HPE SimpliVity Reviews

We primarily use the solution for disaster recovery. 

It's a very good solution for disaster recovery.

The support on offer is very good.

We don't mind the pricing.

The configuration capabilities are good.

For consolidation purposes, it's a very good product. We are able to reduce the footprint for space, including rack space in the data centers.

The initial setup process is not too hard. 

It's not exactly straightforward to use. We need to train our people as some features that are there we are not used to or maybe we don't know how to use. Therefore, we need to train our people.

Maybe the price could be a bit better. 

The compatibility with other products needs an improvement.

There's a controller or something that is used. Instead of using vSAN, they use another technology, NFS. I don't like it. That said, it works.

I've been using the solution for two years at this point. 

Technical support has been great. they are helpful and responsive. 

The setup is fine. I haven't heard of the team having any issues with the process. It's my understanding that it is largely straightforward. 

The pricing, for the most part, is pretty good. However, it could always be a bit less expensive. 

We are an HPE partner.

I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

Most of the installations are for branch offices that need an integrated solution for backup.

It helps branch offices in having an integrated solution for backup. That's the greatest benefit of SimpliVity.

Its performance is quite good, and it is also easy to use. One of the biggest benefits is the included backup solution.

The greatest disadvantage is the update process. Every patch or release update must be checked and deployed with the HPE solution, which sometimes is a little bit difficult. It is not difficult in terms of installation, but it is difficult to get the patches in time.

Its scalability can also be improved.

It is stable.

If I compare it to our recent solution, it is not so scalable. We have had about 10 customers. Normally, it is in a branch office, so there are less than 200 users.

Their support is customer-friendly. You can use the support portal. You can call them through telephone or web interface. There is an interface for an automatic call if there is an issue in the hardware system.

It is straightforward and easy. It takes one to three days. Our SimpliVity installations are not so big. Therefore, it takes a little bit less time.

We need an engineer or an admin guy from the storage team, and sometimes, we also need a networking guy.

Its licensing is quite easy. There is a model license, but it depends on the system you buy. 

There are no extra costs. There is only one license.

I would recommend this solution. I would rate it a seven out of 10.

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 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 are using HPE SimpliVity in a water distribution facility and for computer administration backups.

The HPE SimpliVity disc compression is very valuable.

In the next release of the solution, they should make updating the solution easier. Currently, we have HPE doing it for us but I would like to be able to do it.

I have been using HPE SimpliVity for approximately 

HPE SimpliVity has been stable for us in the two years we have been using it.

The solution is scalable. If we want to expand then we only need to purchase new nodes and set them up.

We have approximately 100 users using this solution.

The technical support and support, in general, are very good. When I had discs that stopped working, they sent the disc to be on the same day. They are very good.

We are using VMware and HPE SimpliVity together. The backup and the decompression of the files are very useful. Previously the updating was not easy when I only used my servers alone. However, with the HPE SimpliVity, it's updating the firmware and VMware in one step.

I have used Nutanix and updating the system was simple, HPE SimpliVity could improve in this area.

The installation with VMware was fine. We are using VMware on this solution, and there are a couple of new features.

We used HPE for the implementation of the solution because they were able to provide us with a guarantee. I could not do the process myself. It took approximately two weeks.

We have one engineer that does the maintenance of the solution.

It did not take me long to see a return on investment when using HPE SimpliVity.

There is a one-time purchase needed for the license for HPE SimpliVity. The solution is expensive, but it is worth the money.

I rate HPE SimpliVity an eight out of ten.

We are a large enterprise and are partners of HPE. We use the solution for hyperconverged simple usage scenarios.

HPE SimpliVity is simple, it's very friendly.  Our customers like to use this product.

The solution could have an optimization site and provide assistance at that site. HPE SimpliVity would also benefit if it installed bigger products like having a Blade solution.

I have been using SimpliVity for over five years.

HPE SimpliVity is stable enough for our business. We never have a problem.

The solution is scalable if you size the requirement of your client at the first stage, otherwise scalability is difficult.

SimpliVity is really easy to setup.

The pricing of HPE SimpliVity is comparable with other solutions so the price is good.

For hyperconverged, HPE SimpliVity is the right choice. 

I would rate this solution a 9 out of 10.

I use HPE SimpliVity for the virtual infrastructure of my servers.

The solution has integrated backup features that are useful.

There are some small changes that can be made to the interface to improve it but it typically works well.

I have been using HPE SimpliVity for approximately one year.

The solution is highly stable. I'm using the cluster deployment, site A and site B as if it was only one site and it is very good for zero downtime.

The solution is scalable, I only need to add new nodes to expand.

The support from HPE is very good, they are helpful.

HPE SimpliVity is easy to implement.

My advice to others wanting to use HPE SimpliVity is for them to try it out. It's really good if you compare it with different solutions. I would suggest trying other solutions to see which one suits their business better. In this case, HPE SimpliVity brought a lot of things to the table, such as the backup is already integrated with this solution, which is very helpful. There are a lot of advantages to HPE SimpliVity.

I rate HPE SimpliVity a nine out of ten.

Our main use case for SimpliVity is VDI for Citrix and VMware.

SimpliVity's console is useful

SimpliVity's data management could be better. Nutanix's interface is a bit more user-friendly. 

I've been using HPE SimpliVity for about three years.

SimpliVity's performance could be better. It could be more stable. 

SimpliVity is as scalable as all the other solutions. 

There are additional costs for storage.

I would rate SimpliVity six or seven out of 10. It doesn't stack up well against other solutions like Nutanix. The main difference is the hardware rating. HPE is planning to introduce Integration with other products in the future. It's on their roadmap for SimpliVity. Many use cases require this.