Raphaël Julmy - PeerSpot reviewer
Architecte Infrastructures at IT-Med
Real User
Simple to manage and simple to implement
Pros and Cons
  • "Its simplicity is most valuable. The management is easy, and you don't have to have a lot of knowledge about storage, network, etc. It is simple to manage and simple to implement, and that's its key feature."
  • "I would like some reporting about backup and replication."

What is our primary use case?

We are an SIEM integrator. We are working with a lot of products that our clients have, and we are studying products in our clients' production. 

It is mostly used for remote sites. It is sometimes also used for production. Its version depends on the customer.

How has it helped my organization?

SimpliVity is integrated into the virtual center, so there is no additional management software or management interface. It's quite simple to manage because there is only one interface. It is all in one, which makes it different from other solutions.

What is most valuable?

Its simplicity is most valuable. The management is easy, and you don't have to have a lot of knowledge about storage, network, etc. It is simple to manage and simple to implement, and that's its key feature.

What needs improvement?

Its scalability can be improved. When we put a lot of nodes, sometimes, its performance decreases. Its price can also be improved.

I would like some reporting about backup and replication.

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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is quite good. It is really stable. We have no issue with performance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Its performance decreases when we have a lot of nodes.

It is suitable for small, medium, and large companies. It can be used in almost all companies.

How are customer service and support?

It is pretty good. Their support and maintenance are really good, but the installation services that HPE provides for SimpliVity are sometimes not so good.

How was the initial setup?

It was quite straightforward. Now that I know how to deploy it, it takes less than 30 minutes.

What about the implementation team?

Our company provides the implementation services. The maintenance of hardware and software is done by the vendor.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Its price is pretty good as compared to the other solutions, but it is quite expensive if we compare it with non-HCI solutions.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise others to give it a try. We did a lot of proof of concepts where we just put a node, and the client tried it.

I would rate it a nine out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Consultant at Trigonova GmbH
Real User
Top 20
Performs well and comes with an integrated solution for backup, but we would like patches in time and better scalability
Pros and Cons
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

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

How has it helped my organization?

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

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

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.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and support?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
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March 2024
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Senior Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Great back up and disaster recovery capabilities with very helpful technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "We can scale the solution easily."
  • "The Omni Card consumes a lot of memory and CPU."

What is our primary use case?

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.

What is most valuable?

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. 

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been working with HP SimpliVity for three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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. 

How are customer service and support?

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

How was the initial setup?

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

What about the implementation team?

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

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Senior Datacenter Consultant at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
MSP
Hyper-converged infrastructure that simplifies daily use
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the ease of use and the storage virtualization layer, together with the built-in backups."
  • "The life-cycle management can be improved."

What is our primary use case?

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

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I think the solution is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and support?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What about the implementation team?

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

What was our ROI?

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.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Administrador TIC at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Reasonably priced, user-friendly, and stable
Pros and Cons
  • "It's much more simple than Nutanix and other hyper-converged solutions, at least from our point of view."
  • "There may be issues around scaling."

What is our primary use case?

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.

What is most valuable?

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. 

What needs improvement?

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. 

For how long have I used the solution?

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.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and support?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What about the implementation team?

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

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Business Development Head at Fast in Cloud
Real User
Great data compression ratio but could be more compatible and more secure
Pros and Cons
  • "What I like about SimpliVity is the brand value of HP. I also like the data compression ratio, which is around more than 75% data compression ratio. HP's support and the ease of working with SimpliVity are also valuable features."
  • "Once I am onto the SimpliVity environment, I always have to go with HP because I am somewhat blocked, like Apple. Secondly, if I want to increase only storage, I need to buy an entire computing node for that, an entire HCI node."

What is our primary use case?

One of the use cases was that a customer had around 10 servers, which stopped working. The customer wanted to replace all those servers with new ones. I proposed that they should use the SimpliVity solution in place of 10 servers with around 100TB of data in a discrete environment. SimpliVity is an on-premise solution. It's not cloud-based.

We have four customers who deal with HP SimpliVity.

What is most valuable?

What I like about SimpliVity is the brand value of HP. I also like the data compression ratio, which is around more than 75% data compression ratio. HP's support and the ease of working with SimpliVity are also valuable features.

What needs improvement?

Once I am into the SimpliVity environment, I always have to go with HP because I am somewhat blocked, like Apple. Secondly, if I want to increase only storage, I need to buy an entire computing node for that, an entire HCI node. However, there are certain other providers, like Hitachi and AirDeck, that provide solutions. You can go with any of the hardware infrastructure, and they can provide you with their solutions for HCI itself. HCI is a simple software layer, a hypervisor layer for them.

So, they can add computing, storage, and networking to it that is vendor agnostic. In HP, Dell, VxRail, or Cisco, there is a drawback. I have to go with that brand again, and I have to add a simple load of HCI in place if I want to increase computing, networking, or storage.

SimpliVity is also compatible with all HP appliances, though it is not compatible with other brands or vendors. It could be more compatible and more secure.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using SimpliVity for a couple of years. My core extent is cybersecurity.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

HP is renowned for scalability. They're using Nimble and three-part technology for storage and backup.

What about the implementation team?

We have four engineers on our technical team.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

There are plenty of hyperconverged solutions in the market like Nutanix, Dell, VxRail, etc.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution 6 out of 10. I would recommend HP SimpliVity for people who want to start using it.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
German Infante - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect Data Center Servers and Storage at Tecnologia informatica
Reseller
A hyper-converged infrastructure that offers enterprise-level data protection
Pros and Cons
  • "The technical support is exceptionally good."
  • "There needs to be a simple process for migrating one SimpliVity cluster to a new SimpliVity cluster."

What is our primary use case?

Typically, our customers use it to try to consolidate their solutions on VMware with multiple virtual machines — almost more than 15 in every case.

What is most valuable?

The integration possibilities regarding the administration console are one of the best configurations and one of the best features that differentiates this product from others in the market. Also, you can add extra coverage protection that includes everything inside of the hard drives — similar products don't do this. You can use it directly from the hypervisor, which is great.

What needs improvement?

The price is one of the biggest problems our customers have. The solution is great, but at the end of the day, it's expensive. Compared to other solutions on the market, like Nutanix or vSAN, you are paying for something else. In this case, I have to explain the big differences within HPE SimpliVity. Overall, the biggest issue I have is regarding the price.

The problem is not necessarily with the HPE SimpliVity console itself because it's very easy to integrate with. Sometimes, our customers just want to have the opportunity to have the freedom to choose between Hyper-V and VMware. We love that kind of possibility. 

It's not so frequently that we have a request about Hyper-V, but our customers do ask about the differences regarding licensing prices because at the end of the day, with Microsoft, the hypervisor is included with the operating system — that saves money.

The feature that I would like to see improved in the next release is migrations. There needs to be a simple process for migrating one SimpliVity cluster to a new SimpliVity cluster. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for almost two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have no problems with SimpliVity. If you configure it well, the product works well, but once you consider the possibility of growing a SimpliVity cluster after one or two years, it's not easy for costumers to understand that the original nodes are not available — you have to buy specific new nodes or whatever is available at that moment. You will lose some space, capabilities, or some benefits with the new nodes — you may need to configure a new cluster and migrate the older one. 

SimpliVity should have the capability to integrate with other clusters in the future. Here in Colombia, our customers try it with just one additional node, but although that additional node could be easy to configure, you still will lose some features and characteristics.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is exceptionally good. 

There's some information missing from the manual. I had to request special help in some cases because the documents are not complete. For example, wherever you go, unless you have some kind of experience with the product, there are some ports on the backend of the servers that are not easily identifiable. When you read over the documents and try to find that information, you can't find it anywhere — you have to contact SimpliVity support.

They need to provide more complete information about the components and their uses, especially the ports on the back.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not bad when you use the OCA. The OCA is a configuration utility but you have to know what you're doing or you could easily drive up the end-price for the customer.

What other advice do I have?

Regarding configuration, it would be nice to have the flexibility to easily select the right low-cost service for any implementation or configuration. 

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine. If the customer has the right environment, I would definitely recommend this solution.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Systems Engineer at Sempra
Real User
Crashes often when a VM has random, large IOPS requests, but lag-free restore is good
Pros and Cons
  • "It has instantaneous backup and lag-free restore. When everything is running, I can bring back a huge VM in less than 30 seconds. That's even better than Veeam."
  • "It crashes often. When one particular VM has random, large IOPS requests, it will bog down the node, and there isn't enough time for the replica to be brought up. So all the VMs on that one particular node will essentially become offline."

What is our primary use case?

We use it in a VMware environment that supports VMs.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is that it's easy to manage.

It also has instantaneous backup and lag-free restore. When everything is running, I can bring back a huge VM in less than 30 seconds. That's even better than Veeam. 

What needs improvement?

It crashes often. When one particular VM has random, large IOPS requests, it will bog down the node, and there isn't enough time for the replica to be brought up. So all the VMs on that one particular node will essentially become offline.

If it's not already included, an additional feature I would like to see would be better Storage vMotion. That would be number one on my wish list.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is not good. I have fewer than 20 VMs per node. I have nine nodes in my environment, and when it goes south, 20 VMs will go down, even though there's a replica on other nodes. There's a third copy which is a backup and I can't bring any of those online.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is very good. It's excellent for a branch office/remote office, instead of a data center.

How are customer service and technical support?

Most of technical support has been excellent. I can escalate my support case to a developer very quickly, in less than a day. That's unbelievable.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We switched because we have a most-excellent salesperson. He promised something more than what the SimpliVity environment can support.

What was our ROI?

The short version regarding ROI is that it's not good. It takes two engineers all day to solve an ESXi node-down issue, and it takes between two days and two weeks to bring it back.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We signed a three-year contract.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

On our shortlist there were only Vblock, which we didn't need, and Nutanix, which was more expensive. So we chose the least expensive, at least at the time.

What other advice do I have?

Do a proof of concept on everything, instead of just relying upon the salesperson's pie-in-the-sky promise.

I'll rate this solution as a five out of ten. It may not be terribly mature yet. I see disk, for example, becoming all-flash. That may have overcome my painful learning experience.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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