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IBM Spectrum Scale vs VMware vSAN comparison

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (16th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (8th), File and Object Storage (8th)
IBM Spectrum Scale
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (10th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (2nd)
VMware vSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
HCI (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us
The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.
Bernd Stroehle. - PeerSpot reviewer
Deliver improved performance in data processing and foster extensive AI initiatives
I find IBM Spectrum Scale to be an excellent product known for its fast parallel file system. It achieved the best results when integrated with IBM hardware. Even though it is complex, it provided significant performance advantages in large-scale data management. Its fault tolerance mechanisms and integration capabilities make it popular for extensive AI initiatives and data processing tasks for organizations like Daimler Benz and Bosch.
Pramod-Talekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables efficient multi-environment cluster deployment and resource management with versatile features
While VMware vSAN is quite comprehensive, if we are running multiple infrastructures, applications, databases, and other elements, having a diagnostic tool to identify the actual problem area, whether application-side or infrastructure-side, would be beneficial. A proper monitoring tool that encompasses both applications and infrastructure would help in quickly resolving issues.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."
"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."
"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."
"The product is scalable and easy to expand."
"The most valuable features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."
"The initial setup is pretty quick."
"It has been pretty reliable throughout the years. As far as capacity is concerned, it can handle most heavy loads."
"Technical support has been very helpful. They provide us with pretty good solutions that we can implement moving forward."
"It is incredibly scalable and stable."
"I find IBM Spectrum Scale to be an excellent product known for its fast parallel file system."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to share files across different platforms."
"We can have multiple systems within the same file system."
"The high performance of the solution is its most valuable aspect. If you compare it to other storage solutions, it's much better."
"The profile share is a valuable feature."
"The flexibility is most valuable. Being able to manage things quickly if something goes wrong is also valuable. Very recently, we had one node that went down due to a power problem, but there was really no major impact on the systems running on top of it."
"Its ease of use is most valuable. It is easy to configure, and there is a unified interface, which makes things slightly easier."
"All the features are working great."
"We don't have to order a storage system, we can just use whatever we have on hand and roll it into our virtualization system."
"High availability is a valuable aspect of this solution."
"This product has very good performance when it comes to virtualization storage and works well with solutions such as SAP HANA, Exadata, Hadoop, and Big Data Analytics."
"The simplicity, as well as the integration with virtualization."
"The migration of servers feature makes server rack maintenance easy."
 

Cons

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."
"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."
"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."
"The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top."
"I would like to see better integration."
"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."
"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."
"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."
"It would be helpful if there was a graphical user interface that could walk you through the deployment process. The instructions surrounding setup aren't the best. They need to be more step-by-step."
"I wish there were some graphical user interface to access the GPFS file system creation and monitoring."
"The main issue that we have now is with the encryption. They want to use more metrics in encryption, which is not working very well."
"Maybe it needs integration with HA."
"The pricing and licensing model for this solution are complex and it is sometimes difficult to explain it to customers."
"Making it a little easier to add bad file sets would help. There is a transition to how you add storage and how you add a file set, so making that a little smoother would probably be my recommendation."
"This is probably the biggest challenge, getting everything upgraded, because it just takes time. We wish it was a faster solution to be able to do everything at once, but you have do each node individually. The more nodes, the longer it takes."
"The biggest problem is that it is not able to provide block storage."
"Only the stretched cluster requires a minor improvement."
"There's already a concern with VMware with ransomware and security issues. VMware could focus on improving security."
"I have used the VMware Replication but I can't get it to work properly. The process should be simplified."
"The quality of the customer service and support depends on the vSAN case. For example, if I open ten cases, maybe two or three get resolved quickly. But the other cases have a slow response."
"One area that could be improved is the management feature."
"VMware vSAN needs to improve its features because other solutions have more advanced features."
"I would love to see vSAN integrate Persistent Memory and NVDIMMs. I know they're supposed to be working on an elastic tier so that we don't have the issues with destaging from the cache to the capacity. Those are the things that I'm interested in."
"I would like for the next release to be a bit cheaper."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."
"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."
"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."
"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."
"The solution is costly but reliable."
"The licensing is based on the number of terabytes."
"The licensing model is complex and depends on factors such as the number of processing cores and the amount of storage."
"We did consider other hyperconverged solutions. It usually came down to price. vSan was the most cost effective thing."
"This solution is expensive. Nutanix provides us with Acropolis Operating System (AOS) along with its hardware, while VMware provides vSAN, vCenter, and vSphere which all have separate licenses and costs."
"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap."
"We have increased our user productivity."
"The product’s pricing is a bit higher than other solutions."
"The vSAN is somewhat expensive to license."
"Due to recent changes in VMware's licensing approach by Broadcom, the cost has increased significantly, making it less attractive from a cost perspective."
"It is not that expensive, and it is not even cheap. If it is designed in a proper way, it has good pricing, but if you do oversizing, the price will be high. There are different licensing models."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
8%
Educational Organization
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Scale?
IBM Spectrum Scale is very expensive with complex pricing models usually based on the amount of storage used or the n...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Scale?
There is room for improvement in the web interface. There could be more information available, such as charts and gra...
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...
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 resea...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
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