HPE Primera Reviews

The Primary use case for HPE Primera is moving and storing high performance databases and core infrastructure, virtual machines, SQL databases, et cetera...

This is an on-premises solution because right now it is not popular among customers to use hybrid or cloud solutions in the Georgian Republic. Today, it is not common to move compute and storage sources onto the cloud. I don't know what happens in other regions like Europe, but in the Georgia Republic it is not popular.

The features that I have found most valuable are the artificial intelligence for the storage inside of the software and firmware because customers do not like functionalities that require manual interruption. This feature is very good for the technical work required to move from manual interactive to automatic, because when solutions provide suggestions, improvements, or notifications, and you can click them automatically, this is a good solution.

There really isn't any aspect of the solution that needs improvement for the customer other than its price.

It is a very good solution, but the Georgia Republic is a very small country and customers in both the government public sector and in the private sector do not have money to purchase enterprise or high performance solutions. They are looking at mid-range or mid-class solutions.

I can say that they need to simplify the solution. In SimpliVity, they need a lot of integration with virtualization technologies. For example, putting some add-ons or plugins in vCenter. vCenter is a management software of VMware virtualization. 

Secondly, it would be better if they cold simplify the deployment of Primera. Thirdly, if you have already purchased Primera and you need to scale your infrastructure and you are thinking of buying more hardware disks, you will need to purchase the Rebalance Service from HP Enterprise. They need to improve that methodology.

The customers need solutions that do not require a lot of administrative tasks.

I have been selling HPE Primera for approximately one year.

In terms of stability, it works without any issue. Primera is a new generation of HP Enterprise 3PAR version, whereas 10 years ago it was HANA. 3PAR generation works very, very well without any issues, without any problems.

Regarding HPE Primera's scalability, if we are talking about the high-end versions, we can scale it up without any issue. It depends on the scalability of the customer.

First of all, it depends which support model the customer purchases. If they are buying a foundation care with its low level of support, then you need to create a case manually and you need to write and contact customer service. If you are buying the Proactive Care Service, the guys from the customer service and support are very, very good. With Proactive Care Service, they contact you when you need to upgrade your firmware, etc... At all time HP Enterprise support works very, very well with Dell.

The initial installation, setup, and deployment were simple for Primera, versus other hyper-converged infrastructure.

HP Enterprise, simply with your Dell Technologies VxRail and HCI solutions, has done its job very well job, because you can deploy and start up your services and your new infrastructure in one or two days. One day for checking the specs and one day for deploying the whole infrastructure. This is because the solution is inside of the solution. Meaning the virtualization is already pre-installed, and they have already done the job.

Each customer is looking for high-end solutions. They may decide to purchase the Primera solution partly because of its installation and deployment. If it takes two days as is the case for HCI and three days in the case of Primera, there is no problem for the customer. It depends on the customer and their mindset.

We sell the products and we are doing the installation, deployment, integrations, and all the servicing.

We are also responsible for the maintenance of the product.

With HPE Primera there is no additional cost, but it depends what configuration we are talking about. If we are excluding support, it is very expensive. There is no showstopper for prices, just support or service. We are a Platinum Partner of HP Enterprise so we give quotes and configure HP Enterprise solutions. I don't know what happens in the US market, but in Georgia it is very expensive.

It is expensive if compared with Dell Technology.

In the Georgian Republic there was an opportunity to sell Primera, but there was a battle between Dell Technologies and HPE Primera. Dell Technologies Unity Series won because of their low prices. Although their were no problems regarding their technical requirements,  Dell won it with prices. This is because Primera is very expensive, but it's a very good solution for customers.

In terms of HP Primera versus, for example, Dell Technologies' Unity, the advantage of Primera is that inside their operating system, inside its firmware, they have already deployed a network storage cluster functionality and application functionality. In Dell Technologies, if we are talking about their Unity solutions, they only have a replication functionality and you must buy additional hardware. Only then can you deploy the storage cluster configuration. So this is an advantage for Primera.

The Primera product line has small and mid-size versions for mid-range customers, and they also have a high-end version. It depends on the customer.

In the Georgia Republic customers do have very critical data, and they must store that very critical information in a storage solution that has high availability. By availability, I mean that the hardware works very well and there are no issues with the software or the hardware. That is the reason why we are selling Primera.

Overall, Primera gives high performance.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate HPE Primera a 10.

The primary use case is for all of the backend, the core storage infrastructure at this point.

It's the migration from spinning disk, it has all types of workloads. 80% are virtual machines, file services, and database workloads.

The most valuable feature is the ease of deployment. 

The integration with the compute capacity because this is just the storage side.

The orchestrations and management, and the performance and cost per capacity.

Another advantage is that HPE sells everything. All of the capabilities of the hardware such as replication, snapshot, and the specific features are all included from the start as opposed to being on another license.

When you buy it, you can do whatever you have to, to be able to do with it out of the box.

On the software end, in regards to the integration, everything gets aligned with the software-defined data center concept. Which means that everything needs to be done for software and programmatically. 

This is an area that needs improvement as well as on the hardware end, the ability to expand capacity to larger numbers.

In the next release, I would like the ability to do direct file services. This is a block-based solution, if you need to do file servers, you have to put servers around it.

On the controller side, I would like to see NAS capabilities. That would be helpful.

There are two lines, and they are evolving into one another. Primera is just a word, it was called 3PAR before that. I have worked with both.

Between the two lines, I have worked with these solutions for five years.

There are multiple components, there are many different versions. The software has versions and the hardware has versions. We are using the latest version, the latest incarnation.

It's a stable solution, it's rock solid.

This is running the data centers for the shop. Everybody in the organization will be affected one way or another by what is there. We have 6000 people in our organization.

Tell us about your experience with customer service/technical support.

Technical support is very well organized. There is a feature called Home. The hardware calls their NOC center and reports any alerts or events. Then they have a standard ideal protocol to call back. They are quite insistent, they send you emails if you don't acknowledge and they start calling.

The mechanics of the support is very well put in place.

The initial setup was straightforward.

Professional services are embedded. It can be done by the customer but it's a pretty sophisticated solution. We need to use vendor professional services.

It was not a third-party in addition to the cost, it was included.

The hardware came with installation services. We decided to go with it.

Stability is one of the reasons we chose this solution, and that we could buy storage and computer from the same vendor to optimize everything. It's designed to work with one another.

I will definitely recommend this solution. For anyone who is interested in implementing it, they should do their cost analysis very carefully. There's a multitude of solutions, but some of them are more software-oriented.

The math can become fuzzy but once they figure out the financial aspect of it, I think from a purely technical perspective, I would highly recommend it.

In terms of quality for block storage, it's one of the best on the planet, if not the best, in my view. 

If they had, block, NAS, and iSCSI out of the box, I would rate them a ten out of ten.

I would rate HPE Primera a nine out of ten.

This product is used for all of the backend, core storage infrastructure. We migrated from spinning-disk, so it has the same type of workloads. It is 80% virtual machines, and then file services, and database workloads.

One of the most valuable features is the ease of deployment.

Integration with the compute capacity is good, as this is just the storage component.

Orchestration and management are good.

The performance and capacity-based costs are also good.

Another advantage is that HPE sells everything. This includes all of the capabilities of the hardware, like replication, snapshot, and other specific features. They are all included from the get-go, as opposed to everything being separate and in another budget. When you buy it, you can do whatever you have to be able to do with it out of the box.

On the software side, in terms of integration, everything gets aligned with the software-defined data center concept, which means that everything needs to be done programmatically. There is room for improvement in this regard.

On the hardware side, you should have the ability to expand capacity to larger numbers.

I would like to have the ability to do direct file services. This is a block-based solution, so if you need to do file services with it, you need to put servers around it.

From the controller side, if we could have NAS capabilities then that would be great.

Between Primara and it's predecessor, 3PAR, I have used this product for about five years.

This is a rock-solid product.

This is the product that is running the data centers for the shop, so everybody in the organization will be affected one way or another by what is there. Currently, we have 6,000 people.

The technical support is very well organized. There is a feature called Home, where the hardware calls to their NOC and reports and alerts or events. Then they have a pretty standard protocol to call back. They're quite insistent; they'll send you emails and if you don't acknowledge then they start calling.

The mechanics of the support is very well put in place. 

We use the HPE 3PAR in addition to Primera.

The initial setup is straightforward.

Professional Services installation is embedded in the cost. The setup can be done by the customer but it's a pretty sophisticated solution, so we use the vendor Professional Services. It was not a third-party on top of the cost. Rather, it was included in the options that we chose.

The price to capacity ratio is good.

We had a selection process with all the major vendors, and we ended up with this solution in part because of stability. One of the primary reasons we selected it is because we can buy storage and compute from the same vendor and everything gets optimized. Obviously, everything is designed to work with one another.

I will definitely recommend this product. I'd say that anybody looking to implement it should do their cost analysis very carefully. There's a multitude of solutions, but some of them are more software-oriented. The math can become fuzzy, but once they figure out the financial aspect of it, I think from a purely technical perspective, I highly recommend it.

In terms of quality for block storage, it is one of the best on the planet, if not the best, in my view. If they had block storage, NAS, and iSCSI out of the box then I could rate it as perfect.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

I work with an HPE authorized partner in Malta and we offer storage solutions for customers. HPE Primera is one such product that I have experience with.

We have noticed that these days, most of the customers are implementing a solution that is a hybrid between Nimble and Primera All-Flash. There are both spinning disks and flash, where flash is used as the cache, which makes the price more competitive.

The customers are primarily using it for disaster recovery. They have their cluster and they are replicating one another to provide business continuity and disaster recovery applications.

In my opinion, HPE is making good progress and moving ahead with InfoSight, which is predictive analytics and artificial intelligence. I think that this is one of the selling points for their storage products and it comes at no extra cost.

InfoSight is built by gathering intelligence from all of the storage solutions, worldwide.  If the AI is being used here in Malta, locally, as it would with InfoSight, then it would use baseline data from the whole world to make predictions. It is really robust.

Cases are opened automatically and they give you trend analysis as well.

Anything that helps administratively for a data center is important, and Primera gives you both efficiency and effectiveness.

The interface needs to be more user-friendly in that sense that installation and management are still a bit on the high end. It needs to be simpler.

I have been working with Primera for about two years.

Primera is really robust, effective, and cost-saving as well. It has 100% availability, which is quite a lot.

This is a scalable product.

The price of Primera All-Flash is going down, although this is more relevant for high-end customers. For small to medium-sized organizations, we are offering a hybrid solution.

We work a lot with HPE technical support and they are very good. We are very satisfied.

The initial setup is straightforward and the deployment should not take more than an hour.

Our in-house team is responsible for deployment and maintenance.

Malta is small, with a population of 450,000. Our company has 12 system engineers for enterprise clients.

Primera is still new, and it's in its inception phase. There are still not many installations around. My advice to anybody who is implementing this product is that they have to keep updated as technology advances. It's not a question of "it works, leave it there and don't take care of updates". You have to keep up to date with what is happening with the technology. Sometimes, we encounter customers that stagnate in their technology because they concluded that if it works then you don't have to do anything. That is not a good approach because it's a continuous transformation.

In summary, this is a good solution and my only complaint is about user-friendliness. I am sure that in the future, and with InfoSight, things are going to get better. This is similar to what has happened to this point, where limitations that were present in previous versions have been enhanced. Personally, I have not encountered any limitations.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are a solution provider and all-flash storage is one of the products that we sell to our customers. Primera is one of the ones that we recommend for data centers.

Our customers have given very positive feedback about InfoSign, which is the management software for this solution.

Primera has good performance and the compression is also good.

It integrates well with other software including Docker and Kubernetes.

It is easy to expand.

This solution would be expensive for small business and it could be priced more competitively for that market.

We have been working with Primera for six months.

This is a stable solution and none of our customers have reported a problem with it.

Scaling the capacity is easy with Primera. This is for medium-sized businesses, as the larger businesses usually choose Nimble, and in smaller businesses, they use cloud-based solutions to save on operating expenses.

The support from HPE for this solution is really good.

I work with a variety of vendors for all-flash storage solutions including Nimble, Primera, NetApp, Pure Storage Evergreen, E8 storage, and Huawei. A lot of the products from different vendors have the same features. This suitability of one vendor over another depends on their budget, as well as their plans for growing the business in the future.

Pure Storage Evergreen has the number-one compression and deduplication capability.

When a customer wants good performance for their database, we suggest Primera, Pure Storage, and perhaps Huawei. At this time, we also discuss other features with the customer so that they understand them.

NetApp is another vendor that is a popular choice in our market for medium and large businesses. Similarly, our customers have had good experience with Dell Storage. When it comes to Big Data and a lot of capacity, Dell is the solution that we recommend. Huawei has good solutions and they are more competitively priced than others, and the performance is not bad.

I have not set up this solution personally but with the feedback that I have heard from the engineers, I know that it is very easy.

The price of this solution is good for medium-sized and large businesses.

Overall, Primera is a good product and if it is suitable for the requirements then it is one that I recommend.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.