HPE SimpliVity Reviews

Our customer has a limited IT staff, so they were looking at something that will:

• Be a little more centralized
• Be easier for them to manage
• Give them the functionality that their customers really need
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We have a lot of customers who are looking at the whole hyper-converged infrastructure. Comparing this solution to some of the other competitors that we've been going up against, they like the ease of use, the centralized management, and big cost-savings. We had one SimpliVity deal so far, but that's what everybody from the customer standpoint really liked about it. They just received the product and they were just setting it up. Hypothetically, it's going to solve a lot of business problems that they were running up against.

That's a good question and I don't really have a good answer for that right now. I'm still learning about the product as a whole and I really want to see, once it's stood up in our customer environment, how it performs. I will then probably have some better ideas once our engineers go through it and talk with the customers as to what improvements there could be.

In terms of what I would define as a perfect solution, I am looking for one that is easy to manage, has a real user-friendly interface, and something that is not too complex. I want something that is the best bang for the buck, especially when we're trying to keep HPE onboard. There are all the competitors that are always trying to come in and say, "We can bring in our product for you, and you'll spend less, ours is easier to use." We want HPE to do whatever they can do to improve, in order to make it a better customer experience.

From what I've seen, it looks like it's a really stable solution. This is our first one that we're implementing. I believe it's going to do everything we want it to do. As far as how it will be in the real world, we will have wait and see.

No customers have tried to scale yet.

Technical support will be involved in the implementation, but that's it for right now. It's in process right now, so I would rate their support as "so far, so good." We'll see when it has all been completed.

We were partnered with SimpliVity before they were bought by HPE, but we never really had any deals as far as HPE goes.

We've sold a lot of blades and 3PAP. We've had some other solutions, like ExaGrid, that tries to compete with HPE. We've done a couple of deals for them. Usually, we try to promote the HPE infrastructure whenever we can, so this product is going to help out with that.

I really can't comment on the setup right now, because I was not involved in that. I don't want to say one way or another.

My advice would be to actually listen to the whole SimpliVity story. Really compare apples to apples, when a lot of manufacturers will bring up their own selling points, which are geared towards their product

It looks like a good thing in the initial presentation. In the long run, it may not answer all of your business needs or it might be way more expensive. Really go through the story and see everything that SimpliVity has to offer.

When selecting a vendor, the first thing I look for is if they stand behind your product. I want to know that when the customer has issues or problems arise, support will be there right away.

Pricing is always good to have, but more importantly, check for a quality product that has been researched, has been proven in the market, or is following business trends.

It frees up time for the other system administrators. We've found better performance. Even our developers are seeing faster response times in executing codes, so they can get their code done more quickly. It has just increased the overall time.

Its ease of use is the most valuable feature. It is just a one-stop shop, a single appliance that I can control through my virtual center. I can manage my storage, my backups, and my disaster recovery. So, its ease to use is the most important feature.

I would like to see more, more, more, more, more storage in the next version. Let us populate the entire node; right now, there are 24 slots in a server and you're only allowed to populate 14. So, give us those other 10 slots, it is going to increase our density, which allows us to scale out further.

So far, it has been very stable. I've not had any issues as such. I did have some issues with getting the installations to work, but once up and running, it has been stable.

I'd like to see better scalability. For SimpliVity, it's hyper-converged and is limited. It doesn't scale to, maybe, where we would like to see it. However, now the fact that HPE has purchased SimpliVity and it's now HPE SimpliVity, we will start to see that it scales out across other platforms, or at least, hopefully, we will see it scale.

The technical support was great, i.e., prior to HPE purchasing them and not so good, once HPE has purchased them. Also to be fair, it is at a transition point. At least, we have had good meetings with HPE, so hopefully they've heard our needs and will respond accordingly. They've been willing to listen to us, however, whether we see action come out of that is another story.

I saw SimpliVity about two or two and a half years ago, at a VMR user group in New England and it just appealed to me. The very first time I saw VMware I said, "Oh my God, I can't believe you can do that." Later on, I saw SimpliVity and I said, "Oh my God, I can't believe you can do that. That's really cool." We've always used different solutions, we've been an HPE shop, now, for a long time. We have used more traditional solutions, like HPE c7000 Blade Chassis, 3PAR, big storage in the backend not necessarily the hyper-converged.

The setup was complex, networking is not as straightforward. The deployment manager for SimpliVity was, maybe, not in full production, i.e., maybe a step above beta, for at least the version we used. I understand that this is getting addressed with HPE OneView, but I've not seen a OneView product deploy yet.

We have done PoCs with a number of the other competitors. Ease of use, support, price, and durability are the factors that we look for while selecting a vendor. That was a big check for us, as far as moving further with HPE SimpliVity; the fact that we can buy it on HPE. Being an HPE shop, we like that we can now purchase the product, a HPE product, and an HPE hardware.

I would advise to go for the All-Flash option, to look at its ease of use. Some of the other competitors have multiple administration consoles where you have to get into this one console to do this one thing and get into that console to do another piece. Really for us, it's having my entire team at one place, i.e., one single-pane-of-glass that they can work out of and it enables all of us to do the same job.

It's a game changer. They have the inline compression, which is really good. It can present itself as the NAS, so it can leverage our existing compute and then the backup. The backup in DR has been a lifesaver. It makes jobs so much easier. It makes my job a lot easier.

Overall benefits include reducing the cost of administration. We have a small head count of IT. This simplifies the job duties and we don't have to worry about performance or backup issues.

I'd love to see more of their cloud analytics. I guess big data kind of stuff, where we could practically monitor some of the stuff. And some of the integrated software they have with the DR.

The stability has been very good, very solid. I used to check on the SAN or the VM on a daily basis, and now I don't. I can work on other projects and worry about other stuff. Their DR is just super simple.

It scales very easy. Like I told you, I have coverage. You just rack and stack, and it just scales.

I would rate technical support as excellent. They are one of the best.

The setup was pretty straightforward. If you can get that design requirement down and you design it right, then you can basically hand it over to their deployment support. It's pretty easy.

We definitely evaluated others, including VMware, vSAN, Nutanix, and Pivot3 lead hyper-converged, along with SimpliVity.

Then we evaluated the traditional Dell, EMC, and then a couple more of the players. I basically looked at all of the Gartner top vendors out there and we started filtering down based on requirements and budget.

When selecting a vendor, I look for customer references if they claim to do something. I definitely had to research. I did a lot of reference checks.

the number of customers they have is important, their reference, and where they are at in the industry. It's a very innovative game changer. Go after your requirements, your budget, and your stakeholders.

SimpliVity is probably the way to go if you want to stay nimble, innovative, have a smaller IT team, or if you want to have everything centralized with one login.

I would like to see what Nimble has done with their InfoSite cloud monitoring, and analytics integrate into with Simplivity since they are now HPE. Nimble Storage has a simple licensing model which includes everything with the purchase, and that is a great trend that most new vendors are heading to.

"Less space and power, less management". We have stored all data, compressed and deduplicated, with less transfer over the WAN.

Adding a node to the federation is as simple as plugging it into the network, selecting it in the GUI, and clicking "Join".

I would like to see a better price/performance in comparison with a standard ESX servers/storage farm solution.

As a trade and service SimpliVity partner since 2013, we have sold and installed dozens of systems based on CN-3000/5000 in various configurations. These include models from: CN3400-12abc, miniCube, 2xE5-2640v3, 16C, 4x400GB SSD, 20x1TB HDD, 256GB Memory to models CN5000-bcc - OmniCube CN-5000 platform, Dual 12 Cores, 384 RAM, 400GB SSD, etc.

In multiple cases, we have upgraded the first versions of OmniCube Box (delivered in 2013/2014) based on the request of our clients to higher configurations, in a time span of 12-18 months. Our company has been using the OmniCube CN-3000 system internally since 2013.

We did not have any issues with stability.

The scalability options are clear and mostly satisfying.

Technical support varies based on the level of paid service (Gold/Silver).

The SimpliVity OmniCube solution was the first that we have used for software defined, data center field. We have been using it ever since

The initial setup was fairly simple. SimpliVity offers high-level technical training and the system itself is well documented.

The price of OmniCube Box is still higher compared to standard ESX server/storage farm solutions. Its advantages are only appealing to clients who:

• Want to increase the efficiency of both physical and human resources
• Want to decrease complexity
• Are lacking data room space
• Have more branches

SimpliVity can help organizations take on the challenges of maximizing efficiency while reducing costs.

Performance scalability was easily achieved for a virtual environment running a mix of common IT business applications, while providing fast, predictable response times.

Combined with the ability to offer the same level of administrative simplicity, data efficiency, complete functionality across data centers around the globe, and low-cost cloud capabilities, SimpliVity OmniCube is noteworthy.

Visit the SimpliVity website for reference information and familiarization with the product.

The most valuable features are the compression and backup.

Backups are done on disk, and no longer use tapes. Also, restoration of backups is within seconds.

None on technologies side, but the cost of the solution and support would need some improvement

I have used it for one year.

We have not encountered any deployment issues.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

Customer service is 10/10.

Technical support is 10/10.

We previously used regular Windows servers. We switched for better efficiency of storage and backup.

Initial setup was straightforward.

A vendor team with good knowledge implemented it.

ROI is 100%.

Pricing and support is on the high side, but well worth it.

Before choosing, we also evaluated Nutanix and Cisco.

The built-in backup data protection is the most valuable feature.

We streamlined our production servers in the way of space management, better redundancy, and efficiency.

• Back-end training for sysadmins

I have used it for one year.

Some things were not fully set up during deployment by their engineers.

We have not encountered any stability issues at all.

I have not scaled yet.

Customer service is good; not the best, but it's good.

Technical support is very good.

We previously used a centralized VMware solution; not enough resources and internal support was lacking. We needed more control over our environment.

Initial setup was both straightforward and a little complex. I think they can come up with a better way to automate some of the process for the end user sysadmin.

Implementation was through Simplivity's team.

Still working on ROI.

Depending on the vendor, Simplivity will try to work with you on the pricing.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated Nutanix and VMware centralized solutions through our institution.

I highly recommend Simplivity to fill any hyper-converged needs.

• Inline deduplication and compression
• Rapid cloning and provisioning of VMs
• Remote backup functionality
• Easy handling within vSphere client due to the Simplivity plugin

• Standardization of ROBOs

I have used it for two years.

There were minor bugs that were fixed.

There were minor bugs that were fixed.

So far, we have not encountered any issues with scalability.

Customer service is very good; fast reaction time.

Technical support is very good; always solid statements.

We didn't previously use a different solution.

Setup was easy.

A technical engineer from Simplivity implemented it.

Price-performance is good.

Before choosing, we evaluated Nutanix, but didn't like the 3 nodes concept at that time.

• Redundancy
• Cross-site federation
• Data virtualization
• Integration with vSphere

We introduced OmniStack as a tool in helping effect a datacenter migration and its ability to execute rapid backup and migration of VMs across geographically distant sites was integral in the success of the project. By placing OmniCubes at both datacenters and federating them together, we were able to pre-populate the destination site's nodes with the unique 4K blocks composing our VMs and make the final production move in a matter of hours instead of days.

There are some maintenance features (replica copy load-balancing) that could stand to be automated and/or streamlined for customer execution. Also, the ability to scale compute and storage independently of one another would be a way to add value to the entire product line.

I have used it for 18 months.

We encountered some deployment issues as part of the complexity of hardware refreshes and datacenter moves; none related to SimpliVity's technology itself.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

Customer service is excellent. Deployment and turn-up was a white-glove experience, with dedicated technical staff (Richard Gay) and very attentive account managers (Ryan Huhtala).

Technical support is excellent. Support staff are responsive and knowledgeable, and we have had all concerns about which we've called in resolved to our satisfaction.

We wanted the advantages of HCI versus legacy stacks as a means of expanding our capabilities, as we are a VMware-based environment and make heavy use of cloning and templates which OmniStack can deduplicate efficiently.

Initial setup was more complex for us than for many, as we had to integrate it alongside our legacy equipment and perform a multi-stage transition from legacy gear at our old DC --> legacy/SVT hybrid at old DC --> legacy/SVT hybrid at old DC with SVT at new DC --> SVT at old DC with SVT at new DC --> SVT at new DC. There was some network expansion required, as well as coordinating planned outages in production systems as we migrated from server to server and site to site.

Customers integrating OmniStack at a single datacenter and gradually retiring old equipment will have a more straightforward implementation.

Implementation was a partner effort between SimpliVity and our own IT. Their expertise was unparalleled, with every point addressed and handled without issue.

HCI is going to be expensive compared to legacy architecture or converged stacks. However, in the case of SimpliVity, the benefit is worth the cost in terms of ease of management and efficient use of storage resources. Licensing is the standard VMware pricing model; no different than with any other solution.

Before choosing this product, we evaluated Nutanix, Scale HC3, Nimble SmartStack, and Maxta.

It is well worth seriously considering for any operation that makes heavy use of VMs, particularly clustered servers, VDI, and other highly-redundant data sets. Once installed, OmniStack performs beautifully, integrates painlessly, and can improve virtual datacenter performance magnificently.