I never have to deal with anything. More importantly for me, is that I don't have to buy an admin. We're a small startup and definitely, our most expensive resource is people. I was looking for something that I could just set up and not have to pay for an expert. Let the guys at NetApp worry about all that jiggery-pokery and I just say, "Yes, this is what I want. I want a file system that's shareable across six data centers." So that's what we needed, I just didn't want to pay for somebody to be looking after it. It seemed like a pretty good solution. We gave it a go, had a couple of problems setting everything up, and they helped us out. I don't think anybody's touched it ever since, it's been off and running without any problems. My advice to anybody considering this solution is to try it. Try it and experiment with it before you put it into production, just to make sure that it scales to the needs you have. In our case, we don't have very difficult needs, so it was pretty easy for us to test that. You can implement things on the cloud with GCP as a service and have a well-known brand behind it and have a good experience. I was sort of surprised that Google actually didn't provide their own solution, but after using NetApp now I see why. They just didn't have the technology so their partnership with Google was perfect in that case. It worked out pretty well for us. I would rate NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud a ten out of ten. I've had zero problems, so I can't complain about anything. My only issue is not with the technology, but the salespeople getting in contact with me to make sure I'm up to date. We're a very small fish, so I understand why we get ignored. But we're obviously big fans, so that's good.
You need to plan out your architecture before you jump into any of these cloud environments. The good thing about NetApp is that they run on all three platforms, Azure, AWS, and Google. You need to have some idea of the architecture that you're putting in place, so you don't have to re-tool the thing later. We're using NetApp's admin tools, but not all of them yet because we're new to Google. And their team has been very proactive in working with us and helping us configure our environment. The service helped us to quickly move large numbers of files to the cloud. We have 15,000 patients' data that is being converted into this new system and we are doing data migration of about 100 gigabytes of storage. It's complex because we have to use HL7 protocols for that. That is an EDI language used for healthcare. That language stands by itself and there are different protocols to use when doing the migration and the mapping, and then the conversion of the HL7 transactions.
Cloud Infrastructure Responsible at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Feb 15, 2021
It is a good service for high availability that is very easy to configure. It is also very easy to put into our system running with NetApp. Currently, it is being used approximately 10 times a month. We have plans to include this service in other systems. Keep in mind that the network feeds require a special configuration. I would rate this service as an eight (out of 10).
Learn what your peers think about NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
NetApp® Cloud Volumes for Google Cloud is a fully managed or self-managed file service that is integrated into Google Cloud with the multiprotocol support, performance, and availability required to run business-critical applications. It is designed to provide massively parallel shared access to thousands of Google Compute Engine and Google Kubernetes Engine instances, enabling your applications to achieve high levels of aggregate throughput and IOPS with consistent low latencies.
Use cases....
I never have to deal with anything. More importantly for me, is that I don't have to buy an admin. We're a small startup and definitely, our most expensive resource is people. I was looking for something that I could just set up and not have to pay for an expert. Let the guys at NetApp worry about all that jiggery-pokery and I just say, "Yes, this is what I want. I want a file system that's shareable across six data centers." So that's what we needed, I just didn't want to pay for somebody to be looking after it. It seemed like a pretty good solution. We gave it a go, had a couple of problems setting everything up, and they helped us out. I don't think anybody's touched it ever since, it's been off and running without any problems. My advice to anybody considering this solution is to try it. Try it and experiment with it before you put it into production, just to make sure that it scales to the needs you have. In our case, we don't have very difficult needs, so it was pretty easy for us to test that. You can implement things on the cloud with GCP as a service and have a well-known brand behind it and have a good experience. I was sort of surprised that Google actually didn't provide their own solution, but after using NetApp now I see why. They just didn't have the technology so their partnership with Google was perfect in that case. It worked out pretty well for us. I would rate NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud a ten out of ten. I've had zero problems, so I can't complain about anything. My only issue is not with the technology, but the salespeople getting in contact with me to make sure I'm up to date. We're a very small fish, so I understand why we get ignored. But we're obviously big fans, so that's good.
You need to plan out your architecture before you jump into any of these cloud environments. The good thing about NetApp is that they run on all three platforms, Azure, AWS, and Google. You need to have some idea of the architecture that you're putting in place, so you don't have to re-tool the thing later. We're using NetApp's admin tools, but not all of them yet because we're new to Google. And their team has been very proactive in working with us and helping us configure our environment. The service helped us to quickly move large numbers of files to the cloud. We have 15,000 patients' data that is being converted into this new system and we are doing data migration of about 100 gigabytes of storage. It's complex because we have to use HL7 protocols for that. That is an EDI language used for healthcare. That language stands by itself and there are different protocols to use when doing the migration and the mapping, and then the conversion of the HL7 transactions.
It is a good service for high availability that is very easy to configure. It is also very easy to put into our system running with NetApp. Currently, it is being used approximately 10 times a month. We have plans to include this service in other systems. Keep in mind that the network feeds require a special configuration. I would rate this service as an eight (out of 10).