For those looking to enhance their data center on-premises, I strongly recommend considering NetApp.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate NetApp Private Storage an eight out of ten.

In NetApp, they have SnapMirror, and they sell licenses for that. However, in Pure Storage, you don't need to buy it. It's already included, and you enable it.

Overall, I rate NetApp Private Storage an eight out of ten.

I would say compare with whatever is out there. I think that NetApp makes a quality product. I would rate it at a nine out of ten.

I'm a vendor. I'm a partner and a reseller.

If you're not multi-skilled, then I wouldn't recommend it. If you are good, if you still want to do it, it's a good solution, and you should take some training. Otherwise, you'll find it difficult to do, or you have to get somebody to take you through your first setup or get a vendor or partner to take you through. The beauty is it's worth it. You'll struggle for a month, however, then, once you master it, they don't change it. 

I'm going to stick here til the end. Even if it costs more, I'll always find a way of convincing the customer to get it. 

Based on the cloud integration, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The disc themselves will do it if you need performance. However, the fact that without touching anything, you don't even need backup software, and you don't need anything as this box can do so much on its own. That's why I give them extra points compared to other vendors.

My advice for those who are considering using NetApps Private Storage is to get yourself trained on the solution. It is worth it because the architecture does not change very often and certification and skills will be valid for a long time. I would say they should get a reseller — of course, they have to pay that person to do the implementation — and then after about six months, take training to enhance their knowledge of the product. When you complete the training you will be good for a long time after that.  

The NetApp company is stable. They are not going to sell out or be bought. They have created the product in such a way that somehow it is available for less now than the original cost and it is ten years later. That alone is amazing.  

The biggest lesson I have learned from using NetApp Private Storage is that the most important thing is to properly evaluate the requirements for the setup. For example, you want to make sure you have 70% free space if you want to use data searches. Do not push the recommended maximums, especially when it comes to capacity. Another thing I would say is you should make sure you get the maximum performance from your storage space and drives. NetApp has a good storage operating system. The performance is fast. Taking advantage of compression, software acceleration, and flash are just some of the tricks for making the solution go faster and perform better. But you should be careful, again, not to go far above the performance maximums at any time. Of course, you have to size correctly or else you could find yourself in big trouble.  

NetApp has really added a lot of features over the years to improve the product and performance. They can do things now like control ingress. They can control egress. These were things that you never imagined or you never thought were going to be possible before but they can do it now. I think what happens is that sometimes there are so many new features on NetApp that it becomes a challenge in terms of knowing how to use them correctly.  

I think that is where the training comes in as an important factor. The user communities are also very important because they help you to stay on top of things. Participating there and watching trends in the discussion will help keep you informed. The storage operating system is the same as before, but other users' experience with a new add-in can help you understand how to use it and how you can configure it. There are so many new features that appear that sometimes you don't have any idea they are even there and discussion boards can help you understand what is trending and why.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product as a nine out of ten.  

Really, I sell only NetApp because I know it and its really good and very predictable.  

I rate NetApp Private Storage 10 out of 10. 

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rare NetApp Private Storage an eight out of ten.

If you are in the process of acquiring a new storage solution, you have to first understand not the technical side of the platform, but the human side. You have to dive in and know many levels of the type of support, sales, management, etc. Then, move on and research the technology.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: innovative.

For NetApp, my personal experience is as an integrator, however, can't speak to if we are using NetApp at the moment in our company. There are some other kinds of storage solutions, however, it's not currently NetApp. Personally, I have experience with NetApp, however, not in my current company.

I use it in the cloud solution. It is on-premise, however, it's on-prem in an enterprise cloud solution for enterprise purposes. It's located in some kind of private cloud solution.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. I'm mostly been happy with the product so far.

Our most important criteria when selecting a vendor are

• reputation
• reliability
• technology.

My advice would be to take a look at this solution.

For us, the primary use case for NetApp Private Storage is backup in the cloud, in the future. For us there hasn't been internal resistance to using the cloud. We are growing and starting to use cloud solutions but slowly. We will grow a little bit for a year, cloud solutions, software on the cloud. We are new to NetApp, we are starting to use the NetApp strategy. We are using cloud solutions from NetApp but I think to use in the future.

I gave it a nine out of 10 because of the pricing. Lower pricing would make it a 10.

Take a look at this solution's performance; also their integration, that this solution can be used for NAS and block into the same box. For me, it's very important because the volume that you have to choose to start out, you can grow to the inside, you cannot have some kind of space to one kind in another.

It's very flexible.

Currently we have it just at our own datacenter but we intend to set up at an edge of cloud, an Equinix datacenter and use private storage there to backup. We will use it as a staging area between us on-prem and the cloud. It will be really useful for being an in-between and also for disaster recovery and other purposes like that.

In our company, not only was there no internal resistance to using the cloud before we deployed the NPS solution, but as a matter of fact it was the other way around. They were very much in favor. Once we explained the use cases they said, "Yeah, that's a good idea." They didn't have too much resistance.

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor to work with:

• Are they really a partner with us?
• Can we count on them?

We are a merger-acquisition type company so, if we have a big acquisition, can they help us scale up for that? Can they help us migrate whatever vendor they're using because this is now our standard. We will migrate our new company into NetApp. The ease of being able to do that with NetApp is very good.

The only reason why I wouldn't go any higher than nine out of 10 for NPS is the lack of some of those tools I mentioned earlier, being able to use it in certain ways. Other than using it as your own private NetApp and creating your own tools to make it work the way you want. If they had a software suite that would help with that, it might push it to a 10.

If I were advising a colleague who is looking at this kind of solution, I would just challenge them to compare the support structure, the cost structure, the various options that they have for private storage. NetApp has a very good selection for different size companies. Certainly, they could run it up against any competitors they like, but I think they'll find NetApp is a very good choice.

I would recommend that because technology is changing it would be best to use a software-defined solution. Here in Thailand, software-defined solutions are slow to come to the market making it more difficult for customers. NetApp has to market the solution better to be able to capture more customers.

If your company has the budget for NetApp Private Storage I would recommend it.

I rate NetApp Private Storage an eight out of ten.