NetApp ONTAP Reviews

Our primary use case is file storage. We use it for SMB CIFs and Fibre Channel LUN for Hyper-V.

Our administrative effort is lower. 

DR is much easier now. It is essentially just flipping a few switches, then we have replicated data up in our DR data center. We have done the tests, and it works perfectly. We also have file services which are DR, where we flip another switch and all our files are in another easy place to locate. 

SnapMirror is a good solution, because we can take our production data and replicate it over to our DR data center with minimal administrative effort, which is huge.

I would like to see FlexGroup volumes come to parity in terms of software features with Flex volumes. It seems like FlexGroup volumes have massive scalability, but their features set is not the same as Flex volumes, so we are currently unable to use it. 

The stability is perfect. Even when we are doing upgrades to the ONTAP cluster, such as rolling upgrades where one node will take over the other cluster's volumes, we have zero downtime. 

Scalability is great. We are in current discussions to obtain another two nodes to our ONTAP cluster. So, two more nodes to our already two node cluster, and we don't expect any downtime. We have seen how much it can scale in terms of numbers, so we are happy with it.

Technical support is good. NetApp's solution engineers are good at architecting designs which are standard, but also future thinking. I've only opened a few tickets, and they've answered my questions each time. NetApp takes less than four hours to respond.

We once opened a ticket to have a technical support person online at two in the morning for a cluster upgrade. The technical lead was online and supportive, and nothing went wrong with the upgrade.

They have awesome technical guides and documentation.

The initial setup is straightforward, because getting a storage system installed is not the hardest thing. It takes some know how, but it's not an impossible task. 

When we do a controller upgrade from a FAS8200 to a FAS9000, I want somebody there to watch over the upgrade because something can go wrong, and I do want technical help. However, the cool thing is while we're apprehensive and know what can happen, it never has. We're too cautious.

Meridian and ePlus implemented our solution. We had no issues and found them to be knowledgeable.

We look at the other companies, like Dell EMC and Nutanix. We decided to go with NetApp because they are an industry leader. We also liked their SnapMirror and SnapVault features.

ONTAP is easy and works. It most likely has all the features you need, and then some. 

Each ONTAP upgrade has brought us new features, like rest encryption.

The new solution is crazy small and compact.

We use it for everything, like the NAS and SAN functionality. It's a back-end for the host VMs and the Microsoft SQL Database, which is directly attached to them. We also use all-in-one file servers.

We got rid of about 25 Windows file servers, which is great. We don't have to patch them every month anymore. We now have an all in one solution, which are virtual storage machines (SVMs). For example, previously, executives would try to use presentation material on the file server and the screen would not come up for a long time. Now it come up instantly.

We use it for our mission-critical applications, such as SQL Databases and NetApp AFF.

It has multiple uses. It does everything in one box. 

I would like them to support NetApp All Flash in upcoming NVMe versions. We have an AFF8040 and NVMe version 9.4 does not currently support it. 

I would like to have an easier connection to the cloud on the back-end. Something that brings the cold data out to the cloud and brings it back when needed. We want ONTAP to do this.

While the data efficiency features are great, I want to see more efficiency and compression type of technology.

It works. It is great and reliable. We haven't had any issues. Hardware failure is rare. We have no performance issues with our AFF.

When a disk failed, it was automatically detected. They sent me a disk and I wasn't even aware of it. It happened on Sunday and they sent me a disk on Monday morning.

Scalability is awesome with a cluster node, not only can you scale up, but you can also scale out.

ONTAP tech support needs some improvement, but it has improved quite a bit.

Previously, the support center was in India and Asia. They had some communication problems but their technical skills were not up to par. Then, they pulled the technical support back into North Carolina, as this helped a lot. I can talk to a Level 1, which most of the time I don't need. When I have an issue, I know exactly what I'm talking about. I know there's a bug and need to go to Level 2. Also, our large corporation global team gets involved as soon as I open a case, and they put me through to Level 2 or Level 3, which helps a lot.

We were previously using Hitachi with NetApp. However, Hitachi is lacking in all the features. Our companies chose Hitachi because it was cheaper, but this was back in the early 2000s. Hitachi doesn't have any NAS functionality. File systems could not be migrated unless we connected to a Windows system, then Windows provided the file system function.

We looked into this solution because of its high availability and disaster recovery. We are in a dangerous business because something could blow up and everything would be lost. So, offsite backup replication, SnapMirror, and SnapVault are very important.

It was extremely easy to set up from day one.

I implemented everything myself.

It has helped us reduce the overall cost of storage. Replacing the Windows license alone provided us savings. 

We have been able to save a lot of space because there is deduplication and compression.

Just buy ONTAP and go for it.

When we were considered products, we also looked at Dell EMC. Previously, Dell EMC products only provided SAN functionality. We had to buy separate Celerra as NAS heads to attach to the SAN back-end. 

NetApp has much smarter way of doing everything. Their Snapshot technology, by just copying the index, is much better than Dell EMC, which forces you to cut a snapshot, taking up I/O.

Data Domain has a lot better deduplication technology than NetApp, and that is bad for NetApp. 

We have been using Fibre Channel, but we are planning on moving over to NVMe. We're on a 32G Gen 6 switches and HBA cards. We need to convert it to see how it will affect the speed, but it should drastically increase the performance of the connection.

NVMe over Fabric with existing Fibre Channel infrastructure is wonderful. It is easy to convert. We don't have to do much at all. It's just a matter of how we present. Instead of using WWPNs, we use an IQN number. So, it's connecting the same volume over iSCSI and Fibre Channel mixed. We just have another means to talk to the hosts.

We use it for network shares and being aware of backups.

It can restore from Snapshots. Our developers ruin VMs very quickly. It restores Snapshot and gets them back in a few minutes.

Deduplication.

Feature-wise, it does most of what we want. The only thing I don't like is that firmware upgrades require downtime. It would be beneficial if we could do upgrades without as much downtime.

It's very stable. We've had no issues with it in six years of using it now. We have eight different devices and the stability has been awesome. The only failures we've had are drive failures and they normally have those shipped out before we even know there was a problem.

Unfortunately, we haven't scaled up much.

Technical support is very good. We haven't had a ton of issues but when we do - the drive failures - they're very easy to deal with.

It was pretty easy. They came out and helped with it and gave us a few days' training. It was pretty simple.

We used a reseller, Storage Assessments. Our experience with them was very good. We still maintain the relationship with them for upgrades and purchasing other software.

We had a developer get a virus in the Dev environment and, due to the Snapshots and backups, we were able to just blow that environment away and bring it back up pretty quickly. I would consider that ROI because it saved us a ton of money in machines and resources. We were able to do that in an hour, versus rebuilding the entire environment.

We also looked at 3PAR and HPE. We brought all three vendors in, met up. After doing testing and using them all, NetApp was by far the easiest and the deduplication was much better than the competitors.

Go with the NetApp. The ease of use and the deployment of it, by far, outdo every other vendor that we've dealt with.

I would rate it a solid eight out of ten. The ease of use is awesome, the support is awesome. The only thing keeping me from giving it a ten is that keeping it upgraded is a pain.

ONTAP is the OS for NetApp storage controllers. We use it to provision storage or line volumes for our internal customers requesting storage either for databases, the storing of flat files, etc.

ONTAP 7-mode is a bit archaic, but with the clustered mode, it is straightforward. Also, if you add OnCommand Unified Manager, it is awesome.

We have a lot of mission critical systems, so we normally use ONTAP for all of them along with our databases and applications, e.g., Oracle Databases, like the BI and the CRM. We also have a VMS, which takes care of our virtual management systems.

It's easy to use. So, we don't have much stress. 

• SnapMirror
• Snapshot
• FlexClone volume: Cloning of volumes, volume move, and volume create.

I would like it to be more user-friendly. When you open the main dashboard, anyone should be able to know exactly what is going on, even without a tech background. Minimal training should be required.

Stability and performance have been great.

Sometimes it takes a while for us to upgrade. We need to ensure the applications running are compatible with the upgrades that we will be running. So, it takes us a little time to upgrade. However, all the upgrades, including the latest one (ONTAP 9.4), have been awesome.

Its scalability is good.

I'm here at NetApp Insight because I needed to talk to a few of the NetApp customer representatives about cost. In Africa, especially in West Africa, NetApp doesn't chat with their customers. Therefore, we always have to go through the local partners or vendors. 

I just spoke to a woman on the technology team. She's promised to be in touch and have somebody come to Ghana to speak to the high-end customers, like Vodafone, MTN, etc.

ONTAP's technical support is awesome and always ready to help.

We did not have a solution before NetApp, and NetApp was the first, but now we have Huawei as well.

We first used the NetApp 7-Mode version. Now, we use the cluster version. The cluster version is more flexible and easier to use.

Because most of us were new to the product, the initial setup was a bit cumbersome. Once we were trained, it was fine. 

We used a local vendor for the deployment with professional support from Nigeria. Our experience with them was good.

We have seen ROI.

It doesn't help reduce the overall cost of storage.

We have been able to save about 3TB to 5TB of storage. We still need to do more on the compression bit, then provisioning, to save more going forward.

The product costs an arm and leg; it's expensive.

We looked at NetApp, Dell EMC, HPE, and Huawei.

We chose NetApp because of efficiency and performance. Its product is up-to-date.

Fabric is good. I have yet to experience NVMe.

Sometime in the future, we will look at AI and machine learning.

The primary use case is as an application file server.

It is able to restore back several points during the day if there is a production issue.

• Flexible consumption
• Being able to scale as we need to
• Data production
• SnapMirror

I would like to see Synchronize Snap mode in the next release.

Stability is good. We haven't had a severe outage in years.

Scalability is very good, especially how it has matured over the past few years in cluster mode. We can now add nodes without disruptions.

Technical support has generally improved, especially the tickets for Cloud IQ where you are able to go through and it intelligently tells you how it has changed over time. That's pretty nice.

Performance: We outgrew the box. Or, the support was ending. It was one of those two scenarios.

The initial setup was straightforward. It came in a box ready to go.

We used a reseller for the deployment, Applied Computer Solutions out of LA, who was very good. We've been using them since 1997.

The data compression and deduplication have kept us from buying more disks these past three years.

Try it out, get your hands on it, and see what it does.

Every year, I am impressed with the product. It has gotten better over the years with cluster mode, but it is not 100 percent perfect. There are certain technical limitations with being able to use it for SAN, but it's improving.

We use Data ONTAP to provide CIFS and NFS shares, as well as direct attached data stores for VMware.

Four years ago, upgrading a NetApp controller was a command line process which was very arduous. Today, because NetApp listened to their customers and improved their GUI, we can perform a firmware upgrade within minutes.

The most valuable features would be:

• CIFS environment sharing.
• The availability of NetApp to tie into the UCS FlexPod environment.
• Integrated monitoring with OnCommand.

I would like to see some sort of a free version of OnCommand: A stripped down version of OnCommand Unified Manager offering a bit better usage for enterprise users. We have found that it's very hard to get it without buying it outright. I wish they had a better marketing with the product. It's probably my biggest gripe with them. You really need OnCommand to do a lot of cool stuff with NetApp, and they make it hard to get.

It's not an all inclusive model. You have the option to purchase modules to make the entire ecosystem coherent. I would like the option to pay one price and get everything all inclusive, like OnCommand.

If you don't have a TAM or SAM, it can be difficult to get P1 cases.

We serve out data from a multitude of different properties through FlexPod environments, as well as a centralized data serving location in the Las Vegas area. We have had minimal downtime over the past five to ten years that we have been using the product.

Scalability has been less of an issue. 

Unfortunately, NetApp does forklift upgrades. This is probably the biggest negative that I have with NetApp as a whole. We found to upgrade a FlexPod environment, if we wanted to upgrade the UCS on the Cisco side, due to the interoperability matrix, sometimes we'll have to upgrade controller units. Basically, if we upgrade one part of our infrastructure, we have to upgrade another part. 

This affects our scalability. Instead of being able to simply add a couple of shelves, that controller may only be able to hold four shelves. However, we already have four shelves, so now we have to buy a new controller unit. Whereas, some of other companies, you can just add another controller unit and an HA pair, then you are off to the races with more shelves.

The technical support is good. We had a TAM for a long time. Now, we have a SAM, and working through them we found that our cases get risen in priority level whenever we need it. We haven't had to fight for quite some time to get P1. It is easy to escalate.

We were previously using DAS-JBODs, but this was in 2007. We pretty much followed everybody else when the industry went to NetApp. We have been using NetApp ever since it was 7-Mode.

The initial setup was straightforward after we used EVOLTECH as a third-party. We actually took the process over after watching them do it a couple times. It was that easy.

Upgrades are great. One of the best things about NetApp is that their products are so easy to upgrade now. That did not use to be the case.

We used EVOLTECH for the deployment. We were happy with them. They did the job that we asked them to do.

We have seen ROI.

We were considering Pure Storage and Dell EMC. NetApp won out with a far superior price point.

ONTAP has a lot of stuff that most people don't utilize it for. For example, the entire Snap Management package is an underutilized piece of software in our industry. 

Get it and use a lot of the features, then have your mind blown. The moment you start using it is when the magic happens. If you don't use it, then you don't know how awesome it is.

• SnapVaulting
• SnapMirroring
• Backing up

We are saving more disk space which saves us more money.

Aggregate data, compaction, and deduplication for ONTAP are its most valuable features, so we can save space.

It is stable.

We haven't had any issues with the technical support. When we've used the technical support, they have been helpful.

Previously, we have 7-Mode technology. Now, we have cDOT. We changed because now we can move volumes without any interruptions.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We deployed the solution ourselves.

They could reduce the price.

We looked at NetApp and Dell EMC. We chose NetApp because it was cheaper, more scalable and ordered.

It is a robust product. If you buy it, you will have no issues.

We have an SAP HANA migration project going on. We bought NetApp a couple of years back, and our first solution was to migrate the data to the HANA boxes.

In terms of mission-critical applications, the first phase of migrating the legacy systems was to migrate all the mission- and business-critical applications to the new platform. The customer has a lot of legacy applications. Most of the mission-critical applications have been moved. The only mission-critical application that is left is the website application that the customer uses. Once that is done, all of the mission-critical applications will be in NetApp.

The customer we have been working for has a lot of legacy products, a lot of legacy hardware and software. Their current path is towards SAP, and the back-end databases are always HANA. There has been a very big improvement in the performance.

There has also been a big improvement in the user experience. Earlier, it would take something like 14 seconds for a page to load. Now, that has improved to about six seconds or seven seconds. That's a big difference from the user's perspective. The ultimate aim, when all the legacy has been migrated to the new platform, is to have a two or three-second wait time for a page to load. We are gradually moving towards that. So overall, performance has improved a lot.

It also has helped us reduce our overall cost of storage. We migrated all our former SAN environment to NAS storage, and that has reduced the OpEx cost a lot.

The most valuable feature is the throughput. You tend to get to your data very quickly. That's why we decided, eventually, to move into NetApp, because of the speed.

Also, as a support engineer, this solution is easy to use, compared with SAN storage.

We have been talking to them about the monitoring tools and performance improvement tools which would enhance it a bit.

In a session, here at NetApp Insight 2018, I heard that OCI, which is one of the tools that is becoming more robust, will include more things that the host team can understand and make use of. So things that we're looking for are getting added.

We had initial hiccups. Initially, we thought it was because of the way the knowledge was transitioned from the earlier support team to the new support team. We even doubted why we migrated. Later on, we learned it had to do with configuring it in the right way. Once you have everything set up properly, you should see the performance and stability that you hoped for. We are on the right track.

We have not had to scale the product because the procurements are done when we migrate from one application to another. We haven't had to scale much. We will probably experience scaling in the coming days.

NetApp technical support is really good. They help a lot with all our questions. They know that we are new customers. NetApp has always been there. You raise a ticket and they respond right away.

We were having trouble during the initial phases of the project and NetApp was there to help us out with the data migration. The initial phases of data migration had a lot of challenges, especially because we had a lot of legacy data involved. NetApp helped us a lot in getting it done.

It was never straightforward. Even NetApp struggled a bit, because the environment was so complex, because of its legacy nature. We were migrating from a very old architecture to a newer SAP-based system.

The first year was not a great time, between a lot of email exchanges, a lot of escalations, etc. It's helping a lot that we're growing in confidence and the support team now knows our architecture behind the scenes. To an extent, the good thing about it is that the engineers have been the same most of the time. When we raise a ticket, they already know the background and how to work it out.

It's been a journey. I believe in another one or two years, it will be a stable environment. But the initial days were really complex.

We had consultants on the job. It was very good. They helped a lot. It was like a partnership between Tata and NetApp to do the migration from the old SAN environment. Consultants were in-house, onsite, to help, and they are really helpful.

Especially for this customer, NetApp was the only option.

I suggest involving NetApp in your solutioning, so that they better know what to propose and what procurements need to be done in the initial stages. Otherwise, you are looking at wasting a lot of time, the kind where you are in the middle of a project, and you realize, "Oh, this is not what I want, I want to be able to scale up more," or something like that. You have to involve them as consultants at the initial stage so that the right things are bought. Their involvement is very important in terms of the architecting, especially if you are building up a new environment.

We don't use the solution for machine-learning, AI, real-time analytics, or other kinds of ground-breaking applications for storage.

We have the lowest version. We still have to do a couple of upgrades to have the latest OCI at the ONTAP level. I would rate what we have now as a six out of ten but that is probably going to climb in the next year or so; it will probably be a better number.