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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 (4th), Cloud Backup (4th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2133501 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant VP, Information Technology at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Effective deduplication feature, but lacks a unified architecture
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series could be improved by reducing the number of nodes. Currently, the architecture separates data, computing, memory, and storage into different parts. For example, if I need around 200 servers with a requirement of TB of storage, I would need 200 clusters, which can be quite cumbersome. Other solutions like Dell and Nutanix have a single combined unit that includes computing, memory, and storage, which can reduce the number of nodes required and also reduce licensing and power consumption. Therefore, I suggest improving the architecture of the Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series by combining computing, memory, and storage into a single unit, making it more efficient and easier to manage. It will also reduce the number of nodes required and licensing costs and help to reduce power consumption. I would like to see improved internal integration capabilities in the next release. Currently, it is constrained only to VMware only. So, there is no integration part of the RAC or IEL or anything, and it isn't easy to manage it. If I want to hold another partner, then that part will not be possible. So, you have to manage that particular integration. Another feature could be in terms of memory usage.
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 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."
"Easily facilitates remote work opportunities with storage and compute resources."
"When we use it for VDI solutions, it is very easy to deploy and support."
"The most valuable feature is that you can manage the whole cluster from the traffic interconnect."
"The solution is stable."
"Support is very responsive."
"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 management feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"Takes me 80 percent less time to manage my backup environment."
"Rubrik has improved our organization by minimizing downtime."
"The implementation process is straightforward with simple clicks, cluster implementation, discovery, and adding components."
"The archiving, off-of-box, is awesome. It lets you put your data where you want it and gives you the peace of mind of having more than one copy of it. And it's smart about the way that it does the archiving. It doesn't just copy one-for-one. It does all of its processing of the deduplication and compression before it sends it off to the archive, which helps with our cloud costs."
"The most valuable features of Rubrik are the restoration and ease of use."
"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."
"Management is so simple that anyone can check the backups and do restores when necessary."
"They have a great PowerShell module and easy mediums to speak to the people who create and enhance them."
 

Cons

"With the cache disk fails in Cisco, the whole node fails, and the workload goes down."
"The solution could improve by having more customization."
"The infrastructure team thinks that there are a lot of issues."
"There is a VMware plugin for HyperFlex, which sometimes it hangs up in our environment, and doesn't function well."
"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 profiles and templates could be improved. Maybe some end profiles that you can use based on your type of deployment would be good."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to have a built-in index searching ability of files/system files within the Rubrik interface to determine if a file or item exists, rather than just recovering it, and then doing a search for the file afterwards."
"I would like to see the entire Office 365 product suite backed up by Rubrik. For instance, they do SharePoint and Exchange online, but they don't back up Microsoft Teams. So, I would like to see more of the Office 365 suite added into their backup capabilities."
"I wish there was more training readily available, not just the expensive classes that require purchasing Rubrik credits."
"Needs integration with video CD (coming in the next release) and a multi-tenant GUI."
"It needs to support more applications natively, like MySQL/MariaDB."
"I would like to see more information on encryption with the next release."
"The solution's reporting feature could be better."
"The open source database needs to be supported."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."
"The price is a bit high. It could be better, but the product is worth the cost."
"If you don't look at the costs of the systems, the scalability is quite good."
"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."
"For customers in the private sector, this product can have a very high return on investment."
"The cost is expensive, but there is a chance to save money in the future."
"It is relatively expensive, but it can easily return value by freeing up other resources."
"It is highly priced compared to other vendors."
"High priced when considering a total change in backup solution."
"Rubrik is quite expensive for small businesses."
"I rate the pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high."
"You pay a premium for Rubrik, but you're getting a premium service that comes with immutable backups, instant recovery, and world-class support."
"It’s simple, straightforward, and we were able to see 50% hard savings."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
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

 

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