NetApp's FAS series systems offers a storage array system for enterprises.
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Privia (discontinued)
Score 9.7 out of 10
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Privia's bid capture and proposal management tools were for companies handling RFPs / RFIs in the public sector. Privia was acquired by Xait, and is no longer available for sale.
It is very easy to use with NFS. Creating new volumes and mounting to servers such as ESXi or Linux is a breeze. It does also support CIFS but it is far less intuitive and requires much more effort. Replicated data is also very simple and robust in the form of SnapVaults or SnapMirrors. This data is either immediately or periodically replicated to a peer FAS in the cluster for retention.
It is VERY important to make sure you think through the map for how your system should be configured. Time spent carefully determining exactly how you want it laid out and how you will use the system will make your implementation and roll out much more successful. You should understand how your process currently works and determine any preferred process changes before your implementation.
Document Repository with standardized Folder Structures: Privia has the ability to create customized & standardized Privia workspaces with set training documents and folder structures as a foundation for each project. This helps assure that the process remains intact without jeopardizing quality throughout the lifecycle of each project / proposal.
Customized Workspace Permissions: Privia allows the Workspace owner to maintain control over who is able to view, edit, add / remove documents, add / remove additional users, etc. This is particularly helpful when dealing with classified information such as financial data, as well as ensuring that corporate strategies are protected when it comes to subcontractors. There are many instances where subcontractors would like to share certain information with the prime, but would like to keep their data separate from other subcontractors also working on the same project / proposal.
Commenting / Editing and Lock Feature Tools: Privia has the ability to allow multiple users to comment and edit upon the same document simultaneously. This is highly useful when it comes to proposal review teams. At the end of each review team, the comments are consolidated and the document lead can lock the document for editing so that no changes may be made while the comments are taken into consideration, accepted, or rejected.
When using the pure web version of Privia (that is, without installing the thick client on a PC), the comment feature is null and void. This is because without the thick client installed, the pure web platform cannot interact with MS Office products. This creates hassles during reviews when users show up with a laptop and don't have permissions to install software.
It just works! We've used NetApp FAS Storage Arrays systems since 2011 and have had fantastic results, in particular since 2016 as performance has drastically improved. Tools are great/user friendly, command line capabilities are very strong ... it is simply very effective at what it does!
Privia has proved, uniformly, to be an asset. I look forward to my next experience with it. While, as I stated, users can feel advance trepidation when using Privia, those problems evaporate immediately when Privia is activated.
It does have a really nice and easy to use web interface to do pretty much anything you need with it. It was very simple to configure our volumes and luns and connect them to our VMWare environment using the interface. It has options to rename, shrink, grow, and other things with our luns and volumes. It was nice and easy to read graphs to see where you stand on your storage usage at a glance.
It is very intuitive and I found it very easy for my decidedly non-technical users to work with. Training was quite easy even for technophobes or complete newbies. I have a team of about 500 users on this system who are primarily writers and project managers, frequently not computer savvy at all.
We rarely, if ever, had unplanned outages when we were using Privia. When we did, our support staff were attentive and quick to resolve the problem no matter the hour.
NetApp support in Brazil is managed by its partners. We know in other countries, such as the US and NO, they have support directly from Netapp. We have a very good NetApp partner working with us since the beginning, on both the implementation and daily support. Very few cases needed to be escalated to NetApp support, most of the cases are handled and satisfyingly closed by the partner.
Each company is assigned an account manager whom you can contact directly with any questions, comments, and/or concerns. You may contact them directly via email and they will submit a ticket via their system for you or you can submit a ticket through their system and they will contact you immediately. All issues are resolved in a highly timely manner, and the customer service is impeccable. All accounts folks are well-trained from a customer service and technical standpoint and will escalate the issue as necessary depending on their expertise - though, that is rarely a necessity. Should they be unavailable, you will be notified prior to their leave / departure and assigned a secondary contact in the meantime. Overall, I was beyond impressed with Privia's customer support services.
Our initial deployment was handled by pro services. Most later deployments were handled in-house. All went very smoothly. Documentation made it relatively easy to set up new systems which allowed us to do it in-house. When using pro services they were professional and comprehensive.
It is critical to plan your implementation carefully and take the time to understand the product. You have to make sure you get the initial set up and design correct so that the tool supports your business practices. If you do this up front, you can have a very successful and easy implementation.
NetApp stacked nicely and gave enterprise-level usability for snapshot-based backups. Our previous RPO was several hours. It was selected prior to me arriving at the company, but It was selected for the hardware refreshes due to its compatibility with several other vendors, like CommVault and VMware.
Its been too long since we did our due diligence, I don't even remember the names of the competitive products. Privia stood out at the time and meeting users at their annual conference was a strong reference for the product.
Increased employee efficiency is #1. For example, without having to manage cumbersome piles of separate, track changes comments and revisions, Privia saves time and money in the review process.
Improved reporting. Privia's web interface and pipeline management capabilities allow for generation of customizable reports to garner greater visibility and insight into business development activities.
Overall the product is a bit expensive and robust for some smaller businesses, though the functionality is definitely worth the cost.
