NetApp AFF - All Flash Reviews

We're a hospital, and we do a lot of imaging tasks. Specifically with our cardiology imaging, we had a lot of issues with the data transfers to the FASM. Once I moved all of that over to the AFF, all of that went away.

NetApp AFF has helped reduce operational latency. From going from our old FAS systems to AFF, I already see massive performance improvements.

For years, my company used EMC, and EMC really wasn't doing what we needed it to do. 

Some of our sales reps invited my boss and a previous administrator to NetApp INSIGHT. From there, they got to see everything work. The administrator got the certification and they actually bought it right there. AFF just fits the bill for the company. 

AFF has helped us simplify our infrastructure. 

The simplifications have improved our operations. Our operations used to be one to two hours, just trying to set up simple shared drives and things. Now, I do it in a couple of minutes. It's taking a lot of weight off of me.

NetApp helped to reduce support issues like performance tuning. It's the auto-support features and everything that just fires off to NetApp and they're back to me within minutes of those auto-supports firing off. It's things that would normally take days to resolve, now take minutes using NetApp.

ActiveIQ is the most valuable feature. It's a central point for me to be able to kick into everything every day. I log in first thing and make sure there are no issues, and it helps me with my day-to-day.

NetApp AFF has absolutely helped to simplify our infrastructure. One hundred percent. It's still getting us very high performance for our business-critical applications.

There are features that are available but we haven't purchased them. We haven't delved into the cloud environment too much. BlueXP offers a lot of options that I would like to see, but it's not available with what we currently have. 

They should make these features a little more affordable.

I've been using it for less than a year. We've had it at our company for years, but I've been working with it since March. 

I've never had any major issues out of it other than the drive or node failure. The way it's configured is not an issue. We never saw any dip in performance or anything. 

Scalability is fantastic because we work with new clinics all the time. Usually, I have to spin up some new volumes for those, and it's no problem at all. We're looking at Keystone right now, and that's going to help it quite a bit more.  

The customer service and support are fantastic. A couple of weeks ago, I had a drive go down, and they had one out to me the next morning.  

I had a control board go down on one of my nodes a few months ago, and they sent a guy out to me the next day.

Positive

We previously used different solutions. We opted for AFF because of its flash capacity. The all-flash capacity is fantastic.

I enjoy understanding how the setup works. I never have any issues with it. 

The previous guy set it up before me, and I've picked it up and run with it. I haven't really had any issues since then.

We saw an ROI in terms of turnaround times on our data. It provides patient care at a much faster speed than what we normally would be able to.

In future releases, I would like to see some nonprofit licensure tiers because it's a nonprofit hospital, so it's competing with more commercial licensing. It gets a little more expensive for the nonprofit.

My company evaluated different options, but AFF was definitely one of the front runners.

Overall, I would rate NetApp AFF a ten out of ten. 

NetApp has increased our speed. It can speed up our production and save us time. Our production runs on NetApp, and the data cannot be disturbed. It gives us the capacity and speed we need for our production data. 

NetApp's new technology will improve our skills, which we can use to improve the company. We will have the architecture to deal with production issues and improve our production environment, enabling us to make more money. For example, adding AI technology will significantly enhance our operations because AI can perform traditional maintenance and routine jobs.

Our investment priority should be security because we're still growing on a straight path. The second one should be a true cluster. NetApp's cluster is still not an actual cluster. Then we'll have a perfect product.

I like NetApp's edge visualization and load balancing. 

NetApp could lower the price and offer a true cluster architecture. It's currently a 1.4 cluster, not a real 2.0 cluster.

I rate NetApp solutions eight out of 10. 

NetApp solutions are easy to maintain and upgrade. 

NetApp allows us to provide more and faster connections for our users and simplifies future hardware replacement. That's why we purchased NetApp. 

Innovation is probably the most critical factor. We wanted the ability to refresh hardware. Our biggest pain point was running out of space on our current NAS. It was approaching the end of its life, so we needed to find a new solution to replace our existing hardware. 

Our future expansion into NetApp will probably be going from HCI back to just SAN solutions. Data storage solutions and cybersecurity are our investment priorities. 

We looked at Dell's PowerScale and Pure Storage's FlashBlade. The decision came down to the cost relative to the number of connections we could have and the amount of storage we could get. The NetApp solution was all-flash, so it was also faster in most cases. One solution was spinning disk, and it just got thrown out. 

I rate NetApp solutions nine out of 10. 

Our use cases are related to VMware Infrastructure.

AFF has helped us simplify our infrastructure. It's made our operations more stable and dependable. There's not much downtime.

It provides very high performance for our business-critical applications.

Moreover, AFF has helped to reduce support issues such as performance tuning and troubleshooting. Overall, it has been helpful. The system is very stable and reliable.

AFF has helped to reduce our operational latency and optimize costs very significantly. 

From an IT perspective, there's not a lot of babysitting. It maintains itself. It is a very dependable tool.

In future releases, I would like to see the ability to automatically mount SMB shares and file systems. 

We have been using AFF for seven years. 

I am happy with the stability of the solution. 

It is able to scale according to our needs. I can grow my storage capacity as much as I need, there is no limit.

The customer service and support are fantastic. They have been great. 

Positive

We used a different storage solution prior to AFF.

We made a switch to AFF because we wanted to keep everything consistent and wanted to have ONTAP everywhere. So, we decided to standardize on NetApp AFF for all our storage needs. It has been working out well for us.  

The initial setup was straightforward. 

The stability of AFF alone has been a significant ROI.

We evaluated other options. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

We are using it for configuring NAS as well as the SAN environment.

Most of our business-critical systems are provisioned from the NetApp AFF system. Compared to others, we have a minimal latency. Configuring the DR for high availability or migrating the volumes from one box to another is pretty easy with NetApp AFF.

One of the features that I like in NetApp is cluster configuration where multiple systems can be configured in a single cluster. Its advantage is that we can easily migrate the workload from one system to another without any downtime. With zero downtime, we can migrate the systems. That is one of the advantages of NetApp AFF.

NetApp AFF reduces operational latency depending on the systems, the SAN infrastructure, and the server. It is a maximum of one or two milliseconds, and some of the systems do work in 0.5 milliseconds latency.

For performance tuning, there is a tool called Unified Manager as well as the Active IQ system. The initial troubleshooting is very easy. From the administrator front directly, we can log in to Active IQ. It analyzes the logs in the system and suggests what needs to be improved. From a performance point of view, there is a tool called Unified Manager that shows us a clear picture of the historical volume latency. These tools help us to manage the system very easily, but if there is still something that we are not able to figure out through these tools, then we reach out to the support team.

We have snapshots, and we have even configured storage-based replication with this product. The majority of our virtual workloads are provisioned from this product as well. Our workload VMs are provisioned in this storage.

For replication and snapshots, it is more user-friendly and easy to use as compared to some of the other OEM products, such as HPE 3PAR and Dell Unity. 

Migrating from a public cloud to on-prem or on-prem to a cloud can be a bit complicated. They have their own solution, but it should be easy to use.

We have been using NetApp AFF for the last three to four years.

The product is very stable. The hardware is very stable. The operating system is also very stable.

It is scalable.

I do not face any challenges with NetApp. The support team or everything else is good. If we face any kind of breakdown or any challenge, we can easily reach out to the NetApp backend team. That is one of the advantages of NetApp. I would rate their support a ten out of ten.

Positive

We have worked with the Dell Unity and VNX products. We migrated from Dell to NetApp because of the advantage of configuring the unified storage, such as NAS and SAN, in a single box.

Apart from that, the end customer preferred to configure DR, and NetApp has its own solution with this device. The end customer also wanted the snapshot feature, and NetApp has its own feature.

In addition, every four or five years, when the system gets old, we need to migrate the workloads to a new system. NetApp has an advantage there because we can purchase a new system and configure it in the same existing cluster. Once it is configured in the existing cluster, from the back or from storage to storage, we can do the migration without any downtime. That is one of the advantages of NetApp.

We have not worked with other NetApp solutions much. We only tested ONTAP and the AWS or the Google Platform Service with NetApp, but we are not using it in our production environment.

It is easy to deploy and use. It takes three to five hours. One person is enough for it.

The installation or the initial setup is done by OEM or NetApp engineers. After the initial setup is done, our internal team takes care of the other activities. After the management connectivity and physical parts are established in the backend, our in-house engineer takes care of it.

If you have a virtual environment with the SAN and NAS workloads, NetApp is very suitable. Apart from that, if you are looking for a DR solution, it is very easy to configure DR in NetApp. NetApp also has its own object storage, so object storage is also available in the existing platform and existing versions. If you are using any in-house S3 type of solution, that is available in this.

Overall, I would rate NetApp AFF a nine out of ten.

Its use cases include everything from high bandwidth to low latency, AI workloads based on NVMe drives, and all the way to our basic home directories and what I call common plop-and-drop drives for the teams. 

The challenge that we were trying to address by implementing NetApp AFF was that we needed truly high-speed storage to feed the GPUs for AI/ML workloads. We also had the financial responsibility of being able to lower the QoS when we just needed basic storage rather than Pure high-performance storage.

NetApp AFF has helped with faster data, and at the same time, we are able to work with our solutions team to set up FlexCache share so that we can more easily set up data pipelines and data life cycles. We can also integrate with our corporate systems for replication.

NetApp AFF has helped to simplify our infrastructure while still getting very high performance for our business-critical applications. The flexibility to keep everything on superfast NVMe but also tweak the QoS has allowed us to centralize more of our storage services. We need less rack space. We are using Keystone for financial responsibility. We have centralized and standardized a lot of our ITOps.

NetApp AFF has not helped to reduce support issues, such as performance-tuning and troubleshooting, because we have not had any issues yet that we had to take a look at, and I hope we do not.

NetApp AFF has definitely helped to reduce our operational latency. Especially with the speeds of the drives and the network links and the network topology that we are able to put together, for not just huge dense workloads, we are able to scale out horizontally so everyone can get the same speed. 

NetApp AFF has not saved us much cost, but the Keystone model that we are able to run AFF in partnership with has helped to save costs. Instead of making those huge capital purchases where we may purchase 500 terabytes and not use it, the consumption-based model has allowed us to be flexible. It gives us that financial flexibility to say, "We want to experiment with this more. Add it on." We can also say, "We do not need it. Take it back, and give us that plug-and-play option."

The ease of use for setting up our basic shares such as NFS and CIFS is valuable. It takes a couple of clicks to set up things like object shares. 

The ONTAP S3 implementation is not feature-complete as compared to StorageGRID. We had to move our lakeFS instance from ONTAP S3 based on AFF to StorageGRID.

The lab that I am developing has used NetApp AFF and NetApp storage for about two years, but I know that our organization, in general, has been using NetApp for storage for a long time.

I have not thought about it. It must be good because I have not had to think about it.

Based on your current needs and based on your inter-cluster switches, you need more storage added in, and you are good to go. You can create new aggregates and SVMs, and you are good to go.

The support is great. We have a dedicated team. I can work with our dedicated embedded professional services group. If it is a larger issue, I can send a message to our support ops engineer and get an answer right away, or even proactively.

Positive

This lab is brand new, we started with NetApp AFF. 

I am a nerd at heart, so I worked with our professional services group to do the rack and stack. It was pretty straightforward. It was based on the idea of centralized controllers with expanded disk shares. We were able to work with our professional services consultant to get it set up in two days or so.

We were able to have those huge savings as our lab was being stood up, and now, as our usage increases, our cost increases, and as our usage decreases, our cost decreases. We have been able to see that trend match up with how we are using it. 

We did not evaluate other options because it is part of a centralized storage offering with our company. We wanted to keep everything on the same level for ease of use for purchasing, operations, shared ownership, and everything else.

In terms of using other NetApp solutions or services, we use less of NetApp Cloud Services, but we do use Cloud Volumes ONTAP. We also use SnapMirror and FlexCache for a lot of the intra or inter-site capabilities.

I would rate NetApp AFF a 10 out of 10.

AFF has simplified our infrastructure and delivered high performance for crucial business applications. Our move to c-series, with C800 units, consolidates infrastructure, aligns with sustainability goals, and lowers costs. This has allowed us to operate with a smaller team and streamline our IT operations, bringing significant benefits. 

AFS has also reduced support issues related to performance tuning and troubleshooting. 

Additionally, AFF has optimized our costs, and it is the reason we are using this platform today. It has minimized our footprint, lowered power consumption, and reduced upfront costs and it has reduced operational latency to some extent.

The most valuable feature of AFF is that it offers better visibility and control over performance, ensuring it meets customer needs effectively.

One minor improvement could be making scale-up solutions with AFF more cost-effective compared to scale-out options.

We have been using NetApp AFF for quite some time.

AFF's stability is excellent, and I can't remember any major issues. It is also scalable, particularly when we expand our clusters, making it a smooth and seamless experience for our customers.

NetApp's support has been great. We have found value in their SAN services, which provide embedded support. Their teams are knowledgeable and responsive, offering a high-quality support experience that stands out among our partners. I would rate the support as a nine out of ten.

Positive

We switched to AFF from a previous vendor to get the best all-flash solution that met our price-performance needs.

AFF has helped us achieve our margin targets and deliver on our business goals. It has definitely provided a return on investment.

Pricing and licensing can be tricky. It is often a delicate balance between value and cost. However, I think NetApp is moving in the right direction, offering better value for the money.

We implemented AFF to find the right balance between price and performance. We compared it with other options in the market, and AFF emerged as the best choice for our needs. What set AFF apart were its reliability and strong data protection features. Our VDI solution provided multi-site configuration support, which is crucial for replication and failover. In comparison, other options relied more on software and hypervisor layers to achieve what we needed. AFF met our platform requirements, and in a competitive market, it offered the best value for our customers. That is why our partnership with NetApp was the right choice for us.

Overall, I would rate NetApp AFF as an eight out of ten.

We're using NetApp to make sure everything is secure, in a single location, and easy to maneuver and manipulate when the time comes for it.

The storage solutions that we use allow us a lot more peace of mind.

We've had situations where our HVAC unit became unreliable, and we've had a number of occasions where we've had to shut down our services in order to preserve what data we did have. This solution has allowed us to maintain our data securely and safely, and we don't have to worry about it. We simply brought the service back up, and then all of our data was still there and intact. Our customers appreciated that.

The solution helped streamline our internal operations. It's pretty much allowed us to focus on larger tasks on hand versus constantly wondering how our storage is going to be. For example, we never worry: "Are we going to run out of it?" or "Are there any configurations that we have to consistently change?" Being able to focus on much larger tasks on hand and not have to consistently worry about our storage solutions has been a big plus. It's also allowed us to streamline things and put our focus where we really need to put it.

In terms of improvement, they could help with knowledge transfer. I'm working on sitting down and getting familiar with the different storage solutions and technologies that are already available and just need to keep myself abreast of what's coming up. 

One of our chief priorities is expanding our storage to the cloud. That's one of the biggest aspects that the client is working towards—putting a lot in the cloud instead of having an on-prem setup. It will be more agile, if you will, and allow our customers to effectively do their jobs with little to no interruption.

We haven't had any real challenges with it. Everything's been pretty smooth and straightforward. Of course, if we've had any issues, we can easily get on the phone with our reps, and they'll give us an answer nearly the same day or within 24 hours of us asking. They're really responsive. We've had very few issues, if at all.

When I came on board with my company, we were all already pretty waist-deep with this particular product. This solution is the only one we've used before, and we'll probably continue to use it in the foreseeable future. 

Future investments will be prioritized around AI. AI is one of the big aspects that we're working on. That, of course, eats up a lot of storage and, of course, working on shifting to the cloud instead of just on-prem. That's one of the aspects that we're chiefly working towards and making headway on. So it's a matter of just getting to the finish line. 

Our priority for our client is to be able to provide that service quickly, effectively, and on budget. Having our customers able to go forth and do whatever they need to do with little to no interruption or hiccups along the way is important. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I haven't really gotten too deep into it. I've gotten deep enough to know that I trust this trust this material. I'm pretty sure if I've had a lot more experience, it'll be a ten, sure enough. It is definitely a very solid system. I would recommend NetApp to anyone.