HPE SimpliVity Reviews

SimpliVity is used when a customer is looking to build a private cloud environment.

SimpliVity works well in a UAT environment.

They have made several technology changes. Compared to the previous version, SimpliVity was acquired by HPE and now the product has totally changed.

Initially, the response was great with SimpliVity. After the technology changed the feedback from customers was not good. As a result, we no longer focus on Simplivity.

Our focus is more on Nutanix Hyperconverged.

SimpliVity has very limited options for the virtualization layer. They may have to with VMware or something similar.

The flexibility should be present. It should be the customer's choice of what virtualization layer they will choose, and not mandated from the solution that you have to use VMware. VMware is not cheap. It comes with its own cost. 

If the customer has the option to go with the Microsoft Hyper-V then customers should get the flexibility to have Hyper-V in place of the hypervisor.

Ultimately, the hypervisor functionality by default when you go for the data center becomes more cost-effective.

It should have the intelligence, to alert you that a failure of the cache is about to happen. It should be able to give you the predictive alarm and it should create its own backup.

It should have some provision where the cache is being copied to another location. So when one copy has been deleted or a copy has been corrupted, we should be able to recover it from the other site to ensure the office data is secure.

It should have some provision wherein the cache is being copied to some other location so that even if one copy has been deleted or one copy has been corrupted, we are able to recover it from the other location which will keep the office data secure.

From a product perspective, it should be more flexible.

It should allow users to have more data control in areas such as the cache. It should allow the user to have more data reduction flexibility.

Data reduction is something that is completely missing in the current solution, once SimpliVity was bought by HPE. It was the primary reason customers were interested in it.

SimpliVity handles the data. HCI is about how RAID is maintained over the network, and how many duplicate copies have been stored, or whether you are going for RF2 or RF3. Those things have to be taken into consideration.

With VMware,vSAN, and SimpliVity they are more dependent on the cache. If the cache fails then I have to recover the data. It's complete downtown for me. Anytime the data is not recovered, it's business downtime.

We have been providing this solution to our customers over the last year, but overall, we have been working with it for between four and five years.

Now that the technology has been changed, the product stability will always be in doubt.

The more they are integrating and trying to match the flexibility that Nutanix has been providing, and it has become more complex.

The hypervisor is becoming the heart of the solution. It is controlling the complete solution. It is providing you the contour, the storage, and the configuration of the virtual infrastructure.  

This can be problematic when it comes to SimpliVity.

SimpliVity offers built-in scalability but there is an override with the data protection policy that they are providing, what kind of flexibility when it comes to managing the complete virtual machines. 

The cluster has its own limitation. You cannot go beyond 32 or 64 nodes.

You can have multiple clusters and you can share your application across the clusters, but, yes, there are limitations. Though the limitation is not small it allows you to have 32 or 64 nodes in a cluster. When it comes to managing it, the more you add, the more complex it becomes to manage.

We have given it to many customers. Few of the customers are running it for the highest number of possible nodes in the clusters.

They provide good technical support.

If the solution has any fundamental challenges then it is not something that anyone can address.

It will take less than one day to start with a basic three-node cluster.

It is simple to install but it is hard to maintain.

In terms of the licenses, customers do not actually get any benefit. They have to purchase the VMware vCloud Suite as a bundled solution.

There is no flexibility in terms of choosing what license the customer wants to use. Irrespective of the features that the customer needs, they have to pay more for fewer features they want to use.

The difference between the HCI and the basic traditional environment is that it mitigates the bottleneck of the traditional solution. 

Customers are looking to have an environment that is completely scalable. HCI is a platform that you can always choose. That is the flexibility that is in demand when it comes to the private cloud.

Whenever building a private cloud, scalability should be a built-in feature.

SimpliVity does offer it but there is an override in terms of the data reduction policy they are providing. What kind of flexibility in terms of managing the complete virtual machines.

Now when it comes to SimpliVity, they have very limited options for the virtualization layer.

They may have to go with VMware and that is something that I'll say not all the customers will be keen to consider.

If someone asks me today which product to implement, I'll say that if you have a UAT environment, then you try to put it on SimpliVity. But when it comes to the production, or when it comes to a critical application or critical business need, you put it on the Nutanix Hyperconverged Infrastructure.

I only recommend this solution in a UAT environment, but not for production or critical environment.

SimpliVity cannot be deployed on the cloud.

The technical team is good because it is being managed by the HPE team only. The HPE technical team is always good.

It has various limitations and over time, rather than improvising, they have diluted the real essence of the product. I would rate HPE SimpliVity a five out of ten.

The product is a hyper-converged solution. We are using this for local databases and application settings.

It's a normal solution and offers all of the typical features of a typical production on the market.

The pricing of the solution is very good.

The solution offers good stability.

There's nothing overly special or unique about the solution.

Overall, SimpliVity has a lot of features, however, those features need to be more precise. It's like a jack of all trades and master of none. It needs to hone in on a few features and really make them shine.

SimpliVity claims to have what you call a compression and dedup ratio, however, in practice, it doesn't really work.

They need to give more controls and more features as far as the backup is concerned.

The initial setup is not that easy.

The licensing could be more clear.

The technical support isn't ideal right now.

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

The solution is quite stable, however, there's a lot of dependability on VMware. It interfaces a lot with it. Therefore, if there are any changes in VMware, it has to be reflected on SimpliVity as well.

We have not really tried to expand the product, due to the fact that we don't really want to invest more into it. Therefore, I can't really speak to the solution's capabilities in this matter. We're just going to use it and maybe over a period of time, we might just come out of it.

When we had purchased SimpliVity, it was a stand-alone product. Then, HPE acquired SimpliVity. Therefore, whatever support that is there, it is not really the complete, comprehensive support that you would experience with other HPE products. Basically, since this is an acquired system, there are limitations when it comes to support.

We're just customers. We aren't resellers or consultants.

The initial setup is not straightforward. It's fairly complex.

The deployment didn't take too long, however, It was done in about a week or so.

In terms of recommending the product, it depends on what a company needs and it depends on what they want it for. It's a solution-driven implementation. What didn't really work for me, might work for someone else. 

I'm not sure if HPE is very keen on SimpliVity, as I don't really see them promoting this product very much. I'm curious to see if they'll continue with it or not.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a five out of ten.

Our solution is on a perpetual license. The pricing itself is okay. It's not too expensive.

There's a bit of confusion around licensing. Initially, SimpliVity did not talk about licensing for the software. However, later on, when the customers tried to update it, then SimpliVity said that they would have to pay for the update. Ideally, HPE should be very transparent about pricing and the licensing of this particular solution. It's not right now.

We use it for our production system. We have many production systems.

It has helped us a lot. HPE SimpliVity reduces the administrative tasks for the system admin. It doesn't require many people for support. One or two guys are enough.

The feature that I like the most is the backup feature embedded inside the HPE SimpliVity. When we have any activity, within five minutes, we have a backup. It also has PDR for performing disaster recovery.

We had some hardware compatibility issues with the earlier versions of HPE SimpliVity. We upgraded to the latest version a few months ago, and since then, there is no hardware failure, and it is better.

They don't provide a portal to create a ticket directly for the HPE SimpliVity. We have a web portal to create a ticket when we have an issue, but for HPE SimpliVity, we need to call the local vendor for support. If they are not able to resolve the issue, they contact the global support, which takes more time.

Technology is moving very fast, and everybody nowadays is focusing on the cloud base. In the future, they should integrate it with the cloud base for the backup.

I have been using this solution for two years.

It has good stability.

It is easy to scale. We have more than 2,000 users.

We contact a local vendor for support. If they are not able to resolve the issue, they contact the global support, which takes time.

We used vSAN for the VMware solution.

The initial setup is complex. It is not easy like other solutions such as Windows Server. You need to have enough knowledge to set up SimpliVity. Your normal staff won't be able to do it. Only someone with experience and knowledge of SimpliVity can set it up. Each phase of deployment took around two hours.

We have a local consultant and a vendor. We work directly with the vendor. If there is any issue, they resolve it, but it can take time because if they aren't able to resolve it on their own, they have to create a ticket with global support. For its maintenance, we have two people.

We are seeing a return on investment.

The licensing is on a yearly basis. The licensing cost also includes vCenter at a cost in the cloud solution.

It is a good solution. It is a good hyper-converged solution as compared to other solutions like Cisco or Dell because they don't embed software inside the solution. SimpliVity is more useful for us because, during the month-to-month activity, it provides good features to back up, install, and roll back everything.

I would rate HPE SimpliVity an eight out of ten.

We have about 45 virtual servers running for the company. These include file servers, SQL servers, public safety, GIS, Exchange, and all other applications used by a local government.

The whole backup and recovery capability. We are able to create full backups and restore full backups in typically 40 to 50 seconds. This has been a great feature.

The deduplication is resulting in a data reduction ratio of 290:1 at the moment.

The interface is fairly user-friendly.

Prior to the latest release, it was a real pain to upgrade SimpliVity. First, the host server had to be upgraded with the latest drivers, followed by an upgrade of the OmniStack controller software, and lastly, an upgrade of the VMware ESXi software. Each of the three steps were done independently and the process took 2 to 3 hours per node. Starting with the 4.0 Release, an Upgrade Manager orchestrates the whole process and greatly simplifies it. It still takes 2+ hours per node, however.

We have been using SimpliVity for about two years.

SimpliVity has been very stable. We've had no downtime.

Scalability is something that needs to be improved because if you need more storage then you have to add more nodes. You can't just add more disks to it.

We have about 250 users.

We've had a few instances where we've had to work with HPE support and they've resolved everything very quickly. We've had zero downtime.

The initial setup was fairly straightforward.

We had HPE implement and deploy the product for us. We purchased it from a local HPE partner and they set the whole thing up.

We bought this solution as a package that included all of the hardware and all of the software.

We evaluated options from Dell, IBM, Nutanix, Scale, and others before choosing SimpliVity.

In summary, this is a good solution aside from the issues with scalability and improving the ease of upgrading. The upgradability has improved but it's still far from simply clicking a link and it automatically upgrades. It's not quite that simple yet, but it's getting there.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

With SimpliVity, we can easily deploy multiple solutions, including storage, and allocate servers as needed. It's quite versatile.

I like the expandability of the solution. We can effortlessly grow the storage and resources without downtime.

The installation process could be simplified. It's a bit technical for non-IT users. 

So, the deployment could be simpler. 

I have been using it for one and a half years. 

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. I faced no issues with stability. 

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. There are around nine end users in our company using this solution. 

The customer service and support are okay. Compared to Cisco, there is a big difference. Cisco has dedicated engineers. Cisco throws everything at it. An engineer will always be there, which is better.

Positive

Cisco's more about immediate support, like calling them. But HPE SimpliVity is a set-and-forget solution. Once you configure it, it runs itself. 

Cisco requires human intervention for management.

The initial setup was complicated for me. It took me a couple of weeks to deploy the solution.

The pricing is very high. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten, where one is high price, and ten is low price. Pricing is another point for improvement. 

I evaluated VxRail. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We use it for HCI and backup. 

The solution is simple to use and has the ability to do online backup. Our customers can view the list from ransomware. 

One thing that I would like to see improved is the flexibility of the node expansion. Currently, you have to match the same storage capacity and performance when you expand a node. This can be a challenge if you need to add more storage or performance to an existing cluster.

I have been using this solution for two years. 

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution. However, you will need to add the same number of storage pods and compute nodes to each node.

The main reason customers choose this solution is the fast backup and recovery capabilities.  

It is easy to set up the solution.

We use the deployment manager to deploy the HCI node. The same deployment manager handled the deployment through the federation. It took around two hours. Around two people were involved in the process.

The solution is set up on VMware, so it is easy to maintain. 

If the customers deploy the new HCI solution with backup, then it is cheaper. 

The pricing is competitive. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, where one is a reasonable price, and ten is the most unreasonable pricing. There are no additional fees.

I would recommend using this solution if you are looking for an HCI solution with fast backup and performance.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use this product when our customers need software protection, built-in backup, and an NDR solution. I'm a solutions specialist. 

The built-in backup and quick restore are good features. In general, the technology is very robust. 

If I want to upgrade any hardware components or make any changes to the hardware configuration, there are a lot of parameters I need to consider with respect to HP security. If I want to upgrade, I sometimes have to replace the box or add a new server to the environment or setup. It's a limitation of HP connectivity.

I've been using this solution for three years. 

For small and medium-sized businesses the scalability is fine. There are likely to be issues in large environments and it requires extra planning.

The technical support is good. They take on end-to-end responsibility for our Hypervisor as well as HPE components and security software. It's a good combination because both the hardware and software are supported by a single entity. 

We sometimes face challenges during the initial setup. Once the setup is completed everything is stable. HP has its own customization and deployment process. In theory, it's pretty simple. It's essential to have a properly configured network for successful completion of the deployment. Including the network configuration, implementation can be completed in less than two days. It just requires a certified engineer to complete the installation.

Licensing is slightly more expensive in comparison to the competition but I think SimpliVity provides very good value. 

I think SimpliVity has an edge over other solutions when it comes to the package as a whole.

I recommend Simplivity. It helps organizations implement their business applications and it provides a robust infrastructure to run a business. 

I rate this solution 10 out of 10. 

I use the solution for virtualised infraestructure of servers.

HPE Simplivity improved the space of disk with deduplication, reduced the time of backups and recovers.

One of the key features is the solution is really fast for backups and deduplication is amazing.

It would be good to have more compatibility with other solutions as an improvement in the future. As a suggestion, in order to have compatibility with other solutions, there could be a license fee for this, and if you don't need to them then you do not need to pay.

I have been using the solution for two years.

The solution is very stable.

The scalability is good but you need to pay for the additional nodes that can be expensive. We are currently using the solution for one thousand people in our organization.

They could have better-specialized support for more countries.

I rate the customer service of HPE SimpliVity a seven out of ten.

Positive

I used CISCO.

The setup is very easy.

We have three nodes around the country and it took just one week for the deployment.

3 years.

The solution can be expensive if you are using a lot of nodes.

Dell and Cisco.

I would advise those wanting to use this product to be careful before setting up the solution that you have enough disk space, if you do not, you will have to pay for it which is expensive.

The solution works great, it is amazing.

I rate HPE SimpliVity a ten out of ten.