NetApp ONTAP Reviews

We use the solution to manage storage. It comes with the hardware.

It is a basic storage management software. The integration is good.

Sometimes, we face problems with support.

I have been using the solution for four to five years.

I rate the tool’s stability a nine out of ten. We do not face any glitches or downtime.

I rate the tool’s scalability a nine out of ten. It is pretty easy to expand.

The support team is in a different country. The response time of support for our region must be improved.

Positive

The solution is not complex to work with.

The vendor does the setup.

The product is a bit expensive. I rate the pricing a five out of ten.

I recommend the product to others. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

NetApp ONTAP is the obvious choice for what we're doing, which is the simplification of a hyper-converged environment.

The most valuable features of NetApp ONTAP are its data redundancy, performance, storage catering, snapshot technology, and NetApp Insight. From a reporting mechanism, the solution fits our needs perfectly.

With NetApp ONTAP, the technology is all there, but its management process needs some simplification. Compared to NetApp ONTAP, Pure Storage, for instance, is a better model.

I have been using NetApp ONTAP for the last 25 years.

We've had just one failed disk in the last five years since I deployed the solution.

I rate NetApp ONTAP a nine out of ten for stability.

The solution's scalability depends on the environment you've got set up. For instance, if you're using NetApp clusters, it's easier to scale. If you're not using NetApp clusters, it gets more complicated to scale. Approximately 400 users use NetApp ONTAP in our company. These 400 people are internal users, but the customer base is much bigger.

I rate NetApp ONTAP a seven out of ten for scalability.

The solution’s initial setup is complex.

We used the help of NetApp professional services and one of our other vendors for the solution's deployment.

NetApp ONTAP is a pricey product, but you pay for what you get. I rate NetApp ONTAP a five out of ten for its pricing.

Just one person is required for the maintenance of NetApp ONTAP.

I have a lot of experience with other vendors. I always choose NetApp ONTAP because no other solution meets our requirements. I would recommend NetApp ONTAP to other users.

Overall, I rate NetApp ONTAP a nine out of ten.

Deduplication, data protection, and NetApp block are some of the valuable features of the product.

The GUI of NetApp ONTAP is an area with certain shortcomings that need to be considered for improvement.

I have been using NetApp ONTAP for over three years. I am using the solution's latest version.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

My company has a dozen users of NetApp ONTAP.

I rate NetApp ONTAP's support a ten out of ten.

Positive

I rate my experience with NetApp ONTAP's setup phase a ten out of ten.

The product is deployed on-premises.

The deployment process took a day to two to be completed.

Two people look into the software part during the deployment process of the product.

I rate NetApp ONTAP's pricing a seven out of ten.

In NetApp ONTAP, both the hardware and the software are the same. The only thing with NetApp ONTAP is that you can't buy it separately because it comes with the box, which is its hardware.

I definitely recommend the solution to those planning to use it. It's a very friendly and usable tool with lots of features, majorly storage.

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

As an automotive company, we are able to run some applications on NetApp ONTAP.

The MFS report is the best feature for us.

I believe that the next release should be a bit cheaper.

I have been using this solution for about ten years.

NetApp is very stable, this is why we went with this product.

This is a scalable solution.

Support is very good. They are available 24/7 and respond within four hours.

We used EMC in the past. It was good at the time, but it was crashing a lot. This is why we switched to NetApp.

The initial setup is straightforward as it is done by NetApp themselves and it does not require any maintenance on our side.

ONTAP is expensive, but most storage systems are now-a-days and everything is included with the license - there are no additional fees.

This is a stable environment that is easy to manage and good to work with - eight out of ten.

Our client's primary use case is for the storage aspect of the solution, mainly for the block size.

The reliability of the storage is the solution's most valuable aspect.

The hardware of the solution is very reliable and there are hardly any issues at all. There rarely are failures, especially when you compare it to other vendors, which have a higher failure rate.

For example, HPE tends to be more prone to disc failures. In the case of ONTAP, this is extremely rare.

The OS is very user-friendly. Due to the fact that the architecture of the system is the same, once we learn ONTAP, we don't have to worry about drastic changes. Other vendors tend to change their products, and then we have to re-learn everything again, including the complete UI and configuration. With NetApp ONTAP, once you learn it, only a little bit of updating is required.

The solution is very easy to configure.

The solution is more for mid-range companies. 

The integration could be improved. There used to be an integration product called Snapper Tech, however, it's not available anymore. The vendor-partner relationships need to be improved across the board.

The back-up side of the solution could be improved, as could the archive. We still have to rely on third-party backup programs and other archiving solutions. If it was offered by NetApp itself, it would be much better.

The solution seems to be changing and moving towards the cloud and it will require many changes in order to be able to adapt to this shift.

I've been dealing with the solution for almost ten years at this point. It's been a long while.

The solution is easily scalable. It can, due to the features itself and the Cluster ONTAP features it supports. There are additions that need to be purchased so that the customer can scale, however. Other than that, yes, you can scale it well.

The solution best suits medium and enterprise customers. The price is small compared to other companies. 

So far, we've been very satisfied with technical support. They are quite knowledgeable and responsive.

The initial setup is not complex at all. In fact, if you compare any other storage, ONTAP is easier to install, implement, and manage than other options. 

We deploy it for our customers.

In order to scale, you do need to purchase add-ons.

I'm on the partner side, and therefore not an end-user.

I would recommend the solution. Its cluster and storage are quite good.

Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten. We enjoy working with it.

We use this storage device for databases, storing databases, and VMware. When it comes to databases ,we have Oracle, SQL, and mission-critical applications. Therefore, we need very good response times, and we get very good response times from NetApp All Flash systems.

Queries are being completed in less time. For example, we have seen a three times improvement when it comes to running a query. If query used to take an hour, now it takes 10 to 20 minutes.

• It does both file and block storage.
• The compression works well. We get a 3:1 ratio.

• We would like to be able to provide feedback immediately after receiving technical support.
• Make it a simpler. Our entire industry is moving towards simplicity or automation, we spend a lot of time doing storage allocation. It's too complex.
• Have integration with other storage providers. 
• I would like cloud integration where we can send data to the cloud. Engineers should be able to click on one button (integrated with their phones), and move the data from NetApp to cloud.

It's a stable product. So far, we have not seen any issues. It has worked as expected, meeting our expectations.

It scales up, so I don't see any issues with scaling the system.

When it comes to support, we usually go into NetApp chat and request help. Most of the time, our interaction with their support is nice and they are willing to help.

Sometimes, you have a team of people, where 10 or 15 people are working, and you are not going to get the same result from everyone. It happens when we call support sometimes that we do not get what we need, then we work with the manager.

ONTAP has helped us reduce the cost of storage by a lot. We were using IBM XIVs (hybrid system) and were paying high costs, except for the maintenance. Now, we are on all-flash and we pay less than what we used to pay.

ONTAP is an operating system, but we also wanted to invest in all-flash. We evaluated multiple products and we liked ONTAP's performance and its cost.

The initial setup is too complex. It should be one click. Anyone with basic knowledge of storage should be able to set it up. Instead, there are too many moving pieces. You have to do plaster configuration, north configuration, and port configuration, and these things should be fully automated. Customers should be answering a few questions and system should be ready for application on user portals.

The overall implementation was done by a reseller, IS. 

We see ROI, but I was expecting more. Right now, what happens is I have a team of 10 or 12 people, and the investment is going into managing them instead of doing something new.

Moving to all-flash from hybrid, we brought the response time down from 10 milliseconds to some milliseconds.

We evaluated Pure Storage and NetApp. Cost was a value factor in selecting NetApp.

We are in a testing phase at this moment for machine learning, AI, and real-time analytics . We have a team who is testing Docker on this.

In future, we will be using NVMe over Fabric. At the moment, we are still immature.

I have about 500 volumes that I manage, and I love it.

It's a good thing to have a reliable storage. Our whole business relies on it. Our two main mission-critical systems, which are EBS system (Oracle Financials) and Banner, which is our database for student services, are stored on NetApp. We need it to be reliable, efficient, and quick, which it is. 

They run on AIX and are stored on ONTAP.

My experience with NetApp is its very easy to learn and intuitive. I can figure out just about everything. 

I love the System Manager. I don't even need to remember commands. I love its ease of use.

I wish tech support would be better. I wish I could talk to somebody more easily and qualified, because this is way it is supposed to be. At the moment, you talk to an entry level people, and sometimes they know less than you. You waste two to three hours with them. Finally, they send you to a higher level person who  knows something. This is something many companies need to improve.

It is very reliable. We have not lost one byte of data. There was even an occasion about three months ago where one of my nodes went down. It was recovered and nobody even noticed.

I don't worry about stability. Even when a disc goes bad, I know it will replace itself. NetApp will send me an email, “We'll send you this tomorrow.”

Scalability is very good. Now that we have an AFF A300, it will be even better. You can add more to storage on live. Before, when we had the 3220s, you only had two nodes, so you had to buy another two nodes to scale. 

Sometimes, tech support is slow to answer. However, I'm seeing this as a trend in all companies, even IBM.

I've been using ONTAP for about ten years. I started with the 3140s, then went to the 3240s, and now, I just upgraded to the AFF A300. 

I went from an 8.17 node to 9.3 cluster nodes. This was a big change. I still have a lot of things to learn. For example, the migration was done using the 7-Mode migration tool, which was tough.

We used a reseller for NetApp for the deployment. They were good.

I have been able to save space using ONTAP, particularly now on the new system. By default, you get compression, deduping, etc. We have saved at least 20 percent in terms of space.

We received a super deal for our new machine, so we were happy with the price.

I did not consider anyone else. I love NetApp.

There are some new companies out there, but you take a chance on them. With mission-critical systems, you need a stable company. You cannot play around. NetApp systems will work when things go wrong.

My experience with ONTAP has been very good. It is very reliable.

I might use ONTAP for machine learning. AI. and real-time analytics in the future. Next year will be very interesting as we upgraded to an AFF A300, so that's a new ballgame. I wouldn't mind getting into the cloud.

I am not using NVMe yet. Maybe next year, I will venture into that. I am only using Fibre Channel and iSCSI right now.

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.