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. 

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NetApp AFF
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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.
PeerSpot user
Storage Engineer at a religious institution with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Easy to use, lowers transactional speed, and helps optimize costs
Pros and Cons
  • "The NVMe flash cache is the most useful feature. It lowers transactional speed even more."
  • "In the past, NetApp designed it so that you have a 70% threshold. You would never fill up past 70% since you need to have that room available. Whereas with Pure, I can fill it up to 110% of what they listed and it's still going at full speed. NetApp can't do that."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for databases, including Oracle, SQL, PostgreSQL, and VMware. 

We're moving some data warehouses over as well as our main financial system.

What is most valuable?

The NVMe flash cache is the most useful feature. It lowers transactional speed even more.

We have found the ease of use to be excellent. Everybody's got expertise in it.

AFF helped reduce our operational latency. Since we started using it, we've improved by 20%.

AFF has helped us optimize our costs. We partnered with StorageGRID on that, and so we tier our data with StorageGRID and use AFF for the hot data, and then we tier it off to StorageGRID, which is really helping with that.

What needs improvement?

I do not have any notes for areas of improvement. 

There's a lag with StorageGRID. It's off of this tier-three disc. After a few days, we sluff it off to StorageGRID, and then if all of a sudden, they need to restore that data, it takes a while to spin it back up and write it back to that. What would be great is if they could actually make StorageGRID so that it's pretty fast and has a fast recall. That being said, that's a recovery issue. 

In the past, NetApp designed it so that you have a 70% threshold. You would never fill up past 70% since you need to have that room available. Whereas with Pure, I can fill it up to 110% of what they listed and it's still going at full speed. NetApp can't do that. They need to build in more capacity to ensure users don't lose 30% of a buffer off the top. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for six years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is fantastic. They're really coming as close to a high availability system as you can get.

In the past, with the controller failover, you'd have to rely on the other controller. It was a little bit hit or miss. AFF has really stepped it up to where I'm not lagging on performance when it fails over if it's an upgrade, update, or something like that. I don't have to worry as much about controller failure anymore.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is great. It's just expensive. That's why we would go with StorageGRID. Due to supply chain issues, I already know that these flash drives are so expensive. We're paying through the roof for those drives even on a discount. Therefore, while scalability's great, we can't really afford it. I can't go and buy a $4 million system. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is pretty good. It is hit or miss. For the most part, it's good.

The main complaints I get from the engineers are that they'll just say, "it's a future release, and that future release is just too far down the road, and we need to get that done right away." Whereas we see a pain point now, and we would like to see them fix our problems right now. That said, we understand we're not the biggest customer on planet earth. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

Before AFF, we used Hitachi. We switched to simplify from the fiber channel over to NAS. We were looking to simplify and make the network the cost point instead of having fibre channel expertise and network expertise.

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the initial setup of the solution. 

What was our ROI?

We've probably optimized our costs by 70%.

We have seen ROI in terms of less latency on applications and users being able to get more done more quickly. The experience is really good with StorageGRID unless you're doing restores, and then they've got to restore that data. That's the only thing that's lagging. That said, the return on investment has been great since the DBAs and the other customers get more done and get more cycles accomplished with that enhanced IOP performance.

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

The pricing is palatable; we can swallow it. We're a longtime customer and we view our relationship as a partnership, not just a one-time deal. They have taken good care of us.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at Dell, Pure, and EMC, among other options. 

I like Pure. Pure has very low-cost copies of point-in-time databases that they can spin up immediately, and the developers, the database administrators, can have that hanging off the same disc at a low cost. It's just built off of the existing data, and I haven't seen NetApp come up with anything like that yet.

The Snapshotting, SnapMirror, SnapVault technologies, and just having all of those technologies, are really nice so that we can get a copy, SnapMirror, for example, in the data center, and we can have that spun up really quick. That's NetApp's technology and that's the advantage there.

What other advice do I have?

I have not used BlueX, their cloud management aspect.

We haven't seen any ransomware attacks. Security's pretty closed off. They're not going to tell us if something happens, so it's hard to gain visibility. We'll just know that we've got to do a restore or something. That said, we haven't lost anything.

We do not use any other NetApp cloud services. We just use StorageGRID and the AFF right now. FSX looks intriguing. We'd be willing to test it in the future. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It's a good product.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
NetApp AFF
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about NetApp AFF. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Storage Engineer at Missile Defense Agency
Real User
Good price to performance ratio, no latency, and simple to use
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of this solution is its simplicity. It is easy to use."
  • "I want an interface through ONTAP that look more like what it does for the E-Series with Santricity."

What is our primary use case?

We use NetApp AFF mostly as a NAS solution, but we do some SAN with it. Basically, we're just doing file services for the most part.

We're running an AFF A300 as well as a FAS8040 that is clustered together with the AFF A300.

We're not allowed to use cloud models.

How has it helped my organization?

We don't use NetApp AFF for machine learning or artificial intelligence applications.

With respect to latency, we basically don't have any. If it's there then nobody knows it and nobody can see it. I'm probably the only one that can recognize that it's there, and I barely catch it. This solution is all-flash, so the latency is almost nonexistent.

The DP protection level is great. You can have three disks failing and you would still get your data. I think it takes four to fail before you can't access data. The snapshot capability is there, which we use a lot, along with those other really wonderful tools that can be used. We depend very heavily on just the DP because it's so reliable. We have not had any data inaccessible because of any kind of drive failure, at all since we started. That was with our original FAS8040. This is a pretty robust and pretty reliable system, and we don't worry too much about the data that is on it. In fact, I don't worry about it at all because it just works.

Using this solution has helped us by making things go faster, but we have not really implemented some of the things that we want to do. For example, we're getting ready to use the VDI capability where we do virtualization of systems. We're still trying to get the infrastructure in place. We deal with different locations around the world and rather than shipping hard drives that are not installed into PCs, then re-installing them at the main site, we want to use VDI. With VDI, we turn on a dumb system that has no permanent storage. It goes in, they run the application and we can control it all from one location, there in our data center. So, that's what we're moving towards. The reason for the A300 is so that our latency is so low that we can do large-scale virtualization. We use VMware a tremendous amount.

NetApp helps us to unify data services across SAN and NAS environments, but I cannot give specifics because the details are confidential.

I have extensive experience with storage systems, and so far, NetApp AFF has not allowed me to leverage data in ways that I have not previously thought of.

Implementing NetApp has allowed us to add new applications without having to purchase additional storage. This is true, in particular, for one of our end customers who spent three years deciding on the necessity of purchasing an A300. Ultimately, the customer ran out of storage space and found that upgrading the existing FAS8040 would have cost three times more. Their current system has quadruple the space of the previous one.

With respect to moving large amounts of data, we are not allowed to move data outside of our data center. However, when we installed the new A300, the moving of data from our FAS8040 was seamless. We were able to move all of the data during the daytime and nobody knew that we were doing it. It ran in the background and nobody noticed.

We have not relocated resources that have been used for storage because I am the only full-time storage resource. I do have some people that are there to help back me up if I need some help or if I go on vacation, but I'm the only dedicated storage guy. Our systems architect, who handles the design for network, storage, and other systems, is also familiar with our storage. We also have a couple of recent hires who will be trained, but they will only be used if I need help or am not available.

Talking about the application response time, I know that it has increased since we started using this solution, but I don't think that the users have actually noticed it. They know that it is a little bit snappier, but I don't think they understand how much faster it really is. I noticed because I can look at the system manager or the unify manager to see the performance numbers. I can see where the number was higher before in places where there was a lot of disk IO. We had a mix of SATA, SAS, and flash, but now we have one hundred percent flash, so the performance graph is barely moving along the bottom. The users have not really noticed yet because they're not really putting a load on it. At least not yet. Give them a chance though. Once they figure it out, they'll use it. I would say that in another year, they'll figure it out.

NetApp AFF has reduced our data center costs, considering the increase in the amount of data space. Had we moved to the same capacity with our older FAS8040 then it would have cost us four and a half million dollars, and we would not have even had new controller heads. With the new A300, it cost under two million, so it was very cost-effective. That, in itself, saved us money. Plus, the fact that it is all solid-state with no spinning disks means that the amount of electricity is going to be less. There may also be savings in terms of cooling in the data center.

As far as worrying about the amount of space, that was the whole reason for buying the A300. Our FAS8040 was a very good unit that did not have a single failure in three years, but when it ran out of space it was time to upgrade.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of this solution is its simplicity. It is easy to use.

What needs improvement?

I want an interface through ONTAP that look more like what it does for the E-Series with SANtricity. One of the things that I liked about the SANtricity GUI is that it is standalone Java. It doesn't have to have a web browser. Secondly, when you look at it, there are a lot more details. It shows the actual shelves and controllers, and if a drive goes bad then it shows you the exact physical location. If it has failed, is reconstructing, or whatever, it shows you the status and it shows you where the hot spares are. In other words, be rearranging the GUI, you can make it look like it actually does in the rack. From a remote standpoint, I can call and instruct somebody to go to a particular storage rack and find the fourth shelf from the top, the fifth drive over from the left, and check for a red light. Once they see it, they can pull that drive out. You can't get simpler than that.

There are a lot of features with ONTAP, and the user interface is far more complicated than it needs to be. I would like to see it more visual.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for about three months

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is incredible. If you looked up the word "stability" in the dictionary, it would show you a picture of the A300 or the FAS8040 in a NetApp array.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is not a problem. When we got the new flash system, we were able to combine it with the old hybrid that included iSCSI, SATA, SAS, and flash, into a four-way cluster. It was all running before the end of the day, and we moved about four hundred terabytes worth of data between them.

How are customer service and technical support?

I find the technical support for NetApp to be really good, although I'm a little biased because I used to be one of those guys back in the days under the E-series. If I have a question for them and they don't know the answer, they'll find the person who does. When I was a support engineer, that's the way I worked.

Both pre-sales and post-sales engineers are good. Our presales engineer has been a godsend, answering all of the techie questions that we had. If he didn't know something then he would ask somebody. Sometimes the questions are about fixing things, but at other times it is just planning before we tried something new.

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

We've had NetApp since day one. Within our organization, there are multiple other teams and almost all of them use NetApp on classified networks. We have a little bit of HP and I think there's a couple of EMCs floating around somewhere, but they're slowly going away. Most of them being replaced by NetApp.

Mainly, NetApp is very robust, very reliable, and they cost less. Nowadays with the government worried about costs, trying to keep taxes down, that's a big plus. It just so happens that it's a very good product. It's a win-win.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was pretty straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

I handled the implementation myself, although I would contact technical support to fill in any gaps that I might have had.

When we installed the new A300, we used NetApp Professional Services because the person who was brought in was able to do it a lot faster than I could. That is all he does, so he is exceptionally proficient at it. It took him about two and a half days, whereas it would have probably taken me a little over a week to complete.

What was our ROI?

The only thing that I can say about ROI is that our costs are probably going to be less than if we had stuck with our original idea.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We didn't have any other vendors on the list, although we had one team that tried to push HP on to us and we said no. HP was really the only other possible alternative that we had. We had tossed around a couple of other vendors, but we never really gave them any serious thought. We already knew NetApp, so it made more sense because they could integrate better and that was the main thing we were looking at. The level of integration. Since we had a NetApp that we've had for many years, it just made sense to stick with what we had, but a newer and faster version.

What other advice do I have?

One of my favorite parts of this solution is that most of the day I sit there and do nothing, watching the lights go green on unify manager, knowing that they should stay green because it indicates that it is working. That's what I look for. It works, and most of the time I don't have to do a lot with it unless somebody wants some space carved out.

I've been in the storage business since 1992. I've been doing work with storage systems before there was such a thing as a storage area network (SAN) or network-attached storage (NAS). Those are buzzwords that came along about fifteen or sixteen years ago and I was well entrenched in storage long before then. My expectation is not very high other than the fact that it's fast and reliable. Other than that, as far as what we can do with it, it's capabilities, I have a pretty low bar because I know what storage can do and I know what it should do and the only time I'm disappointed is when it doesn't do it. I haven't experienced that with NetApp.

The only thing that I would change is the GUI, which is cosmetic. It will not make the product better, but it will make it a lot simpler for those of us who have to support the NetApp equipment, and we can do it in a more timely fashion.

My advice to anybody who is researching this solution is to buy it. Don't worry about it, just buy it. NetApp will help you install it, they'll help you with the right licensing, and they'll help you with all of the questions you have. They will even give you some suggestions on how you might want to configure it based on your needs, which is never accurate, but that's not the fault of the installer. It's usually because the customer doesn't know what they want, but you at least get a good start and they can make recommendations based on past experience. As far as price per performance, this solution is hard to beat. I'm a big supporter.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

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.
PeerSpot user
Infrastructure Team Lead at a pharma/biotech company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Enables us to have have a multitude of environments without having to worry about having spaces deployed
Pros and Cons
  • "Multi-protocol is the most valuable feature for us. It does everything in one system: sifts, EBES, ISCSI, and fiber channel. Other systems don't do all that."
  • "The procurement process could be improved. It takes a long time for us to receive stuff. The product is good. It's not the product, it's just that it takes forever to get it. It's not our reseller's problem; it's usually held up at NetApp."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution for NAS and SAN.

How has it helped my organization?

NetApp helped us with its ease of deployment and ease of use.

The solution's data protection and data management are also easy.

AFF has improved our response time by about 30%.

We have enough storage, especially with the enhanced deduplication and compaction. It is good to be able to have a multitude of environments without having to worry about having spaces deployed. We always have a good amount of space. We do have multi-performance, with different performance layers for slower and quicker storage.

What is most valuable?

Multi-protocol is the most valuable feature for us. It does everything in one system: CIFS, ISCSI, and fiber channel. Other systems don't do all that.

What needs improvement?

The procurement process could be improved. It takes a long time for us to receive stuff. The product is good. It's not the product, it's just that it takes forever to get it. It's not our reseller's problem; it's usually held up at NetApp.

Waiting for equipment is one of our biggest hiccups. I live in Pennsylvania and we flew out to Washington state to do an install. We were there for three days, but the product didn't show up. We left and the product came the next day. Then we had to send somebody else out. That's because things were getting held up in shipping and stuff like that. The shipping is my only beef with NetApp.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is easy to deploy and it's scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

I am happy with their technical support. It's not bad. We haven't had to use it very much, but I think they're proficient.

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

We had an AFF already there. We just upgraded. In my previous company, where I was for five years, we used NetApp extensively. So I had a lot of experience and interaction with it.

How was the initial setup?

We found the setup straightforward. I've been using NetApp for a long time, though.

What about the implementation team?

Our partner is a good friend of mine. I've worked with them for a long time. They work with a lot of other companies. They're huge NetApp distributors.

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

The price of the upgrading of the solution is high. I could buy a whole unit of All Flash FAS 300 with a shelf for around $285,000. Yet if I want to add one additional shelf, it'll cost me $275,000. So they want you to upgrade by replacing it. It's cheaper to buy a whole new unit than to just scale-out. The upside is they last. AFF lasts us three or four years. So that's a good investment. 

I don't think it's cost-efficient for a lot of people. Their pricing structure is not competitive at this point with other companies. Support is a fortune on it. Every three years you need to do a rip and replace for an upgrade. It's not an in-place upgrade.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Pure Storage and Nimble. I've used HPE 3PAR and Tintri as well. We've looked at a lot of different vendors. Most of them were better in terms of their upgrade process. Nimble and Pure have a hot upgrade process, which NetApp does not have. Although the cost of Pure is a lot more. Nimble was a good product, but they were bought by HP I think, so that will probably go away. I don't see it as much as I did before. We chose NetApp because of its speed and stability.

What other advice do I have?

I think it fits a multitude of needs. For someone who doesn't know how to provision storage, it gives you, SIPS and NAS storage. NAS storage gives you a SAN protocol so you can provision ISCSI fiber channel one, depending on what you're using it for. It's basically an all-in-one solution. It does everything for you.

I would rate this solution as nine out of ten. There have been a few times we've seen buggy releases on some of the ONTAP software upgrades. Nine is good, though. I never get a ten when we get our reviews. If you get a ten, there's no room for improvement. Nine gives you room to improve. If you give it a ten, they're not going to have any reason to improve.

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, Data Center Services at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Offers outstanding performance and simplified management
Pros and Cons
  • "Its top-tier performance ranks as the most valuable aspect."
  • "Offering the ability to actively write data on a single volume spanning multiple clusters is significant."

What is our primary use case?

Our main use revolves around database management, specifically for Oracle and SQL databases, including large databases, and for handling unstructured file data within our organization.

How has it helped my organization?

We've been addressing our evolving needs, and it was a logical progression as our systems demanded greater resources and improved performance, so it became the go-to solution for meeting those requirements. The simplified infrastructure allows our storage team to allocate their efforts to other important tasks. They can focus on aspects like backup, automation, and proactive administrative duties, rather than constantly dealing with performance problems or troubleshooting issues.

What is most valuable?

Its top-tier performance ranks as the most valuable aspect. 

Secondly, the reduced frequency of drive failures leads to less time and resources spent on maintenance and replacements. I am highly satisfied with its exceptional, consistent performance, ensuring that applications run smoothly and reliably. It has proven to be highly effective, with the added benefit of utilizing a range of additional features, whether we're dealing with flash or lower-end disk storage solutions. 

It has greatly contributed to efficiency and improved performance in our operations, indirectly impacting cost management.

What needs improvement?

Offering the ability to actively write data on a single volume spanning multiple clusters is significant.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for approximately four years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is quite remarkable. Occasionally, there may be a component failure, but it's typically a non-issue due to the redundancy and built-in safeguards in place.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is commendable. You can easily expand the system by adding nodes or disks, and we've done this several times with successful results.

How are customer service and support?

It stands out as one of the few vendors that provide a pretty good level of customer service. I would rate it eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

Before adopting NetApp, we relied on Direct-Attached Storage solutions.

What was our ROI?

In terms of ROI, it meets our expectations and fulfills the intended purpose for which we acquired it.

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

The pricing is competitive when we compare it to other products.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We considered a few different competitors. However, what set NetApp apart was the fact that it offered a single array capable of handling both block and file storage.

What other advice do I have?

When considering and evaluating NetApp, one of the key advantages to take into account is the unified single OS. You don't have to purchase different products and then struggle to make them work seamlessly together. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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RaffaeleBrescia - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and System Administration at Simac BE ICT
Real User
Top 10
Good one-point central management solution and easy to manage
Pros and Cons
  • "NetApp is like a one-point central management. For example, one can put everything on the right version and control the whole environment from one software solution."
  • "The user interface should be more user-friendly, and the configuration could be more accessible."

What is our primary use case?

It is used for separating locations from a network cluster and also to store the data and create a backup on another location for bigger companies.

What is most valuable?

NetApp is like a one-point central management. For example, one can put everything on the right version and control the whole environment from one software solution. It's easy to have an insight into monitoring and stuff. The solution is easy to manage.

What needs improvement?

The user interface should be more user-friendly and configuration could be easier.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using NetApp AFF for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a fairly stable solution. There is rarely a problem and everything runs fine.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a fairly scalable solution, though some things are more easily scalable than others but the possibilities are endless. Presently, sixty customers are working on the solution.

How are customer service and support?

The customer support team of NetApp is good.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not very simple. As I always use the CLI for configuration, it is easy. But the nodes' and cluster configuration can also be done with GUI.

The solution is deployed by connecting everything in different locations and then implementing the solution that will be sold to customers. The deployment is done by three engineers, which include two senior engineers and myself.

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

The customers need to pay for the license.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend NetApp to people with a budget and looking for a simple solution for a small environment. But for complex environments, NetApp can be an overkill.

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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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Buyer's Guide
Download our free NetApp AFF Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free NetApp AFF Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.