NetApp Snapshot Reviews

The primary use of the solution is mainly for backup and recovery. We also use it for repurposing the workloads.

The most valuable features of the solution are the repurposing and backup features.

The solution could include more databases and make it accessible to the DBAs. The automation process should be run in a way where it could be run from the database itself.

In terms of stability, it’s very good. We've never lost anything. The only downside, I would say, is it does take a while to browse through. Sometimes I wait for maybe three minutes for something to come back so that I can get a proper listing and find what I need. If it's used with SnapManager, it does take long to update from the GUI.

Right now, we don’t plan to increase usage. We have 150-200 people on the solution currently. We will still use the solution, but not so extensively.

Technical support is good. However, sometimes we are put in touch with an agent that is not so knowledgable.

The initial setup was straightforward. Deployment took about three weeks.

Mostly we handled the deployment ourselves, however, we did hire a consultant to assist us with implementation.

We bought the license with the machine, so we put everything together and paid for a bundle.

We use a hybrid deployment model.

If you do have a storage device, I would strongly recommend that you implement it, especially with the ransomware that's going around. It offers quick recoveries for users, especially on file servers.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

The replication and SV protocol features are valuable.

The next release should include developments on the step center for purpose or bandwidth. The hardware has the capability of the hardware Snapshot. But if you want to integrate it for applications such as WIEM or databases with better purposes, it will be perfect.

We have been using the solution for approximately ten years and are currently using ONTAP 9.8, but we will upgrade to a newer version soon.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable, and approximately 80 people use it in our organization.

We have had a decent experience with customer service and support.

We previously used different solutions.

The initial setup is easy, and the duration depends on client requirements.

Implementation was done in-house.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. The key is good, but the next release can include developments in the step centre for bandwidth purposes. I advise users considering the solution to seek out professional integrators.

Storage-based snapshots without an operational or management overhead, which is usually the case with any backup software.

Did you lose your VM? No worries, spin up a new VM and attach to data. Set a policy and tag it during storage provisioning. You never have to worry about maintaining millions of files stored across several thousands of virtual machines. 

• It centralizes your data. 
• It lets your storage take care of backup, DR, and BCP. 
• You never have to worry about protecting your virtual machines. 

If there is a way to save more on the number of snapshots, it should be included in the next release.

If your data is more dynamic and changes frequently, you need more granular retention levels and need to save it for a longer duration, then this becomes a real challenge.

One thing about Snapshot is that it can be used for so many things. Say, for example, I want to take a backup of my database at a scheduled time, I can take a snapshot of that on whatever schedule I want. The snapshot takes just a few seconds to record. During the capture and while taking the snapshot, the database is frozen for me for only a few seconds that the snapshot takes. I can now mount that particular snapshot — or any snapshot — and then begin to do a clone of this database. This means I do not have to take the database offline to do a backup.  

That is just one example of what this product can do. Many companies find it very, very useful to use this feature for their backup purposes. I do understand that quite a number of enterprise-class backup solutions like NetBackup and other backup solutions in this category now have integrated snapshots into their solutions as well following NetApp's lead. It just shows that other companies are aware of the fact that it is a very good feature as a way of dealing with backups.  

In another case, some of my customers do backups every hour and some backup every two hours, depending on their requirements. The reason for that is they want to protect themselves in case there is any corruption or anything happens to their data. If so, they can roll back to the most current and the most useful version of their database.  

Snapshot also comes in very handy with their cloning feature. Say, for example, you want to create a new product and you want to make sure that you test the product on your live database, but you obviously do not want your development to have any impact on your live database. This is an instance where it is useful to do what NetApp calls a clone.  

You create the clone and a current snapshot is embedded in the clone. So now you can take a copy of that volume of whatever you wanted to clone, and then you can begin to use this for the development of your new product. The footprint is very small in the sense that it is already data that you modified and that takes up very little space. You cannot modify any of the live data and you cannot add any new data. The actual memory space that you are using by working with the clone is almost zero but it is the same data captured at the moment where the snapshot was created.  

So those are a few very good advantages that the Snapshot product has. The ability to clone is unique. The cloning feature is called FlexClone.  

In the FlexClone, I currently have not seen a need for any particular improvements because it is already so flexible and so robust. I do not think that most of my customers have actually exercised the features that are already embedded within the design of FlexClone.  

I am not seeing how these features that the customers already have but do not often need to take advantage of really need to be improved. They are very useful when needed, but just are not often used. We are talking about clients in demanding industries like in banking and financial industries, and also in oil and gas. If they do not need more functionality and can perform the tasks that they need without interruption because of the current feature set, there is really nothing to add.  

There is one thing about documentation. The documentation is always very good. But you know, there are some people who are very lazy when it comes to reading documents. This is more of a problem than the application.  

If there is a problem with the product itself, I don't know what it is. If NetApp wants to have a bigger share of the market, I would suggest they look at the pricing in comparison to the competition and make the appropriate change. The pricing should be lowered. If the pricing could be made more attractive, then without a doubt they are going to have more customers and they will advance in the marketplace. No doubt about that.  

I have been working with NetApp Snapshot for about 16 years as a reseller.  

NetApp is extremely stable. No doubt about that.  

Scalability is very good. For example, if you start with the most elementary package, you can easily migrate to the mid-range package. All you need to do is change your contracts. Once you address your contracts, the product is already scaled to the mid-range. The same thing applies to the enterprise. Because of the way it is structured, you have the entire structure of the product already there. The solution that we use for the entry-level is the same solution that we use for the mid-range and also the same structure we use for the enterprise version. So the only thing that makes a difference are the contracts. This structure makes it very easy to scale — vertically and also horizontally. So the scalability aspect of the product is very, very good.  

We have all types of customers. Our clients are small, medium or enterprise companies. If they are a small company just starting, there is a NetApp version for them and they can start with the minimum contract. If they are a medium-sized company, there is a version available for their needs. If they are an enterprise-class company, they can start with the enterprise contract. Mid-sized and small clients can scale up as they need to just by paying more to upgrade the contract. It is very scalable.  

One last thing is that you can have both NAS (Network-attached Storage) and SAN (Storage Area Network) in the same storage component. So when they buy the product they can use the same storage for both NAS and SAN and everything is embedded in the system.  

When it comes to the technical support system, they keep tabs on whatever they know has been reported and what has been resolved as far as bugs. They know what patches or updates were issued to resolve the problem. If you have any issues, you report them straight-away. All the people within the loop of the support team are copied on the report so they all know what is going on. That information is also available to the central support family as if you have one dedicated technical service representative.  

They take immediate action to make sure that whatever problem has been reported is taken care of within the specified time that you purchase from NetApp. So if you purchase to have a resolution within four hours or within twelve hours, as long as the fix is available, you will receive your resolution within that time. To the best of my knowledge, NetApp has been able to keep to those timelines and meet the demands.  

If it is the next delivery day, then they will send the bug fix to your office. It is very easy to repair things. You locate the component that needs to be replaced, you remove it and put in the new one and you are ready to go, straight-away. It is very easy.  

In my old position as the managing director of the company, I did not go into that level of detail with the clients as far as being directly involved in the setup. There were other people who we sent out on location. So I have a broad overview of what NetApp software needs for the setup.  

I think that NetApp is very easy to set up. To put it in perspective for someone that has never worked with this product before, this usually means that they will be starting a migration into NetApp. They start this by doing the initial installation of NetApp. Then they create your aggregate data set, then you create your volumes, then you create your nodes. Then you map your nodes to your server and then you are good to go. So it is very straightforward from that perspective. It may be more complex if a client has special requirements. This is the same for most products.  

As far as their licensing costs, the licensing is paid on a yearly basis. The organization pays for the licensing based on the software and the capacity that they choose. Once the license expires, you can renew it for another year up to the time that the software is supported. As soon as the support ends for the software it is unavailable. You have to update the license and you need to re-purchase storage.  

Updating is really not an alternative anyway in a competitive market because technology is not stagnant. Technologies advance for many reasons and there are more capabilities available all the time. It is much better for the user if they make sure to keep tabs on the technological advancements.  

My advice to people who are considering NetApp as a solution is that rather than just looking at the solution and what it does, they should look at it in relation to their business requirements.  

I believe that the sophistication of Snapshot is not necessary for every company because of what you have to pay for it. Any company that needs to make backups can use the products from any vendor who sells a product in this category because the product is going to make the backups. The advantage you have with Snapshot, in addition, is to have the availability to make very quick backups. So even if you do not want to use the resources to backup data by uploading it to separate storage, your backup is still available for you intact within NetApp, and you can then do the uploading. So that is a very good feature. No doubt about that.  

But this idea of evaluating need applies to all companies with respect to what they are doing. They need to consider which product fits them.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this NetApp Snapshot product as a ten-out-of-ten.  

In the case of Snapshot, you can quickly grasp how to use something within a minute by reading the documentation. Instantly, after you start using it, the process always becomes ingrained in your brain. The software is so well developed and mature that the processes are not changing often. To the best of my knowledge as someone who is using NetApp for 14 years, it is an important thing to have the processes in the application as well-thought-out and stable. Although there have been improvements over time, NetApp is a very stable application that is easy to stay familiar with.  

In fact, it may not be the application that needs to change so much as the clients using it. They may need to get some storage devices replaced because of the Snapshot features are so robust. That is also how NetApp gained ground in the market with that particular app: by being the leader.  

Our primary use is to take a snapshot of a current data state. We can use that, for example, if you make some changes — even minor changes database — you take snapshots of the data in a state that you believe the data is good. After that, you make a change to something in the data or maybe something happens where you lose some information or you make some other mistake — accidentally delete data — you can revert to the snapshot and your data will be restored to the point where the snapshot was taken.

The point is to create states so that it is impossible to lose big data. Sometimes people use Snapshot for other purposes — which is not correct — like for making backups. It is not a good idea. You can, technically, use it for that purpose, but I do not recommend it. Some of the information is saved on the same physical media when using Snapshot as a backup. The backup is on the same physical media as the original information, so if something were to happen to the physical media, you lose also backups.

Snapshot has improved our operations by allowing the opportunity to manipulate data sets without having to worry about making major mistakes with the data.

Snapshot has a specific purpose as a means to take a temporary picture of the current state of the data. This is its main feature but also the most important and valuable. Really, it is the only thing that it does.

Because the product is so mature — it was developed 25 years ago — every major feature that should be added to the product is already added. It doesn't seem that this product can be improved upon in significant ways. It is used to make a snapshot of the current data, that is what it needs to do and it does exactly that. I don't think that it can be improved at all. It is like a wheel: it is a round wheel and it is doing its job. You can make a wheel with a different shape, but it won't be better than the round one.

Rather than the product itself, the one thing that could possibly be improved is that NetApp global support is not very efficient. I had some issues that I contacted support about and sometimes they react to issues slowly. But the reaction time may be according to the exact product in the NetApp line and the hardware being used. There are different products in the NetApp Snapshot line, built with different approaches. Some are more difficult to use.

But from my experience and what I have heard from other users, the level of support in general for NetApp should be improved for better global coverage.

The Snapshot product just works. In my opinion, you can't talk about the stability of this small component which is just part of a whole system. It is something like talking about the stability of a screwdriver. On the other hand, I think that actually the entire NetApp system is mature and stable.

By itself, it isn't really correct to talk about the scalability of Snapshot. Snapshot just takes what is essentially a photo of the current state of the data. That photo itself cannot be scalable. As far as the whole system — such as the storage capacity and the hardware components — this is scalable, but not the Snapshot itself. Imagine a hard disk which is part of your computer and this computer can be part of a larger network. The network can be scalable or not scalable. Your computer, which contains the hard disk, can be scalable or not scalable. You can add CPUs, you can add memory, you can add additional hard drives and so on. But the hard disk inside your computer, can not be scalable or not scalable. It's just a component.

Claims from my colleagues concur that they are not entirely happy with the level of global support. I cannot say that NetApp support is bad because it's not. But, for example, my colleague from Russia claims that they had some problems conversing with and getting support in some cases. Not all cases. It highly depends on the country and your location as to whether support is available during convenient hours.

But another problem, for example, is the availability of spare parts. Some hardware and spare parts are available subject to local customs procedures. So, when someone makes a claim that support procedures are slow, it may not be NetApp that is the problem because they can not do anything about the customs. It's a problem caused by local laws, maybe the importers, maybe customs, maybe someone else and not the vendor at all. Blame about slow support may be getting put on the company when it is not their problem at all.

Installing NetApp is not like a fridge where you just plug it in a power outlet and you are okay. No. It is necessary to know something about the product. NetApp writes excellent documentation and they also have some resources for partners that make it easier to use. I do not think that it is highly complex because I am familiar with it, but it is necessary to have done some preparation and gain some familiarity before the installation. You can not drive a car without the training and without passing the exams and so on. It is the same with Snapshot.

The need for assistance and the complexity of the installation depends on the product. If we are talking about Data ONTAP, you should have a technical background or maybe use resources like a vendor or partner to help with the installation. If we are talking about the HCI, you don't need to have a strong technical background. Many people decide to use or are moving to HCI solutions because they are simpler for the customer. At the same time, it is not quite as good of a solution for me. But people use what they want to have and sometimes ease-of-use is more important than specialized functionality.

But the coding for the more classic solution, Data ONTAP, requires some technical background or assistance to install.

A lot of vendors have a Snapshot solution. Snapshot is just the name of a solution by NetApp and represents one approach. Different vendors have different types of solutions for capturing data states. For example, it's like a diesel car, a car that runs on ethanol, or electro cars. All of them are cars. It is the same situation with the Snapshot solutions — they all make snapshots. NetApp invented it first and then other vendors just created something which looks like and behaves like Snapshot. NetApp's Snapshot is better — if we compare with all the storage solutions — because there is no performance overhead.

If we are talking about classic storage, the products are not so different if we are comparing NetApp and other snapshot solutions. In my opinion, Data ONTAP storage performance is very good, and the other vendors are just trying to achieve the same performance.

On a scale from one to ten, with one being the worst and ten being the best, I would rate NetApp's Snapshot as a six or seven. The problem with offering advice about this product is that it is just a component of a system. It is almost like somebody is asking you about how skilled you are with computers. If you think that skill with computers means you can push a button and something happens, you may be very skilled pushing that one button, but the skill is just pushing a button. You can press it or not. But if you have a whole keyboard, you won't press only one button. You buy the keyboard and use the whole keyboard. Some buttons will be pressed more frequently than other buttons. But you can not have a keyboard with half of the buttons or can't use a keyboard that is missing the one button you know how to use. On a keyboard, you can not say one button is more useful than another one. A keyboard is a whole thing. The NetApp solution is not just the Snapshot solution. This is a small part of the storage system. It is very useful — just excellent — but you can not use it without storage and other parts. You need the whole solution. It would be like buying a wheel without the car. You should not pay for something you can't use or have no need for in the first place.

I can answer generally about the NetApp system, and I think it is a seven. 

I am using the on-prem deployment model of this solution. 

Compared to the traditional way we did backups, with Snapshot it takes us less time. It has improved my organization by saving us time. 

The speed is the most valuable feature. The interface is user-friendly and we can do a lot of customization with it. 

It's very stable. We had one bug, but regardless, the solution worked as expected and we didn't feel any impact regarding the bug. It was very straightforward to install the parts and the service keeps running, so I'm happy with the solution.

Scalability is different from the other solutions that we have used. We haven't needed to scale yet but if we were to, it has good capabilities. We have around 200 users using this solution. 

Their technical support is very good. 

We used standard backup solutions by Dell EMC. We actually preferred Dell EMC solutions. 

The initial setup was very straightforward. The deployment took around half a day. 

We used an integrator's help for the deployment but it was very simple to install and to use. It's very straightforward.

It's not too expensive. 

I'm quite happy with the solution and the integration it has with other products. I would recommend it to someone considering it. 

I would rate it with a nine out of ten. Not a perfect ten because there is one point off to give it room for improvement. 

We have VMs deployed throughout the organization and we use this solution to take storage snapshots at the VM-level.

The most valuable feature is the integration with Azure. We are able to easily do Azure backups and restores.

The dashboards are in need of improvement.

The configuration could be improved by providing more options, in particular, during the initial setup phase.

It would be helpful if more functionality could be built around migrating files from on-premises to Azure because we have had issues when using Snapshot with very large database files, from 18 TB to 32 TB.

I have been using NetApp Snapshot for more than two years.

NetApp Snapshot is stable and we have been depending on it for more than two years.

We have had to contact technical support a couple of times because of some issues that we were facing, and we are satisfied with the support. Our issues were resolved.

The initial setup is straightforward, although if they provided more options then it would be better. I cannot recall the length of time required to deploy the solution, but one of the restorations that I performed recently took three hours.

NetApp Snapshot is a product that we depend on and I recommend. It has helped us in the case of installations and other issues. Our main complaints are about the dashboard and configuration options.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The data protection provides peace of mind.

More reliable and accessible data protection than backups alone.

Specialized applications like SnapManager for Exchange (SME) are finicky.

My experience with SME is that it is not as stable at the overall Snap platform (which is part of ONTAP, not a separate product like the SnapManager products). SME does a fine job of backing up Exchange databases, but due to the HA nature of DAGs, there are times when a primary database switches from server to server. When this happens, SME does not elegantly handle that transition; as a result, there can be missed snapshots. This means gaps in your recoverable timeframe.

I'm not sure how to fix the issue as I'm not a software developer. I'm sure there are complexities that I don't see.

More than six years.

Only with SME, especially going between versions. So, rarely.

No.

Very good.

Straightforward, once you fully comprehend the concept. It's not 'simple', but it works well and is comprehensible.

Do it! Don't not do it.