Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure Reviews

Our company is based in the Philippines and we are end users of Sangfor. I'm a network administrator.  

The product is user-friendly and easier to use than other virtualization technology. The SCI technology is great. 

I'd like to see network support, it's very useful to have support with the sub-suite solution. I'd also like to see additional features included in the future.  

I've been using this solution for two years. 

The product is stable. 

I previously used VMware. We moved to Sangfor because we switched providers and it was difficult to get support. We went with a solution that would provide us with a built-in solution for storage, network and server. It's a complete solution. 

The initial setup was easy because we have support. The company provides everything from migrating and transferring from old to new. It's a big help for us. 

The licensing costs are reasonable, it's much cheaper than other solutions on the market. 

I recommend this solution because it's reasonably priced and has similar features to other, more expensive solutions. 

I rate this solution 10 out of 10. 

We use the product as a hyper-converged infrastructure for our virtualization servers.

I am impressed with the product's firewall and virtualization. 

I would want the product to include Continuous Data Protection (CDP) which can help to easily retrieve the data. 

I have been using the tool for three years. 

I would rate the product's stability a nine out of ten. We have never experienced downtime during our usage of the product. 

I would rate the product's scalability an eight out of ten since they have issues with sizing. My company has 300-500 users for the solution. 

The support team is available 24/7. However, communication is a barrier when the support person is Chinese. On the other hand, support is easy when it is from Singapore or Malaysia. 

Neutral

I would rate the product's deployment a nine out of ten. The tool's setup is easy. The technical team helps us to complete the product's deployment. The product's deployment takes two days to complete. First, we gathered information on network and hardware infrastructure topology. 

The product's pricing is less expensive and competitive than other alternatives. I would rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten. 

I would rate the product a nine out of ten. 

My customers use Sangfor HCI for the virtualization platform.

The most valuable feature of Sangfor HCI is the built-in recovery functionality. The migration is simple to do from other solutions, such as VMware.

The solution could improve by including backup capabilities.

I have been using Sangfor HCI for approximately two years.

I rate the stability of Sangfor HCI an eight out of ten.

We have approximately 1,000 users using this solution.

Our customers are mostly medium-sized using this solution.

I rate the scalability of Sangfor HCI an eight out of ten.

The support can take some time to respond to fix the problem.

I rate the support of Sangfor HCI an eight out of ten.

Neutral

My clients were using VMware prior to using Sangfor HCI.

The deployment of Sangfor HCI took approximately three weeks.

I rate the initial setup of Sangfor HCI a seven out of ten.

We had the vendor do the implementation of the solution.

The solution is on-premise which does not have a subscription. However, there is a need to purchase support. The solution is on a perpetual license model. There is not any extra cost other than the standard licensing fees.

The price is affordable for the solution.

I rate the price of Sangfor HCI a six out of ten.

I rate Sangfor HCI an eight out of ten.

I gave my rating of eight out of ten for the solution because it is feature rich and has enhanced protection.

You can get almost all the features of the tool at a low cost. The tool also has built-in backup mechanisms. It also has a physical firewall for internet management which other competitors lack.

We have had issues while integrating VMware with Sangfor HCI. The tool should be also faster in terms of customization.

I have been using the product for five to six years.

The solution is not stable for large enterprises.

The solution is scalable. It can take up to 64 loads.

The tool’s tech support offers us services without extra charges.

Positive

The tool’s setup is easy. You can run it on two nodes. The solution’s deployment is fast and takes around 25-30 minutes to complete. The tool has all the deployment instructions and it is easy for someone with virtualization experience.

The tool’s pricing is better when compared to VMware or Nutanix. The product’s licensing is on a yearly basis.

I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. The solution is good for medium enterprises like regular universities, small banks, and pharmaceutical companies. Sangfor HCI is the best cost-effective solution for universities that have three to four campuses with around 5,000=10,000 students. It is the best campus management system for them.

We primarily use the solution within the healthcare industry. 

The most valuable feature is the three nodes and the free hypervisor.

The initialization is not fully automated and has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for one year.

The solution is stable with the newer systems but is not compatible with the older systems.

The solution is scalable. The scaling is pay-as-you-go. 

The technical support is good.

The initial setup is not complex but it is also not automated.

I give the initial setup a seven out of ten.

The deployment takes one hour to complete the initial configuration.

We implement the solution for our customers.

The solution is very cheap. The solution is cheaper than others and has no hidden costs. The hypervisors are free, we just need the warranty to protect the hardware.

I give the solution a seven out of ten.

We provide maintenance for our customers.

When using high-intensity workloads or if some parts are already using flash or SSDs, it is acceptable. However, if the workload is a green field, starting from scratch is necessary.

HCI is often pitched against VMware licenses, which are expensive. However, Sangfor HCI is more cost-effective and offers more features than VMware. This makes it a strong competitor in the Pakistani market.

The manageability feature is the most important aspect of the solution. Customers have told me that this is the key selling point for them. The manageability and the ability to use it across all platforms using vSAN is what makes the solution so popular.

One question that has come up frequently in the last week is whether or not the renewal cost for Sangfor's HCI solution is too high. Customers are hesitant to renew their contracts because of this cost, but everything else about the solution is good. The features are fine and even better than VMware's. However, the renewal cost is a bit higher.

I have been using the solution for seven months.

I give the stability of the solution a seven out of ten.

The solution is highly scalable.

The response time for technical support is very good in Pakistan. We do not have any issues with their support.

The initial setup of the solution is straightforward.

I give the pricing a five out of ten.

The solution has a good initial cost but a high renewal cost.

We have compared the solution with VMware, and there are no features that are significantly better in VMware. There are some features that are a bit lower. I'm not sure what they are right now. Overall, the Sangfor HCI package is good when compared to VMware. The main difference is the pricing. VMware has a high initial cost and a complex licensing model. Sangfor, on the other hand, has all of the features in just one license. This is a big difference.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

Most medium-sized companies are using on-premises storage solutions. They might have a limited budget, so they don't need some of the more expensive replication or backup solutions. They just keep their data on-site, using software from Veritas or another provider. I will use a simple backup solution, rather than using a cloud-based storage environment. Sangfor HCI is only necessary for large enterprises.

Sangfor HCI is a one-license package that is packed with features. When looking to replace our existing VMware environment with another good product, I believe Sangfor HCI is the best solution.

We have converted our hypervisor from Hyper-V to a Sangfor.

We have our virtual machine workload, and use it for virtual storage and disaster recovery. We also have a DR site, and we also have two nodes deployed there. This is mainly for virtual machines. All our workloads are on different Windows-based virtual machines.

It's a good HCI solution. It's average.

It's low cost compared to Windows or VMware, and we get virtual storage on Sangfor's standard edition license as compared to Windows Data Center or VMware's enterprise license. 

Their GUI interface is a bit easier than VMware's. This is an advantage.

We are using normal features we would typically use in Hyper-V and VMware. The additional feature that we are using is virtual storage. It's in a standard license. 

The solution has a network of security features. However, we don't use them all at this time since it requires additional licenses. We are planning to purchase them.

For us administrators, we tend to like granular control, like a command line interface, which we get in VMware or Windows. Sangfor has this locked up, and we only have a GUI interface to work with. If we had to configure something like granular settings, then we would have to log tickets for that. That is one drawback.

The documentation and support from the community are not as good or as mature as VMware or Hyper-V.

I've been using the solution for eight or nine months now. 

The solution is very stable and reliable. Even if you have to upgrade it, you don't have to completely reboot everything (as compared to Windows or Hyper-V machines). It's very stable. We have not witnessed any crashes. I'd rate the stability ten out of ten. 

The solution is scalable. We plan to add three more nodes in our head office next year. I'd rate the scalability ten out of ten as it is so easy to expand as needed. You just have to add a node to the current cluster. It's not difficult. 

We have 600 employees, and everyone uses the solution indirectly.

The support engineers are very good. The engineers are well-versed in the product. That said, the documentation and knowledge base or community portal are lacking. I'd rate that aspect three or four out of ten. There's a general lack of information.

Positive

We were using Microsoft Hyper-V. We decided to switch based on the cost, actually. The features Microsoft was giving on data centers were more expensive and features similar to Microsoft data centers were available on Sangfor's standard license. Also, the GUI and the manageability were huge reasons we decided to move. 

The setup is easy. It's straightforward, and there are not many steps. There is a simple installation of the OS, like when we install Windows OS. It's just clicking through -next, next, next. 

I'd rate the ease of setup eight out of ten. 

We have it deployed on-premises at two sites. One is at the head office, and the other is at our disaster recovery site.

Deployment was quick. It took us about three hours to complete the cluster configuration and get going. Most of the time was taken by the migration from Hyper-V. While development was quick, the migration was tedious. 

We had three people from our company and two people from the vendor handling the initial setup. Maintenance after setup is fairly basic and requires simply looking after the hardware and looking out for heavy usage of the processor. Three people are looking after it on the admin side. 

We had help from the vendor. They were on-site and helped to integrate everything. During the migration, they also helped since we had old Linux machines that were not supported by newer editions. We had to log tickets, and Sangfor engineers came online to assist. They were all excellent. 

The solution costs less than other options. 

There are extra features you can buy as well that add extra security.

It's a node-based license. I don't actually have the price available to me at this point, however, it is less than the data centers of Microsoft or VMware's enterprise edition.

I'd rate the pricing overall at a seven out of ten.

We are Sangfor customers. 

If anyone is looking for a less expensive server, they should look at Sangfor. However, if they need very granular control, this might not be the right option. VMware and Microsoft are much better for granular control.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten overall.

It is a smart solution for virtualization. It simplifies the virtualization for clients, and their network is summarized using Sangfor HCI. We directly purchase from Sangfor and provide this solution to many clients in Pakistan with them. Clients are 110% satisfied. They understand the solution, and it's user-friendly.

I have prepared this solution with VMware, and both of them are the same. However, the processing speed and cost should be improved in Sangfor HCI. VMware is more economical than Sangfor HCI.

We have been using this solution for two years.

It is a stable solution.

The solution is scalable, and we have two major clients. We have a secured deal with our client of about 2.5 million.

Their technical support is great, and I rate them a ten out of ten

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward, and it took barely a few hours to deploy.

I rate this solution a ten out of ten and recommend it to others.