

HPE SimpliVity and Azure Local both compete in the hyper-converged infrastructure market. HPE SimpliVity appears to have an edge due to its comprehensive integrated features and storage efficiency.
Features: HPE SimpliVity offers strong backup and disaster recovery capabilities, integrated data protection, and inline deduplication for optimized storage use. Azure Local excels with its seamless Azure services integration, cloud-like on-premises experience, and support for Kubernetes and Azure Arc, enhancing hybrid cloud deployment.
Room for Improvement: HPE SimpliVity could benefit from smoother software updates and improved integration with non-VMware environments, including Hyper-V. Enhanced automation in its backup processes and a more user-friendly GUI would be valuable. Azure Local faces challenges with licensing complexity and limited functionality in stretched cluster operations, areas expected to evolve with future updates.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE SimpliVity provides robust on-premises infrastructure but requires frequent customer support interaction. Support is reliable, though sometimes slow. Azure Local leverages Azure's global presence for efficient support, noted for its promptness, and facilitates both on-premises and hybrid cloud deployment.
Pricing and ROI: HPE SimpliVity offers competitive pricing with bundled features delivering strong ROI, thanks to efficient resource use and included backup features. Azure Local's pricing is competitive but requires careful assessment of licensing costs due to its extensive integration capabilities, positioning both as cost-effective solutions dependent on their respective strengths.
There has been some return on investment in terms of just time usability and reduction of footprint.
They have more advantages than VMware, especially for containerization, and they provide good support as well.
Not every support team member is very knowledgeable about Azure Stack HCI, creating delays in resolution.
The technical support from the HPE side is excellent, and I give them 10 out of 10.
I would rate technical support from HPE SimpliVity eight out of ten.
With HPE, customers can scale up the HPE SimpliVity solution anytime.
HPE SimpliVity is scalable, as it can be scaled in terms of addition of nodes.
It does not feel like a well-oiled machine yet, with too many idiosyncrasies and insufficient documentation and integration, feeling more like software that is still in beta.
After achieving good maturity, it became easier.
From HPE's side, it is stable, and customers find it easy to manage and easy to grow.
Microsoft has decided to discontinue stretched cluster technology completely, which is disappointing.
Hyper V seems to lag behind compared to VMware.
There could be improvements with Azure Stack HCI regarding the license and price, as they have significantly higher prices compared to other competitors.
In the future, if HPE integrates HPE SimpliVity with VM essential, that will be a great combination.
Pricing could be an area for improvement, as there are many other options that are very cost-effective compared to HPE SimpliVity or converged solutions.
The licensing is quite expensive because it's per call.
VMware is costing significantly more nowadays compared to other solutions in the market.
Azure Stack HCI has been very beneficial for disaster recovery operations.
The integration with Azure using Azure Arc is excellent.
The greatest benefit is that customers don't need multiple hardware solutions from other vendors. Virtualization comes in a single box.
The data efficiency capabilities in HPE SimpliVity are impressive, as it is capable of storing data in its converged infrastructure with good resiliency and future expandability.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| HPE SimpliVity | 7.7% |
| Azure Stack HCI | 3.2% |
| Other | 89.1% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 4 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 1 |
| Large Enterprise | 3 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 67 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 49 |
| Large Enterprise | 80 |
Azure Local integrates on-premises infrastructure with cloud services, offering tools for software-defined networking, Kubernetes deployment, and VM management. It ensures cost efficiency through existing Microsoft licenses and robust disaster recovery, despite some complexities in deployment.
Azure Local is designed for businesses needing a blend of local and cloud services while remaining compliant with data privacy regulations. It excels in environments demanding high computing power, software-defined networking, and seamless scaling through Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure DevOps. Although it offers excellent VM management and analytics capabilities with Microsoft Fabric, deployment complexity and operational challenges remain. Businesses looking for a robust edge computing solution find significant benefits, especially with efficient local Azure storage and advanced hardware such as the latest processors and SSDs. There are areas needing improvements like multi-cluster management, stability, and Initial setup, which can be cumbersome. Pricing can be a concern against competitors, and enhanced support and training are needed for smoother user experience.
What are the key features of Azure Local?Azure Local finds application in sectors like manufacturing and maritime operations where robust edge computing helps in seamless data management and analytics. Factories benefit from compliance with data privacy rules while blended local and cloud services improve efficiency on ships, providing an alternative to VMware with support for virtual desktops and SQL Managed Instances.
HPE SimpliVity is an HCI software solution that provides powerful data protection, reducing data loss along with lowering the risk of ransomware attacks on your enterprise.
HPE SimpliVity Features
HPE SimpliVity has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:
HPE SimpliVity Benefits
There are several benefits to implementing HPE SimpliVity. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:
Reviews from Real Users
Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by HPE SimpliVity users.
Jeff S., Information Technology Manager at Troyer Foods, Inc. says the solution has “Phenomenal deduplication and compression, good support, and works on its own. SimpliVity is integrated with the hypervisor, and you have a single pane of glass. It is really hands-off. Once you set your backup schedules, you're done.
A Senior Datacenter Consultant at a computer software company mentions, “The most valuable feature is the ease of use and the storage virtualization layer, together with the built-in backups. That's what makes SimpliVity really useful, and how you can replicate data between different sites without paying an extra license for that feature. All the features are built into the product.”
PeerSpot user Doug C., IT Engineer at a government, comments, “Backups and restores occur very quickly. All SimpliVity management is done through vCenter, providing a single-pane of glass for all management and configuration functions. The advanced deduplication and compression greatly reduce the storage requirements, reducing the amount of expensive flash storage required.The 10G interfaces between the SimpliVity nodes greatly speeds up VM migrations between nodes. SimpliVity enables "stretched-cluster" operation with mirrored storage between the nodes, enabling automated failover. If a node or site goes down for any reason, the VMs on that node are automatically restarted on the other node.”
German I., Solutions Architect Data Center Servers and Storage at Tecnologia informatica, explains, “The integration possibilities regarding the administration console are one of the best configurations and one of the best features that differentiates this product from others in the market. Also, you can add extra coverage protection that includes everything inside of the hard drives — similar products don't do this. You can use it directly from the hypervisor, which is great.”
We monitor all HCI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.