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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

"Cisco HyperFlex HX has improved the way our organization functions in the way that the time to deliver a VM takes me five minutes. In comparison, my cloud team's response is a couple of days based on all their overhead policies, procedures, and ticket requests. This is substantial."
"The price of the solution is good, especially when it comes to complex network solutions, such as UCS and Connect."
"The most valuable feature is that it is something small that can be more easily deployed than a full data center set of servers."
"It increases efficiency, decreases the cost, and manages the network in one single way."
"The feature that we are most interested in is the scalability. When needed, we are able to add more nodes and scale it up further."
"Cisco is key for switching abilities, and the management from the switches to the hyper-convergence solutions, such as the storage or server environment, is quite good and well-developed."
"Stretch cluster allows us to warranty a service for the customer."
"The possibility to share the workload is one of its most valuable features. We have many applications which have need of workloads only a few times in a month, so we share HyperFlex with them."
"A Google-like file search, system scaling, and a frequent development cycle are some positives that this solution offers."
"The product's most valuable feature is the immutability of a backup."
"Cut backup remediation to nearly nothing."
"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, with the storage needed to store your backups and 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 while it might be expensive on paper, when you analyze what you are getting and the time you can spend on other stuff, then Rubrik is very cost-efficient."
"Also, the web interface is really great. The design, from a user-experience standpoint, is really straightforward and easy to use... they nailed it. Usually, from the very first panel, the dashboard that you land on after login, you've got most of your functionality right around where you need it to be. You've got your new items on the left, you've got your support on the top right. Nothing really seems out of place or just stuck in someplace."
"Features we have requested are typically added to the next product release."
"The implementation process is straightforward with simple clicks, cluster implementation, discovery, and adding components."
"Instant recovery because it takes about 10 seconds to restore the VM from backup to production"
 

Cons

"Managing this solution is complex and should be improved."
"They should have more blade options and more configuration flexibility."
"We would like HyperFlex to connect the storage directly into Fabric Interconnect along with the features of the solution. We have enough ports in HyperFlex. We don't want to buy another set of switches to connect to Fabric Interconnect, complicating the solution."
"One aspect that really needs to be looked at, is to fix the bugs issue."
"It is not a stable solution."
"There are sometimes issues with memory failure."
"There is a VMware plugin for HyperFlex, which sometimes hangs up in our environment and doesn't function well."
"Sometimes when there are multiple technologies involved in a support case, this is when there is a bit of a lag."
"The open source database needs to be supported."
"The recovery of Oracle databases is too complicated."
"The price of Rubrik is too high, especially when you are considering a change in the total backup solution."
"Based on my experience with Rubrik, I think they could improve by providing more customer-friendly technical support, even though they currently offer the best support."
"I would like for unmanaged backups to be able to be saved in a separate policy."
"Global management of multiple systems is lacking, as is reporting across multiple installed units."
"I wish there was more training readily available, not just the expensive classes that require purchasing Rubrik credits."
"The interface is still slightly clunky and has room for improvement. They do work with us whenever we mention anything that needs to be done or anything that we want. We find that bringing up the management interface is a little slow and not as intuitive as we would like, but it's been getting better as it evolves."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is high. Cisco needs to work on the pricing model for this product. Nutanix or VMware are cheaper products, and they provide almost the same functionality. Its price is a big road blocker when we are working with an end customer, and Nutanix and VMware are in competition. If they can reduce its price, it is actually a better choice for customers."
"We are on an annual subscription and the price is fair."
"We negotiated with Cisco and we got some price benefit from that."
"It is relatively expensive, but it can easily return value by freeing up other resources."
"Its price is rather fair when compared with other solutions like VxRail, vSAN, and HPE SimpliVity. We got a fair amount of discount from Cisco for Cisco HyperFlex. It is cost-effective. We have renewed storage till next year, and we have already paid the vendor. When we talk about HyperFlex or any HCI solution, storage is the part where we can reduce a lot of costs. At the current moment, we are already using NetApp storage, which did not allow us to go for a full Cisco HyperFlex setup. We are planning to go to a larger scale next year. Then we will be able to see how cost-effective it really is for us."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"We would not have invested if we didn't feel the return was there for our customers."
"They are not the cheapest on the market. But there's an old saying I like to quote: "If you know that you are getting what you pay for, it's fine if it's 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."
"High priced when considering a total change in backup solution."
"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."
"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."
"Rubrik is a little bit expensive, but it's worth the price."
"There are additional costs for add-ons, and they recently upgraded a new cluster, which also carries a price."
"Originally, we bought the units on perpetual licenses. Now, we have switched to Rubrik Go. I think the Rubrik Go subscription is a better model, where it is based on your onsite environment and you consume what you use."
"We are on an annual license to use Rubrik and it is priced well."
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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?
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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