NetApp ONTAP Reviews

I use NetApp ONTAP for most of our production systems, including NFS mount points, FC and iSCSI protocols, and shared drives across our organization.

NetApp ONTAP provides a unified storage architecture for managing both SAN and NAS protocols. The cloning functionality using NetApp Snapshots is excellent for our production to development system cloning. The clone step is straightforward, as I can select the snapshot and perform the cloning immediately.

The security features in NetApp ONTAP are definitely valuable. NetApp encryption offers two levels of encryption: aggregate level encryption and volume level encryption. Without the encryption key, data cannot be accessed, which provides strong data protection.

The deduplication function also works well in NetApp ONTAP.

File level restoration could be improved. Currently, NetApp ONTAP provides volume level restore, but file level restore is somewhat difficult to execute. If NetApp were to provide an option for file level restoration, that would be better.

I have been working with NetApp ONTAP for seven years.

In terms of stability, I would rate NetApp ONTAP a ten out of ten because I have experienced nearly zero downtime over the complete year.

For technical support, I would rate NetApp ONTAP a nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup cannot be described as simply easy or complex. If you have all the basic prerequisites ready beforehand, the setup is simple and will allow you to configure it easily.

NetApp ONTAP cannot be described as providing a single benefit because, as a unified storage solution, it is used widely across our entire organization. For some departments, it is used as a shared drive, while for other departments, it is used to create virtual servers. This wide usage across the organization means I cannot select a specific benefit. I would rate this review a nine out of ten.

We use the system manager for our data management activities. The system manager is where we log in and administer our storage by creating volumes, LUNs, Qtrees, and C shares for customers to use. People in other departments can access and store their data in prepared workspaces. We use it for the business needs of the organization. 

In terms of data management, NetApp ONTAP has helped us store our data. We can store as much as one petabyte of data. It has a large storage capacity, whereby most of the applications are sitting directly on the filer on the NetApp infrastructure. 

Users are able to access their data for business continuity, where they install applications and apps used for the business. It has been awesome because most of our petroleum applications, MDP applications, and NDI run on this platform since everything is data-driven. It has been significant to the business as we are able to accommodate and store all our data. 

Currently, we are on-premises with NetApp ONTAP. To deploy, we leverage professional services for deployment, but we also have local skills as senior storage engineers.

The features that have been most effective for our operations are the auto-tiering system, thin provisioning, and SnapMirror, which we use for data migration in the NetApp ONTAP environment. 

NetApp ONTAP has improved our organization through speed, efficiency, and data availability, which ensures business continuity. We have not had any disruption for some time now, and the data is always available with no hard disk crashes because of the HA. If the disk fails, we are able to fail over to the partner disk.

For snapshots, there should be something similar to a recycle bin. When someone mistakenly deletes a snapshot, it should be stored for about two days before disappearing from the system.

Regarding storage optimization, when purchasing a 10 terabyte disk, after formatting, you can only use approximately 8 terabytes. They should improve this so users can utilize 90% instead of 80% of the disk space.

The support response needs improvement, especially for P1 cases. When critical cases are raised, they should ensure they call the customer and follow up properly.

Comparing NetApp ONTAP to other solutions such as EMC, the cost of contract renewals and warranties is relatively expensive. They should extend their renewal window beyond the current six months to one year options. A longer warranty period of two years for new systems, controllers, or filers would be beneficial. Overall, they should reduce subscription costs for businesses.

I have been using NetApp ONTAP for over ten years.

The availability impacts operations in terms of stability and data availability. Sometimes there are system panics, but we have overcome that issue in the latest NetApp ONTAP version. If we have a fail-disk, it provides HA, and due to the failover capability, we have not experienced issues recently.

Scalability for NetApp ONTAP is adequate and easily achievable.

NetApp ONTAP requires maintenance, which is managed by local engineers. This includes disk replacement, firmware upgrades, and NetApp ONTAP upgrades, which we handle locally in Nigeria.

Positive

The return on investment is approximately 5-10%. However, this needs to be evaluated by the business, especially considering that NetApp phases out technology after some years and introduces newer technology. Once controllers are decommissioned, they are not resold but disposed of.

When comparing NetApp ONTAP to other solutions such as EMC, NetApp is more expensive in terms of contract renewals and warranty costs.

We have integrated NetApp ONTAP with our VMware environments and Linux. The integration works with Linux, VMware, Windows, and other business applications. The integration process is not complex but rather simple due to NetApp's flexibility with Windows C shares. 

I recommend NetApp ONTAP to other users despite its high cost. 

Their service is wonderful and good. They should provide open ports for integration with other infrastructures and storage service providers such as EMC and Pure Storage. The graphical user interface is fine, though there are some changes in the NetApp ONTAP modules that we notice. 

My overall rating for NetApp ONTAP is 7 out of 10, with technical support receiving 7 out of 10.

My main use case for NetApp ONTAP is for SAN and NAS capability. For SAN, we create block storage, and for NAS, we create file level storage.

If users want access to an NFS file share on any Linux machine, we create the NFS file share, add those hosts into the NFS file share, and validate from our end. After that, we provide it to the user. For SAN storage, if the user wants to access any block level storage, we create the LUNs and map those LUNs to the initiator. If it is an existing host, we map to the existing initiator; if it is new, we perform the zoning setup. After that, we map the LUN to that host from NetApp ONTAP.

For SAN storage, we ask the respective team to provide the WWPN. After that, we provision the LUN on SAN block storage.

NetApp ONTAP positively impacts my organization by serving as the main storage we use in our environment. In terms of improvements, we can increase the number of volume creation, Vserver tasks, and interface LIFs, which enhances performance for future purposes.

I believe the best features NetApp ONTAP offers are its cluster, which includes different types of LIFs: the data LIF, cluster LIF, cluster interconnect, and intra-LIF and interconnect LIF.

The data LIF is used for accessing data through the SAN or NAS file system, and the cluster interconnect connects both nodes between the cluster. The cluster network manages all the clusters under one LIF, while the intra-LIF and inter-LIF are used for SnapMirror, which is the replication setup configured in NetApp ONTAP.

In addition to the features mentioned, there is also the Snapshot feature, which provides a current point-in-time image of the volume. Whenever we want to perform any activity, we can take a backup from the storage by creating an ad hoc Snapshot and then inform the respective team so they can proceed with the activity from their end.

Since adopting NetApp ONTAP, we can create multiple setups in the replication setup for backup and restoration tasks.

I have encountered a couple of issues with data deduplication and compression. If there were an option to set up those items separately, it would make it easier to configure and monitor those aspects.

I have around four years of experience with NetApp ONTAP.

NetApp ONTAP is stable in my environment. I have not encountered issues with reliability or uptime.

The scalability of NetApp ONTAP is excellent. It is very easy to understand and learn, and we can grow in our careers. For expansion, we can easily add multiple nodes to the existing cluster on both SAN and NAS.

Customer support for NetApp ONTAP is good. It is easy to contact them and my experience has been positive.

Before using NetApp ONTAP, we previously utilized Dell EMC Isilon storage, but we switched to NetApp ONTAP NAS storage due to budget constraints. In Isilon, we initially used an eight-node cluster, whereas in NetApp ONTAP, we are currently using a six-node cluster.

I did not evaluate other options before choosing NetApp ONTAP.

I rate NetApp ONTAP an eight out of ten.

I chose the number eight for my rating because the main features include the cluster interconnect network, multiple LIFs, a 2^n setup, SnapMirror configuration, SnapVault setup, and the ease of performing upgrades in a two-node cluster.

Regarding NetApp ONTAP AI capabilities, they can improve security. If any bugs are detected in that ONTAP version, they can suggest upgrades, and we can perform the NetApp ONTAP upgrade.

The accuracy and reliability of NetApp ONTAP AI capabilities are notable. It is very accurate in creating volumes and using various settings, and it offers great reliability, especially cluster-wise. It is also a very good storage solution that is easy for new users to adapt to.

My main advice for others considering using NetApp ONTAP is that it is very easy to handle the storage, starting from a two-node cluster and going up to a maximum of a 16-node cluster. If your environment requires both SAN and NAS, purchasing NetApp ONTAP storage is a great choice.

I'm in the education industry, and we use NetApp ONTAP as a storage solution. We have the NetApp box and we use NetApp ONTAP to manage the storage for our production environment, which includes all our applications and virtual machines.

By implementing NetApp ONTAP, we mostly wanted to enhance how we manage storage for on-premise solutions. This includes taking snapshots of virtual machines and being able to recover from any sort of failure in our production environment.

Data protection is essential. When we had power-related issues and the storage box went off abruptly, we were able to recover without much challenge or corrupted data. This gave us peace of mind knowing that NetApp ONTAP is very solid.

We have not had any challenges. We did a refresh on our environment as recently as last year. The support has been fantastic. The interface was improved compared to what was there before. The features are commendable, and from the dashboard, we get a single pane of glass through which we can view our environment, both production and disaster recovery sites.

The interface is very user-friendly. There are new features, including analytics that provide insights when you log in. The dashboard is very intuitive. It lets you know if you have issues early enough so that you can plan around resolving and mitigating future issues. These are the standout features.

For me, it is an ideal solution. There isn't any area that needs urgent improvements because the interface is very intuitive, and the solution is robust. However, if the integration with legacy applications was simpler, it would be great.

I have used NetApp ONTAP for roughly four or five years.

It is very stable. Both stability and scalability are a 10 out of 10.

It is very scalable. We are an enterprise-level organization. We have four to five users working with this solution.

The support is top-notch. I would give them a solid nine out of ten because they don't have a local presence, so it takes time for parts to come.

Positive

It was a complex deployment. We had to get new boxes, and because we use VMware for virtualization, it was a bit complex. It took a bit of time and a bit of expertise. We had the help of a consultant.

The deployment took almost close to a month. 

It requires maintenance, but not too much. There are updates that require an internet connection and monitoring aspects.

The consultant was called Rejoice. He was very knowledgeable. The project where we did the refresh allowed us to better understand both the NetApp technology and the virtualization aspect of it and how they integrate. It was a very insightful and helpful project that added a feather in my cap in terms of knowledge gained when it comes to storage technologies and NetApp in particular.

It saves us time. It saves us resources. In the long run, it saves us money. In the long run, we can see a 10% to 20% return on investment.

It is cost-effective for the benefits you get.

I would rate NetApp ONTAP as a top solution. I have not used many storage solutions. However, based on my experience with it and feedback from people who have used it longer than I have, along with feedback from people in other industries, I can say that NetApp ONTAP is a solid solution. It's very robust, dependable, and updated.

Our environment is still transitioning. We still have legacy applications, hence the transition to AI may take time. We don't use too much of it and tend to focus more on the insights generated from current usage.

I would recommend NetApp ONTAP to other users because it has a very intuitive and simple-to-use interface that integrates with one's environment. It's very scalable, and the box itself is very robust.

I would rate NetApp ONTAP an eight out of ten.

We are a manufacturing company with a mixture of physical systems located at manufacturing plants worldwide. We primarily have a presence in AWS for cloud regions where we utilize and integrate NetApp ONTAP.

The key reason for implementing NetApp ONTAP was full integration globally and cloud connectivity. Prior to moving to NetApp ONTAP, we were all on-prem. With NetApp ONTAP, we have seamless integration with the cloud regions globally.

We were previously struggling internally for DR purposes. We used to replicate data between internal physical locations. With cloud connectivity and seamless connection from on-prem to the cloud utilizing NetApp ONTAP, DR is certainly one of the big challenges that we closed.

The single management plane in NetApp ONTAP, with BlueXP and Cloud Insights, is valuable. It allows us to see globally all physical and cloud-hosted systems within one management plane, which is a big plus.

NetApp ONTAP has been easy to use. Compared to our previous Dell products, implementing and integrating NetApp ONTAP has been pretty seamless and relatively easy.

The performance has been very good. As a manufacturing company, we have applications that write literally millions of files to our storage solutions. The capability to provide fast response time has been a big plus.

It is hard to quantify the improvement in the system performance globally. Certain areas of certain systems have improved more than others. On average, there is probably a 20% improvement in efficiency.

The management planes have helped. There is still a lot of work to do. We have been busy migrating data, so we have not fully leveraged all the automation capabilities. At the moment, it would probably be a lower percentage of about 10%, but it could improve as we continue to use it.

NetApp ONTAP has saved about 10% of the time for our staff. There are some capabilities that could expand, but we have only been using it for a year and a half, so we have not fully utilized all the capabilities.

There have been about 20% to 25% cost improvements over our legacy infrastructure.

We were able to realize its benefits pretty much immediately. We have been migrating data for over a year now, but certainly, in those regions where we have implemented it, we could pretty much immediately see the benefits and cost savings.

One of the challenges we have is the ability to tag data with ownership for internal billing and chargeback. We have to utilize some third-party tools for that. It would be good if they were integrated with NetApp ONTAP. Everything else is pretty good.

I have been using NetApp ONTAP for about a year and a half.

I would rate the stability of the solution as nine out of ten. It has been pretty stable. We have had no major issues or big problems, and so far, there has been no downtime.

I would rate its scalability as nine out of ten. We leverage cloud pooling and tiering of data between on-premises and the cloud.

We have it in multiple locations. We have probably 50 on-prem physical manufacturing locations, and we are connected to four major clouds in the AWS region, one in Singapore, one in London, and two in the US.

We have a global operations team of about 35 people managing the environment. Globally, for file share data, we have more than 60,000 users.

We have raised some cases, and the support has been pretty good. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

Previously, we used all Dell products such as VMAX, PowerMax, VNX, Isilon, and Unity. We switched to NetApp ONTAP for better cloud integration and to make connectivity and integration more seamless. Like most others, we were moving on-prem data to the cloud. NetApp ONTAP as a solution made connectivity and integration a lot more seamless than the legacy Dell products we were using.

We have a hybrid deployment model. The initial setup was pretty quick and straightforward. We did not have any issues.

Implementing it was pretty quick. Setting it up and getting it configured was almost instantaneous. The biggest challenge was our infrastructure. We had to open firewall ports between on-prem and the cloud and also migrate data. Migrating data over WAN links was a big challenge, but that was outside of the actual setup of NetApp ONTAP, which was pretty quick and easy.

In terms of maintenance, we have a contract with Infosys to provide operational support. They handle day-to-day operations, and there have been no issues or challenges.

The biggest return has been on cost financials. We have seen some significant financial improvements with moving to NetApp ONTAP and some efficiencies in terms of operational support. Cost-wise, there are about 25% savings, and operations-wise, there is about 10% efficiency.

It has been cost-efficient. Compared to our legacy Dell infrastructure, we have realized cost savings. It is good.

I would certainly recommend NetApp ONTAP for its cost efficiency and ease of use. With the management planes, it is easy to set up, configure, and integrate.

I would rate NetApp ONTAP a nine out of ten.

There might be multiple use cases in my company, but in my specific area, we are using it for doing asynchronous sync between the production and the DR servers. We have a financial trading system that needs to have a common storage space so that the servers we are running can access the same storage in the HA mode, which is the high-availability mode of the Artemis and FIX engines. We are using NetApp storage to be accessed by those servers.

It is perfect for the requirements we have. For our product requirement and our users' requirements, it is one of the perfect network storage solutions we are using. It's reliable, synchronous, and we are not losing any data when using it. That is the main requirement we have as of now for our product.

It was a replacement for the SRDF system. NetApp ONTAP gave us the benefit that we could have a single storage, single mount across all three servers, and they all could write to that location and read from there. That was the immediate benefit we saw, but the synchronization of the messages was very much the same as what we were using before in SRDF. I cannot speak about the performance metrics, but in the last seven years, we have never seen any downtime. We never saw any issues when doing the DR failovers. We have not lost even a single message, and access and everything else is very much in our control.

Our previous solution, SRDF, was a similar kind of product based on old technologies. We were looking for a change because SRDF was not giving us what we needed, which was basically three servers in high-availability mode. All three servers needed to have the same path and the same name for the storage. SRDF was not giving us this feature. It could only be accessed by one server at a time. That was the limitation. With NetApp ONTAP, we conducted research and a PoC, and we really liked it. It was very fast in terms of performance, and it met our requirements exactly the way we needed it in our production environments.

From the implementation point of view, I do not see any issues, but one thing I want to see is expanded support beyond Linux environments. In the future, we are going to migrate to Windows-based platforms. I want to see if we can achieve similar control and implementation with Windows, basically installing NetApp ONTAP onto a Windows machine and not just onto the Linux machine. That is something we are going to explore in the coming year because we are moving into more Windows-based implementations going forward.

Currently, there are limitations with Windows for this product. While I personally work more with Linux environments, which are more controlled and secure, our third-party trading system is moving to Windows as its core product feature. We want to retain NetApp ONTAP, but we need to see how we are going to implement it with Windows. That is the PoC we are going to do in the coming days, but from what I have read, there are certain limitations with Windows for NetApp ONTAP use.

We started using it somewhere around 2018-19.

I have not observed any issues in seven years. It has been perfect.

Scalability is really good. You can spin up new servers and do the same kind of mounting and create the storage. Scalability-wise, you don't need to stop anything that you already have; you can just keep adding. That is one of the features for which we picked NetApp ONTAP. If we want to scale it with more servers, it is very easy. We just create the same replica of that node, and then we are ready to go.

Before NetApp ONTAP, we were using SRDF. SRDF was pretty much the same platform, but with certain limitations that NetApp ONTAP doesn't have. After moving to NetApp ONTAP, we see that SRDF is not of much use in the new world where you have DR within your production server. The high-availability mode is not from production to DR, but within the production, you have multiple servers that can support. If one goes down, the second can support, so this product fits perfectly in that area.

That was easy. It took around four to five hours initially to set this up, but then we had some initial challenges with the access. After we overcame that part, it was easy. There might have been a slight misunderstanding on our part on how to install it. We did some tests and fixed the issue. After that, it was working fine.

Maintenance-wise, the only thing we need to keep doing is managing the VM infrastructure. The underlying VM infrastructure is changing, and in the coming years, with Broadcom buying the VM side solution, we might see changes that could lead us to move away from the VM base to something else. That project is in the initial phase, so we will do assessments on how we can implement it onto the new infrastructure, including evaluating costs and feasibility.

The deployment of NetApp ONTAP was all done in-house. There is an expert with whom we work within our company.

Deploying NetApp ONTAP required multiple people's team, but we have a subject matter expert. Since we have implemented it, we have never seen any issues with it. We have automated all the processes. For example, we do DR every quarter, so we have done the scripting to do the failover of NetApp ONTAP as well. All those things are automated. From that perspective, we do not see the need for more people in that area.

Its pricing is handled by a different department. We buy at the enterprise level, and then the cost is equally distributed.

The only advice I will give for new users is that the first basic thing is that your infrastructure needs to be on a Linux or Unix-based system. That is mandatory. If you are Windows-based, you will struggle sometimes. If you have your infrastructure ready, it is one of the right products to choose, especially if you want to have synchronous or asynchronous file transfers, or you want to have your data files or any kind of access control in place.

I would rate NetApp ONTAP an eight out of ten. It meets 100% of my requirements at the moment, but due to the Windows compatibility limitations, I deducted two points.

I work at an educational institute that conducts medical research. We use NetApp for unstructured storage, including both SMB and NFS file shares. In the past, we have also used it for SAP and for Fiber Channel presented storage, specifically for Oracle databases. It is mainly for unstructured storage and research data.

It meets our needs by providing the necessary shares to store our data. It is reliable, fast, and always available when needed. It is also very flexible regarding provisions. It helps to serve our storage needs.

CIFS and NFS protocols have delivered the most value. NetApp ONTAP offers very reliable CIFS and NFS protocols. By and large, the product itself is very reliable hardware-wise. 

The aggregate system needs improvement. I understand how they are alleviating this issue with all the FlexGroup volume. I understand the concept and how they get past the limitations of how much storage can be presented to a user. Currently, it is capped at about 300 terabytes, but there are situations where more is needed. The aggregates, in our case, are capped at about 800 terabytes. A way to alleviate that is by using a FlexGroup volume, which can exceed 800 terabytes, but that opens up a whole new set of issues for the future.

I have used the solution since 2002.

It all depends on who I get on the phone. I would rate their customer service a six out of ten. Bringing it back to the US would be great because I do not like dealing overseas.

Neutral

We definitely plan on continuing to use NetApp, but we are looking at other options. We also use Pure for a point solution for some applications. Pure is nothing but solid-state, and it has always been very pricey. Unstructured data for the researchers does not necessarily need performance, so it has always been an expensive solution. Over the last five or six years, Pure has developed effective SMB and NFS protocols, so they are catching up to NetApp in that respect.

We evaluated other solutions. NetApp has the best software in the market. After that, it is potentially EMC. The hardware is not the selling feature; it is the software. It was way ahead of anybody else in the way you can move data.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. It is very good.

It had been a successful solution for the end-users. They were very happy with the solution that was implemented as it resolved all their issues.

It helped to speed up the delivery. Earlier, if it took around 30 minutes to do a task such as copying some data or doing any content editing, post-implementation of NetApp, and improvement in our network infrastructure, overall activity time was reduced to 10 minutes.

A key challenge for our organization was to speed up the process for media files. It took a longer time to transfer or do any kind of activity on media files. Post-implementation, we were able to speed up our processes on the media files. Although the media file sizes were quite large, NetApp was able to speed up accessibility to those files.

At the time we finalized NetApp, there were a couple of things that were impacting. The size of the data was increasing very quickly, so we wanted a device that was easily expandable without much modification. NetApp fulfilled that requirement, wherein we were able to double the size of the solution without any major impact on the network.

Security played a major role in finalizing the product. The ONTAP technology was quite stringent while creating partitions and in other such scenarios so that the data is fully secured and not accessible without permission. It is also quite difficult to crack the solution. From a security point of view, NetApp was a good solution as it had an OS that was quite unique.

The stability and performance of the solution have provided optimized results as expected. 

Our upcoming investments would be prioritized around a hybrid cloud solution because we ourselves promote the cloud in the market. We are the premium service provider for AWS, so we have that inclination toward cloud computing. From the experience that we had during the pandemic, we are looking for some kind of hybrid solution for our environment.

NetApp should focus on a hybrid cloud solution because none of the media houses are opting for cloud storage. The files are quite heavy, and it becomes quite difficult to maintain them on the cloud. If NetApp can provide such technology and fill the gap of storing media files in the cloud, it would give them an advantage.

I have used this solution for three to four years.

The solution's stability is one of the most important aspects for us.

We were able to double the size of the solutions without a major impact on the network.

We had plans to increase the usage, but we have gone through downsizing in the recent past. We have not planned any expansion in the coming quarters. After that, depending on how the business is going, we might make a decision about it.

I would rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

NetApp provided the features required within our cost limit.

We considered Dell EMC and HPE as alternatives. We chose NetApp because NetApp's primary solution is storage. That is where it has an advantage with respect to other players. Apart from that, the solution that NetApp was providing suited our environment. Its cost also worked well.

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

My use case for NetApp ONTAP is for backup purposes. I was taking a course on NetApp ONTAP through Udemy where I learned about taking backups of infrastructure services and performed practical exercises.

The best features of NetApp ONTAP include its good UI. When planning to take backups at night, the process is faster. It is best for data services and snapshot cloning experiences.

NetApp ONTAP could be improved with additional features to help handle the backup of more than 10 to 15 devices simultaneously. Multiple availability zones could be improved. The users in remote areas might have limited bandwidth compared to those in metropolitan cities. They might face challenges taking backups due to connectivity limitations.

I have used NetApp ONTAP for three months.

Stability could be improved due to downtime issues. I would rate the stability a seven out of ten.

We are an enterprise. Our clients are medium-sized companies. I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten.

In my project, many people are using NetApp. Our storage team has 20 to 25 members.

I would rate the technical support of NetApp ONTAP an eight out of ten.

Positive

I have some experience with Veeam. When comparing it with Veeam, for backup storage capabilities, NetApp ONTAP performs better.

It is moderate.

This solution saved approximately 50% to 60% of time.

The pricing for NetApp ONTAP is moderate.

Integrating AI with NetApp ONTAP would enhance the platform, particularly for resolving queries and providing solutions more efficiently.

I would recommend NetApp ONTAP to other users as it effectively meets requirements.

I would rate NetApp ONTAP an eight out of ten.

I am working on cloud development while on contract with a big organization. We utilize NetApp extensively as part of our cloud storage strategy throughout the enterprise. We use NetApp ONTAP quite a bit in both PoC type projects and production. We are managing petabytes of information and a worldwide cloud in multiple data centers.

NetApp ONTAP enables us to deliver services to customers predictably, which is crucial in our line of business.

Implementing NetApp ONTAP is a very important part of our storage strategy. We could see the benefits of NetApp ONTAP immediately upon implementation, but all clouds essentially work the same. You charge for space, but you get over-allocation and deduplication that save space, which is how the company generates revenue.

It is hard to pinpoint which NetApp technology delivers the most value, but currently, most of our business relies on block volumes, focusing on the ability to create these volumes with features such as encryption at rest, encryption in transit, and various data organization and compression capabilities.

We have successfully implemented encryption in transit using TLS, which is a standout outcome that may not be commonly supported by competitors in the vendor space.

There are several features that I find valuable in NetApp ONTAP. Some of the technology is based on the older feature set, so there is stability which is paramount for our technology strategy. 

The ability to do online upgrades in a clustered setup is absolutely crucial, and I extensively use new features such as replication and backups for certain cloud features in the enterprise.

NetApp ONTAP has several limitations that we encounter, primarily related to large enterprise clients. They do not affect small clients that NetApp may have. While these limitations are clearly described, some issues require us to develop workarounds. Particularly for large setups, there are constraints, such as the limit of 1,000 active FlexVols per NetApp node, which affect large-scale deployments with tens or hundreds of thousands of active users, but NetApp directly works with us. We have NetApp residents who are essentially NetApp people present in our organization. We have a direct line of communication with them, and they try to implement strategies to overcome some of the deficiencies on our request. That indeed was done multiple times.

Another one is scalability. While NetApp ONTAP is generally very scalable, we encounter some scalability constraints that are particularly related to large enterprise setups rather than those faced by medium-sized clients.

NetApp ONTAP is generally very scalable, but there are some scalability constraints related to large enterprise setups.

The quality and responsiveness of support are generally good. Fundamental issues receive immediate attention. If you have real issues that affect your clients, they will look at them immediately. Resolution-wise, some issues are resolved very quickly, while updates requested by us may take longer. Some updates took more than a year for implementation.

I would rate their support an eight out of ten. I am happy with their support overall.

Positive

I have used alternatives to NetApp ONTAP during my career, including EMC as one of the notable options. EMC was the older technology during my usage. Some features of ONTAP are on par with other technologies. Other alternatives may not have the same limitations as ONTAP, but they have different limitations that NetApp does not have. 

Feature-wise, NetApp is competitive. Our organization doesn't make decisions lightly. Numerous architects did a comparison between NetApp and other systems before they even selected NetApp as a technology to go with. That happened quite a while ago even before me being on that contract. Feature-wise, they're on par with the competition.

The initial deployment with NetApp ONTAP can vary. Simple setups are easy to deploy but require specific NetApp expertise and architectural approaches. There could be problems later on with NetApp implementations if your initial features are not configured correctly. There is a difference between implementing NetApp on a small scale versus at a large scale like our organization. We process significant volumes of transactions, sometimes millions per second, so making proper architectural approaches is essential.

There is maintenance involved. It has at least three different components. The first one is the hardware maintenance, because things do not work well sometimes for a variety of reasons. Some components go bad, and we have a huge number of NetApp arrays. We have to have maintenance of the hardware done, which may not be NetApp-related at all. We have to have version upgrades. NetApp makes it somewhat easy, but some of the things have to be looked into. One specific example is that NetApp has a concept of key managers. In other words, they encrypt information at rest. However, they can use an external key manager. In other words, the client can bring their own encryption key, which is not even known to us for privacy reasons. The key is stored in an external box, and if that box is unavailable, that volume obviously becomes inactive as well. If you have inactive volumes like that, NetApp will not allow you to do upgrades. You can only do upgrades if all volumes are accessible. That is not always possible in some cases, so we have to have some special handling to do that. NetApp does work with us. They do have a strategy in some way to go around this limitation. However, it's not quite that easy. So, the software maintenance is not quite as easy to do.

There are also upgrades that relate to features. Some of those are easier to implement than the others, and some require license changes. That's where things sometimes get complicated because the user licensing scheme changes. You need to understand what the change is, how to get the new type of keys, how to install new hardware in ways that it will not conflict with the old one, when it can be done, and so on. It is sometimes not easy. Regular maintenance is fine, but upgrade-related maintenance varies, but it is no more complicated than any of its competitors, because I encountered similar issues with the competition as well.

Key challenges that NetApp technology addresses for our business include providing disk storage with a 99.999% uptime. It allows us to maintain a very high SLA, which is essential for our services, as without it, customers are unwilling to pay.

We continuously expand our use of NetApp ONTAP. For example, implementing the new TLS tunnel encryption for shared volumes has significantly enhanced our encryption capabilities without introducing complexity. It allows us to do encryption for shared volumes without implementing complicated encryption and transit technologies.

It's difficult for me to say. We have a wholesale contract with NetApp. We also have NetApp ONTAP On-Demand activation for certain things. We also have some preferential pricing for licenses. The licensing that I see here doesn't apply to other clients in the field. NetApp is expensive, but so are the competitors, making it hard to ascertain precise retail value. However, based on my perspective, NetApp pricing appears competitive.

I was not present when NetApp was selected. We consistently evaluate other offerings, but there are no indications of plans to replace NetApp ONTAP.

Overall, I would rate NetApp ONTAP an eight out of ten. While there are opportunities for improvement, they generally perform well and maintain a strong position within the market.