2018-07-31T15:59:00Z

What do you like most about NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS)?

Julia Miller - PeerSpot reviewer
  • 0
  • 14
PeerSpot user
98

98 Answers

Anna Sofo - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 20
2023-12-15T16:22:00Z
Dec 15, 2023

I like NetApp AFF's deduplication.

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Mangalam Amriish - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant
Top 20
2023-11-13T11:14:00Z
Nov 13, 2023

The most valuable aspect of NetApp AFF is the money it saves our organization.

KT
Real User
Top 20
2023-11-02T16:52:00Z
Nov 2, 2023

The most valuable feature of NetApp AFF for us is its ability to manage multiple IP spaces for our customers in a shared environment.

RN
Real User
Top 20
2023-11-02T14:27:00Z
Nov 2, 2023

We use the NFS and SIP protocols a lot. The NFS is the most valuable feature.

AS
Real User
Top 20
2023-09-25T13:03:52Z
Sep 25, 2023

The most valuable feature of the solution is data protection and snapshot technology for backup.

VinceVitro - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 5
2023-04-29T10:23:05Z
Apr 29, 2023

The most valuable feature of NetApp AFF is the reputation of the company.

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MV
Real User
Top 20
2023-04-25T12:18:00Z
Apr 25, 2023

It is a stable solution.

RaffaeleBrescia - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 10
2023-04-24T13:14:00Z
Apr 24, 2023

NetApp is like a one-point central management. For example, one can put everything on the right version and control the whole environment from one software solution.

EO
Real User
Top 5
2023-03-28T11:55:11Z
Mar 28, 2023

Storage is very reliable. You don't have to do much maintenance.

ParthaBhattacharyya - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 5
2023-03-28T07:32:49Z
Mar 28, 2023

Supports file formatting, the main protocols, and the hot swapping of disks and features.

KD
Real User
Top 20
2022-11-30T15:51:00Z
Nov 30, 2022

The NVMe flash cache is the most useful feature. It lowers transactional speed even more.

Pedro Paz - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 20
2022-06-02T09:37:00Z
Jun 2, 2022

One of the main features that we love about the system is the ability to create snapshots. NetApp makes a lot of snapshots in a short space of time. Also, the speed of data recovery with NetApp, at the time we need it, is an important feature that we love.

JM
Vendor
Top 20
2022-04-27T08:19:00Z
Apr 27, 2022

The performance is outstanding when it's all Flash. That's the biggest bang for the buck that we get.

Chuck Custard - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2022-03-17T20:15:00Z
Mar 17, 2022

The benefits of being on AFF are the phenomenal speed at which we're able to ingest data and index it, and the IOPS.

SJ
Real User
2022-02-22T12:51:00Z
Feb 22, 2022

NetApp AFF has helped to simplify our clients' infrastructure while still getting very high performance for their business-critical applications. One of our customers uses the vSAN environment in the release, then they use NFS for their VMware VCF environment and TKG environment. In this case, when they move to NetApp for the TKG and the VM infrastructures, they use AFF for block, CIFS, and NFS. It provides a single storage with NFS, block, and CIFS with deduplication, team provisioning, and compression. Everything is in there, which makes it very good to use.

SA
Real User
2022-01-04T12:14:00Z
Jan 4, 2022

The most valuable features are the performance and the storage efficiency, due to the compression and deduplication... The efficiency is very important because we can buy fewer disks for more data.

GR
Real User
2022-02-16T13:04:00Z
Feb 16, 2022

The speed of data retrieval is the most valuable feature. We mostly use it for our SAP database and we are getting good IO from the hard drive.

RA
Real User
2022-01-19T16:16:00Z
Jan 19, 2022

In terms of the footprint, it is far more efficient. It has smaller, higher-capacity drives than our older unit. In terms of space, power, and cooling, it has simplified things.

MB
Real User
2021-12-21T14:20:00Z
Dec 21, 2021

It simplifies data management for NAS environments with its ease of management, ease of share creation, and Active IQ feature. These features are good overall. It helps us manage data quickly and sufficiently. Also, compression features, like dedupe, give us a good ratio.

NK
Real User
2021-12-20T13:06:00Z
Dec 20, 2021

It also helps to accelerate databases in our environment. First of all, there is the reliability of things staying online and the small response time as well, from the MetroCluster, for all of the data that we're serving; and the applications are talking to the MetroCluster. It provides a very fast response time.

HM
Consultant
2021-11-25T18:03:00Z
Nov 25, 2021

We recently started using the volume encryption feature, which is helpful because there are some federal projects that require data at rest to be encrypted.

MR
Real User
2021-11-23T14:52:00Z
Nov 23, 2021

Regarding features, SnapMirror is one we depend on right now. It helps us provide snapshots to the customers on request. There are many scenarios in which we might take snapshots in various daily use cases. We trigger the snapshots, which gives us a sense of security because we know we have this technology in place if something happens.

MD
Real User
2021-11-22T23:29:00Z
Nov 22, 2021

This solution helps accelerate demanding enterprise applications. VMware workloads, the database, and Oracle Solaris are hosted on AFF, which means that our primary priority workloads are on AFF and that the secondary ones are on FAS. That includes the SAN national cloud.

DR
Real User
2021-10-05T07:50:00Z
Oct 5, 2021

It impacts customer retention because of its overall ease. When you are running a business, where time is a factor, that is the biggest selling point. Things happen really rapidly, when they happen, and being able to say, "Yeah, we can get this up and running in a day, if you want," or even less time in some cases. Sometimes, that can be what makes or breaks our case.

LN
Real User
2021-09-09T14:40:08Z
Sep 9, 2021

I like some basic features like Snapshot, FlexClone, and advanced features such as SnapMirror, and SnapVault. They also recently enhanced the market with Cloud Volumes ONTAP. I think that NetApp is a very good product.

BS
Real User
2021-08-12T18:08:44Z
Aug 12, 2021

Technical support has been okay.

JG
Reseller
2021-08-12T08:49:11Z
Aug 12, 2021

Other manufacturers claim simplicity. In fact, frankly, they do have an advantage in that regard, however, they don't have the functionality. If you were to compare one of those products to NetApp, head to head from a feature perspective, NetApp would wind up in the top 10.

SS
Real User
2021-03-01T11:36:44Z
Mar 1, 2021

It has a good interface. Its configuration and flexibility are also good.

BM
Real User
2020-12-18T14:50:17Z
Dec 18, 2020

Technical support is good.

AB
Reseller
2020-12-06T19:29:39Z
Dec 6, 2020

The cloning and snapshot features are the most valuable. With snapshot backup, we can clone a big database in minutes. We take a lot of snapshots for clients in different environments.

MO
Real User
2020-11-04T15:16:35Z
Nov 4, 2020

The initial setup is very simple.

FK
Real User
2019-11-18T10:14:00Z
Nov 18, 2019

AFF has opened our eyes in a different light of how storage value works. In the past, we looked at it more as just a container where we could just dump our customer dBms and let the customers use it in terms of efficiency. Today, to be able to replicate that data to a different location, use that data to recover your environment or be able to have the flexibility with the solution and data. These are things which piqued our interest. It's something that we're willing to provide as a solution to our customers.

MD
Real User
2019-11-18T10:14:00Z
Nov 18, 2019

We had some customers who were running virtualization workloads on classical spinning disks. We implemented an AFF system, and they got a huge performance boost out of it because the latency of the SSDs is simply much lower. Actually, most customers benefit from the improved latency and performance from the AFF systems.

AD
Real User
2019-11-18T10:14:00Z
Nov 18, 2019

One of the main features that differentiate AFF from the FAS products, or some other technologies used, is the footprint of these arrays are significantly smaller than the traditional ones. Also, the performance that you get to these new arrays is really significant. You can see a huge difference there. By switching to it, we can achieve more storage performance and efficiency as well as in the long run lower down some of the TCOs due to reducing the footprint.

PB
Real User
2019-11-18T10:14:00Z
Nov 18, 2019

It's helping to leverage data. The storage is being utilized to implement larger, complex file sizes.

SM
Real User
2019-11-18T10:14:00Z
Nov 18, 2019

Our AFF 8040 is currently helping us in terms of response time and speed because it is a flash system. Most importantly, it enables our SQL Cluster to respond to database queries and things a lot faster. It minimizes latency.

BC
Real User
2019-11-18T10:14:00Z
Nov 18, 2019

Switching to AFF has improved the performance of a lot of our virtual machines in a VMware environment. The number of support tickets that we receive has fallen to almost zero because of this, so it's been a real help for our virtual server support team.

AH
Real User
2019-11-18T10:14:00Z
Nov 18, 2019

We have had issues before on our infrastructure where 20 to 30 percent of the people would come to us pointing the finger at the storage technology or storage back-end. That is now virtually zero.

BT
Real User
2019-11-18T10:14:00Z
Nov 18, 2019

We do a lot of financial modeling. We have a large compute cluster that generates a lot of files. It is important for us to get a quick response back for any type of multimillion file accesses across the cluster at one time. So, it's a lot quicker to do that. We found that solid-state performs so much better than than spinning drives, even over multiple clusters.

it_user527175 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2019-11-18T10:14:00Z
Nov 18, 2019

Things that have been really useful, of course, are the clustering features and being able to stay online during failovers and code upgrades; and just being able to seamlessly do all sorts of movement of data without having to disrupt end-users' ability to get to those files. And we can take advantage of new shelves, new hardware, upgrade in place. It's kind of magic when it comes to doing those sorts of things.

CO
Real User
2019-11-18T10:14:00Z
Nov 18, 2019

We reduced our floor space by reducing 44 racks units to four rack units. It has helped us with our data center economies of scale. It reduces our support costs too, which is great.

RC
Real User
2019-11-05T05:28:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The most valuable features of this solution are snapshotting and cloning.

DB
Real User
2019-11-05T05:28:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The solution’s thin provisioning has allowed us to add new applications without having to purchase additional storage. We use thin provisioning for everything. We use the deduplication compression functionality for all of our NetApps. If we weren't using thin provisioning, we'd probably have two to times more storage on our floor right now than we do today.

SM
Real User
2019-11-05T05:28:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The most valuable features of this solution are the deduplication and the ability to move data to different clouds.

JC
Real User
2019-11-05T05:28:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The most valuable features of the solution are speed, performance, and reliability.

MM
Real User
2019-11-05T05:28:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

We are using the AQoS operating system, which allows us to get a lot more out of our AFF systems.

TG
Real User
Top 20
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The performance of NetApp AFF allows our developers and researches to run models and their tests within a single workday instead of spreading out across multiple workdays.

PH
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The overall latency in our environment is very low because it's All Flash and we've got 10 Giga dedicated to the storage network

CH
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The most valuable features are the flexibility and level of technical support.

MB
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The most valuable feature is speed.

SB
MSP
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The most important features are the IOPS and the ease of the ONTAP manageability.

ML
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

Speed, reliability, ease of use are the most valuable features.

LR
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The ease of use, the SnapMirror capabilities, the cloning, and the efficiencies are all good features.

DC
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

This solution has reduced our data center costs because when we went from the 8000 and 3200 series that took us from 20 racks of storage down to two.

KN
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

Before we implemented AFF, Oracle was running on a traditional storage spindle and at a very low speed with high latency, and the database was not running very well. After we converted from the spinning disk to the all-flash array, it was at least four times faster to access the volume than before.

VK
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The most valuable features are the ease of administration and configuration, as well as the speed of deployment.

JB
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

AFF has improved my organization because we now have better performance. We can scale up and we can create servers a lot faster now. With the storage that we had, it used to take a lot longer, but now we can provide the business what they need a lot faster.

VS
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

It is easy to manage data through the GUI by using Active IQ and the unified manager.

PY
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The most valuable feature is the ease of management.

CJ
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

I think that the DR applications are the most valuable, including Snapshots and SnapMirror.

MS
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

Multi-protocol is the most valuable feature for us. It does everything in one system: sifts, EBES, ISCSI, and fiber channel. Other systems don't do all that.

DM
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

The speed, inline deduplication, and compression are really nice. It's also just easy to manage. We use Snapshot and SnapMirror offsite, which give us some good recovery options.

DG
Real User
2019-11-05T05:27:00Z
Nov 5, 2019

NetApp AFF is very good at cleaning up your storage.

SG
Real User
2019-10-29T09:20:00Z
Oct 29, 2019

The most valuable feature of this solution is its simplicity. It is easy to use.

RS
Real User
2019-04-25T09:07:00Z
Apr 25, 2019

The features that I found most valuable are SnapMirror and SnapVault; these provide DR and backup for data redundancy.

RR
Real User
2018-12-24T07:46:00Z
Dec 24, 2018

Its efficiency and scalability are the most valuable features.

GW
Real User
2018-12-19T07:16:00Z
Dec 19, 2018

Previously we had migrated from Dell EMC and we had a lot of difficulties moving data around. Now, if we need to move it to any slower storage, we can move it with just a vault move within the cluster. Even moving data between clusters is extremely simple using SnapMirror. The mobility options for data in All Flash FAS have been awesome.

ME
Consultant
2018-12-19T07:16:00Z
Dec 19, 2018

Scalability is excellent. If we need more space, it's a no downtime solution. It's harder to get the funding than it is to get the solution itself.

TA
Real User
2018-12-19T07:16:00Z
Dec 19, 2018

The most valuable features for AFF are the speed, durability, back up, the time, the workloads that we are using currently are much faster than what they used to be. We're getting a lot of different things out of All Flash.

JC
Real User
2018-12-19T07:16:00Z
Dec 19, 2018

NetApp tech support is so good. Their tech support has always been so stable and the people are so good in case of any failure or any good feature that needs to be updated or features that supposedly can help with performance to improve some performance. NetApp support is one of the best that I deal with.

GR
Real User
2018-12-19T07:16:00Z
Dec 19, 2018

The valuable features are the fabric pool. We are taking our cold data and pumping it straight into an estuary bucket. Also, efficiency. We're getting about two and a half times upwards of data efficiency through compaction, compression, deduplication, and it's size. When we refreshed from two or three racks of spinning discs down into 5U of rack space, it not only saved us a whole heap of costs in our data center environment but also it's nice to be green. The power savings alone equated to be about 50 tons of CO2 a year that we no longer emit. It's a big game changer.

MA
Real User
2018-12-19T07:16:00Z
Dec 19, 2018

Tech support has been absolutely amazing. I think on the technical aspects as well, my staff is able to get great support from the NetApp technical support resources that we have. What I love about NetApp is they have a health care division. At times, it's such an amazing thing because if we have a healthcare-related issue, there's no one better than having prior CIOs from health care organizations that NetApp has hired, and that are part of the health care team, to help out with any of those initiatives and support problems. Support has been absolutely phenomenal.

ZM
Reseller
2018-10-28T07:37:00Z
Oct 28, 2018

NetApp AFF is based on Unix, which makes it secure.

BP
Real User
2018-10-28T07:37:00Z
Oct 28, 2018

We just migrated two petabytes of data storage from IBM over to NetApp All Flash. Some of the performance improvement that we've seen is 100 times I/O and microsecond latency.

MV
Real User
2018-10-28T07:37:00Z
Oct 28, 2018

My favorite part is all-flash solid drives. All of my applications are running on an all-flash array. Before, we used to get too many severity tickets on performance, but as soon as we migrated everything to an all-flash array, our critical applications are at top performance.

RC
Real User
2018-10-28T07:37:00Z
Oct 28, 2018

There are many reports accessing the applications. We receive them very quickly. We used to wait a long time for them. Now, you just need to wait a moment.

it_user805152 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2018-10-28T07:36:00Z
Oct 28, 2018

Even though the complete workload will fill out the AFF storage box, it will give us sustained stability.

CM
Real User
2018-10-28T07:36:00Z
Oct 28, 2018

The most valuable feature, primarily, would be speed. That's why we got it. Storage is costly but it's very, very fast. Very efficient, very fast.

TC
Real User
2018-10-24T13:31:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

The most valuable features are the IO performance that we get, the cluster part, and the increased workload and performance with the SSDs.

it_user874449 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant
2018-10-24T13:31:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

The most valuable feature is the ability to do QoS.

SL
Real User
2018-10-24T13:31:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

We have SQL clusters across the United States. It has sped up our IOPS and made it a lot easier for users.

CW
Real User
2018-10-24T13:31:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

Replication would be one of the most valuable features.

SP
Real User
2018-10-24T13:31:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

The most valuable features are the low latency and high-performance.

SS
Real User
2018-10-24T13:31:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

It's pretty scalable. It can scale up to 24 nodes.

EA
Real User
2018-10-24T13:31:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

AFF helps us improve performance for our enterprise applications, data analytics and VMs. We have moved our primary data stores for production over to AFF, and a lot of the problems that might happened have gone away.

AM
Real User
2018-10-24T13:31:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

The most valuable features are high performance and encryption. It also provides aggregate level dedupe.

TF
Real User
2018-10-24T13:31:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

The stability is solid. It doesn't fail on us, which is exactly what we want. We are in a critical business that we can't have any percentage of downtime.

DS
Real User
2018-10-24T13:31:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

This solution makes everything a lot faster. The time to move data around, boot and migrate VMs is much faster.

MW
Real User
2018-10-24T09:09:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

It should scale far beyond our needs. I don't think we will ever hit the edge of it.

it_user577449 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vendor
2018-10-24T09:09:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

Over the past 18 years, it has been extremely easy to upgrade to newer products and technology. We can upgrade as we move along. So, we have been able to keep up with the newest technology with zero downtime.

VS
Real User
2018-10-24T09:09:00Z
Oct 24, 2018

Data efficiency is the most valuable feature because of the dedupe and compression.

ST
Real User
2018-10-23T08:13:00Z
Oct 23, 2018

The Active IQ feature is a productive mechanism that automatically collects reports and users' statuses.

KL
Real User
2018-10-23T08:13:00Z
Oct 23, 2018

Batch times went from approximately seven hours down to about two and a half. Functionality during the day, such as taking or removing snapshots and cloning instances, is higher than it has ever been.

AB
Real User
2018-10-23T08:13:00Z
Oct 23, 2018

With the new version, they have the FabricPool which works for me. I can extend the hyperscaler storage.

SP
Real User
2018-10-23T08:13:00Z
Oct 23, 2018

When we move to all-flash, our response times were reduced to microseconds.

PH
Real User
2018-10-23T08:13:00Z
Oct 23, 2018

The most valuable features are deduplication and compression, so we get more out of our storage. The replication is also important.

EC
Real User
Top 20
2018-09-25T09:23:00Z
Sep 25, 2018

I think it is a very stable product.

DB
Real User
2018-07-31T15:59:00Z
Jul 31, 2018

We found AFF systems very competitive in terms of performance, storage efficiency, feature richness, and scalability.

The NetApp A-Series and C-Series are AFF storage arrays that deliver high performance, scalability, and simplified data management for a wide range of workloads. They are designed for organizations that need to improve the performance and agility of their applications, while also reducing costs and complexity. NetApp A-Series and C-Series feature a scale-out architecture that can be scaled to meet the needs of your growing business. They also support a wide range of built-in data protection...
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