What is our primary use case?
We use the solution more for archiving. It's like having the data outside of the place and that's with the indexing and everything.
What is most valuable?
We like that you can have it from a single point from a storage provider, rather than having different products from different providers. The same support will be from the same place.
The interface is great. The GUI is great. It's so easy to work with.
The initial setup is straightforward.
Scaling isn't a problem.
The solution is stable.
What needs improvement?
The solution needs faster indexing.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've implemented this solution for a while. I've been working with NetApp since 2014. This is a long time.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability has been good. It serves its purpose well. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Any department that is having files shared and data that can be deleted and changed a lot would need this solution. Here is in the Middle East, it's a little bit different as the adoption of the cloud is not so strong. Mostly the type of businesses that would use this product are all SMBs. I'd recommend a higher level for enterprises.
There is nothing wrong with the scalability of the product. It's simply a matter of licensing and configuration, nothing more, nothing less. If it needs something from the back end, it's a configuration that can be done or adjusted easily as it's something on the cloud. You can just change the attributes that you need for the service. It's simple. Nothing is hard there. As it's not a mission-critical thing that it needs to be up 24/7, you can do these upgrades easily.
How are customer service and support?
I've interacted with technical support. I interacted with them a lot in small cases and in big cases. The good thing about NetApp, when it comes to a serious issue, if we're talking about real downtime, you will find everyone online with you.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is so straightforward it doesn't require very many prerequisites.
The deployment time depends on the size of the data. In general, we can say that testing, taking the data back and forth, can take about two days.
You just need one person for deployment and maintenance. You do not need a big team. If your business model is having one support and deployment team and they are doing the same job, then you can have one person. If it's different departments, you can have one for the support and you can have one for the implementation and that's it.
What about the implementation team?
As integrators, we handle the professional services for NetApp. We do not take professional services from the vendor right now. In fact, we are a service arm for NetApp. We are bound to the documentation and everything from the vendor. However, we are the team that does the implementation.
What was our ROI?
What will happen is that customers will eventually get to an ROI. It'll save time and effort for the team that is working. This is a very important thing and it will give them opportunities to do some other work.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's not expensive. Its cost is fair.
You can have set up a subscription. You can do the payment like that. The payment model is completely different from region to region and partner to partner. Sometimes we can take it as facilitation from our side as an investment with the customer and we can make it monthly as well. It depends, however, mainly, it's set up as a SaaS service with monthly payments.
The one price includes everything. Usually, when you receive the quotation, everything is there. It's divided up and the various aspects are written there. These are essential things in the initial quote.
What other advice do I have?
We're partners. We are system integrators. I'm exposed to storage regarding NetApp - all services of NetApp and HDS and AltaVault. We are also selling that. From the backup perspective, arguably our specialty is actually in Commvault and Veritas. We handle backup, archiving, and data management solutions as well.
NetApp these days is completely different than the old days. NetApp started as a software company. The core is the software, which is the ONTAP software. Now ONTAP software can be deployed on the cloud. If you're looking for on-prem storage, you can have that. If you're looking for the storage capabilities yet you want the same capabilities on the cloud, you can have it by having the ONTAP for the cloud. The only difference is that NetApp doesn't have a complete solution for the cloud as a cloud provider. It's not like Amazon and it's like not Azure. This is a service that is running on those services.
They do not have the same capabilities as the on-prem storage - such as the rate of de-duplication. They don't have de-duplication actually as a normal feature with the normal rate. They don't have serverless replication between desks. It's not like that. It's a clock active storage there on the cloud. However, when you use the NetApp ONTAP on the cloud, it allows you to treat the cloud storage and cloud tier like normal storage on-prem with everything, regardless of the number of snapshots, compression, or deduplication.
I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.