Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure Reviews

I mainly used it for virtualization. Primarily virtualization and security groups.

For infrastructure management, Sangfor HCI bundles the hardware with their software. This means if you buy the bundle solution with Sangfor HCI and hardware, then they allow us to contribute as a command-line access. Otherwise, they do not allow command-line access. For any support issues, we need to escalate to the concerned support team at Sangfor HCI China.

It's a completely GUI-based interface. This is very easy to understand for everyone from initial level one engineers to senior executives. 

And Sangfor HCI has a strong GUI interface in terms of graphical representation for management purposes.

Sangfor HCI's license mechanism is too complicated. The license agreement is a distributed license. Within the HCI platform,  Sangfor HCI has multiple licenses in terms of services. 

Sangfor HCI has a separate license for the security services, a separate license for the Doctor services, and application services. They have multiple SKUs in separate forms. As per local market requirements, I think they need to couple up these or bundle up the license model.

I used it for about three years. 

I would rate the stability a seven out of ten. We faced multiple times issues extracting the HCI platform on a single node, not a complete HCI platform. On a single node, it would extract the services. They would stop the services. Some customers were affected in this case.

So stability is also an area for improvement here as well.

The scalability feature is very good. It is extendable with the same license to another hardware or another data center. It is very easy to extend the license.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. 

In Pakistan, Sangfor HCI HAS a strong technical support team locally available for solution integration and solution designing, and they are more capable on the technical part. They have a strong technical team in Pakistan.

Positive

Previously, we [my company] used VMware and OpenStack.

I would rate my experience with the initials set up an eight out of ten, with one being difficult and ten being easy. 

For HCI, we have faced multiple types of challenges with the integration of other HCI platforms, like OpenStack, VMware, and others like Nutanix. We face challenges every time we integrate with other HCI platforms.

So, integration is something that I would like to improve as well.

It takes approximately two to three days to deploy a complete cluster.

For infrastructure maintenance, we had three to four people to maintain the Sangfor HCI completely for 24/7 operation.

As we used this as a public cloud, in this case, the return on investment is too high because it's based on the sales and business model. 

But if users use it for utilization, this will be too beneficial compared to VMware, specifically. Because VMware will charge the licensing model in terms of RAM.

The pricing is high. I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, where one is low, and ten is high pricing.

The price depends on the number of nodes and the number of servers.

Overall, I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

The primary use case for Sangfor HCI involves running all workloads that were not for SAP on conventional servers using Hyper-V. We migrated all of these instances from Hyper-V to Sangfor HCI. We also utilize Sangfor HCI for building our own private cloud.

Sangfor HCI provides the flexibility of building our own private cloud. It has also enhanced our infrastructure management by enabling single-window operations for managing all the HCI clusters, including applications, and offers excellent reporting and visualization capabilities. Furthermore, it supports our AI-driven projects, which involve machine learning and computer vision analytics.

The most valuable feature of Sangfor HCI is the native backup of their own VMs, which sets them apart from Nutanix and Dell's VxRail. Additionally, the solution's ease of use and single-window operation for managing all clusters are advantageous.

I would like Sangfor to have a presence on some public cloud offerings, such as Azure or AWS, to build disaster recovery sites. This functionality is currently missing in the Pakistani market.

I have been working with Sangfor HCI since 2021.

I rate the stability level of the solution at a ten, which indicates the highest level of stability.

Sangfor HCI has a capability of expanding vertically, allowing for easy capacity expansion by adding new nodes to the same cluster. I would rate its scalability as a nine out of ten.

We rely on regional support from China due to the limited local team resources, although the quality of support is decent.

Positive

Previously, we used conventional servers with Hyper-V. We switched because Hyper-V did not provide the flexibility of efficiently utilizing all resources, whereas HCI technology does.

The initial setup process was straightforward, earning a rating of seven out of ten for ease.

The deployment involved a team of six people, including myself and the vendor. Currently, two engineers are needed for maintenance.

Sangfor HCI provides an optimized cost solution, resulting in a good rate of return per user. The more users I have, the more efficiently the system operates.

I rate the pricing of Sangfor HCI at a five, as it is thirty to thirty-five percent more efficient than other solutions in terms of total cost of ownership.

Before choosing Sangfor HCI, we evaluated Dell VxRail and Nutanix.

I advise conducting due diligence and testing all possible scenarios before choosing Sangfor HCI. This product has performed well under every scenario I tested.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Sangfor HCI is designed to manage virtual machines. It allows you to create multiple virtual machines and storage classes. It offers a range of features similar to those provided by VMware and other hyper-converged infrastructure solutions.

Unlike VMware, Sangfor offers a straightforward solution with rich features and an easy-to-use interface. Its ease of management and strong integration capabilities make it a compelling choice.

It offers robust data protection and recovery options. Sometimes, operational burdens or accidental delays in VMs can occur, and without proper recovery points or backups, this can lead to significant issues. With Sangfor HCI, the capability to restore and recover data is included, providing protection and flexibility.

Product certification could be improved. In Sangfor, when you accidentally delete a VM, it is moved to a recycle bin, which remains for 30 days before being permanently removed. This feature allows for easy restoration of the VM from the recycle bin, which is a significant advantage compared to VMware, where deleted VMs cannot be quickly restored from the data store. 

I have been using Hyper Converged Infrastructure since 2019. We are using V6.2 of the solution.

I contacted for direct support in Pakistan. They have a technical support team available at the Karachi location. At times, when I faced configuration issues, I connected directly with their support team in China, as Sangfor is a Chinese product. Their support is very responsive. The chat option is available within the Sangfor HCI product; you must click on it to connect directly with the support team. They have representatives in China; you can expect a response within thirty minutes to an hour.

We face many issues when updating the firmware on the VMware cluster. However, with Sangfor HCI, upgrading the cluster firmware is much more straightforward.

To create a VM using Sangfor HCI, you need to follow a few simple steps. For monitoring and other management tasks, the platform provides very easy and intuitive management features.

I receive inquiries from people who are running VMware on their cluster and are looking for easier management. I recommend considering Sangfor HCI because it's a user-friendly product. With Sangfor HCI, management is simplified and can be handled by less technical staff, whereas VMware typically requires more technical expertise to manage effectively.

Sangfor HCI is very user-friendly. Initially, it resembles an ESXi infrastructure. You start by installing the base software on your servers. Sangfor provides excellent management tools, including a comprehensive tool for convergence. If virtual machines run on VMware or any other virtual platform, you can easily import and migrate them to Sangfor HCI. 

We previously used VMware, but we have now switched to Sangfor HCI. While we still have some VMware infrastructure, Sangfor HCI is more widely available in Pakistan than VMware, which is not currently present in the country. Approximately 90-95% of every hundred companies have deployed Sangfor HCI. One of the key advantages of Sangfor HCI is its cost-effectiveness.

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

The main purpose of the solution was to maintain certain private cloud capabilities. However, we only used it to run internal processes due to certain circumstances. We are not using cloud capabilities. We use the solution to scale our hardware using servers.

The product provides a single management console for managing everything. It is really helpful for system administration.

Sangfor’s hypervisor is not mature enough to handle all the flavors related to industrial needs. Hyper-V and VMware ESXi are two renowned hypervisors that easily support all OSs. Sangfor lacks performance while working with a new VM and assigning the hybrid resources to the existing VMs.

When the mount point is already installed in the solution, and we migrate a VM from Hyper-V to Sangfor’s hypervisor, there is a lag in initiating the process due to the modem capabilities. The solution’s performance is very bad.

I rate the solution’s stability a five out of ten.

The tool is scalable, though scalability needs to be improved.

The initial setup is complex. The product does not have a single migration tool. It needs a migration tool on every running VM. The migration process is more fruitful when you have a migration tool installed on the node, and nodes can migrate all the VMs directly.

Considering the capabilities provided, the product is expensive.

CloudSphere is a mature product, whereas Sangfor has some areas that need to be improved.

I have worked with the solution in my previous organization. Overall, I rate the tool a five out of ten.

Any type of infrastructure, whether it is a customer having a three-tier infrastructure, which we are migrating to converged or hyper-converged, or even customers planning to have their own hybrid cloud-based infrastructure, bringing a cloud foundation within their organization. There are multiple use cases for group companies. 

People are opting for Sangfor HCI so they can offer cloud-based services to their group companies from a single stack of HCI. Sangfor is present in the manufacturing industry, the hospital and healthcare industry, and the financial industry. 

The largest deployment in Pakistan is a 48-node cluster, which reduced the requirement from over 100 servers to 48.

Sangfor HCI has proven to be beneficial by consolidating infrastructure and reducing the footprint of data centers. This has led to significant cost savings in terms of power, cooling, and space. 

The simplified licensing model, which includes everything and provides enterprise-class features with free backup, offers a better return on investment. Additionally, it provides high-level support services that enhance business continuity and disaster recovery, making it a great value for the organization.

The extraordinary product quality, unmatched support services, and the third-generation HCI offering are some of the most valuable features of Sangfor HCI. It includes a simplified single license regime, providing enterprise-class licenses and built-in backup. 

The integration of their own firewall, Internet access management gateway, and security features within the HCI ensures robust security. The drag-and-drop layout for infrastructure setup, easy operation management, and comprehensive support services are also noteworthy. 

The scalability, with support for configurations such as a 48-node cluster, is another valuable aspect.

Initially, there were issues with wrong sizing and certain features being locked, although these have been fixed. The major drawback is its adoption in major tier-one sectors or banks, which is gradually improving. 

In its early days, Sangfor created hidden snapshots that led to storage penalties. This has been resolved. Another concern is the initial reluctance of tier-one banks to adopt a Chinese brand amidst large technology giants like VMware and Nutanix.

I have been reselling Sangfor HCI for over six years.

The stability has been excellent. I have not experienced any complaints or issues related to performance, bottlenecks, or latency.

Sangfor HCI is highly scalable. For example, one of our customers is using a forty-eight node cluster, which demonstrates its robustness. It scales easily by adding new nodes, and it is ready to go within minutes.

Their customer service and support are excellent. I would give them a rating of one hundred points.

Positive

Over my 22 years of experience, I have mostly worked with Dell products. Despite selling many storage boxes like PowerVault, Compellent, and PowerStore, I have not had much experience with other HCI solutions. 

Although I have worked with VMware and VXLAN, I did not sell other full-stack HCI solutions before Sangfor.

The initial setup is straightforward. You can deploy it as easily as any other hypervisor, and even a semi-technical person can complete it with phone support.

The return on investment is justifiable and significant. Consolidation saves on power, cooling, and space costs. The simplified licensing model, which includes everything needed, provides a better ROI. Using Sangfor HCI for firewall and Internet access management also reduces licensing costs and footprint, further boosting ROI.

Initially, Sangfor was very competitively priced compared to other leading HCI solutions. Now, while the pricing has begun to align more with the market, it remains competitive and offers good value compared to other options.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

In our company, we have a 3-node cluster on our primary site and a 2-node cluster for our entire site. The aforementioned area is a use case attached to the product.

The most valuable features or benefits of the solution for my company stem from the fact that we use the tool for aNET and aSV.

My company faced some issues with the product, as our virtual machines crashed, and we had to face some security issues. Thanks to the remote help provided by the technical engineers from Sangfor, who helped our company deal with the issues in the product, after which, for a year and a half to two, the product has been running fine without a single issue. With Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure, issues stemmed from the crash of virtual machines in our company, which is an area of concern where improvements are required.

In my company, we use some sort of a more advanced backup mechanism right now. If a few advanced features for backup mechanisms or application features, like DR or CDP, are available, which are parts that are mostly included in the license-based modules in Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure currently, it would be great. Native backup mechanisms are available in Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure, and we use them in our company, but a little bit more advanced features must be incorporated for basic users.

I have been using Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure since 2019. It has been four years since I have been using the product. I am a customer of the product.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Almost 200 people in my company use the product. My company plans to increase the use of the product in the future.

The solution's technical support is very good. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of the product is good, and I rate it a ten out of ten.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

The solution's deployment phase takes place over a period of almost two weeks.

An engineer from Sangfor visited our company during the initial installation phase of the product to take care of the installation process.

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is a reasonably priced product.

I recommend Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure to those who plan to use it since it is a stable and cost-effective tool that offers very good support.

I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten.

Sangfor was very optimistic. They offer a native cloud, and all features are not in other applications. They had an edge and are continuing their research and development. They produce out-of-the-box solutions. Their solutions are also integrated. It is fully integrated with their HCI solution. It is plug-and-play. There's a good level of research and development.

Sangfor has to expand its service network to other countries. They have very good services in the Gulf but don't have local partners in Egypt.

The product’s stability is good.

You start with the three-node solution. Then, you can add nodes to expand it. It's a very scalable solution.

The initial setup is very simple. Even a non-IP person can deploy it. The first implementation takes almost half a day to deploy the complete thing with all business rules. Creating VMs takes less than 20 seconds to develop VM mount things. It is very simple to manage. Deployment is not a problem. It can be done remotely as well.

Sangfor has multiple options. They have both optics and capex models. You have to buy annual support. We went for perpetual licenses. We bought their annual support for three years. Their support covers everything except for hardware failure. We use our hardware. The yearly support is cheap. It costs around 10-15% of the license cost.

I rate the product’s pricing a three out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.

I have had an excellent experience with Sangfor. I bought their licenses and used their next-generation application firewall, Internet management, and the HCI solution. I ran it for three years. It was amazing. The virtualization option was even better than VMware. Overall, I rate them very high. They're new in the market, but their product and support, especially in the Gulf Area, was terrific. It is a very cost-effective, high-quality cloud provider. You can build your private cloud and create multiple tenants. Hyper-Converged is impressive, with three minimum compute machines. We can make a Hyper-converged environment. We were running high-scale applications such as Oracle, SAP, etc.

I was slightly reluctant to select a Chinese product, but they gave us a trial version for three or six months. There is no problem. They have the captive portal service to Internet access management, a very straightforward plug-and-play. You don't need a consultant to configure their application firewall, security, and Internet access management.

You need a system administrator to communicate and maintain it in case there's a problem. You don't need to have a particular person to manage these solutions. One system administrator can handle all these things.

HCI is more accessible than the traditional client-server model. It's straightforward to manage because all resources reside in a box. You have a three-layer redundancy, so it's straightforward to work.

There have been many players coming and going. The HCI concept is not very old. A couple of years back, HPE started with Synergy. There were a lot of mergers and acquisitions, but CentOS started from scratch and then came up with the Nest HCI solution, which is very user-friendly. It is very cost-effective and highly scalable. I have used HPE from the Converged to Hyper-Converged model.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten because it has a cloud-native solution.

My clients use it on all their virtual machines. These virtual machines contain web applications, and that's Sangfor's main purpose. They have application portals to collect user data, such as registration forms.

Sangfor HCI has a really good GUI. It allows us to monitor the temperature of the server and many other things.

We just deployed Sangfor HCI for our client, and the one problem we faced with Sangfor is preventative maintenance. When we do preventative maintenance, we must upgrade the operating system and run some updates, such as APT updates, because most virtual machines are on Linux. We need to keep the OS updated from time to time. Normally, we do a PM twice a year. Every time we do it, we face challenges. We needed to run an update on the VMs one at a time, which was the biggest challenge we faced. We have over 200 virtual machines, and doing the updates one at a time is tough. There's a window for preventative maintenance with downtime we have to agree on with our client. Normally, the downtime lasts about a day or half a day, depending on the client's requirements, such as the kind of uptime they require. If it's an application that should be highly available all the time, the updates are a huge problem for us. We can't update one virtual machine at a time. We need to update all of them simultaneously. That is why I would rather choose something like Nutanix.

There is a feature to upgrade multiple VMs simultaneously, but it crashes.

I've worked with this solution for around six months.

Sangfor can crash. I rate stability a five out of ten.

When we upgrade virtual machines, there is a feature that allows us to upgrade multiple virtual virtual machines at a time. But the problem is it crashes. The whole server can go down.

Every time the organization needs to expand, we must expand vertically or horizontally, and Sangfor is not cut for it. When it comes to scaling up, Sangfor can't do the job. We use Sangfor for a fixed thing. Let's say we know the organization has only 200 users and won't expand. Then it's okay to use Sangfor. Sangfor is not scalable.

My clients are enterprise-level businesses.

Sangfor is easy to set up. We just have to put the ISO file in our thumb drives. Then, we go to our bare metal server and deploy the ISO. Generally, this is what we do, and it's pretty straightforward.

The deployment time depends on how scalable the organization is. If it's full or fewer than ten servers, we can deploy the solution in a day or a couple of hours if we have experienced engineers. We can deploy the solution with two people.

The solution is affordable.

For preventative maintenance, Sangfor needs us to update one machine at a time. We have over 200 VMs, so the updates affect availability. Because we need to update all the VMs simultaneously, I would prefer something like Nutanix.

From a customer's point of view, Sangfor's instructions are straightforward. If the user is computer literate, they will understand and do it. If instructions are given correctly by me, and users follow them properly, they can fix the problem.

I recommend that prospective users study their client's requirements. They should try to understand what the client wants whether they'll be scaling up in a short period, and users have to consider all those factors before they choose a product like this. Depending on the kind of organization it is and how big it is, if it's a small organization, users can go for Sangfor and save a lot of money. But for big organizations, users must spend some bucks for these hypervisors.

Since there's a lot of room for improvement, I rate Sangfor HCI a six out of ten.

From a business perspective, we use Sangfor HCI due to its competitive pricing compared to other competitors such as Nutanix. We have reviewed Nutanix as well and found that Sangfor HCI offers similar ease of use. So, in terms of user interface (UI), the experience is more or less the same.

Sangfor HCI has a bundle of security features that are easy to monitor on the HCI dashboard.

Sangfor HCI has room for improvement in terms of integration. So, the integration with Sangfor HCI is not as extensive as in Nutanix. 

Usually, the integration should be straightforward, but with Sangfor HCI, we need to use another API to make the integration happen. That's what happened with our client's project.

In future releases, from a business point of view, Sangfor HCI needs to focus on coding, research, and testing, or involve the R&D department. Most of the time, Sangfor HCI utilizes this technology to follow the BIUI (Business Intelligence User Interface). 

Sometimes it becomes difficult to recall the exact details of a particular feature at the moment. Maybe the next feature should address this issue, so that we don't experience significant delays in the process.

This is our first year using the system.

The solution is stable. I haven't had any hiccups. 

I rate the solution's stability a seven out of ten.

Sangfor HCI is a scalable solution, provided you get the expected point or criteria.

I rate the solution's scalability a seven out of ten. Our clients usually include enterprise businesses. 

The setup process for Sangfor HCI was quite straightforward. We utilize HP servers and have an HP technical assistant on board. Additionally, we have technical support from Sangfor HCI. 

The technical person responsible for deployment is well-versed in the necessary steps and knows what to do and what not to do to deploy the solution.

Considering the huge scale of the deployment, it is crucial to have the right expertise. Although there may be some unique aspects and considerations, overall, I would say the process was relatively straightforward.

We deploy it for our clients.

The solution’s pricing is very competitive. I would say it is cheaper than Nutanix.

I rate the solution pricing a five out of ten, with one being the cheapest and ten being expensive.

I would suggest going for Sangfor HCI because, at the end of the day, HCI depends solely on your client’s or you. It offers the best price if it fits your requirements and you need centralized access to various authentication. The system is good.

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

If you're dealing with a huge workload running on a massive infrastructure, Sangfor HCI can reduce the physical hardware while maximizing resource utilization. 

Sangfor HCI is a one-stop solution that enables you to store and centrally manage your VMs. 

Support may be an issue for customers in some industries. For example, financial institutions may require 24/7 support. 

I have used Sangfor for two or three years. 

I rate Sangfor HCI 10 out of 10 for stability. 

I rate Sangfor HCI seven out of 10 for scalability. We have nearly 80 users, Most of our clients are small and medium-sized businesses. 

I rate Sangfor support eight out of 10. 

Positive

I rate Sangfor HCI eight out of 10 for ease of setup. Deployment is pretty straightforward and can be completed in four or five days. 

Sangfor HCI is reasonably priced, and there are no additional costs. 

I rate Sangfor HCI eight out of 10. You should give Sangfor HCI a chance. It has more advanced technology and is more user-friendly than other solutions.