We performed a comparison between Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series and Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two HCI solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Highly available storage is the most valuable feature. The entire rollout is hyper-converged and requires no extra storage further than the hosts in which Hyper-V is running. Another feature that has been great is the support from StarWind in general. We have their proactive support package on the main cluster that employs Starwind Virtual SAN."
"I've had to open a few support cases over the years due to administrator errors, and the support received was top-notch."
"Virtual SAN runs on iSCSI, which is free and easy to configure. It's easy to manage from StarWind's GUI console, and it only required a few extra switch ports."
"I have found the graphical user interface to be the most useful thing about Virtual SAN."
"It includes every feature that a traditional SAN offers and so much more."
"It has reduced our overall maintenance and overhead by having to only maintain physical boxes for one cluster instead of having to manage physical boxes for two clusters."
"It has great free trials that allow end users to test a large variety of their products before deciding to buy the full product."
"This software lets us maintain storage redundancy across both of our Hyper-V hosts, so if one goes down the environment fails over to the other and we have minimal to no downtime."
"The management from the switches to the hyper-convergence solutions are quite good and well-developed."
"It is a stable and scalable solution."
"We used to have a single customer-facing data center, which was vulnerable to failure. This product has allowed us to create high availability between two private data centers."
"The most valuable features of this solution are scalability, performance, and reliability. It scales well inside of a large data center."
"It is scalable and easy to use."
"The initial setup was straightforward. With our partners and the consultancy that we had, we knew what we wanted to do. Therefore, we didn't have any problems with the installation and parametrization."
"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."
"Most of our users are Cisco customers, so it fits in within the suites we use. Primarily for me, as a solution architect, it's the technology and architecture that is the most valuable. I know from my technical colleagues that it's easy to use and for the customer, the up-time is the most valuable asset. It's running, has low failure, and so on which is why we use it."
"Installation is straightforward because it's a vSAN. It only took one or two days."
"We find the setup quite straightforward and very easy."
"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series' deployment is easy. We are a tier-one platinum partner who is into multiple implementations."
"A better overall view of the different deployments could be beneficial, although this is difficult due to how flexible the solution is."
"I would definitely like to see quite a bit more on the monitoring side of things."
"StarWind doesn't really have any performance reporting, especially compared with other vSAN products we've used."
"It would help if the manufacturer provided clearer and more detailed documentation, with explanations of how the application can be installed in various HA configurations."
"This product would benefit from having automated alerting functionality."
"The gathering of monthly consumption and performance reports for future dissemination to concerned parties is very important. Unfortunately, StarWinds vSAN doesn't offer this functionality."
"It is difficult to control all of the hardware components."
"If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things."
"We would like to see better integration in the next release of this solution."
"I would like to see them expand onto the cloud."
"We'd like the product to offer better integration with other products."
"Cisco HyperFlex should decrease the amount of memory needed from the Controller VM that controls the physical discs. They control the discs by using the virtual VM over every ESXi host and the VM consumes memory and consumes more hardware resources. They have to improve that by decreasing the amount of required memory and CPUs to control this disc on the server."
"They can't get a POC to work because there are big latencies between the two sites we have. Even though we have a private fiber connection and everything else works well, they can't get the two products to talk to each other. They are not able to build it up. It looks like it's a firmware issue. They said it isn't but now it's looking like it is. I hope we can sort it out."
"You have to get the same servers with the same storage; they need to be identical. However, in vSAN or in VMware we don't have to do that. We can just add storage and manage it in the same server."
"HyperFlex could be improved by reducing the minimum number of nodes supported from three to two."
"This solution is lacking in replication and backup abilities that I would like to see in a future release similar to HPE SimpliVity."
"The user management could be a bit better. It's something they could improve upon in future releases."
"Support could be better."
"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series needs to improve its stability. Its resolution should be faster."
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Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is ranked 8th in HCI with 90 reviews while Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is ranked 16th in HCI with 3 reviews. Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is rated 8.0, while Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series writes "A fast and easy deployment that allows secure access to our medical applications ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series writes "A stable solution that needs to improve stability and resolution". Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Dell PowerFlex and Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure, whereas Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is most compared with VxRail, Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series, HPE Alletra dHCI and HPE SimpliVity. See our Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series vs. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series report.
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