HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Reviews

Due to the fact that we did not have any kind of storage technology here at all when I first started out here, we purchased the SAN with three HPE ProLiant DL360 servers from Nimble and the solution we purchased was their dHCI implementation as it was supposed to do the setup and everything by scripts automatically. Right now, it's running my production and my DR environment.

I love InfoSite. That gets you a lot of good detailed information.

Generally, I use it for the DRF and I make sure that my VMs are all up to date. I make sure that they're all sitting on a host that's got decent resources. If they need to be moved, they'll get moved. 

I like the memory management and I like the instant clone feature they have for the Horizons. That's what I'm using. I'm not utilizing the view, I'm utilizing their instant clone from VMware Horizons - vStorage motion, and things like that.

The scaling is great.

Technical support via the phone is helpful.

It's still kind of a new solution. I know when I purchased it, it really wasn't ready for prime time as I had to go through at least five or six deployments before it actually stuck. We were having a lot of issues. As far as where I'm at with it right now, I can't really complain. They're finally bringing it together where it can do updates through their one menu interface for the Nimble and that updates everything, the ESX hosts, the vCenter, it does all that for you. They've gotten better. 

The only issue I'm really running into is we have a SQL server that we're having a lot of high IO latency on one of my drives and it's my data drive from my SQL server. It's not really giving me any good information as to where that latency is coming from, so that's what I'm trying to track down and troubleshoot. That's about the only problem right now.

The only thing I would like, and this may be more on the VMware side, however, going back to that SQL issue, I would like to be able to maybe have more granular control over my IO channels on my server. If I needed to troubleshoot why one server, one drive in a server, which is virtual, is having high latency, I should be able to go in and troubleshoot that specifically without having to go through and try to look at a ton of graphs. That's probably the only thing - just the granularity of it. 

The reporting on Nimble to Nimble replication could be a little bit better

We've been using the solution for the last two years. 

So far it's been pretty easy to scale.

In terms of usage, the software that the entire company uses is called Latitude. I run that on my Nimble storage. I've also got our development infrastructure on there. The virtual desktop infrastructure is running from there, Exchange, everything is running from the Nimble - my entire production environment essentially.

On the phone, Nimble support is really good when I call. That said, in terms of the guy that came onsite, I had to redo the cabling. He was a good guy, however, something got messed up and I had a lot of problems. I had to redo all the cabling. I'm not really complaining, it's up and running now. While they are great on the phone, in person the experience wasn't the best.

When I first started, they only had individual Hyper-V hosts and really no major storage. When we went from one to seven Hyper-V hosts that were individual nodes not even clustered, we decided we needed something that allowed for a cluster environment, and that's why we moved to Nimble. 

We actually had to have HPE come on-site and set up the MLAG due to the fact that we bought two switches and they had to set up the Multiple Link Aggregation Group. That part of it's pretty complex. Other than that, with the setup now, if I purchased another server, plugged it in, and configured just the default that it needs, I can add that server pretty quick to my stack without any problems.

Originally, we had HPE come in and assist with the implementation.

For what it is, in terms of the scripts, if they worked initially the first time and the deployment was actually as easy as they stated it would have been out of the box, it wouldn't have been a problem. That wasn't the case. The pricing was a little high upfront for that reason, for me. Now that we've got everything running, it's not much of an issue. That said, we bought two complete Nimble setups with three ESX hosts, two M-Series switches, two UPS's, two racks, everything, one for here and one for my DR site. It was a lot of money we spent upfront.

We're just a customer and an end-user.

Right now, I haven't seen any issues. If a company wanted to purchase it, that would be something I would recommend as it does take out a lot of the guesswork as far as the networking, the storage considerations, the storage adapter of how it connects, and it takes all the guesswork out and sets it up for you. 

The basic thing to consider is when you get it out of the box, you set it up, you turn it on, the scripts run, you have your vCenter, you just start spinning up VMs at that point. It saves a lot of time instead of doing all of that individually and setting up your own vCenter, the storage, and everything. 

I was glad it had the scripts when they actually ran and it did connect everything in the backend. It did make it a lot easier. Out of the box, if purchased new now, would be a great option. Two years ago, it had a few problems and it's my understanding that those issues are mostly resolved.

I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

My clients typically use HPE Nimble Storage dHCI when they have done a migration from basic solutions that have clusters based on VMware and they have migrated these solutions to a hyper-converged solution based on dHCI. Additionally, they have the possibility to configure and grow separately with the computing solution from the storage solution. HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is used normally in different kinds of hyper-converged requirements including databases. When you require high growth on dHCI or hyper-converged, the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the right solution.

We have the ability to increase the storage without any additional costs.

This year 2022, we have the possibility to include new kinds of storage with a high disk availability, such as Alletra 6000 and Alletra 9000. Those are the new storage available. If we would like to improve the quality and the capability and the high availability of these products, we can choose between different costs. This is another benefit from this HPE Nimble Storage dHCI solution of hyper-converged.

In a future release, I would like to add something similar to support or the capability to predict any kind of failure based on the software with the cloud, or management support from the wholesale. HPE has always the control to know what could happen and resolve these situations before they fail or close.

I have been using HPE Nimble Storage dHCI for approximately one year.

The solution is highly stable.

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is scalable. If you compare on the market the different kind of solutions, almost all have the same limits. The node scalability is approximately 60 and those are typical limits for all of them.

I would rate the technical support of HPE Nimble Storage dHCI a nine out of ten.

The initial installation is fairly easy. It's a configuration that is not simple. However, it does not take more than half the day to complete but it depends on the number of clusters or nodes that you add to the hyper-converged.

The cost of the licensing is reasonable.

I would recommend others to use this solution.

I rate HPE Nimble Storage dHCI a nine out of ten.

The solution is easy to use.  

It is easier to manage compared to the other vendors.

The pricing is good.

The stability seems to be reliable. 

The user interface is not as good or easy as the competition, for example, Nutanix. That's what we do find. 

The initial setup is a little bit complicated. 

We'd like to see file sharing capability, for file shares, to be available and much larger.

I've used the solution for 15 years at this point. it's been a while. 

The stability is good. We haven't seen any issues at the moment. It's working well. 

The solution is definitely scalable. If you're looking at SimpliVity, all of them are scalable. It's quite a simple process. You just buy a couple more nodes and then add it to it and it upgrades.

We typically deal with medium companies. That is less than 1000 users. We also do lighter products if a client requires it.

I have some knowledge of Nutanix.

I don't install it as much. I'm not the installer. I'm the seller. I wouldn't know from an installation point of view.

My understanding is it's just a bit complicated to install. The dHCI just takes a bit longer than the other vendors, however, once it's up and running, it's a good product, and gives you some nice features.

We can't complain. The price is good.

I'm a reseller.

We used to work with 700s, we don't sell the 700s anymore. Now, we are doing dHCI.

I would like to let people know that it is as easy as they say it is. It works as they say it does. The only feature I would want to have is it must be Fibre Channel, however, I don't think that's going to happen. Other than that, it's a great little product.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

We primarily use it for a big hospital that is running SimpliVity and changing over to Nimble Storage.

The product, in general, is very strong, very robust. The product is excellent. 

So far, the solution's performance is very good.

The product scales quite well.

It's a full-fledged product. You can keep on adding memory, you can keep on adding the box, and you can keep on adding the hard drive. It's one of the best products.

I'm not sure if there are features lacking.

I've been using the solution for the last six months.

The product is quite stable and the performance is good. It's reliable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

The scalability is excellent. We can add one more box. We can add up to seven boxes, and it's very scalable.

Technical support has been excellent. We are very satisfied. 

Positive

We've used SimpliVity and are moving away from it.

I'm also familiar with Nutanix, however, it is more expensive. 

The deployment is still in process and is being deployed on VMware. 

After five years, typically, you'll begin to see an ROI.

The pricing is okay. Out of five, the pricing is about a three, I would say. It was not cheap. However, it's not as costly as a solution such as Nutanix. It offers decent value for money.

We provide the solution for the customer. We are a system integrator. We are official partners for HPE and we are very happy with the arrangements.

We are using the latest version of the product. We integrated with VMware.

I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten. Once it is deployed, you are safe.

We are providing solutions to our end customers. I work in a distributor company. We are using this product, and we are providing the solutions to the customer as well.

Hyperconverged offers good performance. It's more effective, and it's giving us more performance. It's like an all-in-one solution. Therefore, it's all in one solution instead of going with different components. It offers easier management. 

We have something called Autonomous Support System, which issues a ticket whenever there is an issue. It's run on artificial intelligence wherein if there is any issue in the system, the software, generates the case itself. It will resolve the case and it will close the case. This is one of the great features of Nimble dHCI. 

We can independently upgrade. We have this feature in Nimble dHCI, wherein we can upgrade individual components in the infrastructure.

The disadvantage is we don't have granular upgrade capabilities.

For dHCI, there are some prerequisites, so we cannot pitch the solution to just any customer. They should have some network ready. For example, they should have specific network switches compatible with Nimble dHCI. Otherwise, we have to include those switches in the solution, which will make the solution more expensive. 

Cost-wise, this solution is slightly more expensive than other hyperconverged solutions.

The deployment should be much simpler. 

I've been using the solution for two years. 

The initial deployment is a little bit complicated. It could be made to be a bit easier. 

In our current scenario, only HPE engineers can deploy. An engineer with general-purpose skills cannot deploy those systems. We need HPE-certified engineers only to deploy this. This is one of the major concerns.

The cost is a bit high.

We are a partner and distributor to the dHCI.

dHCI is still a new solution in the market. There is a lot of scope for improvement. I will give it a seven out of ten.

HPE's InfoSight software, which does the comparative analysis and artificial intelligence built-in in the box, and with Nimble they do well against the competition. Additionally, the dashboards are good.

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI currently is promoting only VMware as a hypervisor, whereas if they can look into other OSs, such as KVM or Red Hat, it would be an improvement.

I have used HPE Nimble Storage dHCI within the past 12 months.

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is highly stable because they're using Nimble as the storage. Nimble has almost a hundred percent uptime for availability.

I have found HPE Nimble Storage dHCI to scalable, you can keep on adding the modules.

Nimble calls the customer, the customers do not call Nimble. They have a proactive approach.

The main difference between HPE Hyperconverged and HPE dHCI is dHCI is Disaggregated Hyperconvergence meaning, you are able to keep the existing investment on the HPE platform. For example, when a customer is done, they don't need to throw away that investment because they can re-utilize them in the dHCI configuration. Secondly, it's more scalable at a component level. That means I can upgrade when required, such as the storage or the compute needs separately. I don't need to do the same as they were doing I'm other solutions, such as SimpliVity.

The setup is straightforward.

The implementations of Nimble are very smooth and the deduplication techniques and everything else, are pretty good.

The customers have found the solution to be expensive. However, when compared to the competition the price is reasonable.

I rate HPE Nimble Storage dHCI a ten out of ten.

Artificial intelligence is built into the product. If there's a failure, HP support will proactively call the client about the issue.

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI only works with a hypervisor like VMware. There are plenty of other hypervisors that HP doesn't support. This is an area for improvement.

I have been working with this solution for a couple of years.

The stability is excellent, and I'd give it a ten out of ten.

The scalability is the best. You can increase storage without interfering with nodes.

We have small, medium, and enterprise clients.

The initial setup is easy, and I would rate it at ten out of ten. The deployment does not take more than an hour. If the client already has an existing VMware setup with a three-node cluster, then it is just a matter of a few clicks to cluster the system. After that, the virtual machines need to be moved from the old setup to the new setup. It is a straightforward task.

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is much cheaper than the competition and has value proposition. Customers can see an ROI in three months. There are no additional costs, and VMware licenses can be reutilized.

I would strongly recommend taking a look at HPE Nimble Storage dHCI and evaluating it because there's no point in going for old technology. I rate this solution at ten out of ten because if there's an issue, HP support will contact the admin as a result of the built-in AI.

Nimble Storage can be used for any practical application that requires storage.

Nimble Storage is a capable platform with high availability. 

Nimble Storage's integration with the management software could be better. And to my understanding, Nimble Storage is a block storage system. You need to add another server for file services. I think it would be helpful to have other forms of storage included with Nimble Storage.

Nimble Storage has been a part of our main portfolio for the past two years. 

Nimble Storage is highly stable.

HPE technical support is great. 

Setting up Nimble Storage isn't complex. We're in the process of implementing it for one of our
clients, and we're on the BI interface. We haven't implemented the storage yet. We usually deploy with our partner first to test the implementation, get some feedback from our partners, and deploy it later ourselves. It takes two or three systems engineers to deploy.

I rate Nimble Storage nine out of 10. I would recommend Nimble Storage. It's the best solution that HP has right now. We haven't had any problems, so I can't say anything bad about it. Nimble Storage is a rich in-between solution that covers everything from computing to virtualization and storage. My recommendation is to take full advantage of Nimble Storage beyond just a storage solution and incorporate it to get the availability and scalability of the infrastructure.