The initial complexity really depends on the architecture required to support each customer's data needs.  That said, once the systems have been set up, ongoing maintenance is very straightforward.

Actually, complex means that everyone is an expert in a specific device or a specific product. No. How can we say it is complex, or how can we say it is simple?

From my perspective, I'll say it's simple for me, but if you're looking for the first time, no, it will appear to be quite difficult. 

From my perspective, it's simple, because I've been working with NetApp for over seven years and am familiar with its operations, and migration. Based on that, I can tell you that it is easy for me.

If you want to set up primary and secondary storage now, you only have a few days. This is a production idea type of solution. It will only take three to four days. But everything should be in its proper place. We can simply order it. But if you say that, we don't have the space, we don't have the cooling power systems, and we don't have the power supply, it will take a long time to deploy. However, if you want to deploy the storage, and if everything is already in place, it will most likely take four to five days for both site location storage.

It was largely handled by NetApp themselves with me watching. So, it was pretty simple for me. For the actual software or system deployment itself, there was one person.

The solution’s initial setup is complex.

I rate the initial setup an eight or nine out of ten because it was easy. Maybe it was easy because I worked as a NetApp engineer before, so I know how to do it properly. It's easy because I used to deploy a NetApp product four times a month in my previous company. My organization deploys the product to end users, companies that buy the solution from us. Most recently, it took us a day to deploy this solution. Steps involved in deploying the solution included rock and stock, cabling zoning, and then provisioning of storage to the data stores.

We needed two people to deploy the solution, with one person as an assistant. The assistant will come from the vendor, who sometimes sends two people for deployment. The vendor asks for all the needed details before they go there, and if provided already, it will be easy from there because we'll just input everything. Rock and stock only take 20 minutes, and connecting cables takes 30 minutes.

I am the only storage engineer maintaining the solution in our company for now. My colleague also checks when I'm not on duty, and they need to check when the monitoring team provides information that some of our LUNs or volumes are highly utilized already. Depending on the ship, one expert can do it for the whole company.

The initial setup was good, flexible, forthcoming, and straightforward. 

The initial setup is straightforward. We did not have to worry about the configuration, as NetApp comes in and installs it.

The setup is straightforward, and our company provides all the implementation services. If all information is available and there is a power supply, the system is set up in less than 30 minutes. I rate the setup a ten out of ten.

Maintenance is the function of the customer and the kind of application that is deployed on the product. Usually, the system comes with a minimum of three-year support by the OEM, and NetApp ONTAP takes charge of doing that for patch replacements, patch upgrades and access to software updates. In addition, they have the next business day and four-hour support. However, four-hour support is unavailable in our region in West Africa due to resources, so we sell next business day support.

Weekends are challenging to provide support, but partners intervene during the weekend before NetApp ONTAP comes up on the next business day. So, we have various support, but West Africa has limited choices due to the cost and contract business. However, most of our customers enjoy it and don't have issues.

Everybody can work with NetApp ONTAP. I have customers with very low budgets running NetApp ONTAP, which is where the NetApp ONTAP Cloud comes in. It doesn't have to be hardware. NetApp ONTAP is software that is now a commodity like VMware so that you can buy it on Amazon, Azure, and as a commodity. If you're a big company, you have access to bigger platforms, and if you're a small company, there are smaller platforms.

The initial setup is too complex. It should be one click. Anyone with basic knowledge of storage should be able to set it up. Instead, there are too many moving pieces. You have to do plaster configuration, north configuration, and port configuration, and these things should be fully automated. Customers should be answering a few questions and system should be ready for application on user portals.

I rate my experience with NetApp ONTAP's setup phase a ten out of ten.

The product is deployed on-premises.

The deployment process took a day to two to be completed.

Two people look into the software part during the deployment process of the product.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. That's where the reseller provides a lot of value. They have access to NetApp tools. NetApp would also have access to that, but we tell them the requirements, and what we're looking for, and what we're using it for. They come up with config, we look over it, maybe make some changes, go back and forth, and then, come up with the final config. We've had a good experience with that.

It was extremely easy to set up from day one.

Because most of us were new to the product, the initial setup was a bit cumbersome. Once we were trained, it was fine. 

The initial setup was straightforward. The technical guys came and deployed all of our operating systems. It was easy and maybe sometimes, not always, there was some small issue but in the end, everything is working very well.

The integration and configuration were fine.

I went from an 8.17 node to 9.3 cluster nodes. This was a big change. I still have a lot of things to learn. For example, the migration was done using the 7-Mode migration tool, which was tough.

We were having trouble during the initial phases of the project and NetApp was there to help us out with the data migration. The initial phases of data migration had a lot of challenges, especially because we had a lot of legacy data involved. NetApp helped us a lot in getting it done.

It was never straightforward. Even NetApp struggled a bit, because the environment was so complex, because of its legacy nature. We were migrating from a very old architecture to a newer SAP-based system.

The first year was not a great time, between a lot of email exchanges, a lot of escalations, etc. It's helping a lot that we're growing in confidence and the support team now knows our architecture behind the scenes. To an extent, the good thing about it is that the engineers have been the same most of the time. When we raise a ticket, they already know the background and how to work it out.

It's been a journey. I believe in another one or two years, it will be a stable environment. But the initial days were really complex.

The solution is not complex to work with.

The initial setup was very straightforward and simple. Put an IP on it, give it some passwords, and we configured from there with strips and other stuff.

The initial setup was straightforward for me. I am a storage engineer, so I'm familiar with it. Even our network engineers that have to set it up using NetApp diagrams had no issues with it.

The initial setup was very simple. It is just making the purchase and getting up and running with a technician. We already have WFA (Workflow Automation) workflows for that and to deploy our standards, so it is quite easy. In just two or three days it was done.

It's very easy. It's not complex.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. There was a guide of how everything goes together. Therefore, use the guide, put it together, and you're up and running.

We started out in 7-Mode and evolved into cDOT. The initial 7-Mode deployment was very straightforward. Migrating 7-Mode to cDOT was much less straightforward.

The initial setup is not complex at all. In fact, if you compare any other storage, ONTAP is easier to install, implement, and manage than other options. 

The initial setup was straightforward. There were not a whole lot of issues with it. 

The initial setup was complex compared to what we had, since it does more. When we bought it a couple of years ago, it was more complex. Now, they are trying to become simpler at the setup.

The initial setup took a lot of steps. You had to know a lot of what had happened throughout the process. There were a lot of steps involved, where as now, they're condensing the amount of steps involved. Plus, its more graphically-driven now rather than being mostly command line.

Half of the setup is straightforward. However, when we want to do customizations and networking configurations, it is quite challenging. The issue is that we cannot fit NetApp's configurations to our organization standards.

We have been working with NetApp a lot. Doing implementations is not a problem for us. 

Yes. It was very straightforward. Very easy. The PSE came in and showed us how to do it. We followed the instructions and it just works.

It was pretty easy. They came out and helped with it and gave us a few days' training. It was pretty simple.

The initial setup was straightforward.

If you do the initial setup manually, it is a bit difficult for someone who doesn't know. NetApp has a three-click implementation, it's so simple. 

I wasn't part of this team when they initially set up all the storage, but we've had some upgrades, and we've gotten new controllers and added them to the cluster, and taken some out. All of those steps have been really straightforward.

For the average person, it might not be straightforward but, in my opinion, the setup is more straightforward when compared to other storage platforms. Active IQ and the tools you have access to are a lot better than the competitors'.

The initial setup was easy. It took just a few commands.

The initial setup was straightforward. We started off with a small environment, which was used as a test environment initially. Therefore, we were able to deploy it into a much larger environment once we understood what we were doing.

The initial setup was straightforward.

The initial setup was straightforward, but there is some complexity. 

The initial setup was pretty simple, just for the basics. However, when we tried to scale out and run it in production, that's when we ran into issues. Because we were sold Fibre Channel MetroCluster, then that ended up not working for our situation, we had to buy more equipment and switch it over to MetroCluster IP. This was smooth at first, but then the deployment on production was much longer process.

The initial setup is straightforward as it is done by NetApp themselves and it does not require any maintenance on our side.

The initial setup is easy for us because we have already been doing it for many years. We have a lot of automated stuff around it—using Ansible, for example—and we use templates and skilled professionals when we implement something. These make this solution easy for us to implement. 

Also, the upgrades are very well planned and straightforward. 

With older versions, it was a little complex at some point, but this was back in the day. It's still a bit challenging, but when you have the right versions, it's straightforward. 

We're trying to automate the deployment process, and as far as I know, you cannot do that with ONTAP systems today. This may not be true with the newest 9.4 or 9.5 systems. 

What makes it complicated, there is no API available to automate a task. Now, they have released a lot of Ansible playbooks to automate a deployment, which might have significantly improved it, but I have not had a chance to try them.

The initial setup was straightforward.

It was straightforward. It's built on previous NetApp operating systems. I understood it without knowing the new generation. 

The initial setup was straightforward.

The initial setup was straightforward. It came in a box ready to go.

The initial setup is straightforward. Most of the information can be found outside of the config guide, either way the information is available.

The initial setup was straightforward.

The initial setup and deployment were straightforward.

The setup up is a bit complex within our environment. We actually tweak it to our requirements. The integration for backup purposes, for example, we use NetBackup. However, then the solution that we have is a bit complex for backups, especially if we want to actually do a Snapshot version only. We actually take full backups every day. Our solution is actually a bit tweaked for our real requirement. I would say it is actually not very complex. That said, it is not very easy either. It is somewhere in between. There is some level of complexity in our solution.

To apply and maintain the product you need a team, definitely. To deploy it, it depends on how you set up your environment. In our environment, one person can deploy it because we have most of the tasks automated. For us, it is not very difficult to deploy. however, then you also need the dependency. For example, to build a network, you are required to connect the device to the network, and then to set up the backup. You need a team as it requires some integration with the network, with the backup, and whatnot. There are many, many things to do.

In our environment, we only need two people. That is due to the level of automation we have. To operate it, you also need a team. How big the team is depending on the service level. You may have to have people in shifts. In our team, we have many people. It's a global offering at this stage. So we have a presence everywhere. That requires a huge team. There are maybe 10 plus members supporting it around the clock.

The initial installation could've been quite easy, but there was a lot of miscommunications with professional services and there are a lot of details that they didn't quite provide which caused a very complicated installation.

The initial setup is straightforward, because getting a storage system installed is not the hardest thing. It takes some know how, but it's not an impossible task. 

When we do a controller upgrade from a FAS8200 to a FAS9000, I want somebody there to watch over the upgrade because something can go wrong, and I do want technical help. However, the cool thing is while we're apprehensive and know what can happen, it never has. We're too cautious.

cDOT is more complex than 7-Mode, but we're hoping that NetApp makes it simpler as time goes on.

The initial setup was straightforward after we used EVOLTECH as a third-party. We actually took the process over after watching them do it a couple times. It was that easy.

Upgrades are great. One of the best things about NetApp is that their products are so easy to upgrade now. That did not use to be the case.

It was straightforward. We just had to build a VM for the ONTAP and install the software on that. It was easy after that.

We did purchase Basic Install, so it was straightforward.

The integration and configuration are not straightforward. We had to read some documentation and receive support. A good UI may be helpful in resolving this.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's easy to deploy.

NetApp is typically more complex than normal storage systems. I like it though. There's a lot more granularity and you can configure it the way you want it.