Azure Blob Storage vs. NetApp StorageGRID

Azure Blob Storage is well suited for cases where you are working with different data formats and looking for cost-effective storage solutions based on access frequency. Another area of strength is the encryption of data at rest, and encryption can be managed on your own. However, it may not be appropriate for transferring large data very fast.

Incentivized

The NetApp StorageGRID solution fits in perfectly with what our company was trying to accomplish. Our goal was to free up our expensive storage flash (SSD) capacity for our critical applications to allow for growth and added performance capabilities. I do not believe this solution would be greatly suited for those without a Cloud solution or secondary site/system to tier data.

Incentivized

• Ease of use both through Azure Portal as well as API.
• Cost-effective solution for storing a large amount of data compared to other storage solutions.
• Scalability, Security, and Performance are the other key aspects of Azure Blob Storage that are easily manageable through Admin Console.

Incentivized

• Allows for very granular data tiering policies
• Integrates seamlessly with our Cloud solution
• Easy deployment
• Easy to manage and adapt to a changing environment

Incentivized

• Unstructured data makes it harder to conceptualize what we have but with partners like Panzura that has been a non-issue for us.
• Not always easy to understand the different models or tiers you can pick from when purchasing.

Incentivized

• Initial network design can be tedious
• Provide more out-of-the-box ILM policies
• Include professional services time with each purchase

Incentivized

Documentation sometimes appears to be out of date or not fully documented properly with new releases. It is like documentation comes out for a specific version and is quickly out of date. Another issue is documentation is scarce on new releases and only seems to get properly updated (and sometimes is still wrong) once enough people hit the forums to complain.

Incentivized

NetApp Support was able to quickly resolve a networking issue during the deployment of the NetApp StorageGRID system, which we, unfortunately, could not figure out on our own. Not only did Support engage quickly, but they also provided guidance on how to properly troubleshoot various issues such as the one we encountered and also provided excellent documentation.

Incentivized

Azure Blob Storage is the best choice to store files when the app runs in Azure. It also has some advantages over S3, like Shared Access Signatures, that make it easy to control access to files directly via a URL. Azure Blob Storage is very fast and we have not had any major issues with it after using it for several years.

Incentivized

We chose NetApp StorageGRID because we were not looking for a true backup solution but wanted the features to included a DR centric ideology. The IBM Cloud Backup solution was purely backup focused and did not fit the requirements for our needs. NetApp StorageGRID checked all of our boxes in regards to cost, use case, and ease of manageability.

Incentivized

• Azure has increased the flexibility of where we place data within our organization.
• It has proven to be very reliable and always accessible.

Incentivized

• Added Flash capacity
• Decreased application latency
• Decreased data storage costs

Incentivized