NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP (CVO) - subscription

Customers' main use cases for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP involve leveraging storage on hyperscalers, which means any cloud service such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, where each hyperscaler has its own storage solutions such as AWS's set of storage or Azure's blob storage and block storage. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP provides a virtual version of NetApp that allows us to use cloud storage while getting the same feeling as on-premises storage. It offers features such as deduplication, compression, compaction, snapshot, and ransomware protection which are not available with native storage solutions of these hyperscalers.

By using NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, I can utilize backend storage from AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud and enjoy features such as deduplication and compression, making it a positive point for this solution. Customers already using on-premises NetApp storage such as FAS, AFF, or ASA can experience the same functionality on the cloud with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, which adds significant value.

The best features of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP include deduplication, compaction, and autonomous ransomware technology that native cloud storage solutions in AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud do not support. Moreover, NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP allows the use of multiple protocols including NFS, CIFS, and iSCSI, whereas native options may only support NFS and iSCSI. Customers already using on-premises NetApp storage such as FAS, AFF, or ASA can experience the same functionality on the cloud with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, which adds significant value.

For data protection, customers can take advantage of the Snapshot technology available with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP. This technology facilitates data recovery by allowing snapshots to be stored either on the same storage or on a disaster recovery (DR) storage. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP helps us to take snapshots and store them on the same storage, with options for migration or replication of those snapshots to different storage, including on-premises DR storage or other cloud storage, providing excellent disaster recovery capabilities.

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP does have a bit of initial complexity for users who are new to the system. Although it isn't overwhelmingly complex, first-time users may find it challenging until they become accustomed to the interface and functionality.

I have been in touch with NetApp support, and my opinion is that support is generally very good. There are instances where they take longer to respond or resolve issues, especially when customers have urgent needs, but ultimately, resolution is achieved.

I have been working with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP for more than three years.

I have no complaints regarding the stability of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, as everything is functioning well and we have not received any customer complaints in this area. It is very stable and performs excellently.

The scalability of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP positively influences operational performance during peak demand or unexpected outages. It allows for custom performance tuning through the Quality of Service (QoS) feature, which enables the creation of volumes mapped to specific servers requiring high IOPS. For instance, I can set a value for minimum IOPS to ensure that demanding applications consistently receive the performance they need.

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP does have a bit of initial complexity for users who are new to the system. Although it isn't overwhelmingly complex, first-time users may find it challenging until they become accustomed to the interface and functionality.

In the beginning, the setup of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP does present a little bit of complexity, but it isn't excessively complicated. With hands-on experience, users find it becomes much easier to manage.

The setup of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP deserves a rating of nine.

Customers do see a significant return on investment (ROI) with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP.

From what I hear, customers can save around 30 to 40% through the use of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, although I don't have specific numbers to share.

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is actually quite reasonable in price compared to other native cloud storage options. For example, a customer using 100 TB of AWS storage would not benefit from deduplication, compression, or compaction. However, if they use NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, they can operate efficiently with only 70 TB of storage, saving both money and space, as deduplication and compression significantly reduce storage needs.

I cannot think of any significant challenges that NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP has from a storage perspective. It already provides comprehensive solutions, and there are automations and classifications available, so I believe it offers everything required from a storage perspective.

I highly recommend that customers using native cloud storage from hyperscalers transition to NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP. It offers numerous features and functionalities such as inline deduplication, compression, compaction, autonomous ransomware protection, snapshot technology, and flex cache that are unavailable with other hyperscalers. By moving to NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, customers gain significant value.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP a nine.

I work in healthcare, so we store a lot of data on-prem and in the cloud. We are using multiple vendors and platforms. ONTAP was an excellent choice because everything is integrated. We haven't gotten into the AI features, but the security is pretty good.

NetApp's Integration with AWS has helped us because we had a tough time transferring data when we used an ONTAP competitor as our storage partner. They don't have integration with AWS tools, so we had to figure it out on our own.

ONTAP has built-in integration and allows us to replicate a copy to our second data center. Everything is in one channel. It's possible without the technology, but it's more time-consuming. NetApp saves us a lot of time, and the administration is simpler.

NetApp's support could improve.

We had Dell EMC. Dell EMC was good initially, but their customer support isn't so great.

I rate NetApp 10 out of 10.

The solution helps to keep production data.

The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site.

Multiprotocol support in NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is beneficial because it allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution. This feature eliminates the need to purchase different types of storage.

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP should improve its support.

I have been working with the product for five years.

The solution's performance is good. It depends on your chosen model and configuration, but even the lower-end models perform well. I rate its stability a nine out of ten.

I rate NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP's scalability as ten out of ten.

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP's deployment is easy, and I rate it a ten out of ten. It can be completed in half an hour and depends on customer configurations.

The solution's pricing is reasonable.

I've worked in the IT industry for over ten years, dealing with various storage solutions from vendors like HPE and OEMs. The tool stands out due to its unique features and functions that protect and manage customer data.

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten.

We use it mostly for distributed files. For example, one of our customers is in construction. So they have centralized NetApp storage and set up replication with the Cloud volume ONTAP. Several branch users access the Cloud instance. And whatever work that they do on the Civeo instant gets replicated to the client's data center on the on-premise NetApp storage. And they use GFC with Seavio for a seamless experience.

So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.

So one of the clients had an on-premise 100 terabytes. When that same data went to CVO, he was able to reduce it to somewhere around 20/25 dB. So he was able to reduce using DTO compression, the consumption of this underlying cloud storage. And, obviously, with the licenses, now you need only 25 terabytes instead of 100 terabytes.

There's not much scope for improvement. I think the solution is more restricted with the underlying cloud. The performance of the single instances depends on the performance of the underlying cloud resource.

I have been using NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP for two years.

NetApp is stable.

NetApp is scalable.

The technical support team is wonderful.

It is easy because Blue XP makes it very easy. Just a few clicks. It's a little bit tricky for customers who are very new to Cloud. While they are the traditional customers who use their data center, if they are not well versed with cloud, they might face challenges in setting it up because that's more dependent on public cloud vendor, not the NetApp.Sometimes the internal support renewal is an issue because the NetApp system sees it as an expired license. So when you try to renew it, it is not reflected in the NetApp portal. So the flow of the support could be improved.

For enterprise customers, it's a very cost effective. But in the SMB segment, yeah, pricing is a little bit challenge for your time.

I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten.

It is for our databases and for Linux. We also use it for backups. We are replicating snapshots across, so we have different scenarios.

By implementing this solution, we wanted to achieve simplicity. We were trying to get away from reconfiguring everything all the time to work so that we could just get down and implement things within a very small window of time. They would not require a lot of reconfiguring each time.

The main benefit is accessibility. We are able to access it from anywhere. We are able to move things to what we need or are able to pull back the data when it is needed very quickly. We can restore the databases when I need to.

We have a single pane of glass. It helps a lot because time is always the essence. The simplicity comes in handy. It saves quite a bit of time. I do not have to sit down and do all the things. I am able to go in and hit a couple of things. I can deploy, modify, or do whatever needs to be done. It takes seconds versus hours. Once you learn the tool, it is very simple to work from the same point. When it first came out, it was very clunky. It took some time. It took some learning, whereas now, you can catch up pretty quickly. After you start to fine-tune it a little bit, you are able to work with it. Earlier, it was a pain.

I can see how much storage I have left and what I am working with. I can see the alerts. It gives me time to start working on what I need to procure at that point.

It has helped to right-size our workloads. It has been great. It has significantly dropped our downtime for volumes and improved the access for clients. It has helped out a lot in those aspects, so I can stay ahead of the game instead of behind the game. That is where that tool comes in handy.

It is great when it comes down to pinpointing problem areas. It catches things before they become a problem, so I can keep my clients up and going and functioning. It has been great in that aspect.

I am a big fan of analytics because they give me the chance to be able to keep the clients up and going. That is my biggest thing because when they are down, we lose a lot of money, and we lose a lot of clients, so the ability to make sure that I am up almost 100% percent and being able to stay ahead of the game is a huge win for us.

The ease of use in terms of how the product works is valuable. We are able to work with it and deploy the storage that we need.

The dashboard is a little bit clunky. I like to see it a little bit more on the simplistic side. I would like to be able to create my own widgets and customize what I want to see a little bit more versus what is currently there. That would be helpful so that when I log in, I go straight to my widget or my board without going to multiple places to get to what I need to find or build.

We have been using NetApp ONTAP for 18 years.

It is very easy to scale. It takes next to no time to be able to do that. It is very simple and easy to do that part. You just need to get a license and add the storage.

I love NetApp support. If the first level cannot help you, then the next level can. We can get to them fairly quickly. If not, the reps or the sales can jump in and help us as well. We have never gone without some kind of help in one way or another. If there is a problem, they will jump on and bring on tier two and tier three, and write a script, or do whatever needs to be done. I would rate their support a nine out of ten.

We have been mostly using the NetApp tools. We have been trying to stay native as much as we can for a long time.

It has been a while. From what I remember, it was not too bad. It could be a little bit more simplistic, but it was not too bad to be out. Once you learn it, it gets easier.

It is a great product. It gives you the heads-up for what you need. You can move clients around and access the clients from different locations. You can also do a restore when you need to be at different locations. That has helped enormously. It has helped drive the cost down. Our clients are able to stay up and function consistently. There are a good 30% to 40% savings.

We did evaluate other products, but that was a long time ago.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

I work for the government, so all of our information is classified. We do a lot of on-prem with NetApp backup storage. I'm also interested in the recovery features. I'm going to take that back to the team and see what we can do with that.

The upgrades, storage, and recovery features are some of the big aspects we discussed two weeks ago. We have an overflow in other locations that I can't talk about. We had a bunch of questions about what we would do in the event of a disaster to recover data that's been there for the past 15 to 20 years.

CVO gives us the ability to access data as quickly as possible, which is critical because of the mission set we handle. Some things cannot wait. For example, we tried having the data in the cloud itself, but it took too long for us to retrieve it from cold or deep storage. If we have it ONTAP or on-prem, it's so much easier to pull it within minutes.

CVO has reduced the amount of storage significantly. The solution has saved costs. We've done a cost analysis of on-prem and then the cloud. On-prem is where it's at for our mission. Some organizations can store their data in the cloud and not access it for years. We need data constantly and require the ability to dig into data from five to 10 years ago.

I have used NetApp CVO for around 10 years.

The performance is top-notch. We've never had anything go down. If it does go down, it will be back up within minutes.

I rate NetApp CVO 10 out of 10 for scalability. We can get more capacity on demand.

I rate NetApp support 10 out of 10. NetApp support is easy to access. Even a five-year-old can call and get the support they need because it's easy and accessible.

It was up and running prior to me getting there.

We have seen an internal return on investment daily because we're saving time retrieving files.

The pricing of CVO is fair across the board. It's exactly where it should be for the data we're getting. The price-performance ratio is right where we need it to be. I've seen solutions that cost more and some that cost less, but it's reasonable.

I rate NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP 10 out of 10

We rely on NetApp Coud Volumes ONTAP for a wide range of purposes, including VMware, SQL, Oracle, and file storage. It serves as our go-to storage solution for almost every use case.

The transition to the AFF storage solution significantly improved our organization by reducing our physical footprint. We went from a FAS system with two controllers and twenty drive shelves to just four controllers and two drive shelves with the AFF. This led to substantial reductions in power consumption and space requirements in our data center.

The most valuable feature is its exceptional performance and storage efficiency. This efficiency translates to significant cost savings for us.

There is room for improvement in tier one support, especially with potential language barriers and communication challenges.

I have been using it for ten years.

We've experienced a few minor issues with stability, but we haven't encountered any significant outages.

Scalability has been a trouble-free experience. When we decided to increase our storage capacity by incorporating an additional drive shelf, the engineer collaborated with us, and the expansion process was executed smoothly, ensuring there was no downtime or interference with our production operations.

We rarely encounter performance issues, and we prefer to handle most of our troubleshooting internally. Our experience with tier-one support from NetApp has been somewhat lacking, and it varies depending on the support representative. We aim to resolve issues ourselves whenever possible, despite paying for support. On an overall scale of one to ten, I would rate the support as average.

Over the years, we've tried various storage solutions like Nessus, Nimble, and IBM. However, about a year ago, we made the switch to NetApp, and we've been quite satisfied with their performance and have remained loyal to their products ever since.

The initial setup has been quite straightforward.

Cost reduction has been a significant benefit. We've been able to lower our expenses by minimizing the number of devices and drive shelves needed. Instead of having twenty drive shelves, we now only require two. This reduction in hardware has had a positive impact on power consumption, cooling, and maintenance costs, leading to overall cost savings.

We find the pricing to be favorable due to the educational sector we belong to.

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

We use the full suite of ONTAP use cases across both on-premises and cloud environments, covering various applications and scenarios.

The primary reason for our continued loyalty to NetApp is their Snap technology, which is widely recognized as the main factor. It offers ease of use and a comprehensive suite of applications, including features like SnapMirror, SnapVault, and unified snapshot management, all bundled into a single product. With just three individuals, we're able to efficiently manage petabytes of data, which significantly reduces our operational costs.

My main concern with ONTAP is the rapid pace of technological advancements. For instance, NetApp introduced features that I'm still trying to find a solution for, specifically in the realm of cloud file storage services and infrastructure. There is currently no direct cloud integration, and you need to establish connections through Active Directory or access data via SIPs or NFS mounts. It would be fantastic if NetApp could offer a solution that's as user-friendly as Google Drive for seamless cloud storage integration.

I have been using it for twenty two years.

Its ability to detect ransomware or external threats has been highly effective. While we haven't experienced any actual ransomware attacks, we have encountered threats. These threats are promptly addressed by our vigilant security team before they can infiltrate our environment. The stability has significantly improved over time. In the past, there were challenges, but now it's much more reliable. It simplifies our workflow, eliminating the need to navigate through various steps on our desktop.

Regarding scalability, it performs admirably. I haven't encountered any issues with its ability to scale. However, it's worth noting that NetApp faces stiff competition in the realm of private channel solutions.

The support services have undergone significant changes over time. While they were excellent during the initial phase, the experience has become challenging lately. The positive aspect is that I have a long history of working with NetApp, so I possess in-depth knowledge, but for new team members or peers, it's quite a struggle to work with support. When you call in, you often start at the first level, but most of our issues require third-level assistance, which means navigating through the first and second levels before reaching someone who can effectively address the problem. This process can be frustrating and time-consuming.

The complexity of the initial setup varies depending on the individual handling it. If I'm the one setting it up, it's relatively straightforward as I have extensive experience working with it.

The current process is quite straightforward. However, I believe there is room for improvement, particularly when it comes to migrating non-NetApp data to ONTAP or the cloud. While there are some existing tools, they don't offer the robustness required for seamless migration of third-party data to ONTAP.The integration with AWS native services, like DataSync and backup, is actually quite impressive. We've tested it, and while it's a good product, regrettably, we currently don't have a need for it.

The cost is quite high.

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

In some places, it helps to reduce the amount of our storage, but a lot of our data is very active and in very small files, so the system does not have enough time to keep track of all that. In one instance, we had a job, and we dumped roughly 25 terabytes in a day into the system, so for it to understand and try to reduce it and compress it, it sometimes does not have time because it is just so busy.

It has saved us on costs. I am not on the manager's side, but I have seen that the cost is better. I do not have the exact numbers, but it is probably two or three dollars per terabyte or something in that realm. Some of our competitors cannot beat that, so that does help.

A lot of our customers have their own cases. We create new volumes for each of those cases. One thing I have noticed is that it is very simple to move the data where we need to move it, delete it, or archive it if we need to archive it to StorageGRID.

We have a lot of challenges with ONTAP. We are an eDiscovery company. With ONTAP, sometimes we have issues where we are over the capacity of how many volumes we can have on a cluster. That is one of our biggest issues. The other bigger issue right now is keys. We do not have enough. NetApp itself does not give out as many volumes as keys. I do not understand that, so we have to shift and drive and do things like that to get our new data and make sure it is encrypted.

Their support and development teams can collaborate better to resolve an issue.

We have been using NetApp ONTAP for over five years for sure. We have the second-largest StorageGRID in the world with NetApp.

So far, we have not had any issues. There were only a couple of panics or something like that, but those are normal issues you deal with once in a while.

Scalability is there. You have to buy ahead shelves and everything else to keep it growing. It is fairly simple.

We had some issues, but the communication was not there in terms of what they were doing and what the status was. It took us a couple of years to fix them. If they had kept us in check with that, it would not be as big of an issue. We have also dealt with PowerScale support. In the 7070 code, we had so many problems, but we worked with what they call the CodeRed team or the recovery team for a year. We worked side by side to fix those issues. Even some of the bigger management and directors tried to help us and keep us informed of what was going on.

There is a bridge between NetApp's development and support teams. They do not know how to communicate with each other. Why cannot their developers talk with their support and work with them? To me, that is a collaboration. Their development and support teams need to collaborate more. In the case of PowerScale or Isilon, I did have the recovery team, and their recovery team had developers behind them.

Overall, I would rate their support an eight out of ten.

I have used Isilon and PowerScale. I made the switch because we moved to a different company. One of the pros of the other solutions is how NFS integrates with SMB on Isilon and PowerScale. You could have an NFS mount with an SMB mount, and the permissions would not be stuck. With ONTAP, you cannot put them together. One reason is that a lot of their shares are more CIF shares. That is a Microsoft protocol, and NFS works more with SMB because that is the same language.

I was involved in the initial setup on some new systems, but not on the legacy systems. It is pretty straightforward like any other system when you set it up, but there are a lot more simpler pieces to it.

We have not gotten to the cloud yet because our company is too big for the cloud, and it costs millions of dollars to put it up there.

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP integrates with AWS native services. For us, it is not that big a deal, but we are looking at some of our smaller divisions overseas where it is more efficient to back up to AWS and other similar things, but we have not been able to implement it just yet.

Overall, I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.