NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. Progress ShareFile

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP was well suited to begin our journey to cloud storage as a service. The ease and intuitiveness of the product to enable our administrators to design, configure, and deploy the storage in a hybrid cloud environment was instrumental to the success and the early adoption of the service.

Incentivized

When we have a particularly large ad or job printing file that would "clog up" the email process, using ShareFile is very helpful. It's also useful for particular photographers we work with to upload a batch of photos all at once. Where it doesn't work as well for us is when trying to get clients to make use of a login to access folders. We find them reluctant to take on the learning curve. It works best for us when we just send them a clickable download link, and at most just require a tracking name and email address.

• Simplicity
• Flexibility
• Cost savings

Incentivized

• Secure File Storage and Sharing.
• Workflows to get customer/affiliate responses to comments on documents.
• I used to have the signature feature initially, but it was removed from the original plan, so I could only use it if I chose to select the higher plan price.
• I love the upload notifications and reports on user activity.
• The document storage versions are fantastic. I am the only user with Delete privileges, and I love that I can make those selections.
• Integrations with Microsoft 365 - FANTASTIC - thank you.

Incentivized

• More competitive pricing at lower volumes of storage
• Make it possible to manage storage across hybrid and multiple cloud environments

Incentivized

• The web console is not the most user friendly site to use to get to, and send my files.
• We have had users that have not liked the change in workflow to get files from Progress ShareFile when they were used to just clicking on files on an email.
• That management of the tools are not the most user friendly. There have been some improvements but keeping up with certs and setting up new users can be more work than expected.

Incentivized

It's a highly effective and secure storage system, has robust workarounds for serving the various equipment limits of our users, meets high security requirements of HIPAA standards, significantly reduces our needs for producing paper trails.

Incentivized

ShareFile is so easy to use I was able to download all of my projects files and have them set up to sync before my supervisor could even come over to explain the process to me. It is a neatly organized and intuitive software that allows even the less tech-savvy to become power users.

Incentivized

The software has never been down when I needed to use it.

Incentivized

Easy to use, easy to integrate with Outlook. I only gave it a 9 because I have found that sometimes it does not play nicely with Outlook and can slow it down. But, when that happens (not frequent), I restart Outlook and all is well again

Incentivized

We utilized NetApp remote Professional Services to assist in our deployment and also engaged support since the deployment for assistance regarding some networking concerns. NetApp support was surprisingly quick to reply and very proactive in resolving our concerns much quicker than other support personnel from many of our other vendors we use. No complaints about NetApp support at this time.

Incentivized

Citrix was generally responsive and helpful in solving technical issues. Like any cloud based SaaS product there is a danger that it may go down. This was a rare occurrence over my three years of using the product. The more common issue we encountered was clients forgetting their login which was easily managed through a forgot password functionality.

Incentivized

Good documentation for the API. With a little help from RS tech staff, any competent programmer should be able to integrate RightSignature with an existing system in a week or three. That help is easy to get as well

ScienceLogic SL1 and SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor (SRM) were the closest competitors to meeting our business objectives. Tivoli Storage Manager was not able to meet the initial requirements. There was a significant overlap of capabilities between ScienceLogic SL1, SolarWinds SRM, and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP. The latter provided a more positive and cohesive experience for our administrators and executives.

Incentivized

ShareFile is easier and does what you need. I have moved a few organizations from SharePoint to ShareFile. Just easier. You can setup different areas for different departments, setup their permissions and it is easy enough for them to do what they want in their zones. The mobile app works great as well. So you can all the features you really use from SP, but just easier to setup and use.

Incentivized

I am a one person office. I have no idea how this software would scale to a larger office.

Incentivized

• Not really any noticeable impact yet
• We are utilizing the free tier that is provided as a promotion with current systems
• It remains to be seen if it will continue to be enough value to renew the subscription

Incentivized

• All of our clients and consulting engineers find ShareFile easy to use, thus complementing our business.
• Our staff also find ShareFile intuitive, accessible, and easy to use, making it an ideal, everyday indispensable desktop tool for everyone in our company.
• ShareFile can be linked to our firm's primary website as a placed for private use. We haven't found need for this yet, but might in the future.

Incentivized