NetApp AFF - All Flash Reviews

• Using NetApp AFF 8060 in two-node MetroCluster configuration.
• Used for NAS protocols only. 
• CIFS and NFS provisioned through several SVMs (vFilers). 
• Shares for normal company office files, Oracle Middleware binaries, Citrix profiles, and more.

Used to run an older FAS with FC drives. We were always having trouble with performance. AFF is fast, with low latency, and plenty of I/O headroom. Management is fairly easy as we know our way around NetApp from experience with the old FAS. 

The speed is important; no more problems caused by high latency. 

MetroCluster provides business continuity and is a critical part of our contingency setup. 

• FC and ATTO bridges are still needed for cross datacenter replication. 
• I would like it to be an IP as our network is mainly IP-based. 
• The ATTO bridges add to the total cost of the system.

It's fast. That's all it needs to be is fast.

We use it for virtualization of the Xen desktops and also our VMware systems. That's it.

It doesn't improve the way I work. I don't get to use it, really.

It's faster than spinning disk. I don't have people complaining about it being slow. We're still ramping up in the production but our busy season is a little bit later this year. Right now, it's faster than spinning disk.

In the GUI, I'd like to be able to click a button that says "sync load-sharing mirrors". There are certain configuration things that you can't do if your load-sharing mirrors aren't synced. It would be easier to click that in the GUI, rather than actually issue the command line every time. It's burnt me a few times on configuration.

When we did our upgrade, if we could have done it without doing a whole migration; the migration was painful. Going from 7-mode to CDOT is painful. To make that easier is the only way to get the rating higher.

We have been using it for six months.

We haven't had any stability issues yet. It's only six months old so I would hope there's no hardware issues with it yet.

We haven't had to scale it yet, so right now it's a relatively new install.

Their technical support's good. Most of the questions haven't been in regards to the AFF hardware; it's all been more configuration with the ONTAP, the CDOT. They've been helpful. We're getting through the issues.

This was just a hardware replacement and the promotional deals that NetApp had to offer basically made buying an AFF solution comparable to buying an old spinning disk solution, so it was a combination. We have two nodes that have spinning disks and two nodes that are AFF. To have the whole thing spinning disk, the difference in price made it a no-brainer going with part of it being AFF.

The networking is extremely complex. They advertise it as pretty simple but you have to get through a big install phase before it becomes simple. That's my impression.
To prepare for that install phase and make it a little less complex, make sure your NetApp partner knows what they're doing, by talking to people.

We go through different vendors depending on what we're looking at. Last time, it was Hitachi, EMC and NetApp. One reason we decided on NetApp was that we were replacing a NetApp. We had high confidence it was going to work. Then, its pricing.

The NetApp partner you're working with is important. Understand what you're trying to do and the networking stuff, to make sure that it fails over and everything works from a networking standpoint. I'm guessing it's probably where it's the weakest, so it's the most frustrating for me.

When I look for a vendor for a solution such as AFF or spinning disk, we put together requirements, check them off and weigh the requirements against the vendors. In the end, we make a decision and we also make sure they're comparable in regards to pricing. Quotes are pulled from multiple vendors.

The requirements depend on the application. We buy our storage for specific stuff. As an example, I work at Jostens. We store billions of images. The NetApp product line really wasn't a fit for that, but for our home directories, some of our virtualization desktop stuff and our VMware stuff, NetApp was a great fit.

The flash pool and flash cache features are most valuable to us because they automate storage tiering combine HDDs and SSDs.

It's highly integrated with VMware and it's very fast. We have reduced latency from 100 milliseconds to just 1 millisecond.

8.3 is not as stable as 7-Mode as it gets stuck every once in a while.

We've used it for three to four months for OLTP and our Oracle database.

We've had no issues with deployment.

8.3 gets stuck every once in a while.

It scales to our leads.

9/10

We moved because of the latency.

It's easy. If you know NetApp, it’s actually easier than 7-Mode.

We did it in-house.

We didn't evaluate any other options.

It makes things fast, but not as fast as IBM flash. Try it on real loads before you buy.

We have a vast NetApp experience, so the fact that it can be managed like the others is great. It has the most consistent performance for storage for VMware. We were also specifically looking for an all-flash system.

It took only a very short time to implement, as it was live just a few hours afterwards. It also integrates well with our environment, specifically with disaster recovery, high availability, management, performance, and historic and current performance metrics.

Most of the things we were waiting for are already in this version, so I’m not really waiting for any new features. It could improve on the initial learning curve, as it can be steep.

We've been using it for one-and-a-half months with 1,500 VMs exclusively as the VMware backend. It's a mix between Windows and Linux-hosted OS. We've been running clustered Data ONTAP since April 2014.

We've had no issues with deployment.

Thus far, it’s 100% stable.

Scalability is quite good in an NAS environment, and in a SAN it's good enough.

Technical support is very good, 8/10.

We also have IBM products, but we chose NetApp instead because IBM does not have the necessary plugins for integration with vSphere.

If you are new to NetApp, it is a bit complex, but if you know the system, it is quite simple. There is definitely a learning curve, but every NetApp system works the same, so if you know NetApp, it’s quite easy.

It performs like we expect and is stable. Always do a proof of concept, and if you go with AFF, especially for a VMware environment. Also, opt for OnCommand InSight software for performance metrics and recommendations.

• Clustered Data ONTAP
• Data recovery
• Protection

Our company has a web application for post-lab test results, and with flash, the application is much faster than it used to be. The customers can see results much faster and can then send new requests for labs faster.

At the moment it's perfect to me because I haven’t used it that long.

We've used it for about a month with different applications for laboratory software.

We had no issues with deployment.

So far the stability is excellent

It scales to our needs.

The customer service is pretty good.

The technical support is pretty good.

We used NetApp FAS previously and switched to the flash version.

The initial setup was generally straightforward, though there were a couple areas that could be streamlined or made a little more clear in terms of which direction we should go.

We used a vendor team.

It's too early for us to tell.

No other options were evaluated.

It’s a pretty good solution; go for it.

IO Performance.

We have moved GPFS's metadata to the SSD disks, the incremental backup is 6-8 times faster (we have over 120,000,000 files and backup takes "only" 30 hours now).

Our next step is to migrate TSM database to SSD array and we hope that allows us to once again reduce backup time.

IO intensive tasks.

12 months

No

Yes

I/O performance is good enough, but to achieve big capacity TB/s you need better controllers and many more SSD drives (we have over 1 PB of storage and only 15 TB of SSD disks).

Good.

Good.

We needed much more I/O, and the size and the GB/s performance was enough.

It wasn't complex.

We implemented it in-house.

We are a non-profit organisation, and we must deliver the best performance solution for our users.

The power consumption is very low, and the size is small (2U) and these are the only costs at this time.

We knew that we needed SSD array.

Buy as much support as you can afford.

There's always a little room for improvement.

We have had no issues, but we never went to production.

The technical support is excellent. Anytime we've had any kind of questions, our rep can help us or we'll call into NetApp auto-support. We have not had any problems. Tech support is knowledgeable and their response times are good.

We compared this tool against EMC’s XtremIO head-to-head, and the NetApp blew it out of the water. There was no competition. We were already a NetApp shop, so they were our preferred tool anyway. It has more features and links to my OS, innovative CIFS, and deduplication. We had the knowledge of the system already. It wasn't reinventing the workforce.

The installation was pretty easy. It was my third setup, so it was nothing really new. There's only one minor switch that turns it into an AFF.

We use the system to do stuff that isn't quite out yet. We love to do some oddball things. We're one of the first to use NetApp shift to compete and migrate away from VMware. We didn’t run into any issues with it, and it beat the competition.

When looking for a vendor, it's usually value first, which is not the right way to do it. That's what it comes down to. The value and then next is feature set.

From a relations perspective, it makes us look better that we have the best foundation to run things that we can. It also provides cost savings because it has efficiencies we can gain with it.

Learn about the benefits of NVMe, NVME-oF and SCM. Read New Frontiers in Solid-State Storage.

The performance is probably the most valuable feature. It allows us to meet our customer's needs, being able to provide that level of performance that they need for their workloads.

There's always going to be room for improvement. I don't really have anything sticking out that's a major pain point or something that it's not doing that I need it to do.

Anything that I might like to have seems to be happening already, whether it’s the price coming down, tracking performance, or higher capacities; that work is already getting done or it already has been done.

We're interested or excited in getting to 32-Gb fiber channel. With their new models, NetApp will be moving to 32-Gb fiber. That would potentially raise performance and or lower our port counts, simplifying or minimizing the amount of cables we need to put in places. It would be a nicety, to be able to clean things up and simplify. It’s something I’m looking forward to.

It seems to be rock solid. We've not had any issues with it at all.

Learn about the benefits of NVMe, NVME-oF and SCM. Read New Frontiers in Solid-State Storage.

Since we've added the All Flash FAS, we have scaled up. We've added additional disk shelves; it seems to be growing just fine with us.

I don't think we've had to open up any cases, or needed any kind of tech support on it, other than working with our VAR setting it up.

I've contributed opinions regarding the decision to invest in the All Flash FAS.
We've been NetApp customers for quite a while, so we just kind of grew into it, from disk to flash cache, flash pool and then to all flash.

I was involved in the initial set up. It was very straightforward. Working with our partner, they tend to do a lot of the work on our behalf but it's still a pretty straightforward process. That were really no gotchas.

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options.

The solution is great; the company is fantastic to work with. I cannot think of a bad experience that we've had with either the company and or the product itself. We've had issues but nothing that wasn't overcome and worked through and better in the long run for working through it with a good company like NetApp.

We're very pleased with it but then I guess we don't have a lot of experience with other things to maybe compare.

The most important criteria for me when selecting a vendor to work with is the support. Everybody's going to have issues with something, but being able to resolve or remediate any issues as quickly, seamlessly and as open as possible is very important to us.