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.
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.
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.
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.
We have been a NetApp partner for three years. We have been distributing this solution for about a year and a half.
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."
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.
Positive
We started using Spotinst and then NetApp acquired the company. From that point on, we have done a lot of business together with NetApp.
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.
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.
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.
Our primary use case of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is for storing unstructured data, like towers, files, and systems. We use it for both public and private cloud storage solutions.
The most valuable features of Google Cloud Storage Nearline are:
As a lead developer, I struggled with the documentation for GCP. This could be improved by being made more clear.
Also, the interface for managing file storage in the buckets could be improved, together with improved search and filter options.
For the next release, I would like to see the solution behave more like a regular file-based system. Google Cloud Storage depends on OS, or it's supposed to be on Google Drive or another storage service. Google Storage files are sometimes very different. The solution should be expanded to be like a file-based system so that you can build a fast tool that stores files in Google Drive.
I have been using Google Cloud Storage Nearline for three years.
The solution is stable. I can only recall having one or two issues over the last three years.
We have seven daily users saving or pulling data, including three backend developers and three frontend developers. There are no limitations to the scalability of Google Cloud Storage Nearline.
The initial setup of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is easy to do.
Google Cloud Storage Nearline is very inexpensive. It costs us less than $50 a month to store our files. We use approximately 10 terabytes. Overall, I would rate the product a five out of five for affordability.
Overall, I would rate Google Cloud Storage Nearline an eight out of ten.
Our company uses the solution for backups, data pumps, files, and logs. Our projects connect to the solution rather than individual users connecting to it.
The solution is within the Amazon architecture so it easily connects with the cloud, hardware, or other services to move data. We do not need to connect to direct services to download data.
The solution requires you to buy and use Amazon services.
The solution could be more auto functional.
I have been using the solution for one year.
The stability is good so I rate it a ten out of ten.
The solution is scalable. It is easy to add gigabytes or more users and is more a question of budget.
I have not needed technical support.
The setup is very easy. Every junior Dev Ops can set up the solution and use data storage.
We implemented the solution in-house.
There is no deployment because it is a data storage solution.
The solution is very inexpensive at 50 cents per gigabyte, per month.
Some packages or discounts are available. Big companies can use the solution for free.
You can use the solution for projects that are within the Amazon architecture.
You cannot use the solution if you have your own services or data centers because it is dependent on the Amazon architecture.
If you have a service such as Azure in Amazon, then you can use the stream but not the solution directly.
The solution is great for data and cloud storage.
I recommend the solution and rate it an eight out of ten.
