HPE Alletra Storage Reviews

Its use case primarily is VDI. We are working with models 6050 and 6070.

Price, performance, efficiency, and reliability are its benefits. Those customers who used to be on 3PAR and Primera and are now on [HPE] Alletra [Storage] probably have two times performance improvement. The most important benefit has been the increase in efficiency. The efficiency has improved at least three or four times. Its pricing per gigabyte is also lower than what they used to pay for the older solutions.

It provides a cloud-like operational model on-prem for managing data infrastructure. Most of my customers who are on VDI are using VHCI and Private Cloud Business Edition or PCBE, and they love it.

It helps with day-to-day management. Especially when customers have multiple sites, they are able to view all their sites and manage all their sites from a single pane.

It can predict problems and prevent them before they occur. The main feature of Alletra is the inheritance of Nimble InfoSight. It is a big plus.

There is a guarantee of data availability, but that was not the only reason for going for this solution. They have availability of six nines on other platforms as well, but with Alletra, you have the whole package. There is efficiency, reliability, and proactive support with InfoSight. It is the whole package.

It has improved our storage performance in terms of IOPs, but I do not have the metrics.

The performance is valuable. The NVMe performance with VDI plays a big role. There is efficiency of the array and replication between two sites. A lot of customers use Alletra for production and DR and do replication.

They are definitely going to start pushing more on MP for files. This was an area where HPE was not very strong, but now, with Alletra MP, it is going to be very strong. Most importantly, there is going to be the flexibility of moving compute and storage on Alletra MP. This flexibility will be very good.

We have been using HPE Alletra Storage for the past two to three years.

So far, so good.

On regular Alletra, you can only add two shelves. That may be a limitation because you need to plan ahead of time about how you are going to grow. You might want to conserve the type of disk. It is a little limiting in terms of capacity. This is why MP is better.

We do work with HPE support. It is a little slow sometimes, but in the case of Alletra, that has not been the case. With Alletra, the level 3 engineering support has been more than okay. For Alletra, I would rate their support a nine out of ten.

Positive

We have not done its deployment. We do help some customers with monitoring, managing, and patching the environment. It is fairly new. Alletra has been there for about two years.

Overall, it was a good ROI for customers.

Overall, it was good. It had a good price per gigabyte.

I would rate HPE Alletra Storage an eight out of ten.

We primarily use Alletra for virtualization.

The most valuable aspect of the solution is the 100% uptime guarantee. The guarantee of data availability to our organization was one of the top priorities. Our business is 24/7/365 high transaction rates and it was very important that the storage was always available

Its ease of administration is great. It's really simple to maintain.

The firmware updates on it are non-disruptive, which is amazing. Most people say they are nondisruptive; Alletra actually is not disruptive. 

The IO performance has met our expectations and exceeded them. 

Alletra provides a cloud-like operational model on-prem for managed data infrastructure. We rarely use it, but it does. We know that can do the infrastructure as code administration through the cloud APIs. We just haven't yet, so we haven't leveraged that much.

Alletra is helpful for predicting problems and preventing them before they occur - although we have had virtually zero problems with it. When we have, it has called support for us. That's been pretty good.

Alletra has helped us to reduce the time spent on storage provisioning by at least 50%. The use of application groups means that we just have to tell it how big we want our next provisioning slice to be, and the rest just happens. 

The solution has improved our storage performance in terms of IOPs, probably by at least 300%. It's helped reduce the time spent resolving related support tickets as well. So far, we have opened two support tickets versus the approximately 40 tickets we had to open for the old storage. 

Long-distance, high-latency replication enhancements would be delightful to see in future versions.

I've used the solution for two and a half years now.

The stability is incredible. We haven't had a single storage event since we put it into production.

Scalability is great. The devices they sent us still have tons of room to grow. All we have to do is add a disk, and then the rest of it happens.

Overall, support is very good. We recently moved to GreenLake managed services. I only see tickets now when they've identified a problem and that comes with a list of how they're going to fix it. For the most part, it's hands-off for me right now, which is awesome. The only issue is they haven't quite figured out our internal structure yet, so sometimes they reach out to the wrong person. They just need to put their process documents in order. It's no big deal. 

Positive

We had an HPE solution previously, an older 3PAR storage array. It was old and not as good, which is why I switched.

In terms of deployment, we're an almost strictly private cloud, and it's all happening under the VMware Umbrella right now.

The deployment was actually a bit of a pain. It seems that we were running a slightly older version of VMware, and it didn't like talking to the Alletra models at first. We were having a lot of storage disconnects. Luckily, we hadn't put it into production before it got resolved. However, we couldn't get HPE and VMware on the same page about it. 

Eventually, we just upgraded our version of VMware and all the problems went away. That was probably a month's worth of engaging with both parties and trying to find a solution. We just gave up, upgraded, and the problem went away. 

We did have a reseller that was involved that we deal with fairly closely. They've been very good to us. They know their stuff pretty well, and they're always willing to throw down when we need them.

We don't have a lot of metrics in terms of ROI. The ROI to me is the amount of time I spend managing the device. It's very low compared to the old solution. 

The licensing and setup costs were very simple. We used the GreenLake purchasing model (the OpEx purchasing model). It all came as one bundle.

We evaluated HPE's Primera. We didn't really look outside of HPE. The Primary pro for Alletra was that it was an all-in NVMe storage array, and we were looking for maximum IOPS.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. Of all the storage platforms I've had over the years, this one has caused me the least amount of grief overall. The metrics coming out of it really do help me identify if we are having any IO problems. The only thing is we haven't had any, so I just look at a bunch of green bars that say, "you're good!"

Private Cloud

I use the solution for cheap and deep tier-two VMware storage. I use it for smaller SQL databases as well. 

Since we've implemented the solution, we've had zero downtime on the arrays. We get high-quality replication and a quality product overall. 

I like InfoSight and now the new GreenLake management platform to help me manage all my arrays in one location. 

The product provides a cloud-like operational model on-prem for managing data infrastructure. While I haven't used the on-prem cloud model myself, I've heard it's good. 

It's good at preventing problems. The support is really good. They actually fix 90% of errors and remotely fix them. They get there first and log in and I am told before I know there's a failed drive.

It has reduced time spent on storage provisioning. I give VMware admins access to provision their own data storage. 

Alletra has improved storage performance for IOPs. I've been using the hybrids and get really good IOPs performance out of the hybrid models. It's even comparable to the Pure X50 systems.

It's helped us reduce the time spent on storage-related support tickets. We rarely have tickets now. We've reduced them by 70% or so.

It could use improvement in correctly identifying and naming the systems. The solution keeps changing the names of everything. It's been hard to track.

I've been using the solution for five years. 

The stability is very good. It's very stable. I'd like to have a more of a hands-off support solution - an HP technician replace option. 

Customer support is very good. 

We were a Nimble customer previously.

The deployment and implementation were very easy. It went really fast.

We have witnessed an ROI. Our ROI is down to two years on the purchase.

The pricing is okay. There's not really a smaller-scale model for mid-tier and upper capacities. That said, the pricing is comparable to everyone else.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It would be a ten out of ten if they could do block and file on the same system.

We run our VDI systems off of it as well as a lot of VMs, SQL databases, and things like that. We use it for a little bit of file storage as well. 

Moving on to the platform is fairly simple. Upgrades are easy. We just put it in a new shelf, and that didn't cause any downtime. We really appreciate that. We're running 1,000 VDIs on a single Alletra. I don't know if we could have done that on any of our last storage systems.

The deduplication feature is great. It's a pretty standard feature at this point. However, it's really important for the workloads we run to keep the storage cost down. The speed and reliability are excellent. 

It has all of the technologies in place to make sure our data is still there when things go bad. 

Predicting and preventing issues before they happen seems great on Alletra. All of our failures have been very predictive. We haven't had any downtime. We had some controllers throwing early warnings, and Alletra caught that before anything went bad. We know the stuff goes bad; however, the way that Alletra treats it, we've never had any downtime from hardware issues. It always disables itself and pulls a bad drive out of the pool before any data corruption occurs. 

Alletra has improved the storage performance in terms of IOPS. We don't have any issues. Our infrastructure is a little bit different on the back end, so some of our stuff has a little trouble getting to it. That said, we already know that that's a back-end issue for us and we are going to be resolving that by the end of the year. 

It's helped reduce time spent resolving storage-related tickets. We don't have a lot since it's so reliable, and setting it up is fairly easy and hassle-free. If you need something new, you get it, attach it to the storage, it hooks up and sets up the VMware using the connector software really easily. I don't have to think about it anymore after that. 

Moving from Nimble to Alletra was a little difficult. The process involved adding new cards - which was quite a bit more of a headache for us. Having to console in and turn off the controllers to add the new card for the storage shelf itself was a hassle compared to a Nimble, which was almost plug-and-play. They're very similar, the downtime was zero, and the instructions were great. It was just a lot more work than we were used to with Nimble.

I've been using Alletra for three years.

The support is great. It's easy to just call them and have somebody pick up the phone and easily talk to them about issues. Support is amazing - and that's one of the primary reasons that we use it. 

I previously used Nimble. 

The deployment and installation are generally fairly easy. It's technical so it takes a bit of time. The last time we put in a fresh Alletra, after we racked it, it only took a few hours to get it up and running. More often than that we've done shelf deployments. The new Alletras are a bit more difficult, however, it doesn't take long. 

The ROI is in the reliability and ease of use. The uptime is ROI. We're in the public sector, and uptime is of primary importance. We have a hard time getting a Windows update downtime. Having uptime from our storage, when we never have to worry about it at all is ideal.  

It's expensive. That said, we know what we're buying and we're okay with it. We're generally okay with what we're paying.

I'd rate Alletra nine out of ten. We really enjoy the product. We don't have a lot of issues. And the support keeps us there. We wouldn't consider anything else due to the phenomenal Alletra support that migrated along with Nimble. They are proactive and that's why we love it.  

I added two shelves to the two Cisco systems and it's running well.

The management costs are very low. That's a big benefit for us.

They've been great. I have no issues with them.

Provisioning works and is very simple. It's easy to use. 

Setting up snapshots is very easy, and replication between the two systems is easy as well.

The solution provides a cloud-like operational model on-prem. I just use it for day-to-day management tasks. Other than that, I don't do provisioning or anything like that. I use the native interface for that.

I keep it pretty up-to-date so I don't have to really worry about any issues. I had a couple of failed drives and they went as planned. It was no big deal.

The solution helped to reduce the time spent on storage for messaging. That said, I don't have too much to compare it to.

Its performance is very good - especially when I added a second shelf to the system. It spreads the data out over more spindles and also more solid-state drives.

They have a new update coming out that I'm going to be using as far as lack of snapshots. I'm going to put that into place as soon as I upgrade to the new version.

I've been using the solution for probably 12 months now. 

It's stable. I've had no issues so far.

It's easy to scale. I just added two new shelves to the systems, and it was straightforward. 

I've never had to call technical support. I've had two failed drives, and they had automated tickets set up with the driver arriving four hours later. 

I've been an HP customer for a long time. I've been happy with their support and reliability.

I've previously used Trinti. However, it is no longer a company.

The deployment was pretty simple. I figured out how to provide or provision the storage and set up replication, and I was done quickly.

The pricing and licensing are streamlined. I didn't have any issues. 

I did look at NetApp, among other solutions. I decided on Alletra based on its interface, ease of use, and the time I didn't need to spend worrying about it.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. It's simple to use and we haven't had any technical issues.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

We have a virtualization platform running over there.

It is very easy to manage, so we spend less time going over it. It does not require very specific and advanced storage knowledge to get involved. It is easy to start using it. Creating VMs or new data storage clusters is very simple from the virtualization platform, so we save time. Also, thanks to the protection and snapshot, we can also quickly recover from ransomware attacks or things like that.

HPE Alletra Storage provides a cloud-like operational model on-prem for managing data infrastructure. I can monitor and manage whatever I need at home. It helps a lot. I do not need to open a VPN connection or any kind of connection to know what is going on. I can manage my platform remotely.

We have protection and snapshots. InfoSight alerts us on any issues that could be there. We get to know what is going on.

HPE Alletra Storage has helped reduce the time spent on storage provisioning. Instead of a couple of hours, we can do storage provisions in 15 minutes.

HPE Alletra Storage has improved our storage performance in terms of IOPs. We have much more than what we need.

HPE Alletra Storage has helped reduce the time spent resolving storage-related support tickets. The InfoSight information that we have and the performance-related capabilities that we have seen help us a lot. When we know a problem, we also know where the issue is and what is causing the issue, so an open case takes a couple of hours rather than a couple of days.

It is simple to manage and integrate with our virtualization platform. There is also the storage efficiency. We are saving in terms of storage capacity. It is very easy, and we get the performance for the requirements that we are having. 

We are using it as much as we need. I do not have any requirements. They can maybe have more flexibility for configurations or things like that.

We have been using HPE Alletra Storage for a year and a half.

We never have any issues.

We do not need to scale. We would have had to scale if we could buy a smaller one. It is enough for us.

Everything is great. Sometimes we get an email saying that we are having an issue on a drive or something else even before we realize it. Nowadays, when we are having an issue, most of the time, we also have a solution. It is great. 

We have used 3PAR from HPE or MSA. We needed to perform a refresh. Most of our use cases were VMware-related, we wanted to integrate data management capacities and capabilities. That is why we moved. We received everything that we needed.

We have seen an ROI. We have started to take away the old storage solution. We have simplified management. For anyone new to the company, it is very easy to understand what is going on, how to manage, how to get access and know what it is doing. The onboarding time is saved. We require less training and there are also fewer errors because they understand what they are doing. It is a simple management environment.

Its licensing is good. Pricing-wise, there can be a little bit more flexibility. It would help to have different sizes. However, it fits into the budget that we have, so we are happy.

I would rate HPE Alletra Storage a nine out of ten because there is always room to improve, but we are happy with what we are receiving from Alletra and how simple it is to manage. The optimization of the storage means that we do not need to scale and grow. We are not looking for new refreshments or upgrades on the platform. All my colleagues are also confident about what they are doing over there. We like the environment.

We’re using Alletra as our primary data center for critical servers, including web and e-commerce services. It also handles our data and storage servers.

The solution offers faster resolution. The developers have noted how quickly it performs when they configure the application. The snapshots have been helpful as well. In the past, we experienced data corruption and were able to restore the entire volume using the snapshot feature without any data loss.

The solution is five to seven times faster than Nimble Storage and responds quickly to data requests.

The user interface is user-friendly and easy to manage.

The snapshot feature is very similar to that of Nimble Storage.

The solution offers easy management and scalability.

Alletra provides a cloud-like model for managing on-premises storage. I am already using GreenLake, and it has been good. The cloud-like model is decent, although we are not fully on the cloud yet. We have high bandwidth, so we haven't noticed much difference between on-premises and cloud.

It is good for preventing problems before they occur. Everything goes to the cloud, so we receive notifications if there is an issue. If there is a link disconnection or a system issue, I get notified.

The 100% data availability has been important for us. We knew that Alletra was scalable and more stable in terms of storage. We depend on Alletra 100% for our data and need to ensure its availability.

It has helped us reduce time spent on storage provisioning by 25%. For example, if I am creating a new volume, it takes just a few seconds and replicates quickly to the vCenter. The entire process is much faster than other solutions.

Alletra ensures that the time spent resolving storage-related support tickets remains consistent. It is always fast and scalable.

The solution is already quite effective, and I haven’t identified any shortcomings. In the future, it would be helpful to receive text notifications for alerts in addition to the current email notifications.

I've been using the solution for five months.

The stability is great.

The scalability is excellent. 

The customer and tech support are excellent. The technicians are quick to respond, and the overall support has been good. However, there can be a slight delay on weekends compared to business days, usually around five to ten minutes. Despite this, the response remains fairly prompt.

Positive

I've used Storwize by IBM. We also used Nimble. Alletra is a faster application.

The integration was straightforward and easy with vCenter and Nimble Storage's connection management tools. We also utilized the deployment tools from Alletra. We started with a hybrid setup with the goal of transitioning to the cloud. Currently, we are using GreenLake.

The deployment process was excellent. The shipment was prompt, and we had a technician on-site who assisted with the storage racks. Another technician handled the management setup, while I took care of the configurations. The entire process was smooth and hassle-free, with no complications.

We handled the initial setup ourselves. 

We made the right Invesment by choosing Alletra. 

The pricing is reasonable. We got Alletra at a great price, almost the same as Nimble. However, we doubled our storage for nearly the same cost.

Yes, we did. However, we found that Alletra is the best fit for our business.

I’d rate the solution ten out of ten. I’ve never experienced a hard disk or hardware failure, which is great.

Hybrid Cloud

The solution is our primary storage for virtualization.

It's got an integration with InfoSight. There are metrics that are provided by it and the support that we get from Nimble Alletra Support is great. The insights we get are important. All of the reporting we get and the recommendations we get on performance impacts are helpful. It predicts problems and helps prevent issues. 

It's helped us save time spent on storage usage. Due to its integration, we've had an 80% to 90% reduction in storage provisioning time. 

It's helped improve IOPs. We size the solution properly and customers have been happy with the results.

I would like to see some form of direct connect fiber channel options.

I've used Alletra Storage for a long time.

The scalability is good. There are options. 

Support is fantastic for Allerta. Everything else from HPE isn't as good. 

Positive

Our customers are switching from other vendor options. I've been recommending Alletra to them. 

I have experience with other storage solutions within the HPE family. I haven't used other vendors. Alletra is top-notch within the HPE family in terms of performance and support. 

I've deployed the solution before. An Alletra by itself is simple to implement. When partnered with dHCI, it's a bit more complex. 

The pricing is good for the market that I serve. The subscription model is tough for them. We can do multiple terms now. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

On-premises