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HPE SimpliVity vs NetApp HCI [EOL] 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

HPE SimpliVity
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
154
Ranking in other categories
HCI (6th)
NetApp HCI [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Shaijith KB - PeerSpot reviewer
Hardware acceleration and enhanced performance but has support challenges
There are some problems with support from HPE. Tickets often go to Tunisian engineers who do not attend promptly. Updates are required when we have an update on vCenter or host level, and we must procure support from HPE SimpliVity team, which is complicated. Some IPs are not reachable due to subnet issues. Installation by the HPE support team can be messy.
MB
Crashed continuously, complex to deploy, and bad after-sales support - NETAPP FIXED the problems in 2022
Their after-sales support, SLA, and third-parties availability should be improved. NetApp's support is very difficult to engage. We have an SLA of onsite support within 24 hours. but they don't respect the SLA. Its stability was very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crashes. In 2022, NetApp Italy, driven by the country manager Davide Marini, fixed all our issues and added additional computation power for free. This is a great example of customer care. They could have done it right the first time of course, but admitting the errors and putting in place such a remediation plan has been a very professional behavior.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The replication from the different centers (the main to the secondary) has been very great. It is good value for us."
"The setup is very easy."
"The ease of managing this system."
"It is simple and easy to use."
"Looking at the way that our infrastructure team works now, we don't think about infrastructure, storage, or compute anymore. The solution just works. It is same with the backup and replication side of things, as it just works on schedule. We don't have to manage it tightly, like we used to."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"As a point for optimization on our infrastructure, it works great for us."
"Its deduplication and backup functions are reliable."
"The NetApp Deployment Engine that comes with it makes the actual deployment and usage very easy. That's our primary focus and it's hyper-converged. That's something that we want to use as well."
"It is easy to set up, and you don't have to do much work to get it to do what it needs to do."
"We like SnapMirror and we've been using it for many years. We also like the object storage tools, as well as cloud sync for customers wanting to integrate between the cloud and local."
"It has automated a lot of workloads. It has automated us from ticketing a large number to a very small number."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the SolidFire interface."
"When you are doing lifecycles for your equipment, you can just swap out pieces of equipment. We used to do one big iron to another big iron, and that's a major migration hassle. Whereas, with this environment, you can go with small nodes, one at a time, and do a refresh."
"It is easy to administrate the solution, and the company handles its technical support well."
"The ease of deployment is a positive feature that allows us to scale easily."
 

Cons

"I have a free project with SimpliVity deployment in the next three months. What can be improved is that in one or two of these projects, I need a cloud backup for the infrastructure and data. As for the infrastructure of the product as it relates to customer size, it is not very good at this moment in Peru. I need a solution for the cloud. In Peru, it's a three or four solution provider for cloud services."
"While SimpliVity was a pioneer of cloud connect capability, they have simply not exploited it."
"Its performance can be faster."
"The ease of new deployments could be improved."
"I would like to see it be a truly hybrid-cloud solution where I could take my on-prem SimpliVity environment and have replication to a cloud install."
"I would like to see it able to restore item levels, especially for databases."
"I wish to see an improved compute node selection, to allow us to select something other than merely the two socket system."
"The solution could have an optimization site."
"It would be nice to have better access to tutorials and a test environment for simulations."
"I would like to see the implementation process improved."
"The administration side of it needs to be improved. We expect an easier interface and a single upgrade for updating the infrastructure."
"In the next version I would like to see bigger GPU types and insurance for including transparency."
"It would be great if they took something like kernel storage and integrated straight into the NetApp as well."
"The deployment process has room for improvement. I would like for it to be a cookie-cutter deployment."
"If you want to have a really dense data center then it's hard to have a big chunk of cabling going through everything."
"It is difficult to get acclimated to all the new features quickly. The onboard process could be improved to bring clients up to speed faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​Cost is a factor. It is quite expensive."
"It's about $10,000 monthly."
"All-in license, simple and fair."
"For three years, it is $60,000 for three nodes. It is quite pricey."
"The licensing cost could be lower."
"The time savings on the administration side of things is huge. We had somebody who was dedicated pretty much full-time to hardware, and now, they spend about a quarter of their time a year on hardware-related issues."
"The hardware is expensive. For the same price, Cisco can provide more hardware specifications for us."
"Upfront costs seems high at first look, but after analyzing all the benefits of SimpliVity, we have come out ahead."
"The licensing fees are renewed annually."
"You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."
"Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."
"Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."
"All the licenses are included when you buy the program."
"This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."
"Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."
"This solution saved our organization time (35 percent) and money. We have a hefty group of developers, and if you multiply that by 30 to 35 percent, that is quite a bit of money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Real Estate/Law Firm
19%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...
What do you like most about HPE SimpliVity?
The solution's technical support is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE SimpliVity?
The price is almost equal to VMware vSAN, making it not much cost saving. However, the time-saving during upgrades is notable.
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Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

SimpliVity, HPE HCI
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House
American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology
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