NetApp FAS Series Reviews

• Multi Protocol
• Scalability
• Homogeneous hardware

There are various modes and protocols you can use at the same time. For customers who use NetApp 7-Mode, I would rate Data ONTAP 8/10 and for Clustered Mode 7/10.

• Centralization of protocols within the same appliance
• Software defined storage
• Easy management
• Scalability
• Support

Migration from 7-Mode to Clustered Data ONTAP need improvement. It seems NetApp didn't know how to solve the main problem of migrating data from an old OS (7-Mode ) to Clustered.

I've been using it for nine years, both using and implementing NetApp FAS series.

Deploying NetApp appliances is hard work. A lot of experience is required, mainly when your project runs a MetroCluster solution.

There's an issue when you have a mix of a low-spinning disk (SATA 3TB ) and multi-protocol access (NFS, CIFS and FCP, and iSCSI). Data ONTAP performance with WAFL goes down on mid-range solutions with multi-protocol access.

We've never had an issue with Clustered Data ONTAP, but we did with 7-Mode solutions and large amounts of data in the PB range.

They have really good customer service.

They have a good level of technical support when you escalate cases.

I've used EMC solutions in different companies.

The initial setup was complex and you need experience.

What impressed me the most about these systems are their excellent reliability, ease of administering (both in GUI and command line), and their very good documentation that is easy to access and understand. It provides very good storage, High Availability, and data protection by employing the use of two separate storage controllers that can take over each other's role as soon as any of them goes down. The technology has been improved even more after the introduction of the cluster cDot ONTAP OS.

NetApp systems are a good choice if you want a versatile unified system that's also capable of delivering performance. Our company has been using NetApp filers both as file sharing solutions (CIFS over LAN) and also as block storage (LUNs) for VMware ESXi hosts.

Since we switched to the newer 2552 models, we now benefit from better data protection and improved storage capacity thanks to the clustered Data ONTAP OS.

The thing we'd like to see the most is the possibility of pairing LAN/SAN ports from different nodes. Currently, the systems only provide pairing (and thus redundancy) only at same-node level. Also, it wouldn't hurt having this sort of cross-functionality when it comes to choosing disks for aggregate structures. Right now, you can't integrate in the same storage aggregate disks from different shelves.

I've had the chance to work a lot with NetApp FAS 2552 series and also have some experience with older models such as 2050, 2040, 3240 and 2240. I think it's a pretty reliable unified storage solution. The FAS 2552 model, especially, offers good performance and excellent reliability. My experience with similar storage systems is, currently, somewhat limited however.

My company has been using NetApp for a few years now, over four I think, and I have come into contact with this technology for over a year.

When it comes to deployment we had our share of issues. Some of these issues are to blame on the vendor's lack of experience with the new models and ONTAP versions, but sometimes the systems themselves were faulty.

The most recent issue we had involves a LAN card that couldn't be set on the correct bandwidth setting. In consequence, the vendor had to replace one of the node's motherboard.

There have been no issues with scaling it, other than during the actual deployment of new devices.

If you buy NetApp systems from third-party vendors, then you would be surprised that their technicians aren't exactly up to date with the latest ONTAP versions. NetApp releases new versions (with great improvements) so often that it's hard for some vendors to stay up to date with their technical knowledge base.

However, when it comes to technical support from NetApp directly, they tend to have a very competent team and the reaction time is pretty decent. Perhaps their biggest strong point in this chapter is their public knowledge base which helps you solve on your own most of issues you can encounter with configuring and administering.

All I can say is that if you take your time and study the NetApp documentation, you shouldn't have any issue, provided the initial setup was done properly by the vendor technician.

Initial setup is usually performed by NetApp or the third-party vendor from whom you purchased the devices. Our experience with third-party vendors isn't the best due to reasons stated above. All other configuration and administration is done in-house.

When it comes to software licensing, I think that NetApp promotes a very fair system. Basically you only pay for the features you need (eg.: Cluster Mode, SnapMirror, SnapVault, etc.).

The best advice I can offer is to try and purchase it directly from NetApp in order to have a better chance of having a successful initial configuration from the first try. Also, make sure you purchase the system with a General Availability OS version as Release Candidate ones tend to be bugged.

• Reliability
• Snapshots
• Ease of tooling
• Integration with our systems
• It's multiprotocol

We are an online hotel reservations company, so if our website goes down we lose money at a very high rate per minute. It has been many years since we have had an outage due to storage because of FAS.

The performance needs to be improved. Due to the performance issues, we're moving to NetApp Flash FAS as it provides almost infinite performance.

We've used it for nine years.

We've had no issues with deployment.

The stability is excellent.

It's scaled well for us.

It takes a long time to resolve most cases. It requires an extensive amount of troubleshooting and tends to be very time consuming on our end in terms of collecting data for the engineers to work on.

It's straightforward. I'd say, though, that it's medium complexity because it is not done in one day.

We used a mixed team of in-house and vendor personnel.

I wouldn't know how to begin to calculate it.

That was a long time before I joined the company.

Do your research on clustered Data ONTAP as it is a very complicated product, much more complicated than the previous version.

The most valuable feature for us is the ability to perform LIF migrations with clustered Data ONTAP.

It made the workload we needed possible because of its flash cache.

It would be nice to be able to mix flash cache with other technologies.

We've been using it for one month.

It's very stable.

It scales for the kind of customers that we have.

We'd like to get more access to level-two engineers. Sometimes its been a difficult time explaining the problem to level-one people. This process is a little bit time consuming.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We did implemented it ourselves.

When we deployed flash cache, there was no alternative for it. It was the only available cacheing solution.

Flash cache is a great product. If it matches with the workloads, you should consider it.

• Snapshots
• Mobility of data
• High Availability

It saves a lot of time and minimizes downtime, which is important because we're a hospital and we can’t afford much downtime. If they can stop all downtime, it would be a big benefit for us and our patients.

I have a very small feature request: more automation of the expanding aggregates and discs.

We've had no issues with deploying it.

The stability is very good.

We have six PB of data, and have had no problems with scalability.

The technical support is good.

We have had NetApp for a long time, and were one of the first customers in Belgium.

If you are new, you have to learn the system, but once you know how it works, it doesn’t take much time to expand or install a new system. It was not difficult at all to learn the first time.

Over the past few years, they have evolved a lot in manageability and automation, so we are happy with the direction they are going in. They haven’t lost their eye on stability as well. Lots of new features without sacrificing anything.

• Clustered data ONTAP
• Data compression
• High Availability
• Snapshot technology

It helps us reduce costs because its data compression saves a lot of capacity we'd otherwise have to have.

It could improve by better integrating with other technologies like VMware, as there are some version conflicts. When you are using the newest storage virtual console, you cannot use VM Wall, the VM-specific firewall.

We have been using it for a year for SQL databases.

We've had no issues with deployment.

It's very stable and we've had no problems in the year we have used it.

It has scaled to our needs.

Customer service is good; we've had no problems with them.

Technical support is good; we've had no problems with them either.

We used HDS before NetApp and we switched because of the snapshot technology and high-availability function.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward, the implementation of the system was easy, and we had great support from the NetApp team.

We used a vendor team who had strong expertise, and we are happy with the implementation. It’s important to have NetApp technicians implement the solution because it is helpful to have some experts.

No other options were evaluated.

The integration with VMware is the most valuable feature for us because we run a lot of VMs and the backup is very good when you run your VM in NFS.

We had a case when they had to restore a lot of data. We went back one hour and got back everything. The restore itself only took about an hour.

Some of the tools could be improved like NetApp OnCommand. This has been a lot better recently, but they could make it faster.

We've been using it since 2005.

It's very stable and I’ve never experienced any problems in 10 years.

It scales to our needs.

8/10 - only because it is impossible to have a 10, as there is no one that good. We’ve had a good experience with their customer service.

The solutions that are present on NetApp’s website are enough usually, but when it is tough for me to resolve it on my own I go to our consultant.

We did a long time ago.

Initial setup was pretty straightforward. We started on a small scale and built it up.

We implemented it in-house, but we use a consulting company to help. Now, we run it on our own.

It fulfills the needs we have for storing data well. We had a lot of storage spread out over many devices from many vendors and now everything is consolidated. It saves a lot of time.

Ask other people who use it as references are really valuable.

• High Availability – most important thing with all big storage systems
• Flexible – it uses all different kinds of protocols (SAN, fiber channels)
• Virtual Management Console – helps with and integrates with vSphere. I’ve deployed it, but haven’t configured it. Looks really promising.
• Snap Drive – integration with Windows for SQL exchange is critical
• Can update without taking the system down

It’s a High Availability environment in which I haven’t had problems. We’ve only had one disk fail in a year. Quality of product is good.

Tegile offers live deduplication. And NetApp can only be scheduled to dedupe in the background or for later.

Also, the web page for downloading software could be more efficient (for example, getting instructions takes a few clicks). Make it easier for customers to download software.

The instructions didn’t provide for re-configurations from scratch and tech support were stuck too. The person who configured before had installed NetApp 8.2 on 7 mode. 8.3 didn’t support 7, which I wanted to do, so that’s why I had to reconfigure from scratch.

First, make a lot of calculations of how much data you’re going to use and how much you’re using now. Compare the two and look into how you configure storage solution. How much data, how to split, etc. If you can’t spend that much on storage, you need to determine how to follow best practices to get as much storage as possible for the money. For example, if you have five shelves, you don’t need to worry about LUNs going offline. But if it’s just two shelves, like I have, you must be very careful about provisioning storage and use as much as possible.