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Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs DataCore SANsymphony comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DataCore SANsymphony
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Storage Software (2nd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), HCI (7th), Storage Performance (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Nuno Mendes - PeerSpot reviewer
High performance solution that makes it easy to efficiently manage VM resources
In our case as a credit recovery company working with the state, our infrastructure is fixed and stable as we don't have the same need for growth as other types of companies. That said, one of the biggest problems with HyperFlex HX is that if you want to adjust your solution in terms of processing power, memory, or disk capacity, you have to buy completely new hosts. From a financial perspective, it can be very expensive to do so, and from a legal perspective, there are all kinds of compliance issues we would have to sort out before buying any new solution or application. Since we as a company will only be operating for perhaps the next ten years, when our HyperFlex solution comes to its end-of-life in 2024 our next step will likely not be with HyperFlex or any other solution from Cisco. Instead, from a financial point of view, we will likely turn toward a cloud solution because, that way, we won't have to spend so much money on physical infrastructure. We are, after all, only a small company and HyperFlex can be very expensive for other companies of our size, whether in Portugal or elsewhere like the United States. One other area for improvement is in regard to HyperFlex's integration with VMware. HyperFlex integrates with a specific version of VMware in such a way that HyperFlex doesn't always resolve security issues with VMware at the same pace as what you see in native implementations of VMware. This has happened in one or two situations in the past. On the other hand, the integration is otherwise adequate, especially in terms of availability and virtualization features (such as being able to split up each of our four hosts within VMware).
TempreviewerD - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust with good replication and access protection
The solution is constantly evolving. Recently, deduplication and compression have been further improved to meet customer needs, and updates are easily implemented without stopping production. The update assistant checks the state of health before using good practices, during checks that the data is still presented for service continuity, and afterward, if the actions carried out are indeed active. Technical support is truly available even without a production incident. This is really essential right now.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most important benefits that we've seen from this solution is that it reduces the cost of management and it has easy monitoring systems."
"The technical support has been helpful. We are always able to get through to the right person."
"It is a solution that best suits thre needs of our organization."
"The most valuable feature is full integration with Cisco API and UCS, which means you can have complete networking and storage from Cisco."
"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."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX has improved the way our organization functions on the storage side by having one big storage space for hosting VMs. We do not have to provision other ones. That's a positive aspect of it."
"The software defines networking, storage, and processing."
"The ease of use and the graphical user interface (GUI) are two of the most valuable features of this solution."
"The platform's most valuable feature is its synchronous mirroring capability, which ensures bit-identical copies of data and offers excellent failover capacity."
"It's a software storage solution that can scale as we like. There is also has a parallel feature that enhances the performance of the storage solution. We can separate storage and computing, and we can scale these two parts of the platform to meet business needs efficiently."
"DataCore's ability to seamlessly move virtual volume data between storage pools as well as their synchronous mirroring has made maintenance and disaster recovery planning achievable."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"Our system is designed to be scalable and flexible, so it can grow and adapt to meet the changing needs of our clients."
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its versatility, with there being support for all new hardware technologies and platforms, disc mirroring and very effective auto tiering."
"The ability to pool the storage to leverage thin-provisioning is a huge saving in space and costs."
 

Cons

"It is quite new solution, so it is not very stable."
"The documentation could be substantially better, but the product itself does everything it needs to do."
"One aspect that really needs to be looked at, is to fix the bugs issue."
"We'd like the product to offer better integration with other products."
"One of the biggest problems with HyperFlex HX is that if you want to adjust your solution in terms of processing power, memory, or disk capacity, you have to buy completely new hosts. From a financial perspective, it can be very expensive to do so, and from a legal perspective, there are all kinds of compliance issues we would have to sort out before buying any new solution or application."
"We are working with a lot of different technologies and trying to manage them with one tool. The API could be improved for better integration with other systems."
"Deployment on-prem was quite difficult."
"The initial setup can be a bit complex."
"I'd like to see the company make the renewal of the software cheaper."
"For customers or technicians who don't speak and understand English, it would be great to have other language support, all the more so given the number of countries in which SanSymphony is used."
"I think the performance reporting can be improved by adding historical statistics into a database for the purpose of comparing."
"I found it a little unnecessary to have to rename the configurations within the graphics console in order to have unique names."
"I would like to see SMPA (Shared Multi-Port Array) technology developed with the aim of allowing a configuration identical to other storage arrays."
"When I sometimes reboot for maintenance, the connectivity from the iSCSI initiator host could be improved."
"DataCore should integrate its own file server into SANsymphony."
"If you're dealing with big databases or transactional databases, it might not be the best-suited solution. The design of DataCore's solution isn't oriented towards this type of data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco is quite expensive, but not in the initial first buy."
"Initially HyperFlex was a little costly, it was higher, but Cisco wanted to get into our company, so they gave us a fair discount."
"There is no additional licensing cost other than the cost for each part."
"It is relatively expensive, but it can easily return value by freeing up other resources."
"When we negotiated with Cisco for the HyperFlex solution, they gave us a good price because they wanted to break into the market in Portugal for the first time. However, in general, I think it's a very expensive solution. It's a huge amount of money to acquire this kind of infrastructure."
"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."
"There is a license required to use this solution."
"The product could be cheaper."
"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."
"The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."
"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."
"The solution is cost effective."
"This product has a good ratio between quality and price. In many cases, it's less expensive to work with DataCore than other storage systems."
"In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."
"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."
"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
25%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
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How does VxRail compare with Cisco HyperFlex HX Series?
VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if you are working with a limited budget, this platform offer...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?
The cost changed from a perpetual license to a subscription model, and it seems reasonable. I am technical personnel and not deeply involved in sales, but the pricing appears fine.
What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?
The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress).
What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?
In my opinion, there should be improvements in how to get and filter logs. However, this is not a frequent need because they have great support that offers quick and knowledgeable assistance. Other...
 

Also Known As

No data available
DataCore Virtual SAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest
Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.
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