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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

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

"Easily facilitates remote work opportunities with storage and compute resources."
"I like the stretch cluster, it's a feature that allows us to warranty a service for the customer that has to be 100% uptime."
"The software defines networking, storage, and processing."
"The ROI we have seen from the high performance that has saved us time and money."
"It is a stable and scalable solution."
"The UCS, which is by far the best management tool there is on the market, regardless of vendor. It's the only tool I see that gives you the opportunity to size and scale all the assets and capacity you have in your data center, from a unified view."
"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."
"Performance-wise, everything is good, and so far we haven't had any issues, with no downtime at all."
"Due to this effective, faster backup and recovery solution, we are now able to focus on other creative tasks to meet our entire pipeline, and we save around one million dollars a year."
"Rubrik support is outstanding."
"The most valuable feature is the archive to cloud location and the automation around the PowerShell script. There are also reports and dashboards."
"The most valuable feature of Rubrik is its concept of a 'backup airbag', which provides a robust defense against attacks."
"Even though I am not trained for implementing, it is easy to use and easy to learn."
"CloudOn allows for backed up virtual machines stored offsite in Azure to be instantiated as an Azure virtual machine and spun up."
"The tech support is extremely helpful."
"Not having to specify a time to run a backup with a fixed schedule is something that's really beneficial. In the past we had to schedule and try to manually stagger things over the window, to back up everything. Because Rubrik is SLA-based, you say, "Well, I need it to fit in this window here," and it just backs it up when it's most convenient for the Brik and for the third-party system. It looks at the CPU usage and says, "Okay, it's not as busy now. I know I've got time to take the backup." That's a real advantage."
 

Cons

"Deployment scripts can be improved since several clans need to be created before the deployment effectively works."
"The initial setup could be faster, due to the prerequisites."
"In the next release, Cisco should add more integration and management capabilities as well as some tweaks to the dashboard that make it more user-friendly. They could also add support for multiple hypervisors."
"The problem is that we always have to keep an eye out for new releases to make sure that the version we're running is up-to-date."
"Single console management (like Hyperflex and FIs management). I mean to say that, we need to log in 2 console one for vcenter and another for Hyperflex manager, this should be on same console page either hyperfex manager settings and monitoring in vcenter or vcenter can be managed by hyperflex console too."
"If we compare it with VMware, the VMware product is basically very open, and it can be easily integrated with any platform. VMware product is also available on the cloud and is not an appliance-based product, whereas Cisco HyperFlex is an appliance-based product. Companies that want to use HCI as a platform or as a service would prefer something without an appliance. A SaaS-based product is better for a customer who is using the cloud and has multiple resources, workflows, and devices on the cloud and wants to go for a hyper-converged solution. This is where improvement is needed. In addition to an appliance-based product, Cisco should provide a SaaS-based product. Its price should be lower. Cisco needs to work on the pricing model for this product. Its price is a big road blocker when competing against Nutanix and VMware, which are its main competitors."
"The initial setup of the Cisco HyperFlex HX platform was medium-level difficult. It's a little bit different from traditional servers."
"Cisco should combine its features with its prices."
"I'd like to see a cloud backup service for smaller customer environments that may not support a physical or virtual appliance."
"It needs to support more applications natively, like MySQL/MariaDB."
"They have what's called an organization which means different groups of access to Rubrik, but the alerting only goes to the admins."
"They should give more access to the backend capabilities. From a customer point of view, you do not have access to all the features on the system. You have to engage their support to perform some of the tasks. It would be helpful for an experienced engineer to be able to go and do some of those tasks prior to contacting the support."
"It would be nice if they could work on the pricing a bit."
"The dashboard and user interface could be improved to make them more user-friendly."
"It is already very well furnished, but live mounts for Nutanix AHV would be amazing."
"The user interface could be improved, it's pretty rough."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is highly priced compared to other vendors."
"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.""
"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 no additional licensing cost other than the cost for each part."
"There is a license required to use this solution."
"Pricing is better if you buy more Cisco products."
"Initially HyperFlex was a little costly, it was higher, but Cisco wanted to get into our company, so they gave us a fair discount."
"The price is a bit too high."
"Rubrik is quite expensive for small businesses."
"Rubrik is an expensive solution."
"It’s simple, straightforward, and we were able to see 50% hard savings."
"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 initial setup cost includes support and maintenance costs, followed by a monthly fee."
"The pricing and licensing of Rubrik is better than products that we've had in the past. It was quite a bit cheaper than Commvault and NetBackup."
"Rubrik is a little bit expensive, but it's worth the price."
"It is an expensive product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
15%
Construction 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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