What advice do you have for others considering HPE SimpliVity?

HPE SimpliVity does not support vCenter HA and vCenter's update, which is a negative point attached to the tool. I don't recommend that any company buy HPE SimpliVity. I recommend companies buy traditional solutions, servers, and storage. I don't recommend HPE SimpliVity to any company. Though I have no experience with the product's data protection capabilities, HPE stated that its backup schedule works perfectly. I think the tool is worthy enough to be used in a company, but I won't recommend it to others. I rate the tool a five out of ten.

I would definitely recommend HPE SimpliVity to others. Overall, I would rate it as an eight out of ten.

I would recommend using this solution if you are looking for an HCI solution with fast backup and performance. Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I recommend Simplivity. It helps organizations implement their business applications and it provides a robust infrastructure to run a business. I rate this solution 10 out of 10.

It is a great solution coming from a pioneer in technology. If you want to go for it, you can go for it, but you have to be sure that this is what you want. I would rate it an eight out of 10.

We are an enterprise partner for HPE and we are dealing with HPE SimpliVity. We are also new Nutanix partners, so we are working with a couple of hyper-converged solutions. In addition to that, we are an advanced partner for VMware. At the moment we don't have any vSAN references, however, we are a certified VMware partner. We might work with an older version. I'm not familiar with the latest one. Mainly, I'm a part of the pre-sales team. Our implementation guys handle the deployment. They are dealing with the versions and upgrades. I'm involved in pre-sales. I'd advise potential new users that, if you have large volumes on backups and if you have any plans to go for DR, so you can start with SimpliVity. I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

I rate HPE SimpliVity an eight out of ten.

My advice to others wanting to use HPE SimpliVity is for them to try it out. It's really good if you compare it with different solutions. I would suggest trying other solutions to see which one suits their business better. In this case, HPE SimpliVity brought a lot of things to the table, such as the backup is already integrated with this solution, which is very helpful. There are a lot of advantages to HPE SimpliVity. I rate HPE SimpliVity a nine out of ten.

For hyperconverged, HPE SimpliVity is the right choice. I would rate this solution a 9 out of 10.

I would rate HPE SimpliVity a 9 out of 10.

I would rate SimpliVity six or seven out of 10. It doesn't stack up well against other solutions like Nutanix. The main difference is the hardware rating. HPE is planning to introduce Integration with other products in the future. It's on their roadmap for SimpliVity. Many use cases require this.

I rate SimpliVity seven out of 10. I would rate it higher if HPE added file services.

I'm a customer. This is an overall good product. However, they do need to work a little bit on the support. I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

This solution is best for companies just starting out or who are working with a small environment and are looking for a small infrastructure. Those intending to install SimpliVity should have vCenter integrated somewhere beforehand. I would give this solution a score of eight out of ten.

I'm a customer and an end-user. I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. I would recommend the solution to others, however, it depends on the environment. For a company of our size, it's a very good solution.

SimpliVity was the first HCI solution we deployed in our organization. It was a good experiment to start with. Now we are planning to start with a new HCI deployment next year. I recommend SimpliVity to other organizations because it is quite easy to deal with, quite easy to start the configuration, and it is easy to manipulate if you want to track anything. On a scale of one to ten, I would give SimpliVity a 9.

The solution is a one-time investment that the customer has to make, but the scalability is there. The performance is very good on any application you are trying to build on top of it, it performs according to that hardware layer. They offer very good presale support in the region here, if you need to get connected. Now that AI is changing, hyper-convergence is there, but the hybrid model is applied in any scenario. Everybody doesn't want fully on-prem because SimpliVity is something where you want to convert everything on-prem. So if you are approaching a hybrid model, that solution should be in the cloud as well as on-prem. It should be not hardware agnostic, one solution. Anytime your data is your property, you can move it to any solution. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Maintenance and monitoring requires a team of between 10-15 people. Before using this product, I would suggest that users check what kind of integrations they're looking for, as an alternative solution may work better for them. I would rate this product as five out of ten.

I would recommend HPE and the processing of HPE SimpliVity to potential users. On a scale from one to ten, I would give HPE SimpliVity an eight.

I would recommend this solution to others. I rate HPE SimpliVity an eight out of ten.

My advice to others is HPE SimpliVity It is a very good system, very stable, and has lots of features that we have not seen work well in other systems. All the features work incredibly well with HPE SimpliVity. I rate HPE SimpliVity an eight out of ten.

It's a great choice for people who run small businesses, and their storage capacity doesn't expand more than the number of their virtual machines. The solution doesn't support storage-only nodes. It only supports compute-only nodes, so you have to buy a new license when you increase storage by buying a new node. I'll rate it an eight or nine out of ten, I think it is one of the best in the market.

The features SimpliVity has there is no other solution in the market that can match it. I rate HPE SimpliVity a nine out of ten.

Many customers are using this solution and have said that it comes down to the price. Otherwise, it's a good product. This product is not suitable for small companies as they don't require this much. Unless they have 20 to 30 lakhs (two to three million), it would be better suited for medium to large companies. I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it. I would rate HPE SimpliVity a ten out of ten.

I would recommend this solution. We plan to keep using it. I would rate HPE SimpliVity an eight out of ten.

It is very easy to use this product.

If someone asks me today which product to implement, I'll say that if you have a UAT environment, then you try to put it on SimpliVity. But when it comes to the production, or when it comes to a critical application or critical business need, you put it on the Nutanix Hyperconverged Infrastructure. I only recommend this solution in a UAT environment, but not for production or critical environment. SimpliVity cannot be deployed on the cloud. The technical team is good because it is being managed by the HPE team only. The HPE technical team is always good. It has various limitations and over time, rather than improvising, they have diluted the real essence of the product. I would rate HPE SimpliVity a five out of ten.

I would rate SimpliVity a ten out of ten.

Here are three more benefits of HPE SimpliVity:

1. Guarantees data efficiency

SimpliVity delivers 40:1 storage efficiency—helping you solve the challenge of managing massive amounts of data. One way that it does this is by reducing the number of input/output operations per second (IOPS) that you need. One SimpliVity customer said that a 10-terabyte server could easily push 1,000 IOPS by itself.

Using a purpose-built OmniStack Accelerator card, SimpliVity deduplicates, compresses, and optimizes all data at inception globally. This eliminates unnecessary data processing and improves application performance—while guaranteeing 90 percent capacity savings across storage and backup.

2. Integrates data protection

Hyperconvergence eliminates the need to purchase many third-party tools. For example, SimpliVity offers built-in data protection and automated disaster recovery. This allows you to slash the amount of time that it takes to back up and restore data, compared with using legacy equipment. The built-in data protection provides full logical backups with near-zero overhead, reducing your Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) from hours to just seconds. In fact, SimpliVity can back up a VM in under 60 seconds.

3. Increases your data mobility

Managing data that flows between multiple locations can be a complex undertaking. With SimpliVity, you can simplify the connection of remote offices and branches. SimpliVity makes efficient use of your wide area network (WAN) by only replicating unique blocks. This eliminates the need for WAN optimization technologies.

SimpliVity also offers centralized management, making it easy for you to scale your storage across multiple locations. You can move data without configuring IP addresses, controllers, and other settings.

HPE SimpliVity is one of the best options, maybe some considerations like availability and VM protection should be in mind, and this is the best compared against any other. 

So, if you want capabilities like double protection including disk and logically on software-based SDS, this is the only one with that capability. All others require extra software to backup. 

SimpliVity has included super easy software to backup locally o remotely your VMs. You can grow in dimensions, processing and disk, but SimpliVity DHCI has the only one in the market that can centrally lightly be decoupled to grow on disk. It is very useful with databases like SQL. 

So you can grow on what you really need. All others, like Nutanix and VSAN, offer you independence or to be hardware-agnostic, but all the jobs are limited to licensing (high-cost) and adding nodes all the time. With DHCI if you want you only grow on this but with extremely high availability.

I rate HPE SimpliVity eight out of 10. If you're thinking about implementing it, I recommend conducting a good evaluation of your existing system so you have a decent understanding of your storage needs. Once you select the size of SimpliVity, it could be risky for you to downsize it because you may need maybe to reimplement some things. My second recommendation is about the network. If your network is not up to snuff, SimpliVity will not perform the best that it can.

I'd advise potential new users to ask a lot of the standard questions. For example: what are you going to use within the solution? You need to check the expandability as you need to use the same capacity that you are purchasing. You need to understand if you need a small, medium, or large capacity. There are different sizes of hardware. If you want to do an expansion, you need to think about if are you going to expand and where and what you will need, and whether that's in the near future, or maybe three or five years later. That is the consideration you need to keep in mind from the outset. Overall, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

We are an HPE partner. I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

I would advise others to give it a try. We did a lot of proof of concepts where we just put a node, and the client tried it. I would rate it a nine out of 10.

I would recommend this solution. I would rate it a seven out of 10.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give HPE SimpliVity an eight. I trust HPE a lot because it's an excellent product. I think SimpliVity is a better solution than other basic HPE solutions. Maybe not the best, but it's a good solution.

There are certain things to take into consideration regarding whether to buy SimpliVity: that everything is compressed and deducted, and not every application is deductible or compressible, which could lead to you not getting the efficiency you first wanted. One thing that separates SimpliVity from VxRail is the InfoSight portal. That's a cloud-based management tool, which you hook up to your SimpliVity solution, and this sends telemetry data to InfoSight. You can use your portal to maintain your solution and to monitor it for growth. And you also have the SimpliVity support team. They get the support data all the time, so if you have a problem with your solution and you are unaware of it yourself, HPE SimpliVity team will contact you and tell you that you have a problem. I'd rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Plan your deployment, and then implementation will be easy. I would give this solution a score of nine out of ten.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

I don't know if it's my HPE reseller or if it's an actual HPE initiative, but they're not pushing me to go with SimpliVity. They don't want me to go with their other storage solution with which they are leading more. In the research that I've done, I've found out that I can run SimpliVity on top of that storage solution. If I wanted to do that, HPE does offer that configuration. While sizing your storage, knowing how a solution or a vendor does compression and deduplication is important. For example, Scale doesn't do compression and deduplication on the front side. So, you've got to make sure that you've got that accounted for, especially when you start doing backups. They were definitely a 10 five years ago when we implemented them. What they were doing was incredible. The rest of the market and all other technology providers have caught up with what they're doing. I don't know how they stack up and compare to everybody now because I've been out of the loop long enough to know that. It is probably a level playing field as it boils down to today's market. I would still give them a nine out of 10 because they do have good service. My hardware is five years old, and it is not HPE hardware. I get it that it is time to renew.

I'm not a technical guy, but it is very easy. I've heard a few stories that some of the other solutions are not that easy, but our engineers have implemented it very quickly. So, I would advise others to go for it because it is a very easy solution. The backup feature is built into the application. So, you don't need to spend money on the licenses for backup. I would rate it an eight out of 10.

I would definitely recommend this solution. It is a good solution, but it needs some improvements. I would rate it an eight out of 10.

I would rate this solution 6 out of 10. I would recommend HP SimpliVity for people who want to start using it.

We're customers and end-users. I'd rate the solution as an eight out of ten. We really like it. As stated earlier, most backups take a minute or less. Within our first year, one of our SQL servers got corrupted somehow and wouldn't boot. We restored the VM from the previous backup, which was at that time about an hour old, and in under a minute we had that 950 GB VM up and running. Restoring this VM with our old backup system would have taken six or seven hours. For us, this was a real eye opener. I'd advise potential new users to definitely do some kind of a trial, if at all possible, and go into it with their eyes open. We had a pretty good idea of its capabilities beforehand. Although we didn't do a trial, we had witnessed several demos of it. Overall, we've been pretty happy with it. However, like any product, there are always a few things that could be improved.

There are around 100 people in my company working with the solution. The solution simplifies IT life. In terms of resources such as OT and data backup, one can save a lot in cost. Around the clock one need not worry about having comprehensive backup. The entire system remains up and running during office hours and there is no need to wait for anything. Overall, one is assured that all the data is backed up and can be restored. Prior to running HCL, we had to do testing, much more planning and sometimes remain overnight beyond office hours. Nobody wishes to do this nowadays. All is good with the solution. As we are satisfied with HPE Simplivity so far, I rate it as a nine out of ten.

I would advise others to just be sure and do their homework and compare. I'm not sure if we made the best decision, but I'm not dissatisfied with it. I'm pretty comfortable with the way it operates. I don't know enough about the other products to compare it in terms of the ease of doing updates and things like that. Usually, we get a support vendor involved when we do anything major. I would give HPE SimpliVity an eight out of 10.

For me, SimpliVity is a 10 out of 10. I would recommend it, but also you have to follow the best practices. Like a lot of things, I can imagine that if you think you know what you're doing but you don't know, you can have some trouble. But if you follow the best practices and the rules, you will have no issues.

I rate HPE SimpliVity a nine out of ten.

If an organization's IT team does a complete planned implementation, then that process will be very easy and very quick. If you plan properly before implementing it, you would feel the value of the product. If there is something wrong with the planning, then definitely your expectations from the product would not be met. In my opinion, most of the time, organizations invest in solutions, but they don't invest in the proper resources and implementation. It would be good if people can use HPE's expertise so that they have a greater experience when they invest in these solutions, and they are able to see the value of the solutions implemented by the experts. I would rate HPE SimpliVity an eight out of 10. I would like to see improvements in terms of the setup and the price. No customer will have 100% satisfaction, but we can raise the bar of satisfaction when we overcome these hiccups.

We're just customers and end-users. We don't have a business relationship with HPE. I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

If you go with a single node only, then you may encounter some issues if you don't have any backup nodes. However, if you go with at least two nodes, then you will be able to manage a disaster well. If one of the nodes goes down, then the server and data center will be moved to another node. This will ensure that you don't lose anything. I am very satisfied with HPE SimpliVity and would rate it at ten, on a scale from one to ten.

It's important to use the best solution for your requirements and use case. I rate this solution an eight out of 10.

We are going to continue to use the solution in the future, and I recommend it to others. I rate HPE SimpliVity a nine out of ten.

Our organization is using the latest version of the solution. We're both integrators and implementors. I would recommend the solution to other organizations. It's so far worked well for us and our clients. Overall, I would rate the product at a nine on a scale from one to ten.

We recommend our clients use SimpliVity. On a scale of one to ten, I would give HPE SimpliVity a nine.

I would advise those wanting to use this product to be careful before setting up the solution that you have enough disk space, if you do not, you will have to pay for it which is expensive. The solution works great, it is amazing. I rate HPE SimpliVity a ten out of ten.

This is a product that I would recommend to others who are interested in using it. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

It is a good solution. It is a good hyper-converged solution as compared to other solutions like Cisco or Dell because they don't embed software inside the solution. SimpliVity is more useful for us because, during the month-to-month activity, it provides good features to back up, install, and roll back everything. I would rate HPE SimpliVity an eight out of ten.

My advice for anybody who is considering this product is that it is easy to deploy and set up replication for use in a data center. It can be used in production for DLP. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Regarding configuration, it would be nice to have the flexibility to easily select the right low-cost service for any implementation or configuration. Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine. If the customer has the right environment, I would definitely recommend this solution.

In summary, this is a good solution aside from the issues with scalability and improving the ease of upgrading. The upgradability has improved but it's still far from simply clicking a link and it automatically upgrades. It's not quite that simple yet, but it's getting there. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Training is important before integration. Ask HPE for at least four weeks for integration before they start sending out invoices. On a scale from one to ten, I would give HPE SimpliVity a nine.

I would recommend this solution. It is very good for me. I would rate HPE SimpliVity a nine out of ten.

We are HPE partners. Overall, I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I would caution others, to implement the solution effectively, you have to go step by step, and with no hurry. The documentation for implementation is very long. If you don't follow it exactly and do every step as described, you'll have a lot of challenges during the implementation, therefore, just go slow.

I am completely satisfied with this solution. I would rate HPE SimpliVity a nine out of ten.

On the one hand, I think the price is really high for the solution. On the other hand, it's got a very user-friendly GUI because it's fully integrated with each center. I would rate this solution eight out of 10.

We are an HPE partner ourselves. We have access directly to the HPE portal, and our engineers can directly register with HPE training online. I would give this solution a six out of 10 because it's not so stable and there are some bugs in the nodes.

If you're a retail company that has a bunch of stores, I would actually highly recommend this for your stores - for the simplicity of it, the ease of the restores, and keeping your environment up and running. We use it as a backup solution and so that the nodes don't fail. When the nodes fail, it's all governed through SimpliVity. It's been working really great. We haven't had too many issues with it.

The solution is great. Make sure you are aware of everything before you commit to deploying or purchasing it.

Do your homework.

Evaluate it. In terms of rating the solution, I have to go with an eight out of ten. A ten is hard to get from me. There's no perfect system and every system has its little hang-ups and issues.

I would recommend the product. It is good technology. The time and response of applications embrace the productivity of our enterprise.

You definitely have to do a PoC and check-mark all the different items that are in your requirements. Go from there and see if it actually works. I'd give it a nine. It has pretty much everything there.

I would recommend buying this product. It is a simple, self-managed product.

Do a proof of concept on everything, instead of just relying upon the salesperson's pie-in-the-sky promise. I'll rate this solution as a five out of ten. It may not be terribly mature yet. I see disk, for example, becoming all-flash. That may have overcome my painful learning experience.

Ask people who have already implemented a solution for their opinion and you'll likely find that most of the SimpliVity customers would put the solution in again if they had to do it over. I would rate SimpliVity a nine out of ten due to the fact that it needs little intervention on a daily basis, the uptime is excellent, and it works.

For smaller node clusters, I wouldn't go with anybody else. For small node hyper-converged three-node clusters, it is the best game in town. It was great before HPE bought them. Now, it has a large organization standing behind it. I would definitely recommend SimpliVity. If people are using it for the right purposes, like we are, it is a really good solution.

The product is good. It might not meet all your requirements, but it is one of the solutions that met most of our requirements. There's no "best product" out there but this is likely the best for your needs. I would rate SimpliVity at a seven out of ten, based on the features and the requirements that we have.

Definitely consider the product. Once it is up and running, it is pretty rock solid.

We are not looking to change our solution, at least not in the next three years.

Do your research. We talked with many people about it. Do what is right for your environment.

Try to understand your rate of change on your data: When you take a backup, how quickly is your information changing or being updated, and whether it is a database, file server, or whatever it happens to be. This will affect the way that you size the solution and get into those archives. It will affect how much space it starts to take up and how you calculate that. Know your data. It does everything that we need it to do. The only spot that it falls out is the archival backups. Otherwise, it is a rock-solid platform. It has freed up a bunch of resources to do different types of work, instead of dealing with storage allocations, backups, and recoveries.

There is a massive technology shift now toward software-defined storage, so we are trying to move from a functionality perspective to an abstraction layer above the equipment we buy. I think that this is a safe investment for anyone who wants to have a straightforward solution that comes out of the box and can be deployed on an appliance. I would rate this solution eight out of ten.

I have a lot of confidence in the SimpliVity OmniCube product. It has enabled us to streamline our data center and improve our ability to rapidly recover from a disaster.