We compared NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and N-able Cove Data Protection across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Comparison Results: The setup process for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is more complex and requires careful planning and documentation. However, it offers extensive integration capabilities with on-premises and cloud environments, along with valuable features like AI-driven data analysis and data replication across cloud providers. On the other hand, N-able Cove Data Protection is praised for its user-friendly interface, reliability, and efficient backup and restore capabilities. It also provides cloud-based data protection and cost savings. However, it lacks advanced features and customization options compared to NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP.
"What I like the most about it's the ease of use and the reliability that it has when copying information to the cloud."
"The most valuable aspect is the added protection of having a cloud-based backup service. It provides redundancy in case of data loss."
"We use a neat feature called VDR status, Virtual Disaster Recovery status. It only works on servers... It's automated. Once or twice a month it will virtually mount the backup and provide a screenshot and advise whether or not there have been any errors."
"One of the bigger features and advantages of the solution is that it is easy to integrate with my RMM which is also N-able."
"The ease of use and the console are great."
"The initial setup of N-able Cove Data Protection was very easy."
"The user interface is the most valuable. It gives us the ability to check everything. With more than 100 endpoints running that software, I like the ability to quickly check that everything is working correctly. That's one of the biggest selling points."
"The most valuable feature by far is the Virtual Disaster Recovery. On top of that is the bare-metal recovery. The recovery options that we have are great. We have tested the Virtual Disaster Recovery and the bare-metal recovery in just about any scenario you can think of. We have even restored bare metal, a full server, to a laptop, and had full functionality. It's just insane how well it works and how simple it is. It does most of the work for you."
"The most valuable features are tiering to S3 and being able to turn it on and off, based on a schedule."
"We are definitely in the process of reducing our footprint on our secondary data center and all those snapshots technically reduce tape backup. That's from the protection perspective, but as far as files, it's much easier to use and manage and it's faster, too."
"We use the mirroring to mirror our volumes to our DR location. We also create snapshots for backups. Snapshots will create a specified snapshot to be able to do a DR test without disrupting our standard mirrors. That means we can create a point-in-time snapshot, then use the ability of FlexClones to make a writeable volume to test with, and then blow it away after the DR test."
"The ability for our users to restore data from the Snapshots is very valuable."
"There is unified storage, which provides flexibility. It is set up perfectly for performance and provisioning. We are able to monitor everything using a separate application. It provides error and critical warnings that allow us to take immediate action through ONTAP. We are able to manage everything, log a case, and follow up with the support team, who can fix it. That is how it is unified."
"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."
"Lastly, the API and web services are fairly good. That is an important feature too. We write some code to do different things. We have code that runs to make sure that everything is being backed up as we say it is and we try to also detect places where we may have missed a backup."
"The solution’s Snapshot copies and thin clones in terms of operational recovery are good. Snapshot copies are pretty much the write-in time data backups. Obviously, critical data is snapshotted a lot more frequently, and even clients and end users find it easier to restore whatever they need if it's file-based, statical, etc."
"One area I don't like has to do with the agent that goes on the system... if a system stays offline for some length of time, say for a week or so, I may have to go back in and reinstall the agent to get it back in business. I don't know what's causing that."
"This solution is not very good for image restores, mainly just files. The solution also does not allow you to enable or disable backups. Sometimes, our users will connect via mobile device and it will use their data to perform the backup. If they were able to enable and disable the backup, they would not have this issue."
"I have some issues with the agent failing on workstations. I've had to completely uninstall several of them, delete everything, and start over to get them to work."
"The only area that needs improvement is that it is a little bit difficult when you get into virtual machines. The initial deployment of Cove is a little tedious, not for standard machines, but when you get into specialty stuff, like Hyper-V."
"An area for improvement that would really work out well would be if there were a little bit more of an elegant handshake relationship between SolarWinds RMM and the PCs that are being backed up, to advise regarding "up" status... Since RMM is an agent that feeds back that a machine is alive and on, I don't see any reason why they can't either tap into that one feature or build the same exact polling within the backup agent, to update right away and say the system is online or offline."
"Integration with a hybrid cloud is something that I found complicated."
"A better default view on my dashboard would be great. There is a lot of useless information there that it pulls up. They could present the dashboard slightly better, in terms of the extra information after the first five columns. The first five columns are awesome. After that, I don't care about the rest, and there are another seven things after that."
"We don't use the solution’s automated recovery testing because SolarWinds made me cross. When they released it, I went, "Oh, well, that's quite good." Because if you use the system, then it supposedly spins up, and on the portal, it gives you a screenshot of the booted device. So, I phoned up, and I said, "Oh, that's really quite cool. How much is that?" They said, "No, no, no. It's all included in your license." I went, "Okay then," and went and deployed it on about half the fleet. One of the options that our customers have is they can pay us a small amount every month for us to test the recovery just to prove that it's viable, and I thought, "Well, this will do that for us. Nice." Then, in the next invoice, we got a charge for it. While It was not a huge amount, I took offense at the fact that we were told that it would be a no extra cost option that was part of our license, but it turns out that it's chargeable. Therefore, we haven't used it since."
"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... But I don't know if it's worth it for NetApp to invest in developing products to include mainframes for a few customers."
"I would want more visibility and data analytics where we can see anomalies within the shares within the GUI."
"NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP needs to have customizable pricing options such as 10 TB increments. They seem to have only two options: 10 TB or 250 TB."
"I would like to have more management tools. They are difficult to work with, so I would like them to be a bit more user-friendly."
"Multipathing for iSCSI LUNs is difficult to deal with from the client-side and I'd love to see a single entry point that can be moved around within the cluster to simplify the client configuration."
"The support is good in general but the initial, front-line support could be improved. Because I have already been using the product for so long, when I call support I would rather talk to somebody who is a little bit more advanced or senior, rather than talking to the first-level support. Usually, it takes some time to reach out to their senior support."
"The integration wizard requires a bit of streamlining. There are small things that misconfigure or repeat the deployment that will create errors, specifically in Azure."
"I would like to see them improve the perspective of start and search in the panels. This would allow for better visualization of the contents that are captured in the tool."
N-able Cove Data Protection is ranked 8th in Cloud Backup with 20 reviews while NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is ranked 10th in Cloud Backup with 60 reviews. N-able Cove Data Protection is rated 9.2, while NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of N-able Cove Data Protection writes "Provides feature flexibility and modularity for our customers". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP writes "Its data tiering helps keep storage costs under control". N-able Cove Data Protection is most compared with Acronis Cyber Protect, Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, Azure Backup and MSP360 Backup, 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 N-able Cove Data Protection vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP report.
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