Download the Data Replication Buyer's Guide including reviews and more. Updated: May 2023
NetApp SnapMirror was previously known as SnapMirror.
We have two sites, a primary site and a disaster recovery site. The files used in the primary site need continuous replication to DR in case recovery is needed either for test DR drill or in the event we need to failover any applications or databases to our disaster recovery site. I'm a senior manager system analyst and we are customers of NetApp. Our company is based in Oman.
Having real-time replication gives us the capability to recover from any data loss as quickly as possible. Without SnapMirror, we'd be relying completely on our data backup, and we'd be dealing with a 24-hour lag. With SnapMirror, data is updated every 15 minutes.
The main valuable feature is the snapshot technology which enables us to keep a safe copy in the event that a user accidentally deletes something or there is data corruption. The second beneficial feature is the real-time replication to our DR site. This is used for our DR failover, where we need to bring up our application services and databases from a secondary site. It reduces our RPO and RTO.
The NetApp storage is entry-level storage. I'd like to see compression and deduplication and encryption improved, and I'd like to have real-time replication so I have a zero RPO. Snapshotting always creates a delay so if they could come out with a block-by-block replication, that would be great.
I've been using this solution for four years.
We've never faced any problems with the stability. Whenever we needed to mount the replicated disk it always comes up without giving us any trouble. We were able to mount the data and the integrity was good. The technology is tested and proven.
The beauty of NetApp is that it's a scalable solution. When you want to increase the capacity beyond the range of a particular model, you can bring in a new model and plug it into the network and scale out seamlessly. There is no downtime. We have already upgraded the capacity a couple of times.
We have two levels of support. The primary support is from the local certified partner and they provide strong support. We also have access to NetApp support but have only used it once. The support came from the US or Canada. Overall, we're very happy with the support.
Positive
We have used multiple other storage solutions including RecoverPoint for our EMC VNX arrays. We've recently been using EMC high-end storage with SRDF, which can do a kind of real-time replication. It wasn't a matter of switching to NetApp, the product was purchased for a different purpose. We needed unified storage where SAN and NAS are provided from the same storage.
Deployment was very smooth and took around two weeks. Following that, we carried out our data migration which took time. We previously used a Windows file independent server with its own local disk and Windows OS. It's not compatible with NetApp so data had to be physically migrated. We also took extra time integrating with our antivirus software and configuring external tape libraries with NetApp. We had one staff member involved in the deployment and an engineer from our partners. We have close to 900 users. The solution requires routine tasks as opposed to maintenance. We have three or four people with access to this storage.
The ROI is very good because this is unified storage where you can have SAN and NAS without anything separate. After acquiring NetApp storage, we had two use cases whereby we needed active-active NAS shares for creating active-active applications, because using the backend, you'll have highly redundant components. SnapMirror has improved our service availability.
We purchased SnapMirror as a bundle which makes it less expensive. Everything is included in the price. The price is reasonable compared to some of the other flashy solutions.
I recommend this solution. If you're planning to build a DR site or secondary location where you need to replicate another similar storage, you don't need to buy if your DR is in the cloud. It's the same operating system as in the physical hardware. NetApp gives you the ability to replicate to cloud using the same modes of access.
I rate this solution nine out of 10.
