Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Reviews

The primary use case is for people who are tired of messing around with old school solutions, like SANs and NASs, and want to improve the storage side of things in the data center.

The storage system is its most valuable feature. It has eliminated our entire need for having to worry about storage. We were storing a lot of syslog data and using a lot of templates in our data center. With the storage system, we are now saving an enormous amount of space.

I would like to see more analytics. The storage data is just IP packets. It could use better infographs in the HyperFlex Connect on how traffic is running in the network. If you were reaching any capacity issues on the Fabric Interconnects, it should be able to cool all of the servers and Fabric Interconnects, then possibly integrate it with, e.g., Nexus Series switches. This should all be available in a single pane of glass.

I would also like a fast on-premise service. While there is Intersight, which does a lot, there is not the same clarity of information from Intersight, as with an on-premise service.

The stability is great. I can pull the power cord from one of my servers, and everything will keep on running. Then, the VMs will be automatically transferred to another server and the user won't notice anything. If we had two sites, we can down an entire data center without issue.

The scalability is good, though it used to be lacking a bit. Now, the HyperFlex system probably has the scalability to be able to cover every single customer in Norway and their needs. With how much it can scale, Norway doesn't have that customers with this many servers, at least in the same use cases or workloads using HyperFlex.

The technical support is good. We use 24/7 contracts and they have never been late. I would rate the tech support as a nine out of ten.

I did have one time where I had an engineer who was just running scripts. He was reading off a tablet (or something). However, that was a next-business day contract, and we were not working with a high-level engineer. We needed a high-level engineer, so we just escalated the case to receive a better engineer, then everything was resolved.

It would be nice to have more qualified support agents get assigned to HyperFlex cases, at least the initial case, not just someone reading off a script.

We had an old Cisco System, which was an internal company system. We also had an old UCS server, which was spec'd out, along with a bunch of other servers. When we were starting to lack in CPU, memory, and storage, we knew that we needed faster storage and networking. In addition, we needed more CPU and RAM with the possibility to scale.

Now, if we need a new node, we can just order a new node. Then, when we get the node, it takes an hour to put it up and we have a new node in the system.

We needed that scalability. We also needed to upgrade the data center. However, the reason that we chose HyperFlex instead of trying to build a system and making it work with open source software, was with HyperFlex, we receive Cisco tech support and services.

We chose HyperFlex because of everything that binds up into it: the scalability, reliability, and services. 

The first time I did set it up, I deployed it with an existing UCS Cluster on the same Fabric Interconnect. This was not yet validated by Cisco. We had no information from Cisco how to do this. While it was coming, but we had a customer who didn't have spare FIs, so we had some problems. However, this was due to a configuration error from the team who had put up the SAN which was connected on the same FIs. So, the HyperFlex was okay. It was just configuration errors on the other one.

In the other deployments that I've done. It has been mostly just racking and stacking the servers, putting in some IP addresses on the Fabric Interconnects, going down to the office, sitting remotely on the good couch, and typing in everything, then pressing "Deploy". Afterwards, everything just runs smoothly.

I deployed it myself. I am the HyperFlex engineer.

The main purpose of our data center is to run our monitoring system, which uses huge databases. When we transferred the monitoring system, all of our logging servers, and everything to the HyperFlex system, we saved an enormous amount of data. We obtained a huge performance gain out of the monitoring system because it could cache the data more quickly. Everything went faster and obtained more space. So, we have definitely seen a large return of investment.

I would like a clearer licensing model. It should explain a bit more what you receive if you buy the more expensive license rather than the standard one. This would probably help in a lot of cases.

We were looking into a lot of open source and white box solutions before we chose HyperFlex. This was mainly due to cost because Cisco isn't the cheapest solution. However, we completely trust the system because we have all this knowledge about HyperFlex along with knowledge about all the other competitors. The way that HyperFlex does storage down to the bits and bytes is something that we feel that we can trust a lot more than its competitors.

The Virtual Interface Cards (VICs) which the servers use are only available through Cisco. There are no competitors in this area.

Look for what your business needs are, what your data center is using, and keep in mind that all of the big vendors are doing hyperconverged. However, Cisco is the only one who is doing it with the network integrated. With all of the other vendors, you can have whatever type of network you want, but with Cisco, they include the network in the whole hyperconverged scene instead of pawning it off to another vendor. They are sort of forcing you to chose Cisco on the network. Yet, when you choose Cisco on the network, you get validated designs along with tried, tested solutions. The whole data center will come together in one single package.

Cisco was a little late to the hyperconverged scene.

The Fabric Interconnects integrates with UCS. The UCS servers are some of the best on the market. The UCS servers can manage all of the servers from the Fabric Interconnects, which is just phenomenal.

We use it on our customer-facing network management and customer portals. It is run between two resilient data centers and runs very well.

We used to have a single customer-facing data center, which was vulnerable to failure. This product has allowed us to create high availability between two private data centers.

• High availability
• Replication

The stability has been really good. We haven't had any issues since it's been in production for the last six to nine months.

Scalability was one of the big selling points. Because we are using HyperFlex, we can add additional compute or storage resources without breaking the model that we have built.

I don't think we have had any issues, but the technical support that we have had has been good

We were using HPE SimpliVity. We knew we needed a high availability, resilient data center architecture. SimpliVity simply did not meet these requirements. This forced us to look around. Cisco had improved massively around HyperFlex. As a Cisco partner, it was a natural choice for us. 

It was fairly straightforward to bring online. We had a bit of complexity to think about how to migrate our legacy infrastructure into Cisco HyperFlex, but this was more of a risk management process for us as a business, as opposed to anything relating to the technology.

We are a Cisco partner. We used ourselves and our professional services for our deployment. I have to say, "They worked great."

We would not have invested if we didn't feel the return was there for our customers.

We were mostly looking between Cisco and HPE.

We are a Cisco partner, so Cisco is a more natural choice for us. Feature-wise, Cisco was a superior product, so it was a simple choice.

Work with Cisco and the Cisco partner. It is all about understanding your requirements. The product works well and supports your business. We recommend it.

The primary use case is for our customer who was moving from classical storage and computing to the new HyperFlex system.

It saves space for data centers, which is good.

Everything is in one device: computing, storage, and networking.

It is quite new solution, so it is not very stable. However, that is okay.

It is very scalable. It is also easy to scan.

I had some issues that I had to solve myself because of the technical support.

The initial setup is very complex because there were some issues. It is not clear to how set up this solution.

I did the implementation myself.

Involve Cisco in the beginning, as they will give you good advice about setting up the product.

While it has a lot of things to improve, it is a good solution.

We use it mainly in a virtualization environment with several VMs. 

We use it with VMware, not Hyper-V.

It is good for administrators who want to administrate storage, their virtualization environment, and network. They have one solution with one overview, helping the people who administer the systems within the data center. They have one solution for one proprietor and maybe one solution provider to handle service requests, etc.

It is a hyper-converged solution which integrates with the network instead of the product.

We love its ease of use, ease of deployment, and combination with UCS.

The stability works well. We have had no issues so far.

We had an issue on the customer side, where the wrong SSD piece was delivered. However, this has nothing to do directly with the HyperFlex solution. The technical support did make sure that the right piece was delivered on schedule.

One of our customers was given HyperFlex as a present from a telcom provider.

The deployment was very easy. It took about two hours, and the solution was ready to use.

We used vCenter for the installation.

Comparable solutions with switches, storage, and services are cheaper than HyperFlex. It should be cheaper.

The storage layer seems to be a little better on the VMware than on HyperFlex side.

We have been using this product for a while. We wanted to use our current equipment and have been very excited with the results of our projects. 

It provides good security.

We did not have stability issues until now.

We are trying to determine the product's scalability now as we are doing a new proof of concept with new equipment/products.

We haven't had any issues with the technical support. We have had good cooperation with our Cisco partners.

Two or three years ago, it was something that my colleagues proposed to me as a very good program in order to provide an overall solution. All of our equipment was based in Cisco technology, so we didn't have to make any changes.

The initial setup was straightforward. With our partners and the consultancy that we had, we knew what we wanted to do. Therefore, we didn't have any problems with the installation and parametrization.

We used Space Hellas S.A., which is a company from Greece and a Cisco partner, for the implementation. We have a very good relationship with them.

We have seen ROI from this product.

I would like the pricing to be cheaper.

We did not consider any other vendors beside Cisco because all our equipment is Cisco. The compatibility of staying with Cisco is relevant.

It is a very good solution. Find a good consultant and vendor to implement it before purchasing the software and equipment.

We have been using Cisco machines when it comes to the HX-Series product line (or category) in our organization. We are quite satisfied with the product because we primarily deal with Cisco when it comes to the compute and network parts.

The plus point of this particular product is its usability. The management of this particular machine is very good when I compare it with other competitors, like a model from HPE or Lenovo.

It consumes a smaller footprint when I compare it with other competitors. 

Cisco should improve on having more technical documents available on their website, as well as keep them update-to-date. I would especially like to see more compute documentation.

I would rate the stability as high. The machines are stable and the downtime is minimal

The scalability is good. I can scale it on the fly. I don't really have to invest a lot of time in scaling up these machines.

Whenever I log a TAC case, I receive a good response from the teams, so the technical support is good. 

Sometimes when there are multiple technologies involved in a support case, this is when there is a bit of a lag. This something which Cisco could improve upon. Otherwise, the technical support is really good.

It was more of an upgrade. We recently migrated the data centers in my organization and decided to have the latest models and technologies available in the market.

The setup was somewhere in-between straightforward and complex. The reason being our data centers do not carry a single type of hardware. We have an array of vendors implemented in our data centers. We have to mix and match, ensure the interoperability is tested before implementation. This takes some time.

I think we did hire consultants from Cisco.

When we did benchmarking on this particular product line, the results were great and quite amazing. This is why zeroed in on this particular product for many of our use cases. For example, we use these machines for SAP systems. We also use this for many of our cloud ready applications. The product is performing quite well.

We do have a large Cisco footprint in our organization.

It is a good product to have in your data centers. Pick a good use case, then do a PoC and perform your own benchmarking. Once you are satisfied, go ahead with the product.

The latest models include all the newest cutting edge technology.

We are using this product right now for our virtual environment.  

As the product develops, we are looking forward to utilizing the product on the cloud.

It has been great for the deduplication and compression of data, allowing us to save a lot of space.

If we wanted to deploy a virtual or new application, it used to take months to buy the product or hardware. Now, we can do it within fraction of seconds. That is time.

The compression and deduplication are very high. Therefore, we can use the size of the product more efficiently than other storage solutions.

I would like to see them expand onto the cloud.

HyperFlex has been very stable. It was implemented at our bank a year ago and has had no downtime.

It is scalable. We recently added three more nodes, which went very smoothly.

The technical support is very good, especially from the Cisco side.

We were not previously using another solution.

The initial setup was straightforward when implementing the hardware and deploying the software.

We used a reseller called Data Consult from Lebanon for our deployment. Our experience with them was good.

We have saved a lot of money with this solution, especially with implementation because time is money. Implementing the solution on the same box saves a lot of space.

The price is a bit high. It could be better, but the product is worth the cost.

We compared Cisco HyperFlex vs Dell EMC.

Try it. The HyperFlex solution is perfect.

Our primary use case is virtualization on VMware. We have some virtual machines, which need a lot of computing power, and HyperFlex seems to be a good solution.

It is a good system to run our virtual machines and services on for high performance and high availability.

You can administer things easily. E.g., if you need more power, you can add a system.

There is a VMware plugin for HyperFlex, which sometimes it hangs up in our environment, and doesn't function well.

We started in an early firmware version, so the software release version was a little unstable in the beginning. Now, it is good.

You can add a package to expand the storage space or machines if you need more machine power. If you don't look at the costs of the systems, the scalability is quite good.

I only had one tough case that I brought to the technical support, and they dealt with it quite well.

We have a lot of IBM Systems, which were getting older. 

Our entire network is Cisco. There was also a good bundle for the HyperFlex system at the beginning when comparing price and value, and overall, it was a good investment. We received more performance for less money at the start.

A year before we set it up, relative to the software the release, there were a few things you could not know as a customer. This is why we used an integrator who knew how to use and follow command line commands that we couldn't know. However, I think this is now fixed.

For the first time that we installed, we used an integrator for the day.

Take a look at HyperFlex because it is a good system. Out-of-the-box, it runs quite well.