We performed a comparison between IBM Spectrum Virtualize and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The abstraction flair and the abstraction layer. We had a mixture of different storage arrays, and the wonderful thing about SVC is is that it normalizes all it into a single driver. A single view that all hosts see simultaneously."
"I like all the features, but the most impressive recently has been the introduction of IBM's Flash Core Modules. They are a form of a flash drive, but they have many more features."
"It has the ability to seamlessly move hardware in and out as we refresh technology."
"The most valuable feature is its reliability."
"Compared to other storage vendors, the solution is quite convenient to use."
"We are happy with the support that IBM provides us."
"The scalability is very good. It can handle anywhere from very small to large enterprise class."
"There are many benefits to this solution. Storage virtualization and the ability to migrate massive amounts of data to other systems without impacting your client are the most valuable. It is non-disruptive for my users. We migrated 350 terabytes of data in one night to a new machine without a small system going down and a single user complaining about the performance. You have to fine-tune a lot of storage machines constantly for performance and for making sure that they are optimal, but IBM Spectrum Virtualize does this by itself. It does the adjustment on its own, and it does it right. That's what makes it different. I had a huge VSP from Hitachi, which is also a type of virtualization-based engine but with a decent size. It was a continuous performance-tuning exercise. I never had that issue with IBM Spectrum Virtualize."
"The storage tiering is definitely the most valuable feature... With respect to tiering, the inactive data is pushed to a lower tier where the storage cost is cheap, but the access cost is high."
"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."
"The feature which I like the most is that it has the capabilities that the traditional storage system offers. It provides all the functionality. The deduplication and compression work exactly like ONTAP's traditional storage. So people who have experience with that find it very easy to manage."
"It makes sure we have control of the data and that we know what it's being used for. The main thing for us is that we need to know what applications are consuming it and responsible for it. The solution helps us do that."
"The solution’s unified file and block-storage access across our infrastructure is invaluable. Without it, we can't do what we do."
"ONTAP has been very stable for us, specifically in the cloud environment. It allows us to have high availability as well as standalone systems if that's what we want within our specific workloads. Also, on-premise has been a very stable environment. We have very few outages and when we do, we work with support to get systems back online in a timely manner."
"Unified Manager, System Manager, and Cloud Manager are all GUI-based. It's easy for somebody who has not been exposed to this for years to pick it up and work with it."
"They have very good support team who is very helpful. They will help you with every aspect of getting the deployment done."
"For improvement considerations, I would probably say multiple sites."
"The only errors I find sometimes is the solution tells me I cannot operate it because a service has turned off, you can just go back to the VM, go to services, and turn back the services. However, this should improve."
"The solution could have a better built-in performance monitor."
"They are actually working on one bug we found, which was with flash restore. This was the user interface design for virtual environments."
"I would like to see more baseline replication and integration with the operating system between Vmware and IBMI."
"Tighter integration with cloud storage might be useful as a target for a variety of use cases."
"Level 1 technical support needs improvement."
"NBME support and support for a higher Fibre Channel lengths could be improved, but those are already on the roadmap."
"NetApp CVO needs to have more exposure and mature further before it will have greater acceptance."
"The solution could be better when we're connecting to our S3 side of the house. Right now, it doesn't see it, and I'm not sure why."
"I rate the scalability a five out of ten."
"One difficulty is that it has no SAP HANA certification. The asset performance restrictions create challenges with the infrastructure underneath: The disks and stuff like that often have lower latencies than SAP HANA itself has to have."
"When it comes to support provided by NetApp, they have room for improvement. Every time we go through their support, we end up answering the same routine questions."
"It definitely needs improvement with respect to clustering and with respect to more collaborative integrations with Azure. Right now, we have very limited functionalities with Azure, except for storage. If CVO could be integrated with Azure that would help. When there is any sort of maintenance happening in the cloud, it disrupts the service in Cloud Volumes ONTAP."
"The product is more restricted with underlying cloud."
"I'm very happy with the solution, the only thing that needs improvement is the web services API. It could be a little bit more straightforward. That's my only issue with it. It can get pretty complex."
IBM Spectrum Virtualize is ranked 14th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 36 reviews while NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is ranked 1st in Cloud Software Defined Storage with 60 reviews. IBM Spectrum Virtualize is rated 8.8, while NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Virtualize writes "A highly scalable product that is relatively easy to use and set up". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP writes "Its data tiering helps keep storage costs under control". IBM Spectrum Virtualize is most compared with Dell VPLEX, VxRail, VMware vSAN, IBM Spectrum Scale and Red Hat Ceph Storage, whereas NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is most compared with Azure NetApp Files, Amazon S3, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), Google Cloud Storage and Portworx Enterprise. See our IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP report.
See our list of best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors and best Cloud Software Defined Storage vendors.
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