HPE Alletra Storage Reviews

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!"

We primarily use the solution as our main database. 

The storage is reliable. The speed and performance are good for us. 

It helps predict and prevent problems. It's good for predicting hard disk changes.

We've had a few issues with a certain version - 6200. We don't use those models anymore. We changed over to 9000 models. 

I've been using the solution for five years.

The solution scales well for our purposes. We have 50TBs to 60TBs in one storage solution, on average. We might have 1500 TBS in all. 

We've worked with HP support. We have a reliable vendor. 

We did use a different solution. We understand HP and Primera, and for us, it's enough. We tend to use all HP products. 

I did not deploy the solution. My understanding is that the process is pretty smooth. 

We work with a vendor partner, and he offers us good service and pricing. Some vendor partners are not so effective. 

We've considered Pure Storage and Dell. We want to understand which would be the best for our purposes. 

HP is reliable. We chose HP as we found they have good partners. 

We use this in a banking scenario, and we cannot stop systems. If there's a problem, we call, and they help us so we can avoid downtime. 

The 6000 models are not as good. However, other models ar reliable. I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

We primarily use the solution for our VMware storage. We have different networks and systems. 

The solution offers such a small footprint and good deduplication. We went down from a whole rack to half a rack and it has just as much performance as all flash.

The uptime is excellent. We had a demo and never had a problem. It stayed up and running. 

Alletra helps prevent and predict problems. We've had several cases open up with just the firmware or hardware, and we've had amazing adjustments so far. They've let us know when there's an issue. InfoSight has been great.

The guaranteed data availability was a point to discuss when we were trying to decide what solution to go with.

We've been able to reduce the spent on storage provisioning by 50%. We don't have to create storage groups or anything like that.

Alletra improved storage performance in terms of IOPs by at least 75%.

Alletra has helped us reduce the time spent resolving storage-related support tickets by 50%.

The solution could disable having to be on the internet to activate for GreenLake. 

It would be great if we had a direct integration with Veeam repositories so we wouldn't have to go through Linux or Windows. 

I've been using the solution for five or six years. 

The stability of Alletra is very good. We've only had two hours of downtime on one specific use case in all the years we have had it. 

The scalability isn't something I've had to do. We've only added a shelf, and that's easy. You just plug it in and activate. 

Technical support has been good. I do get an engineer every time I call and they already know what the problem is. 

Positive

We previously used EMC. Then we moved to Nimble. 

The deployment was simple. Getting wired up you can do everything from your web console. We did a demo with Nimble and took it from there. 

We have witnessed an ROI.

In the beginning, the licensing was great, however, now it's HPE. We used to have two line items: hardware and support. Now there are so many more. It's more complex. 

We evaluated Pure Storage, Nimble, and a few others. Pure was expensive, and Nimble gave us what we wanted for the price. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I would recommend it to others. When I talk to colleagues in IT, it's something I recommend. It's been easy to work with. 

We sell the system to our call center in Brazil.

The workload consolidation is very simple to manage. Previously, the customer had four Nimble storage solutions, and we were able to consolidate them into one Alletra. 

InfoSight reduces downtime.

Customers are happy with the speed and management of the storage. 

The DSCC is good.

It offers good density on the rack. It's a very dense storage. 

The solution offers a cloud-like operational model on-prem for managing data. The management is easier. The DSCC helps a lot. It simplifies the storage process. The customer has GreenLake and they can easily see the costs of Alletra storage by workload. 

Alletra is good at predicting and preventing problems. InfoSight, via the portal, helps with this. We don't need to access the equipment. InfoSight will automatically generate a ticket, and the engineer will call us if there are issues. The process is automatic, and it prevents downtime.

The data availability guarantee is helpful for us, as resellers. It helps us convince the customers the product is very good and well-built. 

The solution helps prevent time spent on storage provisioning. It's simple to deploy. Compared to 3PAR, we spend 80% less time on storage provisioning. In 3PAR, you need to provision the CPGs, select rate levels, and manage the free space, which is very complex. Alletra simplifies all of that with a single console.

It's improved our storage performance. We have a 3PAR hybrid. Alletra is new equipment with more speed and all-flash. We've improved our IOPS from 10,000 to 8,000.

The solution could improve the upgrades. In Brazil, it's difficult. The price is very high and it is not an easy process. 

I've used the solution for two to three years. 

The stability is excellent. It's 100% stable. 

For some projects, we need to put in two or three systems. They could improve the scalability in terms of space. 

In Brazil, the SLAs are not being met. Tickets are delayed a lot. It's not so good. We call support, mail them, et cetera, and they do not answer. Last week, a ticket that needed to be solved in six hours took one week.

Neutral

Our clients previously used Nimble. We're also familiar with 3PAR.

We use fiber channels. The deployment process is fairly straightforward. 

HPE managed the deployment process. As resellers, we assisted our clients with setup.

I have not witnessed an ROI as our customers would have more visibility on that. However, I have heard the performance is one area customers are impressed with. The speed improves the customer experience and they can build out their strategy faster and change strategies as needed. 

The pricing and licensing are not my area of expertise. I'm an architect. However, the pricing is a bit more complex in Brazil and there are a lot of taxes. It's not cheap. 

We're a reseller of HPE, so we only deal with HPE solutions. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. If they had 50% more scalability in a single system, it would be ideal.

It is for dHCI, which is the hyper-converged infrastructure for HPE. It is replacing the tradition where when you have node storage, you have to purchase a model of switches. It combines the compute and storage.

Its benefits vary because I have used many models. I see it now handling VDI. Previously, when I had VDI and I put HPE for it, I would always go for Simplivity, whereas now, with the new model and GreenLake, they have attached Alletra to the cloud. It is serving people working from home a lot. They do not need to log in to do VPN anymore, create volumes, and manage their backups. If they have a full system for virtual storage, and they have Zerto for application replication, they can manage everything on the cloud. Zerto can also be managed on the cloud. If you have a stack, it does not matter how many systems you have. They all are going to show up in one interface. This is a huge benefit. Anything living in the storage can be monitored through the cloud.

HPE Alletra Storage has different models to cover SMBs, midsize companies, and enterprises. Enterprise companies with modern compute, CPU, and memory can have more virtual machines. It is easy for Alletra to grow and expand with the shelves. Customers are happy with it. Only one time I upgraded Alletra from 6010 to 6030 to add more storage and change the controllers. Customers are happy with Alletra. They do not complain. I never see them complain.

It is the simplicity of the deployment. They have unified all the features they have. For example, the creation and management of the storage was previously done through the plugins but with limited features. It was slow and had some challenges, whereas now, they have modern plug-ins that have more features and simulate the interface for the storage. Customers love it. The thing that they love the most about the plug-in is the one-click upgrade. They do not need to go to each device.

There can be more visibility and statistics for the customers to see. The customers would love to see AI. Even if it is not AI, there can be more visibility and real-time statistics that IT people can monitor and show to their bosses and impress them. To monitor things, they have reports, but the report system is old. Reports are by email. If they can show monthly growth and advise on the usage, it will make the lives of customers and IT people easy. They are going to love it. They would like to have one tool that can take them everywhere. There should be a single pane of glass. If they sit in a meeting, they should be able to answer questions related to whether they need more storage. They should not have had to go to different portals to get results, which creates confusion. If they have one place where they can see everything in graphics, it will be great.

We have been using HPE Alletra Storage for three years.

I have been working with HPE for six years. When I do an upgrade, I can see the Nimble that I installed for the customer five years ago as it is. No one touched it.

They continue to do a good job. I did not reach the max for anything. Every time I add a shelf for the customer, it takes 15 minutes. You just add a shelf, put the SaaS, and you are good to go.

Their support works very well. You can just grab the phone and reach out to their support. Their support answers you immediately. This is a big deal for the customers. 

I do deployment as well. Every time I get stuck at something or something goes wrong because something is missing or the customers do not have a proper configuration, I can reach out to their support immediately. I just pick up the phone, and they answer. We talk for ten minutes, and their support engineer understands the case. I open a secure channel for him to access or I give him a CLI with remote access. He applies his magic and reset the things.

I would rate them a ten out of ten because they get my issues solved. If the support engineer can not resolve an issue, he just escalates it. Being a technical person, I understand that the response can take longer. There could be some bugs, and their support team cannot give you the answer immediately.

Positive

I am HPE ASE certified. I do not bring any other customers to the game. I always present HPE. It has been six years since I have been doing this work for my company. We are beating Cisco. We are beating anyone with Dell PowerVault. We beat all of those models.

All the other companies have the same solution, but it comes down to knowing the expectations of the customer and putting things together for them from the switch to the compute to the storage. When you present them together, the result is going to be a yes. The price also plays a role, but HPE is what customers like to go for most of the time. About 70% of customers decide in advance where they will go, but some customers are surprised with the combination that we bring. We put Zerto, and we put the cloud for them. We provide them visibility and make the deployment easy for them. We give them administrator training. All these things that we add on top make customers comfortable to go with HPE even if they do not know HPE.

About 60% to 70% of customers go with the cheapest price, but they also need to see the performance and other things. We have a lot of customers. We took them to HPE Headquarters in Houston. We bring customers to events like HPE Discover. Last year, we brought a customer here and sold four sites to him with dHCI. We finished the Dallas one or the last one three months ago.

Our clients mostly use it on-prem, but they also use it for the DR site and HQ. 

The deployment is simple.

I would rate HPE Alletra Storage a nine out of ten. There should be 99% uptime. There are no issues with dHCI when it comes to upgrades, but with Alletra, they need to have the ESXi upgraded to the latest version. They need to use the correct or compatible plug-ins for it. Every time you go up with the storage, you need to look at your environment. Customers are probably not aware of all this because they do not create volumes every year or every day. There are certain things they need to keep in mind to upgrade. I do not blame the device. They need to initiate a call with the support for compatibility to ensure that everything will work.

We were replacing our 3PAR with Alletra. 

Alletra has mainly helped our organization by offering us improved performance. 

The speed is very impressive. The reliability is excellent. We haven't had a single issue with it.

Alletra provides a cloud-like operational model on-prem. It hasn't affected operations. 

It's very good at predicting and preventing problems. It's very robust. It notifies you of any issues at all. That said, we haven't had any early warnings. I've seen some messages. Overall, I'm pretty impressed at the proactiveness. 

The guarantee of data availability has been important. To have that kind of guarantee is something we don't get from other vendors.

Alletra has helped reduce the time spent on storage and provisioning. 3PAR was pretty easy on this count as well. It does reduce maybe 25% or so. 

The solution has improved our storage performance in terms of IOPs by about 15%.

We haven't had any storage-related support tickets.

I'd like to see a migration tool. That doesn't seem to be available on Alletra. It was fairly difficult to migrate the data from 3PAR over. 

I've been using Alletra for about two years. 

The stability of the solution is rock-solid. 

It's really easy to expand Alletra on the fly. We don't have to take an outage, which is important.

We haven't had any issues per se and haven't had to call support.

We previously used 3PAR. It was coming up on the end of life, which was why we switched. 

We got it up and running in just a few days.

Deploying was really straightforward. It's just a matter of hooking it up to the fabric and then learning the management interface. That was probably the biggest time-consuming factor - just learning the differences between the new management interface and 3PAR.

We got the product through GreenLake. We had someone from HPE come out and provide a basic overview. 

We have witnessed a bit of ROI since using Alletra. 

Licensing and cost weren't an issue at all. 

We didn't really look at other solutions. We considered NetApp, however, it got eliminated quickly based on price and performance. Alletra was a lot better. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten based on the performance, reliability, and price point.