Systems Administration at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
Real User
Improved uptime, easy to use, and good support
Pros and Cons
  • "The ease of use in terms of how the product works is valuable. We are able to work with it and deploy the storage that we need."
  • "The dashboard is a little bit clunky. I like to see it a little bit more on the simplistic side. I would like to be able to create my own widgets and customize what I want to see a little bit more versus what is currently there. That would be helpful so that when I log in, I go straight to my widget or my board without going to multiple places to get to what I need to find or build."

What is our primary use case?

It is for our databases and for Linux. We also use it for backups. We are replicating snapshots across, so we have different scenarios.

How has it helped my organization?

By implementing this solution, we wanted to achieve simplicity. We were trying to get away from reconfiguring everything all the time to work so that we could just get down and implement things within a very small window of time. They would not require a lot of reconfiguring each time.

The main benefit is accessibility. We are able to access it from anywhere. We are able to move things to what we need or are able to pull back the data when it is needed very quickly. We can restore the databases when I need to.

We have a single pane of glass. It helps a lot because time is always the essence. The simplicity comes in handy. It saves quite a bit of time. I do not have to sit down and do all the things. I am able to go in and hit a couple of things. I can deploy, modify, or do whatever needs to be done. It takes seconds versus hours. Once you learn the tool, it is very simple to work from the same point. When it first came out, it was very clunky. It took some time. It took some learning, whereas now, you can catch up pretty quickly. After you start to fine-tune it a little bit, you are able to work with it. Earlier, it was a pain.

I can see how much storage I have left and what I am working with. I can see the alerts. It gives me time to start working on what I need to procure at that point.

It has helped to right-size our workloads. It has been great. It has significantly dropped our downtime for volumes and improved the access for clients. It has helped out a lot in those aspects, so I can stay ahead of the game instead of behind the game. That is where that tool comes in handy. 

It is great when it comes down to pinpointing problem areas. It catches things before they become a problem, so I can keep my clients up and going and functioning. It has been great in that aspect.

I am a big fan of analytics because they give me the chance to be able to keep the clients up and going. That is my biggest thing because when they are down, we lose a lot of money, and we lose a lot of clients, so the ability to make sure that I am up almost 100% percent and being able to stay ahead of the game is a huge win for us.

What is most valuable?

The ease of use in terms of how the product works is valuable. We are able to work with it and deploy the storage that we need.

What needs improvement?

The dashboard is a little bit clunky. I like to see it a little bit more on the simplistic side. I would like to be able to create my own widgets and customize what I want to see a little bit more versus what is currently there. That would be helpful so that when I log in, I go straight to my widget or my board without going to multiple places to get to what I need to find or build.

Buyer's Guide
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using NetApp ONTAP for 18 years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very easy to scale. It takes next to no time to be able to do that. It is very simple and easy to do that part. You just need to get a license and add the storage.

How are customer service and support?

I love NetApp support. If the first level cannot help you, then the next level can. We can get to them fairly quickly. If not, the reps or the sales can jump in and help us as well. We have never gone without some kind of help in one way or another. If there is a problem, they will jump on and bring on tier two and tier three, and write a script, or do whatever needs to be done. I would rate their support a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We have been mostly using the NetApp tools. We have been trying to stay native as much as we can for a long time.

How was the initial setup?

It has been a while. From what I remember, it was not too bad. It could be a little bit more simplistic, but it was not too bad to be out. Once you learn it, it gets easier.

What was our ROI?

It is a great product. It gives you the heads-up for what you need. You can move clients around and access the clients from different locations. You can also do a restore when you need to be at different locations. That has helped enormously. It has helped drive the cost down. Our clients are able to stay up and function consistently. There are a good 30% to 40% savings. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did evaluate other products, but that was a long time ago.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution a 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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Ameet Bakshi - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant VP at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Set it up and it works, requiring little maintenance
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are that it's reliable, simple, and performs well."
  • "The support is good in general but the initial, front-line support could be improved. Because I have already been using the product for so long, when I call support I would rather talk to somebody who is a little bit more advanced or senior, rather than talking to the first-level support. Usually, it takes some time to reach out to their senior support."

What is our primary use case?

We use it to store all kinds of data, both structured and unstructured.

How has it helped my organization?

The way that it has helped our organization is that it requires less time to manage. It's almost like a set-it-and-forget-it type of solution. We don't have to do too much maintenance. Compared to other products, it doesn't need so much babysitting. It's easy to set up and it works. It does the things it is expected to do.

In addition, it provides unified storage no matter what kind of data you have. It has multi-protocol support. It does shares and it does block, so it's a one-stop solution that can fit all of your needs. You don't need multiple solutions for your different types of data.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are that it's 

  • reliable
  • simple 
  • performs well.

It also helps to keep control of storage costs.

What needs improvement?

The only issue I can think of is metrics, but I think they have improved that in the newer versions already. There should be an easy place to see all your metrics.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP for more than 10 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable. We haven't had any issues since setting it up. It all depends upon the disk. The faster it is, the better the performance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a very scalable solution. We are looking at how we can grow in the cloud and it can definitely scale in the cloud.

How are customer service and support?

The support is good in general but the initial, frontline support could be improved. Because I have already been using the product for so long, when I call support I would rather talk to somebody who is a little bit more advanced or senior, rather than talking to the first-level support. Usually, it takes some time to reach out to their senior support. The advanced support is good. The frontline support can still be improved.

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. We switched because NetApp definitely provides us with multi-protocol support and it is a one-stop solution.

How was the initial setup?

It's fairly easy to set up. For a new SAN it takes a couple of hours to get the setup done. The additional configurations take another three or four hours. You can get the whole thing, a new system, set up within a day so that it is ready to go to testing.

Our implementation strategy is that we use CIFS shares and NFS shares in our environment. We also have block storage for SQL and Oracle. That has been our general plan all along. We separate these protocols by virtual servers. Once the necessary cabling is done, it's a matter of setting up the network interfaces for each, provisioning some storage, and testing things out. Overall, it's fairly straightforward.

What other advice do I have?

I strongly recommend the solution. The biggest advantage is that it works as expected. There's less maintenance so you don't need too many people to support it and you save money in the long run.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Buyer's Guide
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Provides deduplication, compression, and compaction that should result in cost savings
Pros and Cons
  • "It gives a solution for storage one place to go across everything. So, the customer is very familiar with NetApp on-prem. It allows them to gain access to the file piece. It helps them with the training aspect of it, so they don't have to relearn something new. They already know this product. They just have to learn some widgets or what it's like in the cloud to operate and deploy it in different ways."
  • "I would like some more performance matrices to know what it is doing. It has some matrices inherent to the Cloud Volumes ONTAP. But inside Cloud Manager, it would also be nice to see. You can have a little Snapshot, then drill down if you go a little deeper."

What is our primary use case?

Desktop-as-a-service is a PoC that I'm doing for our customers to allow them to use NetApp for their personal, departmental, and profile shares. This connects their desktop-as-a-service that we're building for them.

This is for training. The customer has classrooms that they have set up. They have about 150,000 users coming through. They want to have a way to do a secure, efficient solution that can be repeated after they finish this class, before the next class comes in, and use a NetApp CVO as well as some desktop services off of the AWS. 

It is hosted by AWS. Then, it hosted by CVO who sets out some filers, as well Cloud Volumes Manager as well. We were looking at it with Azure as well, because it doesn't matter. We want to do a multicloud with it.

How has it helped my organization?

We haven't put it into production yet. However, in the proof of concept, we show the use of it and the how you can take it in Snapshot daily coverage, because we're doing it for a training area. This allows them to return back to where they were. The bigger thing is if they need to reset up for a class, then we can have a goal copied or flip back where they need to be.

It gives a solution for storage one place to go across everything. So, the customer is very familiar with NetApp on-prem. It allows them to gain access to the file piece. It helps them with the training aspect of it, so they don't have to relearn something new. They already know this product. They just have to learn some widgets or what it's like in the cloud to operate and deploy it in different ways.

The customer knows the product. They don't have to train their administrators on how to do things. They are very familiar with that piece of it. Then, the deduplication, compression, and compaction are all things that you would get from moving to a CVO and the cloud itself. That is something that they really enjoy because now they're getting a lot of cost savings off of it. We anticipate cloud cost savings, but it is not in production yet. It should be about a 30 percent savings. If it is a 30 percent or better savings, then it is a big win for the customer and for us.

What is most valuable?

  • Dedupe
  • Compression
  • Compaction
  • Taking 30 gig of data and reducing it down to five to 10 gig on the AWS blocks.

What needs improvement?

I would some wizards or best practices following how to secure CVO, inherit to the Cloud Manager. I thought that was a good place to be able to put stuff like that in there. 

I would like some more performance matrices to know what it is doing. It has some matrices inherent to the Cloud Volumes ONTAP. But inside Cloud Manager, it would also be nice to see. You can have a little Snapshot, then drill down if you go a little deeper. 

This is where I would like to see changes, primarily around security and performance matrices.

For how long have I used the solution?

We are still in the proof of concept stage.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a good system. It is very stable as far as what I've been using with it. I find that support from it is really good as well. It is something that I would offer to all of my customers.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is easy to scale. It is inherent to the actual product. It will move to another cloud solution or it can be managed from another cloud solution. So, it's taken down barriers which are sometimes put out by vendors in different ways.

How was the initial setup?

We use NetApp Cloud Manager to get up and running with Cloud Volumes ONTAP. Its configuration wizards and ability to automate the process are easy, simple, and straightforward. If you have any knowledge of storage, even to a very small amount, the wizards will click through and help to guide you through the right things. They make sure you put the right things in. They give some good examples to make sure you follow those examples, which makes it a bit more manageable in the long run.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

They use some native things that are inherent to the AWS. They have looked at those things. 

NetApp has been one of the first ones that they looked at, and it is the one that they are very happy with today.

What other advice do I have?

Work with your resources in different ways, as far as in NetApp in the partner community. But bigger than that, just ask questions. Everybody seems willing to help move the solution forward. The biggest advice is just ask when you don't know, because there is so much to know.

I would rate the solution as a nine (out of 10).

We're not using inline encryption right now.

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?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
Storage Admin at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Snapshot copies and thin clones have made our recovery time a lot faster
Pros and Cons
  • "ONTAP's snapshot copies and thin clones in terms of operational recovery are pretty useful in recovering your data from a time in a snapshot. That's pretty useful for when you have an event where a disaster struck and then you need to recover all your data. It's pretty helpful and pretty fast in those terms."
  • "In terms of improvement, I would like to see the Azure NetApp Files have the capability of doing SnapMirrors. Azure NetApp Files is, as we know, is an AFF system and it's not used in any of the Microsoft resources. It's basically NetApp hardware, so the best performance you can achieve, but the only reason we can't use that right now is because of the region that it's available in. The second was the SnapMirror capability that we didn't have that we heavily rely on right now."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for ONTAP is for DR. 

How has it helped my organization?

ONTAP has improved my organization because we no longer need to purchase all that hardware and have that all come up as a big expense. It worked out better for our budgeting purposes.

We use it to move data between hyperscales on our on-premises environment. We're able to do that with SnapMirror and it's pretty simple to set up and move data around. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is DR backups. 

ONTAP's snapshot copies and thin clones in terms of operational recovery are pretty useful in recovering your data from a time in a snapshot. That's pretty useful for when you have an event where a disaster struck and then you need to recover all your data. It's pretty helpful and pretty fast in those terms.

We use SnapMirror inline encryption for security in the cloud. A lot of people, especially legal, want their data to be protected. That's what we use it for.

Snapshot copies and thin clones have made our recovery time a lot faster. Doing a restore from a snapshot is a lot better than trying to do a restore from a backup.

In terms of time management and managing our infrastructure, we are a lot better because of the consistency of storage management across clouds.

I wouldn't say it has reduced our data footprint in the cloud because whatever we were using was basically a lift and shift as of right now. We are hoping as we go we'll be able to take advantage of all the storage efficiencies like compression and all that. Hopefully, that'll save us quite a lot of space and time.

What needs improvement?

In terms of improvement, I would like to see the Azure NetApp Files have the capability of doing SnapMirrors. Azure NetApp Files is an AFF system and it's not used in any of the Microsoft resources. It's basically NetApp hardware, so the best performance you can achieve, but the only reason we can't use that right now is because of the region that it's available in. The second was the SnapMirror capability that we didn't have that we heavily rely on right now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't had issues with stability so far. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability comes down to what service or what NetApp Cloud solution you're using. There are different solutions for what you're trying to achieve. Based on your requirements, you just need to pick the right solution that works for you.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't had any issues, so technical support is pretty good.

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

We knew we needed to invest in this solution because we were told we were closing the data centers so we had to migrate to the cloud. The management told us we are closing data centers and migrating everything into the cloud. That's what kicked us off.

How was the initial setup?

We used NetApp Cloud Manager to get up and running with Cloud Volumes ONTAP. It could be a little challenging if you don't know how the network security groups and how the roles in Azure work. That's where we had the challenges with deploying because we had cloud managers in different regions, one in Azure West and one in Azure East and we were trying to do replications between the two clouds. The Cloud Central Cloud Manager wasn't able to make a connection and that was because of some of the roles that we had to provide. Even the documentation on that was kind of scattered across. It wasn't just one page and it had all the information. So that was kind of challenging and it took me a lot of time to figure that out. I think it should be in one single pane of a page. Not as scattered around different pages.

Once I reached out to the support they helped me out, but I was trying to figure it out on my own reading documentation and it didn't do anything.

The first one I deployed in Azure was very simple. The second one that we deployed and I was trying to make the connection between, that was complex because of how the roles worked.

What about the implementation team?

We used consultants for the implementation. We had a pretty good experience with them.

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI. All of our SLASs via some of our SQL databases,  have SLAs of around five minutes. SnapMirror works great for that. We don't have that and if we have a disaster, then we could be in big trouble if we have SLA breaches and stuff like that.

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

It has not reduced our cloud cost. We're still pretty new and we're still trying to figure things out like how the cost modeling works and which is the best performance and best cost for our workloads. Based on that, it's a lot of tuning. Once you get there, you just need to monitor your workloads and see how it is and just go from there.

For NetApp it's about $20,000 for a single node and $30,000 for the HA.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

For the DR we are using NetApp but for the production, a lot of the cloud architects in our company want to go native to Azure or native to AWS. Since we are a NetApp Cloud shop for a while and even our RND on-prem is mostly just all on NetApps. We want to keep that going, going into the cloud because it's a lot simpler to manage our infrastructure, our storage and take advantage of all the efficiencies that NetApp provides. Whereas if you don't use that, all of those savings, and if you have a lot of data as we do, petabytes of data, and Microsoft and AWS, take advantage of all those efficiencies and we don't because we don't have that capability. With the NetApp integration, we can take advantage of all those efficiencies and other performance.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it a nine out of ten because of the simplicity of the DR is amazing. You just set it up. If there are any issues bringing it back, bringing it online in a DR site just takes a few minutes and then you're back up online again.

The advice that I would give to anybody considering ONTAP is to give it a try. That's how I learned. I didn't know anything about the cloud. Then our company just started telling us that we were moving everything to the cloud and we had to learn about it. That's how we learned and moved everything to the cloud.

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.
PeerSpot user
Senior Storage Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Saves costs and it is simple to move, delete, or archive data
Pros and Cons
  • "One thing I have noticed is that it is very simple to move the data where we need to move it, delete it, or archive it if we need to archive it to StorageGRID."
  • "Their support and development teams can collaborate better to resolve an issue."

How has it helped my organization?

In some places, it helps to reduce the amount of our storage, but a lot of our data is very active and in very small files, so the system does not have enough time to keep track of all that. In one instance, we had a job, and we dumped roughly 25 terabytes in a day into the system, so for it to understand and try to reduce it and compress it, it sometimes does not have time because it is just so busy.

It has saved us on costs. I am not on the manager's side, but I have seen that the cost is better. I do not have the exact numbers, but it is probably two or three dollars per terabyte or something in that realm. Some of our competitors cannot beat that, so that does help.

What is most valuable?

A lot of our customers have their own cases. We create new volumes for each of those cases. One thing I have noticed is that it is very simple to move the data where we need to move it, delete it, or archive it if we need to archive it to StorageGRID.

What needs improvement?

We have a lot of challenges with ONTAP. We are an eDiscovery company. With ONTAP, sometimes we have issues where we are over the capacity of how many volumes we can have on a cluster. That is one of our biggest issues. The other bigger issue right now is keys. We do not have enough. NetApp itself does not give out as many volumes as keys. I do not understand that, so we have to shift and drive and do things like that to get our new data and make sure it is encrypted.

Their support and development teams can collaborate better to resolve an issue.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using NetApp ONTAP for over five years for sure. We have the second-largest StorageGRID in the world with NetApp.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

So far, we have not had any issues. There were only a couple of panics or something like that, but those are normal issues you deal with once in a while. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is there. You have to buy ahead shelves and everything else to keep it growing. It is fairly simple.

How are customer service and support?

We had some issues, but the communication was not there in terms of what they were doing and what the status was. It took us a couple of years to fix them. If they had kept us in check with that, it would not be as big of an issue. We have also dealt with PowerScale support. In the 7070 code, we had so many problems, but we worked with what they call the CodeRed team or the recovery team for a year. We worked side by side to fix those issues. Even some of the bigger management and directors tried to help us and keep us informed of what was going on. 

There is a bridge between NetApp's development and support teams. They do not know how to communicate with each other. Why cannot their developers talk with their support and work with them? To me, that is a collaboration. Their development and support teams need to collaborate more. In the case of PowerScale or Isilon, I did have the recovery team, and their recovery team had developers behind them.

Overall, I would rate their support an eight out of ten. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I have used Isilon and PowerScale. I made the switch because we moved to a different company. One of the pros of the other solutions is how NFS integrates with SMB on Isilon and PowerScale. You could have an NFS mount with an SMB mount, and the permissions would not be stuck. With ONTAP, you cannot put them together. One reason is that a lot of their shares are more CIF shares. That is a Microsoft protocol, and NFS works more with SMB because that is the same language.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved in the initial setup on some new systems, but not on the legacy systems. It is pretty straightforward like any other system when you set it up, but there are a lot more simpler pieces to it.

We have not gotten to the cloud yet because our company is too big for the cloud, and it costs millions of dollars to put it up there.

What other advice do I have?

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP integrates with AWS native services. For us, it is not that big a deal, but we are looking at some of our smaller divisions overseas where it is more efficient to back up to AWS and other similar things, but we have not been able to implement it just yet.

Overall, I would rate this solution an 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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Sr. Systems Architect at a media company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Gives us great control over our data, allowing us to choose in which AWS regions we put our offsite data
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are tiering to S3 and being able to turn it on and off, based on a schedule."
  • "I would like to see more aggressive management of the aggregate space. On the Cloud Volumes ONTAP that we use for offsite backup copies, most of the data sits in S3. There are also the EBS volumes on the Cloud Volumes ONTAP itself. Sometimes what happens is that the aggregate size just stays the same. If it allocates 8 terabytes initially, it just stays at 8 terabytes for a long time, even though we're only using 20 percent of that 8 terabytes. NetApp could undersize that more aggressively."

What is our primary use case?

We use NetApp for our on-premise file shares, and we use Cloud Volumes ONTAP as an offsite backup copy.

How has it helped my organization?

Being able to deploy in AWS is a big advantage for us. The company I work for was recently spun off as a smaller company. We sold most of our company to a large company and all of our assets went to that company. Then we started building our first data center and we did not have a second data center for our outside copy. This was a great solution in these circumstances.

In general, NetApp provides unified storage, but we mostly use it only for NAS. It gives us great control over our data. We can define which region or zone we put our data in, in AWS. That way, we can strategically place our offsite copies. Instead of putting everything in one place, we now have more freedom to put data wherever we want.

We are also saving at least $100,000 a year on storage costs.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are 

  • tiering to S3 
  • being able to turn it on and off, based on a schedule.

These are valuable because of the effect on cost. All of the data that is stored in AWS is, obviously, very expensive if stored in EBS volumes or spinning disks, but it's pretty cheap in S3, so that makes good financial sense. 

For the shutdown and startup, it's the same thing. Since it's a backup copy, we don't need that filer running all the time, so we just shut it down. We only turn it on before the replication starts, and then shut it off after the replication is complete.

What needs improvement?

One area for improvement is monitoring. Since we are using turn-on and turn-off, based on a schedule, it becomes a little bit difficult to monitor the instance and the replications, etc. If NetApp could implement a feature to monitor it more effectively, that would be helpful.

Also, I would like to see more aggressive management of the aggregate space. On the Cloud Volumes ONTAP that we use for offsite backup copies, most of the data sits in S3. There are also the EBS volumes on the Cloud Volumes ONTAP itself. Sometimes what happens is that the aggregate size just stays the same. If it allocates 8 terabytes initially, it just stays at 8 terabytes for a long time, even though we're only using 20 percent of that 8 terabytes. NetApp could undersize that more aggressively.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP for about one-and-a-half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In all the time we've been running it we have had no issues. It's great.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are not using it at that big of a scale, so right now we do not have any concerns. It's limited to 360 terabytes. In the past, before we sold 80 percent of our company to that large company, we used to have more than 360 terabytes of data. If we still had all that data we would have to build another instance of Cloud Volumes ONTAP. Or, post-sale, if we were to cross that limit we could have to build another instance of Cloud Volumes ONTAP, but we're not there yet. We are using about 25 percent of that limit right now.

How are customer service and technical support?

Overall, their support team is great. One of the best features about Cloud Volumes ONTAP is that once you open the OnCommand Cloud Manager, there's a tiny chat button at the bottom. You can just send a message to all the experts related to Cloud Volumes ONTAP. That's a great feature.

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

We used to use two NetApp filers in two different data centers for offsite backup copies. We decided to go with Cloud Volumes ONTAP because after we sold 80 percent of the company, we were left with only one data center. We did not have a second data center to put the second NetApp in, so we went with this solution. It was the perfect solution for our use case.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of the solution, in our case, was a little bit complex because we use Terraform to manage our cloud infrastructure. To configure Cloud Volumes ONTAP in combination with Terraform proved a little bit challenging. That's one of the areas for improvement of the solution: NetApp could provide customers with templates of how to manage this infrastructure as a code. The difficulties we encountered were mostly in terms of what components need to be configured in Terraform, as well as how they could be configured.

Overall, our deployment took about a month. We didn't really have a deployment plan for this solution because this was the first time we were deploying it. We had to make it up as we went along, especially because NetApp did not have any documentation on how to implement this using Terraform. We had to come up with that plan.

What about the implementation team?

We did not hire anyone, but the NetApp support team was great. It is just me working on this, in our company.

What was our ROI?

This is more of a pay-as-you-go model rather than an investment, but we definitely see benefits. If we had to build another NetApp in our on-premise location, whether we used the storage or not, we would just be spending money. The asset would just depreciate, whereas, in the cloud, we only use what we need and we just pay for what we use.

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

Licensing seems pretty straightforward and then we just pay for the EC2 costs.

Pricing brings up another point in terms of room for improvement. If they could provide some insights into how we could optimize the cost of Cloud Volumes ONTAP in our cloud, that would be great.

There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees. It's the same as what they showed us in the initial deployment.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other solutions because we use on-premise NetApp. NetApp works best with NetApp.

We did look at other solutions just to see how they were working, but back then, when we were implementing it, they were nowhere even close to as mature as NetApp. We looked at the Dell EMC Isilon but it was not even close to what NetApp was capable of in the cloud. They were not even close to building something in AWS at that point. It was an easy decision.

What other advice do I have?

Be careful while choosing the instance size, and manage the aggregate size as carefully. Otherwise, you'll just end up paying a lot of money. The biggest lesson I have learned from using this is exactly those two things. I noticed that I need to size the instance carefully, and I need to make sure that the EBS volume sizes that I use are not too underutilized.

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?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Vice President at DWS Group
Real User
Top 20
Helps us to save on the costs of backup products
Pros and Cons
  • "Its features help us to have a backup of our volumes using the native technology of NetApp ONTAP. That way, we don't have to invest in other solutions for our backup requirement. Also, it helps us to replicate the data to another geographic location so that helps us to save on the costs of backup products."
  • "They have very good support team who is very helpful. They will help you with every aspect of getting the deployment done."
  • "The automated deployment was a bit complex using the public APIs. When we had to deploy Cloud Volumes ONTAP on a regular basis using automation, It could be a bit of a challenge."
  • "We want to be able to add more than six disks in aggregate, but there is a limit of the number of disks in aggregate. In GCP, they provide less by limiting the sixth disk in aggregate. In Azure, the same solution provides 12 disks in an aggregate versus GCP where it is just half that amount. They should bump up the disk in aggregate requirement so we don't have to migrate the aggregate from one to another when the capacities are full."

What is our primary use case?

Our use case is to have multitenant deployment of shared storage, specifically network-attached storage (NAS). This file share is used by applications that are very heavy with a very high throughput. Also, an application needs to be able to sustain the read/write throughput and persistent volume. Cloud Volumes ONTAP helps us to get the required performance from our applications.

We just got done with our PoC. We are now engaging with NetApp CVO to get this solution rolled out (deployment) and do hosting for our customers on top of that.

How has it helped my organization?

Using this solution, the more data that we store, the more money we can save.

What is most valuable?

  • CIFS volume.
  • The overall performance that we are getting from CVO.
  • The features around things like Snapshots. 
  • The performance and capacity monitoring of the storage.

These features help us to have a backup of our volumes using the native technology of NetApp ONTAP. That way, we don't have to invest in other solutions for our backup requirement. Also, it helps us to replicate the data to another geographic location so that helps us to save on the costs of backup products.

Cloud Volumes ONTAP gives us flexible storage.

What needs improvement?

There are a few bugs in the system that they need to improve on the UI part. Specifically, its integration of NetApp Cloud Manager with CVO, which is something they are already working on. They will probably provide a SaaS offering for Cloud Manager. 

We want to be able to add more than six disks in aggregate, but there is a limit of the number of disks in aggregate. In GCP, they provide less by limiting the sixth disk in aggregate. In Azure, the same solution provides 12 disks in an aggregate versus GCP where it is just half that amount. They should bump up the disk in aggregate requirement so we don't have to migrate the aggregate from one to another when the capacities are full. 

For how long have I used the solution?

Six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I cannot comment on stability right now because we have not been using it in production as of now.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We still have CVO running on a single VM instance. As an improvement area, if CVO can come up with a scale out that will help so we will not be limited by the number of VMs in GCP. Behind one instance, we are adding a number of GCP disks. In some cases, we would like to have the option to scale out by adding more nodes in a cluster environment, like Dell EMC Isilon.

How are customer service and technical support?

Get NetApp involved from day one if you are thinking of deploying Cloud Volumes ONTAP. They have a very good support team who is very helpful. They will help you with every aspect of getting the deployment done.

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

We previously used OpenZFS Cloud Storage. We switched because we were not getting the performance from them. The performance tuning is a headache. There were a lot of issues, such as, the stability and updates of the OpenZFS. We had it because it was a free, open source solution. 

We switched to NetApp because I trust their performance tool and file system.

How was the initial setup?

We did the PoC. Now, we are going to set up a production environment. 

The initial setup was a bit challenging for someone who has no idea about NetApp. Since I have some background with it, I found the setup straightforward. For a few folks, it was challenging. It is best to get NetApp support involved for novices, as they can give the best option for setting to select during deployment.

The automated deployment was a bit complex using the public APIs. When we had to deploy Cloud Volumes ONTAP on a regular basis using automation, It could be a bit of a challenge.

What about the implementation team?

My team of engineers works on deploying this solution. There are five people on my team.

What was our ROI?

We have not realized any money or savings yet because we are still in our deployment process.

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

They give us a good price for CVO licenses. It is one of the reasons that we went with the product.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did consider several options. 

In GCP, we also considered NetApp's Cloud Volumes services as well, but it did not have good performance. 

Another solution that we tried was Qumulo, which was a good solution, but not that good. From a scaling out perspective, it can scale out a file system, whereas NetApp is not like that. NetApp still works with a single VM. That is the difference.  

We also evaluated the native GCP file offering. However, it did not give us the performance for the application that we wanted.

We do use the cloud performance monitoring, but not with a NetApp product. We use Stackdriver. NetApp provides a separate thing for the monitoring of NetApp CVO, which is NetApp Cloud Manager.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution as an eight (out of 10).

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?

Google
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Consultant at I.T. Blueprint Solutions Consulting Inc.
Consultant
Easy to manage with good storage optimization but the cloud deployment needs to be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "The fast recovery time objective with the ability to bring the environment back to production in case something happens."
  • "The integration wizard requires a bit of streamlining. There are small things that misconfigure or repeat the deployment that will create errors, specifically in Azure."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case is for files, VMware storage, and the DR volume on the cloud. They also use this solution to move data between on-premises and the cloud volume ONTAP.

How has it helped my organization?

It's difficult to say if it has helped to reduce the company's data in the cloud right now without running it for a while. It's the same for the cloud costs.

We are going through testing right now, and can't tell if it will affect their operations until we validate it.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the ease of management, the deduplication, storage optimization, SnapMirror, it has flexible in testing for different scenarios, rapid deployment of the test environments, and rapid recovery.

The fast recovery time objective with the ability to bring the environment back to production in case something happens.

The ability to go back in time. It's easy to restore the data that we need and it has good stability with CIFS. When a client is using CIFS to access their files, it is pretty stable without knowing Microsoft issues.

The simplicity and ease of usage for VMware provisioning are also helpful.

What needs improvement?

Some of the area's that need improvement are:

  • Cloud sync
  • Cloud Volume ONTAP
  • Deployment for the cloud manager

These areas need to be streamlined. They are basic configuration error states to acquire late provisioning.

I would like to see the ability to present CIFS files that have been SnapMirrorroed to the Cloud Volume ONTAP and the ability to serve them similarly to OneDrive or Web interfaces.

We are talking about DR cases, customers who are trying to streamline their environments. In the case of DR, users can easily access that data. Today, without running it as file services fully and presenting it through some third party solution, there is no easy way for an end-user to access the appropriate data. This means that we have to build the whole infrastructure for the end-user to be able to open their work files.

The integration wizard requires a bit of streamlining. There are small things that misconfigure or repeat the deployment that will create errors, specifically in Azure.

As an example, you cannot reuse that administrator name, because that object is created in Azure, and it will not let you create it again. So, when the first deployment fails and we deploy for a second time, we have to use a new administration name. Additionally, it requires connectivity from NetApp to register the products and the customer is notified that Network access is not allowed, which creates a problem.

This issue occurs during the time of deployment, but it isn't clear why your environment is not deploying successfully. For this reason, more documentation is needed in explaining and clarification steps of how it needs to be done.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We are just validating the cloud for a couple of our clients, so we haven't had it affect our client storage operations.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability remains to be seen. At this time the NetApp limits on the levels of premium, standard, and the basic one are unreasonably incorrect.

It is hard to go from ten terabytes to three hundred and sixty-eight terabytes and leave everyone in between there hanging. Nobody is interested in going with the limit of ten terabytes to test this solution.

I am talking specifically about Azure, Cloud Volume ONTAP and the differentiator between three levels of provisioning storage.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have used technical support and it's mediocre.

They gave their best effort, however, at the point they couldn't figure out the problem, they simply said that we would have to deal with Professional Services. I was not impressed, but I understand that it is a new product.

How was the initial setup?

It can be straightforward if everything is perfect, but if there are any glitches on the customer's side then potentially it could require long-term troubleshooting without knowing where to look for the problem.

We have deployed on-premises, but currently, we are testing it on cloud volumes.

For the initial deployment, I used the NetApp file manager to get it up and running.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

When it comes to choosing the right solution for our clients, they trust our judgment in recommending something that they know is going to work for them. 

Most of our clients are looking for availability in disaster recovery data and centralizing it into one cloud location. In some cases, a customer doesn't want to go with multiple clients, they want to have it all in one place. They are also looking for simplification in management of the entire solution, provisioning, managing copywriting from a similar interface and a company that can be responsible for the support.

Our customers evaluate other vendors as well. They have looked at AWS, several from Veeam, and partners from ASR for different replication software.

Customers decide to go with NetApp because of our recommendations.

I have experience with other application services including Commvault, Veeam, and ASR.

What other advice do I have?

If Snapshot copies and FlexClones are licensed they work great. The challenge is that the client will not always get the FlexClone license, then it is more difficult to provide it in the future.

Some of our older clients do not have a license for FlexClone, so the recovery of snapshot data can be problematic.

In some cases, they use inline encryption using SnapMirror, but not often.

Inline encryption addresses concerns of data security, as well as using Snapshot. If it is encrypted and it's not near encrypted traffic, then it has less chance of being accessed by someone.

I don't work with application development, so I can't address whether or not snapshot copies and Flexcone affect their application, but for testing environments where we have to update with batches made for maintenance, yes, it allows you to provision, to test, and it validates the stability of the testing and updates releases.

The clients included me in the decision making.

Each has its pros and cons, but with NetApp, this is a NetApp to NetApp product. With Windows backup solutions, it can be from any storage platform to any cloud also. In different ways, they have different workflows with different approaches, but you know each of them is meeting with its business objective, giving you a good balance.

My advice would be to try it first, figure out all of the kinks that might come up, have the proper resources from NetApp lined up to provide you support, and don't give up because it works in the end.

I would rate this solution a six 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
Buyer's Guide
Download our free NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.