We have used the NetApp solution on-premise with one of our outsourcing providers. We have used NetApp before in Canada. In the US, we used the Dell EMC NAS solution. So, we have had some experience with NetApp as our company has used NetApp in the past for years, but those solutions were not entirely cloud-based. Cloud Volumes ONTAP is unique in that it runs the same familiar operating system that you would run on the on-premise NetApp system with some differences and specifics to Azure. There are a lot of synergies, but basically it's the same operating system. A lot of the things work the same as they would using the on-premise NAS. Currently, we use the solution in Asia and North America.

This was the first solution that we used. We were one of the first customers. There were very few options for solutions back then to utilize cloud storage.

We had the on-premise version of ONTAP. We also have a Nutanix array for our hypervisor. 

We did not use another solution previously. We always used the Cloud Manager, and then Cloud Manager became BlueXP. We've actually used the solution for about two years now, under two different names.

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.

We had ONTAP before CVO. We also used Dell Isilon and SoftNAS before we migrated to CVO. We switched because we found that SoftNAS was not stable enough to handle the workloads. We often had problems with the applications.

The company has always been a NetApp shop even before I entered the company. We continue to use it because of the good products. We do market research, obviously. We do see good products, and every year there is improvement. When we want to do hardware upgrades, it's still very good. The way we are trying to develop, it's very seamless for us and not a pain. 

We have never felt, "We are done with NetApp. Let's move onto something else." I love to introduce other vendors into the mix, just so it's not a monopoly. We still love NetApp as our primary.

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

We've used Dell EMC in the past. We switched because NetApp definitely provides us with multi-protocol support and it is a one-stop solution.

We knew we needed to invest in this solution because we were told we were closing the data centers so we had to migrate to the cloud. The management told us we are closing data centers and migrating everything into the cloud. That's what kicked us off.

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.

We used to use two NetApp filers in two different data centers for offsite backup copies. We decided to go with Cloud Volumes ONTAP because after we sold 80 percent of the company, we were left with only one data center. We did not have a second data center to put the second NetApp in, so we went with this solution. It was the perfect solution for our use case.

We previously used OpenZFS Cloud Storage. We switched because we were not getting the performance from them. The performance tuning is a headache. There were a lot of issues, such as, the stability and updates of the OpenZFS. We had it because it was a free, open source solution. 

We switched to NetApp because I trust their performance tool and file system.

We did not have a previous solution.

It replaced some physical NetApps that were going to be refreshed. One of the reasons we switched was to limit capital expenditure. Another reason was that it was very much a "Let's go and put as much as we possibly can into the cloud" approach. It fell in with that initiative quite well.

I've used NetApp for many years. It's something that I know is very stable and reliable. Recommending it to the current company was an easy pass. When I joined the company we were using a different vendor. It was an EMC solution for file, but we moved to NetApp. NetApp has more storage efficiency, the Snapshot feature, and better performance when you have multiple snapshots.

We only used native Azure services. We went with Cloud Volumes ONTAP because it was a natural extension of our NetApp products. We have a huge on-premise storage environment from NetApp and we have been familiar with all the benefits from these storage systems for several years. We wanted to have all the benefits in the cloud, the same as we have on-premise. That's why we evaluated it, and we're in a very early stage with it.

We needed persistent storage in the cloud for platforms, and there's really not options right now in AWS or Azure.

We used a typical Windows file share. Then, when we moved to the cloud, we worked with Azure Files. But in terms of performance and stability, we found that NetApp was way ahead of the other solutions.

We were using NetApp, so we were using NetApp arrays. The main reason for switching was that we wanted to move our VDI environment into AWS. So, the main reason was to use the NetApp in AWS. One of the reasons why we went with Cloud Volumes ONTAP was that it was easy to migrate our on-prem solution into AWS because of SnapMirror.

We worked with Amazon FSx for a little bit, but it wasn't really ready yet. It was just released, so we decided to stick with CVO.

We have not moved off of another solution. Rather, we are expanding to implement a new solution for a problem that hasn't been addressed yet. Specifically, we are looking to use CBO for replication that up to this point, had not been done yet.

We did not previously use a different solution. 

We are old NetApp customers and we chose this solution because we wanted to adopt newer technologies. 

We had always done block storage and we had a large IBM infrastructure, a large ESX infrastructure, physical servers. We knew that we needed a file service, so we set that up. It was really a first for our university. We switched from IBM to NetApp because we thought we'd get better support from NetApp, and we really have. IBM did a good job, but it was obvious that IBM and NetApp didn't always play well together. IBM was slower to put out patches and fixes compared to NetApp. When IBM was telling us to go to the NetApp site to find support, we figured we'd just switch to NetApp.

We started using this solution before AWS developed its own tool called FSx. It's very similar to FSx. However, NetApp provides even more features than FSx does.

NetApp is a multi-cluster. Like FSx, the cluster is controlled by AWS itself, so you don't see that background feature. Unlike NetApp, all the deployment is in our control, so we can use that. Then there was a node feature that you can get with NetApp support in addition to the cloud support. Those are the key features. It's a little more expensive than FSx. However, there are good reasons for it.

We've been using NetApp for a while, so we'll just stick to it.

We switched to CVO because of the efficiency and architectural consistency because it uses the same technology. NetApp to NetApp is not trying to go to somebody else.

We were backing up Spectrum Protect and we were using SimpliVity backup at one time on the license, but essentially those weren't solutions and we moved totally away from that.

I first encountered NetApp at Insight 2018 Barcelona. I was there and talked to NetApp.

We previously used HPE 3PAR and we switched because of the complexity we had with HPE. It was easier with NetApp.

There was a lot of downtime with our previous solution. Also, the performance wasn't what it should be. Any update that we did required downtime, and there were quite a lot of updates because there were a lot of bugs. That's where Cloud Volumes ONTAP is very good because they're using the same software as in their devices. There are no special needs or special bugs. They're using a very mature a solution.

We started using Spotinst and then NetApp acquired the company. From that point on, we have done a lot of business together with NetApp.

We had previous experiences with deploying ONTAP at other companies successfully.

ONTAP makes our storage solutions more flexible. Traditionally, that's hard to do. ONTAP gives you those features which you typically have to build yourself.

This is the first time that we are using this type of a solution in the cloud.

We previously used Commvault.

I have used NetApp before at two previous companies. 

Compellent is what they already had when we acquired this other company. It would just crash constantly. It is not worth it.

Before NetApp we used a home-grown server in the cloud, a Linux server with a big disk. It was less simple to manage.

We're also using Avere, a storage solution that was purchased by Microsoft a month or two ago. It's mainly responsible for real-time data synchronization between on-prem and the cloud environment. It's different than NetApp which doesn't provide the kind of synchronization solution that Avere does. It's two-way, real-time data synchronization between the Oracle storage solutions which we have on-prem and the Avere solution that we have in Azure. NetApp does not help with such requirements.

Our customer was previously a NetApp shop, and they were already familiar with SnapMirror, so upgrading to the current solution was a no-brainer. They saved money and have the same functionality.