NetApp Ranked #1 in High-End SAN EvaluScale

Analyst(s): Camberley Bates
Publication Date: January 24, 2025

NetApp AFF measured against all enterprise high-end SAN systems comes out on top when combining Performance/Capacity/Scalability, Advanced Functionality, Basic Functionality, and Ability to Execute.

Key Points:

• EvaluScale for each vendor product is determined through independent in-depth review and analysis attained from vendor interviews, reviews of user/administration guides, hands-on testing, and/or client engagements.
• Each product is reviewed within a specific technology area and rated “Exceeds Criteria,” “Meets Criteria,” or “Area for Development.”
• This is the second year in a row that NetApp has been in the top spot, followed by IBM FlashSystem, Dell PowerMax, and Pure FlashArray.

Overview:

Understanding NetApp AFF and the EvaluScale

The EvaluScale is published for the High-End SAN, comparing like technologies in four categories:

1. Performance/Capacity/Scalability
2. Basic Functionality
3. Advanced Capabilities
4. Ability to Execute

For the EvaluScale analysis, each product is reviewed within a specific technology area and rated “Exceeds Criteria,” “Meets Criteria,” or “Area for Development” for the criterion. Evaluation criteria are developed through IT-client engagements and an understanding of system usage.

Each category has 15 to 20 subcategories that align with the Technical Comparison Matrix and the separate Product Review document. The analysis is updated throughout a year based on changes and announcements. Vendors, while they may engage with the Futurum analyst team, are not the originators of the data.

NetApp AFF ranked 763 out of 1,125 points in the criteria analysis. The offering exceeded many requirements in the Performance/Capacity/Scalability category, outpacing other vendors. In the categories of Basic Functionality, Advanced Capabilities, and Ability to Execute, it similarly matched other offerings with a strong scale.

About the NetApp AFF

NetApp’s AFF family spans entry-level to high-end, with AFF A series systems including the AFF A20, A30, A50, A70, A90, and A1K. The A20 starts at 15.3TB in a 2U and scales to 185PB with the A1K. NetApp additionally offers the C-models using QLC technology: C30, C60, and C80, starting at 122TB and scaling to 707PB for capacity-oriented workloads and designated ASA models for SAN only.

The embedded operating software, ONTAP, supports scale-out clustering and advanced feature capabilities. NetApp ONTAP has a scale-out capability to allow systems to be configured to match the environment’s needs and increase capacity and performance as required. The scale-out capability with ONTAP allows scaling to 24 nodes (the A250 can scale to 8 nodes), along with the capacity scaling for NAS and 12 nodes for block mode. A dual-node NetApp system is a high-availability configuration or HA pair.

NetApp systems support data reduction in the form of deduplication, compression, and compaction for primary data. The data reduction is performed inline, and NetApp provides a 4:1 reduction guarantee. Compaction fills the 4K allocation chunks with smaller blocks, which can improve storage utilization, especially with small files.

The FabricPool feature tiers snapshot data not in the active filesystem and inactive blocks from a primary storage system and SnapMirror or SnapVault data from a secondary storage system to either Amazon S3 or StorageGRID WebScale.

NetApp has incorporated techniques to combat ransomware, including Autonomous Ransomware Protection with AI, a methodology for immediate snapshotting that detects ransomware 99% accurately and guarantees recovery.

NetApp is known as an independent data infrastructure firm that is highly focused on its execution in the categories it plays in. This has served them well, as the market continues to demand more from its data storage providers, and NetApp sales, support, and engineering have continued to deliver.

Methodology and Background

EvaluScale is an evaluation and ranking methodology, previously developed by Evaluator Group and adopted by Futurum Group. Through decades of publishing technology comparison and selection criteria known as EvaluScale Comparison Matrices, the ranking examines based on key criteria and business drivers. Publications on the EvaluScale and the Comparison Matrix are accessed via the Futurum Labs Research Library.

Subscribers can view the full SAN High-End Storage EvaluScale Comparison Matrix here or the full product review on NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) on the Futurum Labs Research Library.