What is our primary use case?
We've got a variety of use cases. We use Ezmeral for large file data storage and distributed processing with Spark and other utilities. We also use it as a NoSQL. The HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric database lets you store tons of data in NoSQL format. You can also use it as a messaging layer.
It's a combination of five or six use cases, but our primary use case is to store big data and make it easily accessible across locations and namespaces. More than a hundred people use it across multiple teams.
What is most valuable?
HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric can be accessed from any namespace globally as you would access it from a machine using an NFS.
What needs improvement?
Upgrading Ezmeral to a new version is a pain. They're trying to make the solution more container-friendly, so I think they're going in the right direction. The only problem we've had in the past was the upgrades. The process isn't smooth due to how the Red Hat operating system upgrades currently work.
They're transforming their host stack to increase cloud readiness and edge compute capability. HPE is transitioning from a standard data-driven approach to one powered by AI analytics. That's something they have released very recently. I haven't tried that, but it will probably make things easier.
The ability to adapt Ezmeral to the public cloud is probably missing. I've heard that they're getting leaner. However, it doesn't have a clear managed services offering for you if you want to deploy this stack on the cloud. That's a problem. This probably won't meet your needs if you require consistency across on-prem and the cloud. It's not Ezmeral's fault. None of the products would fit the bill. Cloud offerings are biased towards their own implementation. It's a general issue on most big data platforms. They're already working towards that, but it hasn't been released.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been Ezmeral customers for nearly nine years. They had a different name before HPE acquired and rebranded it.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The latest version typically isn't stable. When they release a new version, we don't upgrade immediately. They usually have an older supported version. When they release the latest upgrade, we don't jump into it. Instead, we let it soak for the next six months, and that's pretty stable for all of us. We wait for the patches and upgrade. Typically, we have a three-year cycle between versions.
How are customer service and support?
I rate HPE support seven out of 10. When we first adopted the product, they were excellent. After HPE's acquisition, the support was somewhat poor for the first couple of years, but they improved.
This often happens when a company acquires a product. There are problems initially because the people who built the product are gone. It takes time for support to build the expertise.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
The documentation is decent, so I don't think Ezmeral is difficult to set up. Anything is challenging without the proper documentation. The documentation wasn't adequate when we initially deployed the solution, but it has improved. It won't be difficult if you deploy the product today compared to a decade ago.
It didn't take much time after we figured out what to do. We had issues initially, but we've used this product for a long time, so now it's smooth. It'll take time for a beginner to get used to the stuff.
What about the implementation team?
It's a vendor implementation with some black-box pieces, but they have a decent support team to help people get up to speed.
What was our ROI?
You can see a return if you have all the use cases outlined. With their offering coming out in the next couple of years, it's just the tip of the iceberg. The product offers a lot more features that we're not using. It's a good value if you're using it to its full potential.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
HPE is flexible with you if you are an existing customer. They offer different models that might be beneficial for your organization. It all depends on how you negotiate.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did a PoC of four or five products, including most major competitors. We tried AWS, IBM, and Microsoft. Ezmeral came out on top with respect to enterprise capabilities like security, disaster recovery, high availability, and no single point of failure. It was a lot more stable than everything else back in 2014.
What other advice do I have?
I rate HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric seven out of 10. I haven't seen much innovation from the company in the last couple of years. Only in the last four or five months have I seen some dynamism in them. Something has changed, and now they're looking futuristic. There wasn't much on the roadmap in the past two or three years. Maybe they had some ideas they weren't talking about, but I've seen a shift in the last few months.
My advice to potential users is to understand your use case. You wouldn't use this product in certain scenarios, but Ezmeral is a good option if you need to meet multiple requirements with a single product. Other products might work better when you have a specialized requirement for one specific domain. You go for Ezmeral if you're looking for a one-stop shop.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
