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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

"On the VDI side, because the storage is local to the HyperFlex, it was very easy and convenient. The performance is exceptional."
"The most valuable feature is that you can manage the whole cluster from the fabric interconnect."
"For customers in the private sector, this product can have a very high return on investment."
"I like Cisco Intersight."
"The integration between the storage and the server applications is the most valuable feature of this solution; it cuts down on the necessity to buy a secondary storage system and saves money in the long-run."
"The management from the switches to the hyper-convergence solutions are quite good and well-developed."
"Technical support is good but we need it for every piece we do."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX is that it is self-contained."
"With this new product, Rubrik, we walked into it blind, not being backup admins, and it made a lot of sense to us."
"Disk mount that lets a restore happen immediately, no need to re-hydrate."
"The system is able to determine when it is the best time to do backups. This is SLA-driven, and if it is not possible to maintain this SLA, the system will tell you too."
"We are now able to perform fast backups and very quick restores, and we have a tool to restore a virtual machine with Windows Server 2012 R2 from about 1 TB in around 2 minutes up to login."
"The product is as good as advertised and totally changes the way enterprise businesses do data protection."
"We do like the instant recovery... Now, we say, "Okay, give me 15 seconds and I can get this back up for you." And within that 15 seconds it's on and the only thing that we have to do afterwards is vMotion it off of the Rubrik storage back to where it should rest."
"Drives the back-end through a powerful, well-documented API."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"There should be the opportunity to create more than one div group."
"Maybe a better version is required to gather all of the information to allow HyperFlex to bring everything online more rapidly."
"The setup was complex, especially since we usually do all the planning, sizing, and workflows before integration."
"The initial setup can be a bit complex."
"The platform itself is very stable and robust, but when it comes to upgrading the system, it's not stable."
"Cisco has to continue improve the management tools to provide a better command line interface with more functions. That would be better for administration."
"The additional feature I would like to see included in the next release of this solution is more security."
"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."
"The user interface could be improved, it's pretty rough."
"There are some corner cases where the Rubrik Connector (Agent) still doesn't work for our clients, but Rubrik Engineering listens to our feedback and has been delivering the features that we have been asking for over the last year, so we are confident that they will knock those out soon, as well."
"The reporting can be vague, especially when something is failing."
"Rubrik can only leverage cloud storage for archiving and has no cloud failover."
"The main pain points we experienced was the stability of the system. We received a lot of instability when we have upgraded from a certain version to a new version. The newer version was completely filled with bugs and we needed to purge the system every week until we update to a newer version that was available one year later. The stability of the code is the main problem, they need to make it better."
"A singular system is needed to manage all of the clusters."
"The deployment and configuration of the backup service is something that could be streamlined a little bit, particularly when you're trying to do a SQL workload."
"The interface is still slightly clunky and has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license required to use this solution."
"The product could be cheaper."
"HyperFlex is a little pricey."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"We would not have invested if we didn't feel the return was there for our customers."
"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."
"It is relatively expensive, but it can easily return value by freeing up other resources."
"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."
"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."
"Rubrik is an expensive solution."
"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."
"There are additional costs like maintenance, and there are some features on their central management piece that don't come with our licensing."
"Rubrik is quite expensive for small businesses."
"Rubrik is an all inclusive price. No additional implementation costs or licencing."
"Rubrik is not cheap. Hopefully, you can archive your data on cheap storage to keep the investment minimal."
"The pricing has been quite good from our perspective, in terms of being able to negotiate with the Rubrik team to get the product that we want and be able to sell that out to our end customers."
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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

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...
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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