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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 (3rd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Nuno Mendes - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager - Resp.Department at Parvalorem
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).
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

"It's a very scalable product because they have about 150 commercial services, so the scalability is very high, and the uptime is great."
"Performance-wise, everything is good, and so far we haven't had any issues, with no downtime at all."
"It is very scalable. It is also very secure. Cisco's security portfolio is integrated with it, which makes it secure. It is a platform-based device. Its performance is also fairly good in comparison to any other solution."
"The most valuable feature is full integration with Cisco API and UCS, which means you can have complete networking and storage from Cisco."
"From an infrastructure level you achieve the highest availability, I am talking about 100% availability from a storage perspective."
"It is a good system to run our virtual machines and services on for high performance and high availability."
"The workload can handle anything and has an extended capacity."
"It's a very robust solution; there are a lot of products on the market you can access, but this is an end-to-end compact solution for the end customer, it's good, and it's a high-end type of product."
"We like this product because of its simplicity, pricing and reliability."
"The most important feature is the instant recovery of virtual machines, as it allows us to restore services in minutes."
"It has a ​single pane of glass interface."
"The security and the ransomware protection are most valuable."
"Rubrik is an easy and automatic solution that needs no manual intervention."
"With an easy backup process, simple and fast recovery process, ability to scale out and still keep a single deduplication domain and a fast storage appliance, all I can think of to say is to shut up and take my money."
"Rubrik has absolutely reduced the time we spend on recovery testing by about 75 percent, reduced the time we spend on managing backups by the same amount, and the reduction in recovery time is even greater."
"You pay a premium for Rubrik, but you're getting a premium service that comes with immutable backups, instant recovery, and world-class support."
 

Cons

"You cannot just apply the VSXi updates. You are dependent on Cisco HyperFlex for metric services, analytics, and everything else. I don't like that dependency."
"HyperFlex could be improved by reducing the minimum number of nodes supported from three to two."
"We would like to see better integration in the next release of this solution."
"The main issue is cost-wise. Cisco costs more than its competitors."
"Cisco is a bit more challenging to setup. You need to be knowledgeable in order to implement the solution."
"The architecture separates data, computing, memory, and storage into different parts."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is stable. However, this solution has a lot of dependencies, and if there is a single point of failure the solution will be impacted."
"I think the product can improve dramatically in the area of deduplication. With deduplication as it is, you have 30 or 40% of the storage that can't be used because the deduplication is not efficient enough."
"The licensing cost is quite high. That is something that needs to be worked out, because so many times it happens that the team does not have the budget or there are other issues at that time."
"Rubrik could improve in customization options for dashboards."
"Setup is immediate but pricing is not cheap."
"The recovery of Oracle databases is too complicated."
"There is room for improvement in pricing. After the licensing, the price tends to go up as time goes by."
"The recovery of Oracle databases is too complicated. It is not something that helps the DBA, the Database Administrator, but it should be done by the backup person like many other solutions. Everything is ready for the DBA to recover the database. It is a way of doing things, but I don't think you should give the backup people the ability to do it."
"Pricing is something that needs to be considered for improvement."
"I wish there was more training readily available, not just the expensive classes that require purchasing Rubrik credits."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is expensive, but there is a chance to save money in the future."
"One of the challenges we have with HyperFlex is that they have a subscription fee for the operating system that runs on it, and if I remember correctly, it costs approximately $15,000 USD per month."
"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."
"Cisco is quite expensive, but not in the initial first buy."
"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."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is a bit pricier compared to other brands in the market...There is a need to make additional payments towards the maintenance and support of the solution."
"We would not have invested if we didn't feel the return was there for our customers."
"The price is a bit too high."
"The product is not cheap, but for good reason. It simply works and is very fast."
"We do perpetual licensing... It was all based on the amount of storage we needed to use. We did a cost analysis compared to Tivoli and it was in line with other solutions."
"We pay annually for the license for Rubrik. There are no additional costs. Initially, we needed to set it up, negotiate and finalize the offer."
"Rubrik's competitive pricing and strong return on investment make it a compelling choice, especially compared to alternatives like Data Domain and Avamar. Commvault was considered but deemed too expensive."
"When we compared the overall costs, Rubrik was cheaper because the engineering and operational side required FAR LESS dedication. So, all in all, they actually were cheaper than the competition."
"Rubrik is not the cheapest solution, but we've been happy with the time savings that we have seen. At least from what we have spent so far, we have been happy with the return on investment."
"Rubrik is priced high, but it was the solution that was providing us encryption and was secure. The solution price is high, but you get what you pay for."
"You need to understand what you're getting for the price. You are getting a backup solution, which is state of the art and works absolutely flawlessly. You are getting the storage needed to store your backups. You have all the sexy features that a modern backup solution can provide you, like deduplication, erasure coding, compression, fast execution time, secured data, and top-notch customer support. So, it might be expensive on paper. It's not free, but when you analyze what you are getting and the time you can spend on other stuff, then Rubrik is very cost-efficient."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
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

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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...
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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