. We weren't affected, but we were indirectly affected. We had to change how we communicated with them. It's coming from the top down that we all need to focus more on cybersecurity.

Unfortunately, cybersecurity throws a wrench into innovation. We only have so much money, tools, and people, but it's what you have to do. You can't just say that we're not going to do it, and we're going to develop a new product line.

We're not fully utilizing NetApp's Converge BlueXP, but it's a great help. It integrates on-prem and cold storage and provides disaster recovery. We'll see more benefits as it improves.

We implemented SnapCenter for SQL, which we provide to our customers for free. It provides hourly point-in-time recovery, which they weren't expecting, and we already had the license. They got it for free.

NetApp's price could be improved. All storage is expensive. NetApp is not cheap, but we can't return to anybody else now. We'd lose too much value. We'd be, reinventing ourselves.

We have used NetApp for 10 years.

We came from HPE and considered Dell EMC, but we're not in block storage anymore. We want the flexibility of NAS, and it wasn't hard to decide on NetApp.
It's come a long way, and we can train new employees that have never touched NetApp. They can get going in a week and start being administrators quickly using all the GUI tools. 

We've had instances before where we were on block storage with VMware. And if it fills up or anything happens, you have downtime. NetApp now gives us more alerts, so we expand it on the fly. It will auto-expand on the fly. So I think that's definitely a big outcome.

I only made the decision at the technology level about whether it would fit into our stack and provide for our needs. I never got involved in the cost, so I don't know if cost was a deciding factor. When we adopted it 10 years ago, NetApp was a different storage creature than everybody else. It was an easier decision. If we wanted to stay with block storage, we could go with anybody else, and they were almost identical at the time.

I rate NetApp 10 out of 10. 

It has sped up everything through the all-flash storage. Everything is faster than it used to be. Everybody can access their VDIs fast and get to their servers fast. There is probably a 5x or 10x faster speed, but I am not sure. It is just quick. Nobody is waiting for things anymore.

The switch to the work-from-home model because of COVID was the key challenge that our business wanted to address. Before COVID, it was all in the office, and then after COVID, everyone was working from home. We wanted to scale the VDIs easily and spin up VMs that people can use on a day-to-day basis.

All-flash storage has definitely delivered the most value to our organization. We have a large VDI deployment, and there is now no wait time when they are booting up. Everything is quick. Everything builds fast. I would give it a ten out of ten. It is easy to use. It just runs. I never have to touch it. Without it, we would probably not have been able to grow our VDI deployment. The compression and dedupe required would not have been possible without it.

I would like to improve the ransomware aspect. We get a lot of false positives, and there are no details of what is happening. This seems to be already fixed in the new version.

Previously, we have used Hitachi and other lesser-known solid-state storage vendors. I do not know the reason for choosing NetApp at the time because I was not there for that decision.

I am familiar with other solutions. The advantage of the NetApp solution is that it is easy to use. SnapMirror is very nice and easy to set up. It is easy. When we push in a volume, it is automatically replicated to our DR site. It is touch and go. We can do it with one click.

We have been working with NetApp for the last five to eight years. We have not evaluated any other solution. We have been happy with them, so we stuck with them.

We definitely like the anti-ransomware capability. That is cool to have. I am excited to go to the new version where we also have fewer false positives. There is all-new reporting which is cool, so I will have to look at how to do more in-depth reporting than what we do now.

Data is always growing. We will see where our usage goes. We have had the biggest impact by going to the all-flash storage. We just purchased a C800, so that would be around for the next couple of years. We do not have any goals for our next technology investments over the next couple of years.

We are not yet too big on AI. It would be exciting to try to use some of the AI features. I want to see how that works.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

NetApp has sped up delivery for our virtual environment. It's been a great solution. Our customers have been amazed and overjoyed with the performance of our virtual environment, which uses VDI for virtual desktops and VMware for our virtual host servers. Everything is working seamlessly. 

We plan to expand our use of NetApp solutions, and we're already in talks about this. We will be looking at the new ASA products they just released to see if they're more suitable for us than the C-series and what the cost is. We would love to have flash storage, but we'll see how much that costs.

A Flash environment would be great. We still have some spinning disk storage, and we hope to get rid of those completely and go all SSD. So we're looking for that to be within our budget

The NetApp C-Series storage soutions are the most valuable to us. I would rate them 8.5 out of 10. 

Customer support is a hot-button issue, so we definitely need better customer support. We get some support from our vendor that helps. If the C-Series had a more user-friendly GUI, that would help us get our LUNs built and data storage connected faster. 

We've been with NetApp for years. We considered switching to HPE Nimble Storage, but we decided to stay with NetApp and upgrade our environment to the C-Series. With NetApp, support has been a pain point, but the price and warranty costs are perfect for our budget. 

NetApp is offered at a reasonable price point, so it has saved us money. Our primary goal is to keep our costs low. We're hoping that the next line of products will include a more budget-friendly option. 

I rate NetApp solutions 8.5 out of 10. Improving support would increase the rating. They could also enhance and streamline the GUI to make management more efficient. 

I am a storage engineer at a government ministry. We enable our customers to use storage on-site because we are a government entity and don't use a public cloud. We enable almost all features available within the NetApp portfolio.

Governments are quite slow when it comes to business. I'm always trying to bring the storage side up to speed with current technology and hoping the rest of the organization follows. They're doing that but at the speed of a government. 

It's heading there, but when I got here five years ago, they had no plan for the storage infrastructure. I first needed to get everything on a level playing field to have storage for specific business cases like VMware, user data, and SAP HANA. I had to set everything up correctly. Now, I'm trying to step it up a notch to get to 2024. 

Our data includes every Dutch person's social security numbers, so we cannot have that on a public cloud. Our biggest challenge is to rebuild the public cloud privately. 

When I arrived, we were far behind anything that works on the market, so I first needed to get the basics in order. I am busy setting up ransomware detection and application policy rules. Once I complete that, the next step is to get AI within the data center.

I hope other teams from our environments, like the Linux and Yammer teams, will join. We already have a storage grid so we can use S3. That's not a problem. We use all those things. The only thing we need to do is build it ourselves. 

NetApp's most valuable features are ONTAP, FabricPool, and media storage.

I would like NetApp to be more aware of organizations that don't run it on a public cloud. Everything is built on the cloud, so if you want to run BlueXP in an environment like ours, it's a real pain because it wants to host too much info on the cloud. 

It causes some friction with the security guys. BlueXP is also there in complete dark side mode, but it's a significant hassle to install and create. You don't get all the features. You're trying to get the same out of it because you have your own data center, and you can't go out due to government regulations. 

I've been an admin working in the NetApp environment for a long time. I used NetApp with different companies before but have worked at the ministry for five years.

I've used their support multiple times. One aspect that stands out about NetApp support is that the system is yours. You have it in your data center, so it's your system. You can press any button that's in there. Nobody will say you can't do it. Support will say that it was foolish to press that button but won't stop you.

A lot of other storage vendors don't allow that. They have the interface they want you to be in. They say no if you need to do something under the hood because there is a problem. You have to go through support for that. But what if we have multiple issues? We don't need to go to support to make changes. I can run ConfigAdvisor, and support says it's okay. 

Positive

NetApp was deployed when I joined this organization. They asked me to help because I was already involved with NetApp. I'm constantly checking if someone has a better solution than NetApp, and the answer is "no" in most cases. Especially with old-fashioned NAS environments, I haven't seen a competitor that does a better job or costs less. 

I rate NetApp nine out of 10. I give it a high rating because of the support. Nothing is ever perfect. For example, ONTAP is a software solution with millions and millions of lines of code. Something can always go wrong with it. Bugs happen, but I like that you have a very good support organization behind it. I've found bugs that were so incredibly large that NetApp couldn't roll out systems to other customers for 48 hours until they solved the bug.

We are the local government, so we have a lot of customer data. With NetApp, we feel secure. We feel our data is safe. NetApp has good compute, so our apps run faster with this solution.

We use ransomware protection, which is very good technology that NetApp provides to us. We can enable it with one click and our data is secure. We do not have to use any other product to protect the data when our data is residing on NetApp. 

I would rate the ransomware protection technology an eight out of ten. Without it, it is very hard to manage our data and protect our data. Nowadays, we see all kinds of attacks on public data. Without NetApp, we would not at all feel safe.

We just updated to the latest version, and the GUI has changed a lot. It is user-friendly. Everybody can use it, not just the technical people.

Their customer support can be better.

We opened a couple of tickets for their support. Not all of them were bad. We had issues with some of them. For example, we scheduled a meeting with their support at 5 PM after hours, but their support never showed up.

We first chose to have Pure Storage, but after the PoC and a few trials, we decided to go for this solution because it is stable and scalable. It is also more user-friendly.

We have not used a lot of features that NetApp provides. The only feature that we use right now is ransomware protection. For ransomware protection, NetApp stands out for our company.

Innovation was a factor in our decision-making process. NetApp updates its products almost every day. They are on top of the technology. They now have AI, ransomware protection, cloud, and other things.

We need to migrate our data to the cloud. It is difficult to migrate the amount of data we have in a short time. Our current challenge is migration.

We would like to use NetApp Cloud. That will have a big impact on my company because it will be easier to use for us and more secure. We would not have any headaches related to expanding or scaling it. Our goal is to move to NetApp Cloud.

Our upcoming investments will be prioritized around data storage and cybersecurity. These are the top priorities that we have right now.

It is hard to say if the evolving cybersecurity landscape and proliferation of AI have influenced our technology decisions. That is because we have to provide the information or data to AI in order to get the AI working correctly, but I would consider using AI.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. Better customer support will make it a ten.