IBM Storage FlashSystem vs. NetApp ONTAP Data Management Software

IBM Storage FlashSystem is very well suited for a small or medium business that does not want to compromise storage performance. Pricing is excellent and transparent on the website. The option to have 8 16Gb FC connectors allows you to forgo expensive and complicated SAN switches if your host count is low enough. Fewer components make the infrastructure more reliable.

Incentivized

NetApp ONTAP Data Management is a must platform to most businesses around the globe since the tool generates various capabilities for the user to easily and very securely manage all the project data through the cloud services using the platform capabilities. The data analytics are generated in real-time and easy visualization of different data which the tool helps the user import across other platforms.

Incentivized

• Data Replication over long distances using Policy-Based Replication and maintaining the RPO.
• We use snapshot technology heavily and these snaps are easy to create/automate and instantly available.
• Upgrades/Updates are deployed to the system without loss of data or services.
• Sub-millisecond latency is maintained and spikes are handled and absorbed by the system during peaks.
• When connected to the internet via Storage Insights and Cloud Call Home it makes for proactive problem alerting, monitoring and resolution.
• The fact that Replication and snapshot stuff are hidden under the covers and we no longer have to create mirror pairs or flashcopy pairs ourselves. It does it within the cluster or partnership.

Incentivized

• Offsite replication is seamless.
• Snapshots are easy to implement.
• System Manager is easy to learn and manage the entire system.
• System Manager is feature rich.

Incentivized

• I don't really like how the compression software works, especially when we configure the pools with data reduction, you need to have enough free space available to handle the delete operations, if you don't have that free space in the pool, the storage performance decreases in a very notorious way that directly affects the performance of access to information from the servers

Incentivized

• Not necessarily a dislike of OnCommand per se but I do dislike that you have to still use different flavors of this tool to get a holistic view of every aspect of your NetApp - System Manager, Performance Manager, Unified Manager etc
• The initial process to connect to a filer probably could do with a little more friendly documentation as the format for filer name (or IP) and whether and SNMP string is required etc is not clear.
• The ability for more complete search capability within the logs (so therefore not having to extract them to work with them) would be an advantage for the timely resolution of faults.

Incentivized

We’re unlikely to renew our use of IBM Storage FlashSystem, not because of any shortcomings with the product itself, but simply because it serves a very specific role in our environment, supporting our SAP landscape. For other workloads and broader storage needs, we rely on different platforms that are a better fit for those use cases.
The FlashSystem has performed reliably in its role, but since our future storage strategy involves consolidating platforms and aligning with solutions that cover a wider range of requirements, we don’t plan to renew it as part of that transition.

Incentivized

I think Flashsystem has excellent usability. It is compatible with almost every platform we have at our enterprise. It is compatible with Power HA and VMware SRM. It has very well-suited interfaces, and spectrum virtualization is very easy to use. GUI and CLI are very well done.

Incentivized

Functionality is very impressive, practical, and useful. GUI could use several improvements.

Incentivized

IBM Flashsystems is always available for me, it is fiberchannel storage without the fuzz of what iscsi brings. It is a very reliable storage system, I have almost never issues with this system. The only things which go wrong are the updates because the old updates which have been staged on the disks are not properly cleaned in my opinion.

Incentivized

From an integrative view, IBM Storage FlashSystem provided currently the required performance to support our use cases above and beyond. As one of the most performant solutions, we are pleased to have the IBM Storage FlashSystem supporting our needs of performance as well as scalability within the infrastructure. Not surprisingly, we certainly look forward to scale performance further in the future.

Incentivized

Sometimes the knowledge of the support agent is quite limited and the support always has to route through the level 1 agent to screen all the informtion provided. Then its esclated to the next level support with the all collected data . The logs are always uploaded along wiht the case but still its reviewed at the lower level and then escalated / handed over to the next level if its complex issue to solve.

Incentivized

Support is great. Our account managers and system engineers regularly contact us and check in on us. Provide free training on various topics. Our team is readily available to answer any questions. Support tickets are generated automatically if anything goes wrong such as a disk going bad and a new one is sent out immediately. Very happy with support.

Incentivized

THe training is often selfpaced and easy to follow if you have worked previously with other storage products. The content is clear and contains all the information needed for an admin to learn. However the troubleshooting part is not always included and this is dependent on forums or other sources where the information is not accessible very easily.

Incentivized

I was amazed by the way IBM Flash storage provides a huge amount of storage within the limited footprint, it helped us to replace big fat storage arrays, which aided in the process of moving towards lower hardware, carbon, and energy consumption footprint. We can comfortably say that Flash helped us to host applications fast with a blazing speed and user transactions are quite quick.

Incentivized

IBM Storage FlashSystem is MUCH faster than the options listed above. We were able to remove 12U of Dell equipment and relaced it with a 2U IBM Storage FlashSystem that was faster and had more storage available. The setup was extremely easier than our initial deployment of our Dell systems. Previous to deploying IBM Storage FlashSystem in our environment, we had quite a bit of lag in our user's VDIs leading to a lot of negative feedback on our systems. Since implementing IBM Storage FlashSystem, we've had tons of positive remarks and the number of helpdesk tickets our internal team has received have dropped considerably. We're spending more time on other initiatives with all the extra time we're saving.

Incentivized

I have not been able to use similar platform though in service delivery and functionality capacity this is the most effective tool in our company. The entire organization data and workloads are always under secure environment when managed by this great platform. It has enabled us to meet our objectives and speed up operations across in all departments. Data in both cloud and on premise is automatically connected to provide multiple services and bring efficiency.

Incentivized

We have been able to scale this storage system whenever there has been requirement for additional capacity and performance. with the help of deduplication we have been able to build quite a robust environment.

Incentivized

• Easy of use is a key aspect, as we do not have dedicated storage staff.
• Our RPO has lowered near to Zero, using PBR as replication and this is key for us.
• DR plan testing has become easier and less time-consuming, allowing us to conduct tests more frequently.

Incentivized

• It has saved a lot of resources contributing to positive returns on investments
• Our data is always secure under this platform

Incentivized