What is our primary use case?
Generally what we show our customers are possibilities for using Cloud Volumes ONTAP for multi-cloud environments, to do disaster recovery and to back up sites.
Our company provides backup and DR professional services. We allocate people to support our customers' needs in these areas. We implement the solution that the customer requires.
How has it helped my organization?
By creating snapshots and a multi-cloud dictionary, the solution doesn't have to replicate all the data. The dictionary can point to some of the data on another site and create a correspondence between sites. It's going to lower the storage cost. For example, it saves my clients between 50 and 60 percent.
What is most valuable?
One of the features our customers like is that it can be used from one cloud provider to another. They can use it from Azure to AWS or vice versa. That way, they don't need to use the same provider for backups. If something goes wrong on the primary site, having the same data in another cloud service provider is important.
What needs improvement?
We have customers that are still using IBM mainframes and that very old SNA architecture from IBM. There are questions about how you interconnect the data on the mainframe side. Those requirements are just for our big customers. We have one, here in Brazil, that is very big that uses a lot of mainframe storage. But I don't know if it's worth it for NetApp to invest in developing products to include mainframes for a few customers.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been a NetApp partner for three years. We have been distributing this solution for about a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I cannot precisely say what the SLA availability is for the platforms, but in general, the stability of the cloud service provider, whether you put it in AWS, Azure, or even in GCP is very good. There are very few moments during the year that those platforms have instability. Normally their availability is at "four-nine's."
How are customer service and support?
We have people assigned to us from NetApp to support us in both pre-sales and post-sales. On the post-sales side, our customer may open a case with us and we will open a case with NetApp.
NetApp's support is responsive.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We started using Spotinst and then NetApp acquired the company. From that point on, we have done a lot of business together with NetApp.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is familiar because many software as a service providers have created the same types of stacks and permissions and roles. We are able to use the same skills to do these kinds of installations.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Overall, the pricing of NetApp is aggressive and the pricing becomes more aggressive as the amount of data increases. The cost for a given volume of data that you are storing becomes lower. The greater the volume of data, the cheaper the license.
With increased volume, it is expected that the cost of each megabyte will be less. It's not a "wow," or a compelling feature. It's much more compelling when you say that, by using the solution, the data replication will be improved. Those are more technical arguments and better than saying if you increase your volume you're going to decrease your price per megabyte. Other features are also more compelling than that.
The licensing is very straightforward, with the cost based on the volume.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
In the past, we have tried to resell other solutions, like Wasabi, and we evaluated the Commvault solution. NetApp has many solutions for us, not just the storage and itself. It doesn't just create a repository for saving things with a lower cost. NetApp has cloud products as well as an open-source project. That variety of offerings is the main aspect that is important for us.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner Reseller