Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Reviews

Our use case would be deployable mobile headquarters, headquarters on the move, where we can quickly deploy to our small user community and quickly create a mobile data center. This includes using business advantage communications.

We are in the architecting phase. We are looking at it being more agile in our deployed headquarters. We are in the testing and deployment phase.

The flexibility is its most valuable feature; the ability to quickly deploy a number of help machines. It is not constrained by what we want to do. 

The product's disadvantage is that it is not necessarily open as I would like it to be. The main platform has some closed features that I would rather not see. For example, I need a mechanism to orchestrate services and an infrastructure as a service model, which is how we are deploying it. We would like to orchestrate it using an open, non-Cisco tool. While there is an API, in order to deploy it, we need to indicate it with a higher layer Network Services Orchestrator. This requires a lot of work to be done. If it could support a more open model, where we have standardized blueprints, templates, or virtual machines, it would be nice. This is an industry problem, not necessarily specific to Cisco.

I would like a lighter product; something which can be carried by a mere human. The typical size still looks like a stack of data center-sized servers, which is typically fine, but not so good if you want to carry it around.

It works as expected.

Based on the bigger picture, scalability should be good. However, we haven't tested in on scale yet. On paper, it is perfectly fine.

The technical support is good.

Our other solution works perfectly fine. However, we do capability upgrades every so often. This is a trigger for me to determine if we are looking in the right direction. As our requirements to be more agile have increased over time when working with our previous system, we learned the system is too complicated. We needed something which is smarter and can be more automated, where a physical engineer use a template and let it run, then get a green light because the system works.

The initial setup was somewhat complex, but this was because of our requirements. We were pushing the physical structure beyond what Cisco could deliver. This made life a bit miserable for the engineer.

Cisco delivered the solution directly to us. They contributed skill, personnel, equipment, and prototypes.

We are looking at Microsoft, VMware, Cisco, and Dell EMC. In the end, we will make our decision on price and functionality.

Give it a go. Work with their engineers and support staff to see if your solution fits. Challenge them to go a bit further than than their standard product.

The primary use case is for our customer who was moving from classical storage and computing to the new HyperFlex system.

It saves space for data centers, which is good.

Everything is in one device: computing, storage, and networking.

It is quite new solution, so it is not very stable. However, that is okay.

It is very scalable. It is also easy to scan.

I had some issues that I had to solve myself because of the technical support.

The initial setup is very complex because there were some issues. It is not clear to how set up this solution.

I did the implementation myself.

Involve Cisco in the beginning, as they will give you good advice about setting up the product.

While it has a lot of things to improve, it is a good solution.

We primarily use the solution for our customers.

The implementation process is okay.

HyperFlex, compared to other competitors like VxRail or Nutanix, has stability issues.

The utilization needs to be better. It needs more options.  

For HX, we need to install a specific virtual machine on each node as a controller. For VxRail, we don't have to do this since it's a built-in feature on VMware. 

For the solution to work, we need to buy specific switches from Cisco. It's not flexible, actually. I wouldn't recommend using it.

The cost is pretty high.

I've used the product for three or four years. 

I'm also familiar with VxRail and Nutanix. They are working with other platforms, and other techniques. Therefore they are more stable. They also have more storage options. 

It is pretty easy to set up. It's not overly complex. The implementation is simple. 

We can implement the cluster within one hour.

The solution is more expensive since switches are one of the things that add cost to the solution. The service is a little bit more costly as well. They cost more than other vendors. 

We are partners and resellers.

I wouldn't recommend HyperFlex.

If a company has options, I would say they should look at VxRail or Nutanix as the first option.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten.

A client typically uses the solution for the VDI critical application and for the containerization as well. It's a critical application and he X location and the hybrid or multi cloud.

The solution is easy to deploy as they're based on ECS. We buy an ECS Manager so that we can scale out easily. We can also integrate with external storage. We can also scale for computing or storage only.

The product is quite stable.

It's very easy to use and quite a mature product.

As a fairly mature product, I can't think of any features that are lacking per se. 

The pricing is pretty expensive.

Right now they are coming into the public cloud, we want to be seeing HyperFlex integration with public clouds such as AWS, Azure or Google. 

I need to see the feature more use cases for the backup and restore functionalities or how  we can expand the cluster to the public cloud.

I've been using the solution since about 2018. It's been about two years or so. It hasn't been too long.

The solution is very stable. It doesn't have bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very good.

We do plan to continue using the product and expanding it as needed. 

Cisco is better for enterprise-level organizations.

Cisco has great technical support. We're quite satisfied with their level of service. Cisco does offer full support for the product, which is quite helpful. They have a good amount of knowledge on their product and they are very good at sharing the information and insights they have. 

However, in comparison, Nutanix technical support is better in that they are not only knowledgeable but responsive as well.

As partners, we use a variety of solutions such as Nutanix, Cisco HyperFlex, and NetApp HCI. We don't for example, have partnerships with HPE or SimpliVity.

If you were comparing Cisco, to, for example, Nutanix, Cisco is more expensive.

The initial setup is not too complex. The installation is pretty easy as the HyperFlex has a deployment engine. We can just follow the wizard and go over everything step-by-step. Cisco has guidelines about the installation in the portal which makes it very convenient to get the insights you need.

The deployment is very fast and takes typically under one hour.

The solution can be pretty expensive. It's not the cheapest option on the market.

My role in the company is pre-sales. We offer this solution to our clients. As a partner, we don't use Cisco HyperFlex, but we propose HyperFlex for the customer.

For the deployment, we can deploy for the DC and DRC side, for the synchronous replication, and also for the stress cluster, we can also deploy for the X location as the HyperFlex has a HyperFex extraction for the X location.

I'm in Indonesia, and in this particular country/region, this solution isn't really used very widely. Nutanix is more famous in Indonesia, as it can be used by the SMB customer or small customers up to enterprises. Most hyper-converged solutions that are used in Indonesia are Nutanix.

I would recommend the solution to other organizations, however, only if it made sense and fit their company's needs.

Overall, I would rate the product eight out of ten.

Our primary use case of this solution is for data storage for the network.

Integration to third-parties is the most valuable feature. 

Scalability and performance are good. 

Technical support is very good. Not excellent, but good. There's still not enough data available on the web. For example, for the integration to VMware, I had a case recently and I searched for more information but didn't find any. 

We knew we needed to switch solutions because we needed a solution with good performance, scanning, and an overall new and innovative solution. 

We had some hardware problems at the beginning of the initial setup but after that was resolved the setup was straightforward. 

We implemented through an integrator and had a great experience with them. 

The ROI we have seen from the high performance that has saved us time and money.

We also looked at Nutanix. We ended up going with Cisco because our whole network is based on Cisco. 

I would give this solution a seven out of ten because it's still new and I still haven't practiced a lot with it but I have had a good experience until now. 

I would advise someone considering this solution to sit with your integrator, discuss the different products, comply with the competitors, and you will get your desired results.

It is an acceptable storage solution.

It simplifies management. I am sure we have not scratched its limit, but it helps us simplify everything well.

The most valuable feature is to simplify management. We can lower the need for people to work on the storage itself. 

I would like to see the capacity to choose the replications, RFS sectors to all machines, not only on the cluster. Additionally, the solution should provide more detailed documentation.

There are no problems with the stability of the solution.

It is a good, scalable solution.

We had to use technical support once. They were great. 

It is really straightforward. It was not complex. 

I think we are always looking for a vendor that is credible and solves our needs within the solution. This product answers those criteria. The vendor was credible and helpful.

We looked at VMware. 

When considering this product, evaluate it carefully. Note whether the environment is best for the solution.  

The product does not have a cloud version. I would like Cisco to introduce a cloud version of the solution in the future. The product should be made more flexible in terms of integration capabilities.

I have been using Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series for two years. I use a high-end version of the solution. My company has a partnership with Cisco.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution.

I am satisfied with the solution's technical support. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

The technical people are the ones who can answer whether the product is easy to deploy or not.

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is a bit pricier compared to other brands in the market. Yearly payments are to be made toward the licensing cost of the solution. The approximate licensing cost of the product depends on the model a person chooses. There is a need to make additional payments towards the maintenance and support of the solution.

My company is not considering the other available options in the market.

I am satisfied with the overall product.

Cisco has already made a name for itself in the industry as a good brand.

I rate the overall product a ten out of ten.

This is not the only product we use, so we have other solutions to compare it with. We can compare different products and different vendors and tell our customers which products have which advantages and disadvantages so that they can leverage these products in their own environment. This product helps us to understand the customer's needs and what issues they can run into.

The most valuable feature is the integration between our product and HyperFlex. We show our customers the integration between the backup and the deduplication solution that we offer and this CISCO hyperconverged solution.

The primary improvements should be made in the cluster storage controller VMs so that they don't break the upgrade process. 

I would like to see integration with multi-site ACI deployments so that we can span clusters between multiple sites, with ACI running within each site. 

The platform itself is very stable and robust, but when it comes to upgrading the system, it's not stable. The process of upgrading should be seamless so that the customer's data is not affected in any way. Nothing should happen to the customer's data during the upgrading process but we've had situations where the upgrade process did not go smoothly. We've had to open a tech case to solve the issues and sometimes we even have to evacuate the entire virtual machine clusters into another system. 

Scalability was kept in mind when they designed this product. We can scale from really small deployments to very large deployments. The scalability is not an issue with HyperFlex, it scales better than Nutanix and other vendors. 

Their technical support is really good. They are very professional, I cannot complain about the support. The only issue is that they will often only be available during time zones that don't work within European working hours. 

The deployment was not hard. We deployed the full server installation with CISCO HyperFlex. The original version that we tried to deploy was something like 2.2. We ran into a few issues but we managed to solve them on our own, without CISCO tech. If everything goes smoothly the entire deployment can take only a few hours. 

I did the deployment myself. 

We see ROI every day. The return on investment is fantastic and is the primary reason why we deployed these clusters all around our site locations so that our SE engineers can show the customers.

We also use Nutanix and Pure Storage. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. Not a ten because of the issues with the upgrading process.