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Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs Rubrik 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
Rubrik
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (3rd), Cloud Backup (4th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2133501 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant VP, Information Technology at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Effective deduplication feature, but lacks a unified architecture
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series could be improved by reducing the number of nodes. Currently, the architecture separates data, computing, memory, and storage into different parts. For example, if I need around 200 servers with a requirement of TB of storage, I would need 200 clusters, which can be quite cumbersome. Other solutions like Dell and Nutanix have a single combined unit that includes computing, memory, and storage, which can reduce the number of nodes required and also reduce licensing and power consumption. Therefore, I suggest improving the architecture of the Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series by combining computing, memory, and storage into a single unit, making it more efficient and easier to manage. It will also reduce the number of nodes required and licensing costs and help to reduce power consumption. I would like to see improved internal integration capabilities in the next release. Currently, it is constrained only to VMware only. So, there is no integration part of the RAC or IEL or anything, and it isn't easy to manage it. If I want to hold another partner, then that part will not be possible. So, you have to manage that particular integration. Another feature could be in terms of memory usage.
KB
Information Technology Specialist at LIGHTHOUSE DOCUMENT TECHNOLOGIES, INC
Technical support has improved my data management process but I encounter GUI and cost challenges
The solution is available in the Azure Marketplace, but approaching directly is more cost-effective. The Marketplace approach incurs additional platform and reporting costs. We initially built Rubrik at host level and DB level. We encountered latency issues when reverting back, with numerous snapshots available. This resulted in increased costs and occupied spaces. I performed manual deletion of snapshots and verified with the Rubrik team for confirmation. The GUI reporting functionality lacks flexibility. For instance, obtaining specific server reports considering drive space and backup quantities is not possible, as it only provides overall reporting.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are providing this solution for the customer or converting the customer from a traditional environment to a hyper-converged environment which consolidates all management and support on a single port. This is the main benefit of using the hyper-converged versus the traditional."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is the integration with everything in a much smoother, such as in physical and virtual environments. VMware NSX is a simpler solution but, Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is more robust compared to VMware NSX."
"The solution can scale up and out."
"I like Cisco Intersight."
"The ease of use and the graphical user interface (GUI) are two of the most valuable features of this solution."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is that you can manage the whole cluster from the traffic interconnect."
"Our customers have seen ROI in terms of the time they save troubleshooting."
"Rubrik has automation capabilities that help streamline my workflows."
"Rubrik is a faster unit from a hardware perspective. Things, like Live Mount, mean we can bring services back straightaway, then have them transition back into the live storage in the background. Because we can use Live Mount to do instant restores, a restore is now a five-minute job. Then, the rest of it is done in the background, rather than doing something for an hour before you actually get the restore back."
"The most valuable feature of Rubrik is its concept of a 'backup airbag', which provides a robust defense against attacks."
"The web interface is user-friendly, clean, and it provides a good summary of what you're protecting at a glance."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It has a good interface which is simple to navigate and utilize."
"We have a great success rate for backups with Rubrik and because of the ease of automating tasks, we also run periodical restores to check the quality of the backups."
"CloudOn allows for backed up virtual machines stored offsite in Azure to be instantiated as an Azure virtual machine and spun up."
 

Cons

"The infrastructure team thinks that there are a lot of issues."
"The solution's price could be affordable."
"If we could have just a single pane of glass, where everything can be managed through that one app, rather than have multiple apps, it would be great."
"Maybe a better version is required to gather all of the information to allow HyperFlex to bring everything online more rapidly."
"Some of our customers do not want to adopt the Cisco ACI solution. They want to manage Cisco HyperFlex by integrating it with their own management solution."
"The scalability could use improvement."
"They should give us a little more information about how to use the CLI and offer more commands."
"HyperFlex could be improved by reducing the minimum number of nodes supported from three to two."
"There are some features to improve on in Rubrik. For instance, they should have a tool where we can integrate with our SAP HANA. Directly from the HANA studio, we should be able to do a backup. That's what I'm looking forward to in the future."
"The solution's reporting feature could be better."
"The price of Rubrik is too high, especially when you are considering a change in the total backup solution."
"It is not Windows Cluster-Aware at the moment or Exchange DAG-Aware. If they add support for these particular use cases, it would be even better."
"Pricing is something that needs to be considered for improvement."
"I would like for unmanaged backups to be able to be saved in a separate policy."
"Rubrik's disaster recovery capabilities could be improved."
"With multiple Rubrik clusters setup in an environment, it becomes painfully obvious that this product needs a central management console."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 30 percent additional premium that all the companies are charging for Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series because of the lack of chips and bottlenecks in the market. The cost of the solution is high right now."
"It's much more expensive than rack servers. It was an issue, but when you compare it to the number of people who were administrative assistants before, it's on the positive ROI side. It's much cheaper."
"Comparable solutions with switches, storage, and services are cheaper than HyperFlex. It should be cheaper."
"We currently have a perpetual license, which is kind of unlimited, so we don't have the normal licensing cost, yet."
"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."
"There is a recurring cost for the VMware license and the HyperFlex licenses."
"Our licensing is Hybrid. We have all of our applications for billing and outage management through this."
"There is a license requirement for the solution. If you expand or if the maintenance period expires, there's a license renewal as well."
"Rubrik is not cheap. Hopefully, you can archive your data on cheap storage to keep the investment minimal."
"There are additional costs like maintenance, and there are some features on their central management piece that don't come with our licensing."
"The product is not cheap, but for good reason. It simply works and is very fast."
"Rubrik was probably the most expensive solution but in the long run, it's justified by the value of the data that it protects."
"Rubrik is expensive, but due to its data management capabilities, customers can save a lot by reducing hardware and storage."
"There is just one cost, and it includes software and hardware. So, everything is included. It is better than other solutions in terms of cost. We also have Dell EMC Avamar in our environment, and we have to pay for the hardware and data domain. We also have to pay for the software license for the data protection suite. So, based on my calculations, I find Rubrik cheaper, and we are also getting good performance."
"The solution is expensive for small businesses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise57
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise55
 

Questions from the Community

How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...
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...
Which would you choose - Rubrik or Veeam Backup & Replication?
Veeam Backup & Replication provides an easy-to-set-up solution to the issue of data storage and recovery. Setting it up is a relatively simple affair. For the most part it prompts you from scre...
What do you like most about Rubrik?
It's easy to manage and has an innovated solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rubrik?
Regarding pricing, Rubrik is a costly solution, and I would rate it an eight.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest
Driscoll's, Red Hawk Casino, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, Wabash National, Chateau Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, Galliker Transport & Logistics
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