Azure NetApp Files Overview
What is Azure NetApp Files?
Extreme File Performance
Azure NetApp Files allows you to target any of your business-critical file workloads with extreme file throughput with sub-millisecond response times.With three service levels you can change on-the-fly, you get the performance that’s best suited to the application.
Simple, Seamless Experience
A seamless Azure experience for your file services workloads. You can deploy and manage Azure NetApp Files directory from the Azure Portal or automate using the Azure API or CLI integration.
Secure Your Data
Built-in capabilities ensure your data is protected at all times in Azure: from always-on encryption to point-in-time data copies (without added capacity costs). And with Microsoft‘s world class support, you can rest assured that you‘re in good hands with Azure.
Azure NetApp Files is also known as NetApp ANF, ANF.
Azure NetApp Files Buyer's Guide
Download the Azure NetApp Files Buyer's Guide including reviews and more. Updated: February 2021
Azure NetApp Files Customers
SAP, Restaurant Magic
Azure NetApp Files Video
Pricing Advice
What users are saying about Azure NetApp Files pricing:
- "NetApp is a premium offering, so it's not a cheap product, but it is well-priced. It combines a couple of properties which customers like us are willing to pay. Could it be cheaper? Yes, but if you combine fully supported, fully managed, easily provisioned, scalable, and quick all in one product, it's a good selling point. You can ask a lot of money for all these. If you have a use case like we do, it's a perfect match. It's like the Porsche of storage solutions in the cloud. It is totally worth the cost."
- "It is expensive in small environments, which could be better. The reason is the four terabyte minimum. A one terabyte minimum would be better."
- "Our pricing has not been determined because we are still waiting on additional features."
- "The solution’s combination of the ease of use, simplicity, and reduction in IT management versus the cost has helped a lot. It is very fast to deploy. It's very easy to maintain. You don't have to do a lot in the cloud to maintain this thing, so it gives good performance. It's fast to deploy, easy to maintain, and it gives a better performance. These are the most basic three criteria for any application. This saves cost because the manpower you need to deploy is going down. You're getting better performance and not buying new resources. You have resources available in the cloud. It's just a couple of clicks, then you're good to go."
- "The performance has improved by about 30 percent."
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Azure NetApp Files Reviews
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Vladislav Malicevic
Vice President Cloud Operations at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
We can expand our storage on-the-fly without the need to reprovision
What is our primary use case?
We were looking for a five-part solution that scales well, is fast, and has the ability to be quickly provisioned in the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) environment. Our product requires it to be quick because It is a memory database that also has persistence, which has to be real-time. We are an enterprise performance management (EPM) company. As an 18-year-old company, we have a lot of legacy systems. Around 2011 to 2012, we decided to move to the cloud. We have pretty ambitious plans to lift and shift all of our customers to the cloud. For the past three years, we've been aggressively… more »Pros and Cons
- "It's elastic, so it scales with our demands. We can start small, then with the addition of customer loads, we can expand on-the-fly without the need to reprovision something."
- "I have a hunch that storage could be now the most expensive portion of our monthly bill. So I can imagine that, not this year, but next year we will be talking about looking deeper into ways how we can optimize the cost."
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend having a look at NetApp. We tried it and were ecstatic about it, so we found our solution. When we tried Azure NetApp Files, it was like, "Wow." So, we went for it. It has literally given me peace of mind. I invested a lot of brain energy last year prior to finding NetApp and identifying the right solution for us. Since then, I've forgot about this topic. I literally don't care about it anymore, as it has been working well and was the perfect fit. I didn't even look around. I would rate the solution as a nine (out of 10).
Christian Gruetzner
Service Architecture at All for One Group AG
You can increase performance online without taking the old instance down
What is our primary use case?
We are using it for virtualized SAP systems in Azure, running our SAP systems in Azure.Pros and Cons
- "You can change it non-disruptively. You can increase the size and decrease the size online, which is a huge benefit compared to Azure disks. It just works seamlessly. You don't need to stop the instances."
- "Reserved Instances for Azure NetApp Files would improve more use cases, making them more valuable in Azure as the cost would be reduced."
What other advice do I have?
Simply try it out because it's worth the effort to have a look at it. It's a strong service that gets improved quickly with new features, like backup and replication to another site. Have a close look at this solution, which workloads you like to migrate, and the costs. Overall, it's worth the effort. It is definitely worth having a look at your actual setup and Azure's setup to determine if something on your setup could be more cost-efficient. The speed is adjustable by size of Azure NetApp Files and the performance tool. So, it is working perfectly, if you choose the right performance tier…
Learn what your peers think about Azure NetApp Files. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2021.
465,836 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1223400
AVP at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Simple to learn and use, but the technical support is in need of improvement
What is our primary use case?
We have implemented Azure NetApp Files in our lab, and we have tested the NFS and CIFS protocols. We are looking for the multi-protocol approach, where the clients can leverage both protocols to access files, whether they are using Windows or Linux. Once we have this, and the data protection is in place, will we begin using this solution internally.Pros and Cons
- "The critical features of this solution are SnapMirror for replication, data protection, and SnapLock."
- "We would like to have backup functionality built-in so that we don't run into the issue where the replication process makes a copy of the corrupted data."
What other advice do I have?
My advice for anybody who is researching this solution is that it's a good opportunity for companies to save time on operations. Definitely, I would recommend Azure NetApp Files over AWS because I have seen more of them, and I prefer NetApp. We have built a lot of functionality ourselves in the form of traditional, homegrown scripts. Even though the snapshot capability was not there, we had the ability to do it using scripts. It was easier, I would say. AWS has been there for a very long time so it has that benefit. It's more mature than Microsoft Azure NetApp Files, but personally, as…DayaKadam
Storage Engineer at Walgreen Co.
Fast to deploy, easy to maintain, and provides better performance
What is our primary use case?
Some of the instances in the cloud, they needed NFS mount, and Microsoft did not have anything. That's why we are using Azure NetApp Files, we need to export NFS shares across multiple clients. We are using version 1, which is the best version in my opinion. This product is deployed in the Microsoft Azure Cloud.Pros and Cons
- "It has saved a lot of time. Because in the older, conventional hardware system, they need to raise a ticket to go to storage engineering, then storage engineering would increased the size. Now, it's dynamic. You don't have to do anything. This improved the time by more than 50 percent."
- "We would like for the files which are coming in that we can version them. So, if a file is accidentally deleted, there should have a recycle bin option where we can go back, and at least once, clean it up."
What other advice do I have?
The solution is solid. It works as designed. You get better performance and it is easy to use. It's a solid product. We are using the same applications and not doing anything new. However, we are thinking about it. I would rate it an eight (out of 10).
MikeCostanza
Senior Manager at Restaurant Magic
Easy to use, excellent technical support, and performs ultra-fast SQL backup and restore operations
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution for SQL backups and restores. Right now, we've stopped using this solution because we finished our migration. We are looking to work with Microsoft and NetApp to see what other innovations we can do with this solution, on other practical problems in our infrastructure that it can solve.Pros and Cons
- "Using NetApp Files got us out of a really difficult situation quickly, effectively, and at a reasonable cost."
- "I would like to see multi-zone redundancy so that I don't have to worry about it. I just back up my data to that one SMB share and I know that it's replicated to a different region."
What other advice do I have?
Using Azure NetApp Files got us out of a really difficult situation quickly, effectively, and at a reasonable cost. My advice to anybody who is researching this solution is to definitely try it out. Benchmark it against their existing solution to see if it can improve their throughput. I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.reviewer1232997
Senior IT Analyst at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
The ease of use and cost are key for us but there have been performance challenges
What is our primary use case?
We're in the energy industry and at our primary use case for Azure NetApp Files is, initially, for archival purposes, including tiering. After the archival-type stuff, we are going to go into putting actual volumes into the cloud, using a cloud-first strategy.Pros and Cons
- "For us, with Azure NetApp Files the ease of use has been big. We have an operations organization where ease of use is key, especially when we're starting to go offshore with that [responsibility] as well."
- "The speed of Azure NetApp Files, from what we PoC'ed, has been tolerable. We've had some challenges with it so far, being in a PoC, but after we [overcame] those challenges, it became tolerable."
What other advice do I have?
My advice that I would give a colleague or a friend in regard to Azure NetApp Files is definitely to look at NetApp. NetApp has a really good cloud strategy. We have other partners at our organization and we feel NetApp has the best approach.Rob Fivey
Solutions Architect at Champion Solutions Group
A flexible solution for dealing with unstructured data, integrates well with Active Directory
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case for Azure NetApp Files is unstructured data. We have this solution deployed both on Microsoft Azure and on-premises.Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of this solution is its flexibility."
- "This solution would be improved with more innovation."
What other advice do I have?
I recommend Azure NetApp Files. This solution just fits our needs, and I would rate it a ten out of ten.Buyer's Guide
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