HPE SimpliVity Reviews

We purchased it about five years ago to replace our existing traditional SAN server VM environment. At that time, SimpliVity was the only platform that could house an enterprise-level SQL database. Nobody else had a platform that could handle SQL transactions without imploding. Everybody has got that figured out by now, and it is understandable.

We are using an older version because we purchased SimpliVity before it was owned by HPE. After about six to eight months of its implementation, it was purchased by HPE. When we purchased it, it was on the Cisco UCS server platform.

SimpliVity is integrated with the hypervisor, and you have a single pane of glass. It is really hands-off. Once you set your backup schedules, you're done. I'm not creating and tearing down virtual servers a lot. Our environment is fairly static, so unless I get an alert on something being wrong, and there is any predictive failure on a hard drive, I don't have to touch it. It is just on cruise control.

It doesn't take long to mount the entire VM somewhere and then copy it. That's one of the things that I like about SimpliVity's deduplication and compression. I can literally stand up a backup in minutes. It is like no time at all. They've got pretty phenomenal deduplication and compression. Within SimpliVity, one of the things that they do is deduplication and compression on ingestion. So, on the front side, everything is deduplicated and compressed, which, of course, adds some overhead to their solution. For instance, in my environment today, I've got roughly 30 terabytes of raw storage, and with their deduplication and compression, I'm over the 300 terabyte threshold with my active servers and all my backups.

There is a file size limitation when you want to do an individual file restore, but they might have resolved this in newer versions. As I'm taking backups at the VM server level, I can restore a file from any one of those without standing up the VM, and I can restore it to any mounted VM that I want. The problem is that there is a file size limitation. It becomes problematic when I'm trying to restore. When I want to restore a backup of a SQL database, my backups are considerably larger than 10 gigs. So, the only way to restore that backup file is to mount the entire VM somewhere and then copy it, which doesn't take long at all. 

Every now and then, we would have an instance where the replication of a backup wouldn't complete in a timely manner, and that would get it all wigged out in terms of how it maintained the files in the background, the way it knows whether a file has changed or not, and whether it is backed up and replicated. We would basically just suspend that backup for a little bit, do a manual backup of that server, and completely replicate it to other sites. We would then turn the regular backup routine back on, and then it would be fine. So, that's all dependent on the bandwidth.

It has probably been five years. We have been using it before it was owned by HPE.

Its stability is great. When we put our servers in, solid-state arrays were not a thing. The performance five years ago was exponentially high. So, we went with 24 servers, and four of them were solid state. The other 20 were large spinning disks, and obviously, performance is way better today because solid state is more price effective now. So, you get the speed of that, but we're getting ready to replace it with something because SimpliVity has completely stopped supporting their solution on Cisco hardware. I'm now running it without a maintenance contract.

Their support is good. HPE is a big organization, and they handled keeping that support group together very well. You call the same 800 number that everybody else does, but once they identify it as a SimpliVity issue, you get transferred over to that group right away. Instead of trying to disseminate that knowledge amongst their existing engineers, they appeared to have kept the little nucleus of those knowledge-based guys. So, when I called, I had people who knew exactly what was going on.

It was almost hands-off to me. SimpliVity did it, but it was just about migrating over the VMs. You temporarily mount your existing VM environment in your new cluster or show it as a separate cluster, and then you just migrate them over. It is all done through the utilities that are built into the VM.

We spent $250,000 back in the day, and that was for two servers in my data center for that cluster. We then ran what they call an arbiter, and that took the place of a third server or the third node in the cluster. My DR site was one standalone server, and its horsepower was more than the two at my main site. It included my Cisco Switches that I needed to re-upgrade. It was comparable to what we were paying a year in VM.

I don't know if it's my HPE reseller or if it's an actual HPE initiative, but they're not pushing me to go with SimpliVity. They don't want me to go with their other storage solution with which they are leading more. In the research that I've done, I've found out that I can run SimpliVity on top of that storage solution. If I wanted to do that, HPE does offer that configuration. 

While sizing your storage, knowing how a solution or a vendor does compression and deduplication is important. For example, Scale doesn't do compression and deduplication on the front side. So, you've got to make sure that you've got that accounted for, especially when you start doing backups.

They were definitely a 10 five years ago when we implemented them. What they were doing was incredible. The rest of the market and all other technology providers have caught up with what they're doing. I don't know how they stack up and compare to everybody now because I've been out of the loop long enough to know that. It is probably a level playing field as it boils down to today's market. I would still give them a nine out of 10 because they do have good service. My hardware is five years old, and it is not HPE hardware. I get it that it is time to renew.

The main use cases for this solution are consolidation and virtualization.

The main way the solution improves an organization is it simplifies daily use, and it cuts costs for the customer, because they often come from a silo-based storage and computer environment. That equals a lot more components, and you have to be more knowledgeable to be able to administer a traditional storage and computer-based solution. With SimpliVity, you have a hyper-converged infrastructure, which means everything is server-based and storage is software-based.

The most valuable feature is the ease of use and the storage virtualization layer, together with the built-in backups. That's what makes SimpliVity really useful, and how you can replicate data between different sites without paying an extra license for that feature. All the features are built into the product.

I would like more extensive deployment orchestration where the vCenter is deployed initially without being a separate thing. I feel that the deployment process of the vCenter should be included in the initial deployment to make it easier. Also, there are some issues when it comes to VMware's attaching and upgrades because HPE doesn't support all versions of VMware, and it can take some time before they have tested the latest versions. 

So the lifecycle management can be improved, and also the initial deployment to include vCenter.

I've been working with SimpliVity ever since HPE acquired the company.

I think the solution is very stable.

The scalability of the solution is very good. It's quite scalable, but one problem with all HCI solutions is that maybe the customer is just growing on storage and not on compute or memory. Then you have to add more nodes although you don't need more compute or memory. But with SimpliVity, you can actually upgrade your storage in the nodes, so you can go from a medium-sized SimpliVity node to a large or an extra-large. In that case, you don't have to buy more nodes, because more nodes requires more VMware licenses, and that's a big cost for a customer.

I've had a good experience so far with the technical support. There can be days where you don't feel you get support, but mostly it works fine.

The initial setup for the solution is more complex than setting up hyper-converged VxRail or vSAN solution in VMware. Dell VxRail is built on VMware technology; the software-based storage is built in VMware, so VxRail is really VMware on Dell hardware. What I feel is simpler with VxRail is setting it up, but also the life-cycle management, upgrades, and things like that.

But SimpliVity has been improved over the years, and they also released a new version on SimpliVity now in December. They have really simplified both the upgrades and the installation. I wouldn't say it's very complex if you know what you're doing, but that's almost always the thing. If you've never done it, of course it could be complicated, but one big problem is that you always need to have a pre-deployed vCenter to set up a SimpliVity solution.

I do everything for the implementation myself, because I'm a certified SimpliVity consultant.

Return on investment could be quite good if you look at the five-year investment compared to other HCI solutions, because other HCI solutions don't include backup built in. If you take into account that you can consolidate even your backup solution, you have a solid TCO case. Backup is a quite big part of the cost of a data center, and if you can have that built in without any extra costs. SimpliVity backups are very efficient. Because you don't store backup, you don't need extra capacity in the same way as in a traditional backup solution. But if you can't include the backups in SimpliVity, it's much harder to motivate the solution.

One big advantage with SimpliVity is that you don't need the higher license cost or VMware to put together a simple SimpliVity solution. You can run it as VMware essentials plus licensing. For the small customers, that's really quite affordable. But on top of that, you pay for SimpliVity licensing, so depending on how large your solution is, that could be quite a big part of the solution when it comes to cost.

You can start very small. You can have one node as the smallest, but the recommendation is to have at least two nodes to get some redundancy when it comes to upgrades and things like that.

There are certain things to take into consideration regarding whether to buy SimpliVity: that everything is compressed and deducted, and not every application is deductible or compressible, which could lead to you not getting the efficiency you first wanted.

One thing that separates SimpliVity from VxRail is the InfoSight portal. That's a cloud-based management tool, which you hook up to your SimpliVity solution, and this sends telemetry data to InfoSight. You can use your portal to maintain your solution and to monitor it for growth. And you also have the SimpliVity support team. They get the support data all the time, so if you have a problem with your solution and you are unaware of it yourself, HPE SimpliVity team will contact you and tell you that you have a problem.

I'd rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We run our 50+ virtual servers on SimpliVity and also use it for backups.

The all-flash storage in SimpliVity provides much better performance that the spinning-disk of our previous virtualization system. The extremely fast backups and restores (typically less than 1 minute) enable us to easily backup all our VMs every 2 hours. Lastly, the incredibly high data reduction ratio through compression and deduplication enables us to store 38 Days of full backups done every 2 hours in a remarkably small space. We're currently seeing a data reduction ratio of almost 300:1.

Backups and restores occur very quickly.

HPE Technical Support has been very responsive to any problems we've had.

All SimpliVity management is done through vCenter, providing a single-pane of glass for all management and configuration functions.

The advanced deduplication and compression greatly reduce the storage requirements, reducing the amount of expensive flash storage required.

The 10G interfaces between the SimpliVity nodes greatly speeds up VM migrations between nodes.

SimpliVity enables "stretched-cluster" operation with mirrored storage between the nodes, enabling automated failover. If a node or site goes down for any reason, the VMs on that node are automatically restarted on the other node.

Although HPE has made significant improvements, the upgrade procedure is still overly complex. It's gotten much easier but it's still far from double clicking on a link and a self-upgrade scenario. Therefore, installing SimpliVity upgrades is an area that HPE could improve upon further.

Performing file-level restores, which is the most common backup recovery operation that we do, also seems more complex than it needs to be. The recovered files/folders are restored to an ISO file, mounted as a DVD, and then they need to be copied from that. Afterwards, the ISO needs to be removed from the VM and then deleted from the SimpliVity storage. It gets the job done but it's kind of clunky.

We've used the solution for three years. 

The stability is, for the most part, pretty good. I won't say we haven't had problems.

Our biggest problem has been SSD failures. Over the three years we've had it, we've replaced over half of our SSDs due to drive failures. Of course, it's all been under warranty and therefore it hasn't cost us anything other than a lot of time and headaches. I suspect HPE received a bad batch of SSDs from their SSD vendor and many of them ended up in our system.

Technical support has been good. They have been very responsive to our SSD failure issues and we usually have a replacement drive in hand within 2 hours of calling HPE SimpliVity support. We have had a few software issues and, again, the HPE support has been very responsive and usually quickly resolves our problems.

Positive

Our previous solution used three VMware servers and two mirrored SANs. The servers were end-of-life and the SANs were almost out of available storage space.

The initial setup and configuration was reasonably complex and we used our local HPE reseller to assist us.

We have two nodes and it probably took a couple of hours per node to get everything configured and working. Then it was just a matter of migrating our VMs from our old system to the new SimpliVity system.

We used our reseller for the implementation. We have a local HPE shop here that we buy most of our network and computer equipment from and they came in and did most of the initial configuration. They were extremely knowledgeable and I doubt we would have been able to get everything properly configured and operational without them.

Since we were faced with having to replace our entire VMware system (three host servers and two SANs), we found that the cost of a two-node SimpliVity hyper-converged system was very close to what it would have cost to build a comparable conventional discrete system. 

We evaluated Dell VxRail, VMware vSAN, and Nutanix.

We're customers and end-users. 

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

We really like it. As stated earlier, most backups take a minute or less. Within our first year, one of our SQL servers got corrupted somehow and wouldn't boot. We restored the VM from the previous backup, which was at that time about an hour old, and in under a minute we had that 950 GB VM up and running. Restoring this VM with our old backup system would have taken six or seven hours. For us, this was a real eye opener.

I'd advise potential new users to definitely do some kind of a trial, if at all possible, and go into it with their eyes open. We had a pretty good idea of its capabilities beforehand. Although we didn't do a trial, we had witnessed several demos of it. Overall, we've been pretty happy with it. However, like any product, there are always a few things that could be improved.

We are using the SimpliVity HCI servers to work as a VDI solution. Mainly it's a VDI solution that is using the HCI nodes.

HPE simplivity makes the computer technogy as simple and enjoyable to use as possible, HPE Simplivity design efficient, effective and satisfying. 

The HCI concept by itself is the most valuable feature of the solution. It is a full-fledged HCI. It is the main component. I think this is what makes the project valuable

I think our LAN and branches started to use the VDI. We are hitting the point of a bottleneck with the end users and are complaining to support about this. Now, after using the SimpliVity with these nodes, we solve all the problems to cut the support cases for the end users. Also, the applications that they are running over the SimpliVity and HCI solutions are running better than the normal traditional solution. Bottleneck is the main issue.

Our connection with HPE is not a new relationship. It's 15 or 20 years old. It's such a long history with HPE that they were just HP when we started.

I think the stability is perfect. We deployed the first part one and half years ago, or more. I think we had only one or two cases that needed support, otherwise it's stable and very convenient.

In terms of maintenance for SimpliVity, we have a three year support with the vendor through SMS partner for HPE that covers us until the end of the period. After that, we usually do a reassessment and ask for an estimate for maintenance for the coming years. So at the moment maintenance is handled by HPE and HPE partner (SMS) . 

In terms of scalability, our expansion depends on how many end users I want to be using it because the sizing of the HCI depend on the number of end users that will connect to the HCI node.

I think that we have witnessed improvement in the performance between the HCI solution and traditional servers.

We have 600 users now, and next year we will have an additional 400. This brings us to 1000 users. Then we'll look for an expansion.

The quality of customer service depends on the cases. At the beginning of the projects, every environment has customized procedures. Our environment needed a little bit of customization that made some headache for HPE and SMS partner. But after that, it worked perfectly. And their responses are quite good with all the cases that we brought to them.

Positive

The initial setup was simple because it has a wizard GUI interface that helped to set up the project and set the needed configuration. Additionally, SMS partner was already connected step by step with a vendor. So it was quite easy and simple.

The licensing depends on the servers that it is going to run on. But SimpliVity didn't have a license to run on their devices. I think the license will be on the VMware or Citrix or the environment that you want to run on it. With SimpliVity, it is just a one time purchase and not actually any license.

We started using SimpliVity after we made several POCs with many vendors. We did a POC for Dell EMC, for Fujitsu, for Nutanix, and also for HPE SimpliVity. They all succeeded with the POC projects, but HPE won the competition and got the tender.

I think the reason that HPE was chosen in our tender was the technical level. Our tender was for a technical and financial proposal. 70% of our proposal depended on the technical offer and 30% on the financial offer.

SimpliVity was the first HCI solution we deployed in our organization. It was a good experiment to start with. Now we are planning to start with a new HCI deployment next year.

I recommend SimpliVity to other organizations because it is quite easy to deal with, quite easy to start the configuration, and it is easy to manipulate if you want to track anything.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give SimpliVity a 9.

The solution is used for server consolidation and, with SimpliVity and other hyper-converged solutions, we can reduce the footprint and we can give them added benefits, like backup, DR, compression, and deduplication. The main use case for SimpliVity is for backup and cloning, and rapid DR. If you take vSAN, we can say the selling point is server consolidation, and then you can start your STDC journey.

The backup is the main and most valuable aspect, followed by the rapid DR (Disaster Recovery). With a traditional network, we have to have some WAN optimizers, however, with SimpliVity, we can go with their Omni and the rapid DR software.

Technical support is great.

The solution is quite stable.

We can scale the solution easily.

The initial setup is simple. 

When we failed it, there was a hardware accelerator card, however, now HP is saying the hardware is no longer available, and it will be the end of life. Now, we have only the software. That is a shock for us. When someone is using a hardware accelerator, then he needs some upgrades. Now, we have to say there is no hardware card. Now you have to use the software. There will be a mismatch.

The Omni Card consumes a lot of memory and CPU. On the HP selling site, it says Omni Card can offload your CPU and memory, however, in reality, it consumes more memory and CPU.

We have been working with HP SimpliVity for three years. 

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is quite scalable. 

We closed six deals. The largest one is a 4-node cluster, and another is a 2-node cluster and 3-node cluster. Very recently, we closed a deal with the largest private sector insurance company which is about four nodes. They are going to expand the environment. We have another five HPE SimpliVity references in Sri Lanka. Currently, we are working with a few customers on some upgrades. 

Technical support has been great. We get direct HP support and have had no issues with the HP support.

The initial setup is easy. Nowadays, it is all very straightforward. There is no rocket science involved. We can do a simple installation.

We are able to handle the implementation process for our clients. 

We deal with a variety of products. It's case by case. We are not selling any product. We are selling solutions. If a customer prefers Nutanix, then we can go with Nutanix, however, we can tell them the features and advantages. As a product, SimpliVity is better than others due to the fact that it has its own WAN optimizer optimization technologies then dedupe and compression ratios are high, and we can get support from a single vendor. SimpliVity is the leader.

We are an enterprise partner for HPE and we are dealing with HPE SimpliVity. We are also new Nutanix partners, so we are working with a couple of hyper-converged solutions. In addition to that, we are an advanced partner for VMware. At the moment we don't have any vSAN references, however, we are a certified VMware partner.

We might work with an older version. I'm not familiar with the latest one. Mainly, I'm a part of the pre-sales team. Our implementation guys handle the deployment. They are dealing with the versions and upgrades. I'm involved in pre-sales.

I'd advise potential new users that, if you have large volumes on backups and if you have any plans to go for DR, so you can start with SimpliVity.

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

The main reason for the selection was that SimpliVity ensures high availability, and, with the static cluster configuration, we are reasonably protected as we have two nodes with synchronous replication. That's why we feel comfortable enough to use this technology.

The simplicity of the solution is its most valuable aspect. It's much more simple than Nutanix and other hyper-converged solutions, at least from our point of view. It's easy to use.

The pricing is reasonable.

I've found the solution to be stable. 

We haven't had any issues. Recently, we purchased new SimpliVity nodes. We are pretty confident with the platform. We are using it more than in the beginning.

The installation was a bit complicated. 

There may be issues around scaling. 

Technical support could be better.

SimpliVity has to evolve into a solution that is more integrated with the public cloud. At the moment, this is not the case. It's not our case, however, if we wanted to make some kind of hybrid integration between private cloud and public cloud, SimpliVity is not well prepared for this. 

I started using the solution nearly three years ago. The first installation was before the pandemic, that's for sure. It was likely in the spring of 2019.

The stability has been good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

Scaling is problematic. It's not as scalable as other solutions, such as Nutanix. In our scenario, it's not a big point for us as we have a medium enterprise. Therefore, we don't need to scale straight to tens of nodes. We only have four nodes at this time. For us it's not a problem, however, maybe for larger organizations, it can become a problem.

We've had some issues, such as typical disc faults, however, on the same day, we open a ticket in the super-portal and we receive the new piece. It's very, very useful and affordable. However, for more technical issues, it's a little bit difficult to find the right person. Eventually, finally, you will find him.

The product is a little bit more complicated. That said, SimpliVity always is installed with certified personnel from the HPE, so it's a question of time. You always have to give them space in the racks for the servers. That's all.

We have certified HPE personnel install the solution on our behalf. 

The cost of the solution is pretty good. It's not too expensive. 

Before choosing this solution, we looked into Nutanix which was the competitor at that moment.

The main reason for our decision in 2019 was the price. Nutanix was a higher cost - much higher than SimpliVity. Nowadays, I think the price has reduced. Maybe, nowadays, we would decide on something else. However, at that moment, it was very, very clear for us.

I'm a customer and an end-user.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

I would recommend the solution to others, however, it depends on the environment. For a company of our size, it's a very good solution.

One of the most valuable features is the solution is simple. You get everything in one place, one rack for everything. So you don't have to get bits and pieces for a whole solution.

The solution works very well for banking or oil and gas sectors, and for the branch offices. 

One area of the service that could use improvement is that it is an aging solution. The market activity shelf life is over as people are moving toward a more savvy cloud box.

One con to the solution is the expense. A second thing is it has to be tailor-made properly. The presales part has to be done properly. Otherwise, you can misguide the customer.

Another issue is that it's not growing. I don't know what they want to do and apply for that particular solution or if they are looking for something else. I haven't seen many improvements in the last couple of years.

Also, nowadays everything is a very lean architecture, but SimpliVity is not a lean architecture in terms of anything. SimpliVity should be very lean in terms of the solution.

I've been working with the solution for five years.

Once you've taken the right course of action, the solution is quite stable, but it should be in the proper hands to maintain.

Scalability is very good in SimpliVity. Up scaling is very possible, and at any time it is scalable.

Compared to NewtonX, technical support for HPE is a lot better. We had a few situations where we need to get connected with them. The usual turnaround time is the next business day or whatever option the customer has. It'll be resolved accordingly in time.

The initial setup is complex. You need experts on that to kick start it, or it would be screwed up.

You need to go with a vendor, or find a niche experts, and there are only a handful of people available in the market.

The solution is expensive; not every budget can fit it. With the technical experts, for after-sales, you need to be a bit careful because it can burn your pockets if you don't expect it because there are only a few people available.

The solution is a one-time investment that the customer has to make, but the scalability is there. The performance is very good on any application you are trying to build on top of it, it performs according to that hardware layer. They offer very good presale support in the region here, if you need to get connected.

Now that AI is changing, hyper-convergence is there, but the hybrid model is applied in any scenario. Everybody doesn't want fully on-prem because SimpliVity is something where you want to convert everything on-prem. So if you are approaching a hybrid model, that solution should be in the cloud as well as on-prem. It should be not hardware agnostic, one solution. Anytime your data is your property, you can move it to any solution.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We are using the latest update. 

Our main use case involves the applying of core applications. 

Most valuable features include the data resiliency, backup and ability to capture full VM without the need for additional software, as well as the transfer from Side A to Side B, at a lower bandwidth.

When it comes to upgrading and additional features, it would be nice if the solution had the ability to fully archive data in an external storage solution other than HPE Simplivity. 

I wish to see an improved compute node selection, to allow us to select something other than merely the two socket system. It can go through four sockets, such as the DL580.

I would like to see the ability to do the integration between HCI and dHCI. I understand that there is a roadmap for these, but I have yet to see the release. Hopefully, this will occur soon. 

Other than this, so far so good. 

I have been using HPE Simplivity for five years. 

The overall stability and performance is good. We find it to be simple. 

From a technical standpoint, we would say that the product is reliable. As of now, we have experienced only one hard drive failure. The solution is quite stable and we have not experienced issues in this regard. Considering the time we run, we have had zero downtime. 

The solution is scalable, although one occasionally will wish to have a four socket processor. As we do not possess this, we have had multiple systems running.

We have occasionally contacted technical support concerning the update or when problems arise. We arrange the support. Mostly, problems happen during the hardware failure as the result of normal wear and tear.

The support has been okay thus far. For the last couple of years, so far so good, without problems, although the transition from Simplivity to HP did involve a big hiccup. 

The initial setup was straightforward.

We handled the installation entirely on our own.

The solution only requires normal basic housekeeping, such as with data retention time. 

The price is comparatively okay. The solution is affordable and quite reasonably priced in terms of the product one gets. 

The licensing cost is all inclusive. 

There are around 100 people in my company working with the solution. 

The solution simplifies IT life. In terms of resources such as OT and data backup, one can save a lot in cost. Around the clock one need not worry about having comprehensive backup. The entire system remains up and running during office hours and there is no need to wait for anything. Overall, one is assured that all the data is backed up and can be restored. Prior to running HCL, we had to do testing, much more planning and sometimes remain overnight beyond office hours. Nobody wishes to do this nowadays. 

All is good with the solution. 

As we are satisfied with HPE Simplivity so far, I rate it as a nine out of ten.