Hewlett Packard Enterprise Software and Solutions

Nimble Storage is our primary production storage vendor.  We use this with VMware on a daily basis including a new AFA5000 all-flash array for our DMS system.

These arrays perform very well and have allowed us to move many physical servers to virtual and run them from the Nimble arrays without any performance impact and there is actual performance improvement.

The most valuable features are -

1. Ease of setup

2. Ease of Management with Web UI

3. InfoSight - analytics sight that collects data for all Nimble arrays deployed

InfoSight has been very valuable in determining upgrade requirements, bottlenecks, etc. The latest update to the site now allows Per-VM monitoring within the Virtual Infrastructure now too.

No areas require improvement at this time. The arrays run very well and updates are flawless when completed.

I have been using this solution for more than five years.

We have had some stability issues with one array which has happened twice during subsequent software updates but is due to a bad Postgres database. Nimble has been very helpful and are even replacing the array with a brand new one for our troubles.

There are no scalability issues and the arrays can be upgraded with ease.

Customer Service:

Customer service has been top notch with Nimble and would be 10/10. They even worked with use to replace a faulty array.

Technical Support:

Technical Support is one of the best and is 10/10. The autosupport system they have in place that creates tickets for you automatically is great. You can even specify on the InfoSight webpage which ones you want to Auto-Close, etc.

Positive

Previously used Dell EqualLogic arrays but they were end of life.

The initial setup is straightforward. You connect the array to the network and power it up. You then run the Nimble Setup Manager which will detect the array on the network and allow you to complete an initial configuration. Once that is done you can then use the Web UI to finalize the configuration.

It was completed in-house with the assistance from Nimble when required.

Nimble has allowed us to run without much down time giving us a great ROI on our investment.

No other options for storage were evaluated.

Given the chance to evaluate Nimble it is highly recommended. Their CASL architecture is very fast and being able to get the performance from the spinning disk that you see on some flash arrays is great. They are always improving the product and software including the recent changes to the InfoSight web page that allows Per-VM monitoring now. There is also excellent support and customer service when you need it.

I use Zerto for backup and restore.

With both Veeam and vCenter, the restoration process took a considerable amount of time. Zerto bragged about how their restoration was much faster, and it was true. It seemed unrealistically faster when they described and said that they could restore a VM within minutes. With vCenter and Veeam, when we restore a VM, depending on the size of the VM, it can take hours. Zerto proved true, and we have tested it numerous times now. We have done restorations via Zerto, and it truly does a full restoration of a VM within minutes. That was the problem we needed to solve, and they provided the solution. We are very pleased.

We are able to do a restoration so quickly because it backs up in near real-time. Of course, nothing is going to be in real-time, but it is as near real-time as possible. Instead of copying a larger amount of data, it is able to copy just delta data which is in a compressed form so that replication is more frequent. If we need to do a restoration, we will be missing less data.

Its interface is like any enterprise-grade utility. It is complex and not easy to use, but it is learnable.

We were able to see its benefits after some time. That was mostly because we did not have a good opportunity to test it in production. The initial onboarding came with an opportunity for us to do a test backup and restoration, but that was test data. You find the true value of this platform when you use it in a production environment where a stakeholder is involved and there is data that if you do not restore will lead to problems.

We use Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment. The restoration time is in minutes versus hours. That goes a long way towards our RPO. With our previous platform, it took two hours, and with this platform, it takes five minutes. It has also had a positive effect on our RTOs.

Zerto has helped us to reduce downtime with a restoration time of five minutes versus two hours.

We have not had to use it for restoration because of ransomware. We were using a couple of VMs to test migration to a new database. While testing that migration, we caused damage to the VMs. We then used Zerto to restore them prior to that damage, and it was fantastic. The restoration was quick and effective, and we were back in production in minutes versus hours.

Zerto has reduced the time spent on DR testing but we still do the same number of DR tests throughout the year to make sure. It just takes a lot less time.

Zerto has improved our confidence tremendously, and it has reduced the RPO of any potential restoration needs.

I find Zerto's ability to restore a virtual VM much more quickly than Veeam or vCenter's restoration capabilities to be incredibly valuable. 

I cannot think of any features that Zerto does not have. They probably have a lot of features that I do not even use. I am primarily interested in Zerto as a backup and recovery mechanism, and it does a phenomenal job of that. It is an enterprise-grade tool, and enterprise-grade tools tend to be complex. They can be a little difficult to use at first until you learn them. It is not reasonable to suggest making it easier to use because it is an enterprise-grade tool, and it is very robust. Therefore, it is not going to be easy to use. I just have to spend the time to learn it and become good at it. I am very pleased with it as is, but the ease of use of the restoration utility could be challenging initially.

I have used Zerto for just over a year.

It is 100% stable. We have had no downtime with it, and we are pleased with its uptime and stability. We have great confidence that it will be available and usable when needed.

I have not personally contacted Zerto customer service, but Todd, my sysadmin, is the primary point of contact for Zerto. He has contacted them for issues or day-to-day troubleshooting. When there is an upgrade to be done, he always reaches out to them to get guidance and ensure that he is doing the upgrades correctly. They are very good to work with.

Positive

We were using Veeam. There were no security concerns. It was more about performance. The restoration took approximately two hours with Veeam compared to five minutes with Zerto. The benefit was obvious, but there were no concerns about data security in the backups, protection mechanisms, or air gaps on either platform. It was just about the performance.

Neither one is easy to use. They are both very similar. Veeam is probably a little bit more complex than Zerto. Zerto is already doing a slightly better job than Veeam in ease of use, but they are both very complex and difficult to learn at first until you learn them.

Anything new is always going to have a level of difficulty. It was difficult, but Zerto's onboarding development team helped us every step of the way. As we crossed bridges and had problems, that team jumped right in the middle of it and helped us resolve each and every problem until we were a hundred percent satisfied.

To fully set it up, from the kickoff call until I was satisfied that it was fully functional, it took about two weeks. There was probably a month's worth of preparatory work done in advance of the actual kickoff call and deployment, including some information gathering. You could include those 30 days prior as part of that work. Technically, it was about two weeks from the kickoff call to fully deployed and fully functional.

It is a one-person job. One person primarily takes care of it, but we have three of us who are kept abreast and familiar with the process so that we do not have a single point of failure. It is definitely something that one person can handle.

In terms of maintenance, it requires periodic patching and upgrades.

It is an enterprise-grade product. When you buy enterprise-grade tools, you have to expect to pay a higher price. It goes back to the idea of you get what you pay for. If you want an old cheap tool, you pay cheap prices to get it. If you want a good-quality tool that is robust and does a good job for you, you have to pay a higher price to get that, and Zerto is no different. We pay a little bit higher than the cheap tool price, but we get our money's worth. I am not dissatisfied with the price.

I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten. There is nothing that is absolutely perfect, but Zerto does a pretty good job of getting as close to perfect as they can.

My use cases for HPE GreenLake for File Storage primarily include the data stores on the VMware cluster and also SAP, as we have an SAP on-premise that provides a different array to supply the storage for the SAP servers, while everything else throughout the globe serves as data storage for VMware.

The feature of HPE GreenLake for File Storage that I appreciate the most is the product line, especially since the Alletra MP is bringing to bear quite a lot of features that are important in the different plans, including file services, block storage, file, and everything. The older storage products we have were limited to just block storage, and we're really excited about the Alletra MP and where that's going to go, which we plan to continue when we do our data center refresh next year with a much larger array.

An example of how the features of HPE GreenLake for File Storage have been benefiting my organization is through the reliability and stability we experience, as the engineering team that takes care of it, plus my team that reports up to me, are very comfortable with the technology, which has been reliable, and HPE's support has been fantastic. Anytime we have issues, such as a failed drive or code updates, they are very helpful, and I think part of that is brought to us by the GreenLake program, having that dedicated team to keep us aware of updates, but generally, we have experienced reliability with no failures.

I would like to see HPE GreenLake for File Storage improved in terms of the program's speed, as the administration, creation of change orders, issuance of those orders, and shipping of products take a while. There's a backend machine that HPE has to go through, and we shared with them a month ago at a user group that we want to see improvements in the efficiency of that backend, as no questions arise about the technology, it's really just the paperwork required to get a contract out that is a little slow.

The solution's scaling abilities affect the operation of my business significantly, as I see it as a key feature that prevents us from being locked into a certain maximum size, and with the Alletra MP, we are able to scale quite large.

I would rate the support I've received from HPE a nine, simply for the fact that no one's quite perfect, but concerning the storage itself, they're pretty damn close to perfect.

Positive

I cannot speak to the solutions I considered prior to switching to HPE GreenLake for File Storage, as that was a long time before my time, but this year I reevaluated what we were doing and why, ensuring our pricing was lined up with the market by evaluating both servers and storage technology as well as the intangibles of each vendor's support organization, leading me to the comfortable conclusion that HPE still remains the best choice for us.

I have seen a return on investment, which is a little more nuanced, as with HPE GreenLake for File Storage being an operational expense allows me to do a lot more with fewer dollars, spread over the course of the contract, and that helps bring new technology in or expand what I need to, compared to capital costs.

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been generally favorable, as the account team is pretty strong and experienced. They do their best to get the machine out, and regarding pricing, this year I compared it with other vendors, and HPE is still on par with what the other vendors have out there, so I'm comfortable with the pricing.

The main point that made me come to that realization is some of the intangibles. While pricing is on par and we know what we'll pay whether we go with Dell or stay with HPE, the team that takes care of our organization has been doing so for the last 10 years, providing on-site support quickly to replace parts, fix issues, and help us troubleshoot, with my account rep Rick Beltz and his team having the necessary resources. He keeps us updated and we have routine meetings about new technology, along with events like Discover allowing us opportunities to meet other customers as well as HPE and partners to find resources.

I am not using or managing my storage AI scale through HPE GreenLake for File Storage at this point, as we do not have an AI presence yet. It is still in development, though the storage we have, especially in the MP line, gives us that foundation, and we're ensuring that when we refresh, we refresh with the proper storage to enable that, while we are still defining what our use cases are for AI.

The solution's data reduction technology has reduced our data center power costs. I cannot specify the exact amount, but I can say that we average about a 2 to 2.5 to 3-to-1 reduction, which obviously reduces the amount of storage required and results in less power being needed because we don't require as much storage.

The importance of having independent scaling of performance and capacity for my storage system lies in serving different workloads, as I can configure the various workloads to take advantage of the processing power within the arrays.

My deployment model for HPE GreenLake for File Storage is all on-prem today, while one of the key areas we're looking at during our current visit is the hybrid cloud, with Azure Local being another key theme of the Discover event regarding HPE's collaboration with Microsoft.

I rate HPE GreenLake for File Storage 9 plus out of 10.