Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Reviews

Our primary use of the Cisco HyperFlex HX solution is to run virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX is that it is self-contained. 

Cisco HyperFlex HX is fairly stable. We don't have any problems with it. I would give stability an eight out of ten.

For the scalability of the solution, I would give it an 8 out of10.

The solution's technical support is good. We have had a lot of experiences with them in the past. It's fine. We just had some questions. We didn't know how to do everything. 

We've had a few problems. It's new. Often, we don't know how to solve the issue we're having. The response times are okay.

We were looking for hyperconverged solutions. We already purchased Cisco products for our data center. This was a next-generation device.

The initial setup of the Cisco HyperFlex HX platform was medium-level difficult. It's a little bit different from traditional servers. It takes getting used to the learning curve.

We used a reseller, SMP, for the deployment.

The other vendors on our shortlist were VMware and Datrium.

On a scale from one to ten, I would grade Cisco HyperFlex HX an eight. If the cost was improved, I would give it a ten.

Make sure to look at a long list of competitors in the hyperconverged sector for cross-reference before purchasing. Look at all the main players.

Our primary use for this solution is remote office environments.

The product has helped our organization work seamlessly with staff in remote offices by providing storage and compute resources. These two things have made a big difference in how we are able to work effectively as an organization with diverse environments.

The best part about this solution is feature simplicity from the user end, besides providing storage and compute resources.

I don't really think it needs to be improved as far as the product itself. I can't think of anything yet that it doesn't already do. It fills our needs. It would be best if it continued to meet the needs of technology as it advances over time.

I think the documentation is a big con for Hyperflex. More substantial, straightforward documentation would help end users make more of their investment. There really isn't a problem with product functionality.

So far we have had no issues with the stability of the product. It seems very stable and has performed as expected.

We have not needed to scale yet, but I would say — based on what we know that product can do and our experience with it — that the solution is very scalable.

Technical support has been good. I've opened a few cases and I got great responses in a reasonable amount of time. 

We had a new situation and a new problem that came up in our environment so we started evaluating other potential solutions. The solution we had couldn't resolve the new issue. We researched and learned that HyperFlex could solve it.

The initial setup was very straightforward. No problems at all.

We self-deployed the solution without the need for external assistance.

Before we made our final decision, we evaluated VMware as a potential solution but felt that the HyperFlex better fit our needs.

I would rate the Hyperflex solution as a nine out of ten. This is not because HyperFlex is not meeting our needs but because nothing is perfect.

The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is its performance.

I have been receiving a memory overflow message every day when I use the solution. 

This memory overflow error is a cosmetic error. Over the last three years, I have been talking with Cisco to remove this error. Cisco and VMware should cross-check and troubleshoot this issue to come to a solution. They should remove it as soon as possible.

I have been using Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series for approximately three years.

The solution is stable. However, we have had a memory overflow error, that has not to be resolved but it is only a cosmetic error. 

The scalability of the Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series has been very good for what we are using it for in the current project.

We have approximately 400 users using this solution.

We do not plan to increase usage at least for the next six months.

We have not had a good experience with the support. They were not very helpful with the cosmetic error we were receiving.

I have used other solutions previously, such as Nutanix. I find that Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is better than Nutanix. Cisco products have better performance overall.

I did not face any problems in the implementation.

We had a partner do the implementation of the solution. I was not happy with the partner because they have not resolved the error message we have been receiving from Cisco after months of conversations.

The partner support could improve.

All of our maintenance is handled by our partner.

There is a license required to use this solution.

I rate Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series a seven out of ten.

We have been using Cisco machines when it comes to the HX-Series product line (or category) in our organization. We are quite satisfied with the product because we primarily deal with Cisco when it comes to the compute and network parts.

The plus point of this particular product is its usability. The management of this particular machine is very good when I compare it with other competitors, like a model from HPE or Lenovo.

It consumes a smaller footprint when I compare it with other competitors. 

Cisco should improve on having more technical documents available on their website, as well as keep them update-to-date. I would especially like to see more compute documentation.

I would rate the stability as high. The machines are stable and the downtime is minimal

The scalability is good. I can scale it on the fly. I don't really have to invest a lot of time in scaling up these machines.

Whenever I log a TAC case, I receive a good response from the teams, so the technical support is good. 

Sometimes when there are multiple technologies involved in a support case, this is when there is a bit of a lag. This something which Cisco could improve upon. Otherwise, the technical support is really good.

It was more of an upgrade. We recently migrated the data centers in my organization and decided to have the latest models and technologies available in the market.

The setup was somewhere in-between straightforward and complex. The reason being our data centers do not carry a single type of hardware. We have an array of vendors implemented in our data centers. We have to mix and match, ensure the interoperability is tested before implementation. This takes some time.

I think we did hire consultants from Cisco.

When we did benchmarking on this particular product line, the results were great and quite amazing. This is why zeroed in on this particular product for many of our use cases. For example, we use these machines for SAP systems. We also use this for many of our cloud ready applications. The product is performing quite well.

We do have a large Cisco footprint in our organization.

It is a good product to have in your data centers. Pick a good use case, then do a PoC and perform your own benchmarking. Once you are satisfied, go ahead with the product.

The latest models include all the newest cutting edge technology.

We use the Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series primarily for VDI environments.

As I am the integrator for the Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series I've seen how it has improved my clients' ramp-up time to actually get the environment going.

The ease of use and the graphical user interface (GUI) are two of the most valuable features of this solution.

One aspect that really needs to be looked at, is to fix the bugs issue.

Stability is 50/50 at the moment, based on the implementation experience.

I am very impressed with the scalability of this solution. It's easy to scale. 

I will rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

An initial setup is smooth when it's straightforward. When it has bugs, it's complex. With Cisco, we've experienced bugs with the software when we had to do updates and they were not fully documented.

I am the integrator. 

Our clients have definitely seen a return on investment using Cisco. They've even expanded the nodes almost within the first three months.

The biggest competitor is Nutanix and we considered using that first but when Cisco upped their game, their process became a little bit more streamlined. The hardware clients are more familiar with that.

Because of the bug problem I experienced with this solution, I will rate it eight out of ten.

The hyperconverged infrastructure is one of the most valuable aspects of the solution. Within the additional platform and then having the HyperFlex, the new solution of Cisco, it's actually quite advanced already. They are fast with the idea of not using storage and using HCI or hyperconverged infrastructure. Technically, I've been checking everybody's products and they are all very similar. The advantage of Cisco is it can install different platforms of virtualization software. It can install Hyper-V or it can also install VMware, for example - things we are using already and then it can work the IOPS that we provide. That's another thing.

The stability has been great. It's a quality product.

The solution scales extremely well. 

Technical support is fast.

They need to provide lower prices. It is pricey in comparison with other vendors - including Nutanix, or VxRail of EMC. They are quite expensive due to the fabric interconnect, the FI, that they have. The other vendors don't have those fabric interconnects while Cisco requires the fabric interconnect. 

The initial setup can be complex. 

We'd like to see a backup solution included in the product in the future. 

I've been using the solution for two years already.

I have a really high opinion of Cisco since I've been selling Cisco for quite some time and I have deployed it a lot. So far, the stability and the quality are really, really good. I have no issues with the stability and quality of Cisco. 

It's actually one of the HCIs that I consider to have a greater potential for expansion. The scalability of Cisco is better than the others.

Technical support is great They are very fast and responsive. 

In comparison with other solutions, it's quite complex to set up due to the fabric interconnects with it. That said, I'm used to it. However, if you're going to compare it with other setups, and other vendors don't have those things. I understand that Cisco's servers need those for server profiles, and the others don't have those advantages. Still, if we do a direct comparison with other vendors, that would be the disadvantage as it's an additional cost in comparison with the pure network that you would connect with the hyperconverged infrastructure such as Nutanix, PowerFlex, VxRail, or SimpliVity of HP. That's the disadvantage of Cisco.

Only one person is required to handle any maintenance responsibilities.

The solution is quite expensive when compared to other options, although their technology is better. 

You do need to pay a yearly licensing fee. How much depends upon how many are using it. I'm not sure how much in dollars, however, in pesos, it's around, if I'm 3 million to 5 million. Everything is included under on licensing fee. there are no extra costs. 

We use a variety of different versions of the solution. It depends. 

I'd advise new users to study the product. It needs, really, a knowledge of the product. I really highly recommend Cisco due to its stability and scalability, and also the performance of the equipment. It's got great quality. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The primary use we have for this product is to act as a server and for storage.

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

Another valuable feature is the fact that you can individually upgrade the specific parts of the product. Compared to other products like SimpliVity, or Nutanix you have to upgrade the whole node if you want to expand memory or storage. In HyperFlex, you can actually upgrade at will. If you want to upgrade your memory cloud, you upgrade it. So that is a big advantage I've seen from any hyper-convergence product. VxRail or Nutanix and products like that are not as flexible and that is the biggest reason we chose this solution.

I think the product can improve dramatically in the area of deduplication. With deduplication as it is, you have 30 or 40% of the storage that can't be used because the deduplication is not efficient enough. I hope they fix that problem.

The stability of the solution has never been a problem. I would say it is excellent.

I think the scalability of the solution is excellent. Because you can upgrade individual pieces without upgrading a whole node. The problem for other solutions is that if you want a hard drive or you want additional storage or you want memory, you have to make a bigger investment in hardware and time. So, scalability's excellent.

Our experience with Cisco support and products is always very good.

Through conferences and other research, we became aware that there were products which would serve our needs better. Previously, we needed a dedicated storage person to do storage, a dedicated BMR (Bare Metal Restore) person to do BMR. Now, one person can do both because you spend a lot less time with either. So that is the reason we looked at hyper-convergence and this product.

The initial setup was very straightforward compared to categorical peers. If you compare it with other products, it's straightforward. But when you consider hyper-convergence itself, it is not straightforward. I am technical and I have technical team, otherwise it might have been hard. But for our cumulative experience and looking at implementing products like Nutanix — or some other similar products — it's straightforward.

We used Cisco themselves as the vendor. They were very good at implementing the solution.

Return on investment is really immediate and substantial. In a traditional EMC storage environment, we needed to assign a full-time person to maintain storage. With this solution, our ROI is allowing one full-time person to maintain more because it is easier. You can say, basically, that you're gaining a full-time person to do something else for the same cost.

My advice about the product is simply that it's not cheap. If you have budget limitations it is best to look elsewhere.

We did consider other products like Dell EMC VxRail, Nutanix, and another company.

We had EMC VNX storage, BMR and such. Hyper-convergence made more sense. The big thing for us was being able to easily manage the product.

I can safely rate this product as an eight out of ten. This is because it's scalable and you can upgrade it as if you are upgrading a server. In any other solution with hyper-convergence, you can't do that, so you've got to buy a node part to upgrade memory. 

Anyone considering this solution should define their requirements. It's not a solution for everybody. If you're using a lot of storage, hyper-convergence might not be good for you. We don't have a lot of storage, so it is a functional and desirable solution for us. If you have much greater storage needs, it may not be a good solution.

The primary use case is to deploy all our production and documents. We have deployed Hyper-V on top of HyperFlex and the majority of our operation is on Hyper-V. Major workloads are our e-commerce website and applications that are hosted on it. We have deployed database servers and document management systems and a couple of app and web servers.

There is no specific storage person required for this solution. There are some slight cost advantages when you need fewer resources to manage it.

The fact that it's hyperconverged is what is most valuable about this solution. There is no specific feature which I can name because we have only been using it for a very short time. We just started using it.

It needs improvements in terms of I/O. Sometimes I have felt it is slightly slow while we are trying to provision VMs or access VMs. They should concentrate on that issue. At the same, time L2 switches are bundled in HyperFlex. If they make that the L3 switch, that would enhance the performance slightly better.

We deployed a couple of MySQL database servers and some portals which are connected and hosted outside on the internet and the deployment is still going well. So far it is stable and working fine. The deployment is still going on, the migration of further applications is happening.

Scaling, currently, is four nodes. Our plan is to add a couple of nodes next year.

So far, the technical support has been good, although we haven't faced many issues. While installing there were a couple of issues, otherwise everything has been fine and working normally.

This is the first hyperconverged solution we have used. We changed to HyperFlex because new requirements came in. Instead of moving towards a conventional infrastructure, we felt it was the time for us to look at, and to be involved with, the current trend in the market. These are the factors which made us look at this type of option.

The initial setup was very straightforward. After deploying the hardware, the engineer configured the HyperFlex software. On top of that, they gave us dashboard access where I could start deploying Hyper-V on those hosts and start provisioning VMs.

The deployment took a week. One person came from our Cisco partner. He understood our setup and planned what kind of support was required from our side. After providing the required information to him he started deploying the HyperFlex boxes.

It takes one person to maintain it after deployment. In our case he is a Windows administrator.

It was implemented by a Cisco partner from whom we got HyperFlex. Our experience with them has been good so far.

We negotiated with Cisco and we got some price benefit from that.

We looked at ScaleIO from Dell EMC and we also looked at Nutanix. We looked at those two options seriously. Finally, we settled on HyperFlex and we went with it. 

The one thing we clearly saw was that this was that this was what we need. ScaleIO was more a type of software-defined storage, but the hardware which is underlying it is not really tested or already satisfactory for optimized performance. HyperFlex is something that is designed to be hyperconverged and tested thoroughly, and was satisfactory for these operations. This was the decision-making point for us to go with the HyperFlex.

Go ahead and do it. It's a good product. Somebody with a similar environment and a similar experience should go ahead. But check thoroughly that fits your organization.

Our administration strategy is that one guy will be managing the complete dashboard. We are planning to see if there is automation where I can provide this through a DevOps tool. That's something I am looking at.

There is one main entity using it in our company. Our plan is to deploy this software to all other existing infrastructure as well. Within six months we should be fully implemented and deployed.

I rate the solution at eight out of ten because of the brand reliability in the market. They are the most trusted brand in the IT industry.