The price could be improved a little bit.

The initial setup process of NetApp Snapshot is not easy and needs improvement.

It would be ideal if mirrored/vaulted snapshots were searchable. If I have to go looking for a file in a stack of snapshots, it's mount one and look, mount another and look, etc. It's a very manual activity. Indexing the data is one thing that traditional backup products bring to the table that to my knowledge, NetApp does not -- and I'm not sure if they ever will. They are very tightly partnered with backup vendors like Rubrik, so they may leave searchability as a third-party option. I don't necessarily have all the software that NetApp makes available, so it's possible they have a solution that I am not aware of. In my day-to-day activities, I'm more concerned with adding better management tools than I am with occasionally having to go get a file by hand.

The UI is probably their biggest weakness. There are always 'features' in the HTML UI, but those are minor annoyances, not functional problems. In recent years, NetApp has made a concerted effort to simplify the UX by removing visibility to certain elements, and IMHO, this is the wrong strategy. I can understand the benefits of simplifying by default, but it would be nice if I could turn on the pieces I still want to use. At the very least, there should be a 'God-mode' toggle to turn them all on. With each iteration, there is more information that I can only get from the command line.  

I would like some sort of notification that lets me know when a snapshot is done or not done. Currently, when a job schedules a snapshot, there's no notification unless you check manually. So, some sort of notification would be helpful.

The licensing cost could be improved.

NetApp Snapshot's price could improve to allow them to capture more market shares.

For improving the product, I would suggest that NetApp update their products more often. It's possible that I might only get one update in a two-year period. Other products seem to have more regular updates. 

Also, we use two controllers in our company. If I have a hard disk in the first controller, it can't be used in the second one to virtualize. There will be a motion but it's not a new motion. It isn't synchronized. If I use a SATA (computer bus interface) in the first controller, I can't use it in the second. 

The solution could include more databases and make it accessible to the DBAs. The automation process should be run in a way where it could be run from the database itself.

The next release should include developments on the step center for purpose or bandwidth. The hardware has the capability of the hardware Snapshot. But if you want to integrate it for applications such as WIEM or databases with better purposes, it will be perfect.

If there is a way to save more on the number of snapshots, it should be included in the next release.

If your data is more dynamic and changes frequently, you need more granular retention levels and need to save it for a longer duration, then this becomes a real challenge.

In the FlexClone, I currently have not seen a need for any particular improvements because it is already so flexible and so robust. I do not think that most of my customers have actually exercised the features that are already embedded within the design of FlexClone.  

I am not seeing how these features that the customers already have but do not often need to take advantage of really need to be improved. They are very useful when needed, but just are not often used. We are talking about clients in demanding industries like in banking and financial industries, and also in oil and gas. If they do not need more functionality and can perform the tasks that they need without interruption because of the current feature set, there is really nothing to add.  

There is one thing about documentation. The documentation is always very good. But you know, there are some people who are very lazy when it comes to reading documents. This is more of a problem than the application.  

If there is a problem with the product itself, I don't know what it is. If NetApp wants to have a bigger share of the market, I would suggest they look at the pricing in comparison to the competition and make the appropriate change. The pricing should be lowered. If the pricing could be made more attractive, then without a doubt they are going to have more customers and they will advance in the marketplace. No doubt about that.  

Because the product is so mature — it was developed 25 years ago — every major feature that should be added to the product is already added. It doesn't seem that this product can be improved upon in significant ways. It is used to make a snapshot of the current data, that is what it needs to do and it does exactly that. I don't think that it can be improved at all. It is like a wheel: it is a round wheel and it is doing its job. You can make a wheel with a different shape, but it won't be better than the round one.

Rather than the product itself, the one thing that could possibly be improved is that NetApp global support is not very efficient. I had some issues that I contacted support about and sometimes they react to issues slowly. But the reaction time may be according to the exact product in the NetApp line and the hardware being used. There are different products in the NetApp Snapshot line, built with different approaches. Some are more difficult to use.

But from my experience and what I have heard from other users, the level of support in general for NetApp should be improved for better global coverage.

The dashboards are in need of improvement.

The configuration could be improved by providing more options, in particular, during the initial setup phase.

It would be helpful if more functionality could be built around migrating files from on-premises to Azure because we have had issues when using Snapshot with very large database files, from 18 TB to 32 TB.

Specialized applications like SnapManager for Exchange (SME) are finicky.

My experience with SME is that it is not as stable at the overall Snap platform (which is part of ONTAP, not a separate product like the SnapManager products). SME does a fine job of backing up Exchange databases, but due to the HA nature of DAGs, there are times when a primary database switches from server to server. When this happens, SME does not elegantly handle that transition; as a result, there can be missed snapshots. This means gaps in your recoverable timeframe.

I'm not sure how to fix the issue as I'm not a software developer. I'm sure there are complexities that I don't see.

I would like to see cloud features added to the next release of this solution.

The solution has already updated the one thing I didn't like about it. At the last update they maximized the count of Snapshots. It used to be 255, and now it's 1000. 

The price could be a bit lower.

I think the automation needs some improvement. It is not very user-friendly and could therefore be adapted a little. 

The solution needs to ensure it has higher availability or business continuity.