We performed a comparison between FlexPod XCS and HPE SimpliVity based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in Converged Infrastructure."FlexPods allow us to go through and roll out compute, having a converged infrastructure with the same level of simplicity that you would expect of a hyper-converged."
"CVDs reduce risks for implementations. We always make sure that all installations are based on best practices."
"DR has been tremendously easier."
"Our downtime has significantly been reduced."
"I live by the Validated Designs. I do exactly what those designs say and I haven't had a problem as a result. For example, they used to do the FCoE. They figured out there was a problem and they went over to the NFS. I moved over and I agreed with them. It worked better."
"It provides ease of automation."
"It scales well. It allows us to have very flexible architecture but to have the same level of simplicity that we'd normally expect in hyper-converged environments."
"Simplicity and integration with NetApp are its most valuable features."
"The ease of setting up our DR site with SimpliVity. It was very simple. I did not have to set up a separate storage, server, and networking environments."
"What I like about SimpliVity is the brand value of HP. I also like the data compression ratio, which is around more than 75% data compression ratio. HP's support and the ease of working with SimpliVity are also valuable features."
"The most valuable features of SimpliVity are the built-in backup and immunity to ransomware."
"HPE SimpliVity is scalable. Some 200 people at my organization are using this solution at present."
"It comes all in one box."
"The solution is scalable."
"The solution is very stable."
"I have found backup and replication to be useful. We have a 10 megabit line between the data center and our main site. The backup and replication are very good. Additionally, the solution runs on VMware which is a benefit."
"The interface is a little convoluted."
"I would like to see more interoperability within FlexPods. This comes into more of how we grow from multiple domains to a massive domain."
"I would like them to simplify the UCS configuration. I appreciate that they have about a billion options and a million switches that you can mess with, but this creates a lot of confusion sometimes. I feel like you almost need a Master's course to figure out what you're doing with UCS."
"I think they can always improve, whether it's dedupe or compression, those algorithms; and flash through better SSDs."
"The procedure for contacting technical support could be simplified."
"I'd like to see a little more on the provisioning and the replication piece... Also, I don't want to say analytics are lacking but I'd like to see more analytics."
"There is a history of issues with hardware availability. For example, we'll buy an array or a filer with a particular configuration and particular size of drive, sizing it appropriately. Then, as we grow, they're like, "Oh, you can always get more." Then when you go to get more, that model or type of disk is no longer available. It becomes this big process to try to figure out what we need to get, how it'll work, and how that'll integrate into the system. That could be simpler. They could do a bit more to guarantee the availability of parts. Obviously, not being the largest storage vendor, I know they can't sometimes control what the hardware vendors do. However, a bit more transparency and communication about this would be helpful."
"I would like more support for different platforms, possibly different database platforms. I don't know if it supports Oracle today, but that would be a big improvement."
"Integration with external solutions outside the HPE posed challenges."
"The initial setup is not that easy."
"Since it is a newer solution, there needs to be more knowledge transfer out there."
"The backup and recovery process needs to be faster. Right now, it's a bit slow."
"Bottleneck is the main issue."
"The product should be competitive with other brands."
"It is not as flexible as we want. We have asked for some more granular scalability. For example, the ability to add some disks, and not another node, if we need more storage."
"When we make some upgrades to the platform, it does take time to stabilize the structure again."
FlexPod XCS is ranked 2nd in Converged Infrastructure with 295 reviews while HPE SimpliVity is ranked 5th in HCI with 151 reviews. FlexPod XCS is rated 8.6, while HPE SimpliVity is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of FlexPod XCS writes "Integrates everything so you are using fewer tools". On the other hand, the top reviewer of HPE SimpliVity writes "Provides a unified management interface that allows administrators to manage all aspects of the infrastructure". FlexPod XCS is most compared with Dell PowerFlex, VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Oracle Exadata and Dell VxBlock System, whereas HPE SimpliVity is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE Alletra dHCI and Dell PowerFlex.
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