HPE Hyper Converged Reviews

The solution's most valuable features are scalability, easy migration, easy recovery, and flexible backup possibilities.

The solution's pricing for the hardware and support could be reduced.

I have been using HPE Hyper Converged for two or three years.

HPE Hyper Converged is a very stable solution.

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

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

The solution's deployment takes more than three days with the testing and everything in place.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten.

We have three nodes with software-defined storage virtualization based on KVM. We also use oVirt as an open-source solution. HPE Hyper Converged has simplified our data center operations.

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

We had four ESX hosts and a big storage rack. We needed to replace it really quickly. It's all VMware stuff and it involved moving it over. The unit came in. Our lead architect spent an hour with it, figured out a couple IP addresses that it needed to have, and it was up and running in four hours. He was able to migrate all the workloads off the old equipment in three days. From the time it came into the building, it took three days. Everything was moved over.

He was moving things slowly at first, moving non-critical things during the day. Then once we saw it was non-impact, he just moved the rest of it. That old equipment was ready to go just like that. This is a C250, which doesn't have the back up and all the extra features that SimpliVity has, but if they're delivering that kind of functionality in the same way that they delivered the C250, then that'd be great.

The most valuable feature was its time to delivery.

I'm guessing that the next release will be the SimpliVity stack. I don't know. It seems like they've got a lot of features packed in there. There's nothing that comes to mind in terms of improvement. It has worked pretty well. We've had to do a power cycle to bring it all the way down, bring it back up for power outages, A/C shut-downs of our DC office, but it hasn't presented a problem.

Stability is really good. I guess there's not much else to say. We've been running it for a year and a half. We bought it near the beginning of its offering to meet a specific challenge. We were a little bit nervous at first. We looked at Nutanix. We looked at some other hyper-converged units. We saw the HPE offering as a value proposition for us. It's worked out pretty well. We have decided to set that as a standard for our remote and branch offices. In fact, we just ordered another one for our San Francisco office to replace their equipment.

Scalability is a question that we have. We only have four node units and we were wondering if it makes sense. Where's the inflection point here? Will we actually implement that in our data center? Do we want a standard composable system, or would we do a bunch of nodes? At this point, we have a bunch of SimpliVity nodes versus blades plus Nimble Storage.

That's a decision that we're going to be looking at in the next two years. I'm very interested to see testimonies of how it scales. I just came from the Red Bull presentation, and it looks like they had a similar amount of VMs and storage, and they moved everything to six nodes of SimpliVity. That's very encouraging.

We haven’t needed to use technical support.

We decided on HPE because it was at the right price point. There's a certain brand confidence that we had with it. All of our other equipment worked with HPE. We had a good a good partner and it was at the right price point.

We knew it was time to look for a new product because we were doing a renovation in our DC office, which is our main office. We were moving a large amount of equipment to a new co-location in Ashburn, which is outside of Washington, DC. We still needed to maintain a significant amount of compute and storage on premises. As part of the renovation, we were losing our 400-square-foot computer room, and it was going down to maybe 150 square feet. We had to significantly reduce our rack space. In essence, we had to reduce two and a half racks down to two. That was one of the drivers. We wanted to reduce the amount of power, the number of UPS units, and the cooling. This solution hit all of those targets.

When I first went to get the product, it was a little bit of sticking my neck out, taking a little bit of a risk. For someone who's very risk-averse, that was my first step out. Looking back after a year and a half, I really think that it was the right decision.

It has made my job easier. As we're thinking about San Francisco, we had a month to try to figure out, "How are we going to move all this equipment?" We decided, let's get a new hyper-converged unit and move everything over. Then we'll leave the old equipment. We don't need to pay for the transportation costs of that old equipment. We can decommission it and send it back early, because it was on lease.

I was not directly involved in the initial setup, but I was watching it. He finished it an hour or two. From what he said, it was pretty straightforward.

We looked at Nutanix. We looked at some other hyper-converged units.

Make sure that you order the right connectors to connect to your existing storage to move everything. Make sure that you have that inter-connect to move all your data off of your old legacy equipment.

I just know that it works. If you find a good partner that gives you a PoC unit, I'm sure that they'll find that it's quick to get up and running.

With the primary data center of clients where we do virtualization, Hyper Convergence basically gives them a little advantage over the traditional virtualization. The solution is used on-premise.

There are multiple advantages. Typically, being an all-flash storage, which is available through either SimpliVity or dHCI, the performance is much better because the IOPS goes high. It's more powerful in terms of performance. Secondly, if I'm talking about the SimpliVity Hyper Convergence solution from HPE, unlike the competition, even if three hard drives fail, you are still running the solution. With the competition, if two hard drives fail, they're out of the picture. Whereas with HPE Hyper Converged, in each node, even if three hard drives go down, they're better. There's continuity.

In the Hyper Converged environment, some of the brands only support the OS VMware and not Hyper-V from Microsoft or even Red Hat or KVM. I'm specifically talking about certain propositions in the dHCI that only support VMware as the Hypervisor. They could have all different layers of Hypervisors, like the KVM or X, Y, Z.

Currently dHci Nimble offers only VMware as native hypervisor and will be great if it can support others  like Red Hat, KVM etc too. Although this is not a limitation as one can install Red Hat & other operating systems as a Virtual machine on top of VMware hypervisor. 

I have been using HPE Hyper Converged for more than five years now.

The solution is very stable. I haven't seen any failures with the deployments we have in the Hyper Convergence environment.

If I talk about HPE Enterprise SimpliVity, the scalability is there because you can add on nodes. If you're talking about the Converged level, there could be a lot of improvements because if I do an upgrade on one node, I need to do that similarly on the second node, which increases costs.

The support layer from HPE is pretty good. If you are purchasing that from HPE Enterprise at the time of purchasing the equipment, the support is pretty smooth.

Positive

Initial setup is pretty easy. It's not that complicated.

If I'm comparing the solution with Dell, HPE Hyper Converged is definitely cheaper in my experience.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.

dSCI is Disaggregated Hyper Convergence. For the existing investment that a customer has done on a HPE platform, for example, they don't need to throw away that investment because they can re-utilize them in the dHCI configuration. Secondly, it's more scalable at the component level. That means I can upgrade when required for storage or computing needs separately. I don't need to do the same, like what they used to do in SimpliVity.

Until recently, I was selling HPE SimpliVity. After dHCI has come in the picture with Nimble, we started promoting that because they have better features. When it comes to Hyper Convergence only, the features in SimpliVity and dHCI are different.

It's easier to maintain. We think it offers performance benefits and easier use.

We like the fact that the hyper-converged infrastructure provides a simple to grow, easy to configure platform. It meets our needs now, but if there's growth later, it's easy to add on another node or two.

You don't have to go out and get more servers and get additional pieces of the SAN. It's one box that has its own warranty, so it's not mixing. With the SAN, you'd get additional drives, but they'd have a warranty that started and ended separate from the original SAN. It got complicated. This makes all of that process easier.

From the release that we have, we'd like to see better integration with vCenter and OneView. I believe the vCenter integration is available in an update that was released earlier this year. We have not applied it yet. It is complex to set up and it is not something you would really want to have to do yourself.

The software version on the HC380s we are using is version 1. It does not support spanned vCenter which we use since we have multiple sites. I heard that the version 2 of the software handles that better.

We are working with HPE to get the software updated to the new version.

Our implementation involved two separate clusters at two different locations. We wanted to be able to manage the two clusters from a peered vcenter instance so we could have 2 independent clusters but one management point. The version of software and OneView that were available at the time of installation did not support peered vCenters.

So better integration will all of the features supported by vCenter. There might be another option it was not discussed at the time of the install if there was or is.

We haven't had any issues with the stability. We're still in a pre-production phase and there was a drive fail in the first couple months. That's not uncommon for the initial stages. We haven't any other issues.

We haven't scaled it, but that's one of the reasons why we chose it, because of the fact that it is scalable.

We used technical support for the drive. They were very good.

We've been looking for something that was easily scalable and would meet our needs for our VMware platform. When we came across this solution, it fit those needs. When selecting a vendor, we look for reputation.

The setup was a little bit complex. There were a lot of things to do with the USB drive to reload the images and then build it up. If it didn't build in a particular order, then that node has to be reloaded and you start all over again. They were also fairly new at the time, so hopefully it's gotten easier since then.

We also looked at Simplivity and Nutanix. Simplivity was really our vendor of choice, but the price point was a little high and they didn't have the longevity that we were looking for in a vendor. If we were to do this again today, we probably choose Simplivity, because they were acquired by HPE.

They should talk with their HPE rep and see about either getting a demo or having a technical conversation about that. It's worth the time.

For HPE Hyper Converged 380, the added value is not having to buy multiple elements – servers, hard disks, memories, CPU, cables, and software – because you have to unpack it, install it, and update the firmware. You have to do it all by yourself.

With this solution, I buy everything together, pre-packaged, pre-installed, and in just 15 minutes, it's installed. It just asks a few questions about IP address and user passwords, and everything is installed. You don't need to have experts in servers, storage, and networking because an IT generalist can do the installation. That's why it's good in remote sites, remote offices, lines of business, and deployments. That is the real added value of this solution.

I would like to see improvement in the hardware underneath it. Currently, it's a Gen9 DL380. One day, there will be a Gen10 DL380 and maybe they will have bigger or smaller sizes.

The HE380 is already a good step forward with the first product, which was the CS250, which was really cool. It was just a 2U box (chassis). It had a lot of performance in there, but not that much flexibility on the storage and VDI side.

HPE CS380 is really spot on. It is the right answer from HPE to give you more flexibility. The next thing will be newer, faster hardware, more flexibility, and more options to get even more flexibility.

This solution is a DL380 server which is already the best-selling server in the last 20 years in the world. It is proven technology, so I'm quite confident that the technology and the hardware are proven. It is good. It is rock solid.

I've been in IT a long time, so I realize that by attending conferences, such as a recent one, it’s not just for the announcements. For me, it's more of a networking thing, shaking hands, and getting to know people. At these events, you can meet the developers and the product managers. It opens up doors so you can become more independent of that one phone number. It’s quite important knowing people.

If you do the networking, you feel that the service you get is top notch.
You get even more service. It makes it easier to get to the second and third line of support because you know what you're talking about. You get more information than just the marketing fluff. I know what it's about because I'm able to communicate directly with the hardware and software guys and the product managers.

One of my things I do in my company is publish a technology blog which is quite technical for the type of audience that I have. There is there an article in the blog about how to install this solution in 15 minutes. My nine-year-old daughter can do it.

In my pre-sales role, I see other customers looking at competitive solutions, be it Intel, EMC, or Nutanix. They all have some strengths.

The Nutanix solution is cool, because it's simple. But it's software and I'm not convinced about any of the hardware underneath it. Some people say, "Yeah, the hardware's not important." However, I have some real-life scenarios, cases with customers, in which it was proven that they had the software, they had the hardware, but they had a hardware issue and the software screwed up.

I prefer to go for the HPE solution. This is not because Nutanix is bad, but they are just a software company, independent of the hardware. I feel more confident with HPE because I know they build the hardware and the software. If I have a problem, I can contact one person with one phone number and I can make contact. I know the hardware guy and I know the software guy.

With Nutanix, for instance, this is not the case. They also say, "we have one phone number," but if they have a problem with the rate controller in their server, they have to call Dell or Lenovo. They have to escalate the case. They are not going to be able to solve my problem. They are going to escalate it.

I'm with HPE. I know that HPE will solve my problem directly.

One of the good features would be the fast backup solution Hyper Converged offers, which is more efficient compared to other vendors.

Another key feature would be that the upgrade process is much easier, especially when adding the third and fourth nodes. The availability, user interface, and configuration are also straightforward.

The improvements could be customization and backup efficiency.

I have been working with this solution since HPE started selling Hyper Converged products around 2014. So, it has been nine years now.

Stability is very good. I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

It is a highly scalable solution. I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten.

The support is very good. Every time we do an installation, HPE directly handles the support. However, we have to pay separately for the support.

Positive

The initial setup is very easy. Not much of a complex process. 

I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one being difficult and ten being easy. It's quite straightforward.

Considering the features it offers, I'd say it's not very cost-effective, but it provides real value for the money.

I would recommend it because of the global support they provide, the ease of installation, and the availability of after-sales support. 

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. More customization and improved backup efficiency compared to traditional systems. These features would make it a ten and are what I recommend to others using HPE.

In this particular case, the HPE Hyper Converged solution is used in a hybrid cloud configuration. We assess the disk space and partition additional capacity. 

The performance is good compared to the cost of the solution. I offer it to my customers. If we propose a solution, we must ensure that the platform quality is very high. Also, the cost of the solution is important.

I'm not using the solution in my data center but for customer systems integration. The solution is not installed in my data center. We use it in customer offices.

We install and configure the HPE Hyper Converged device for our customers. They shared with us that they had a positive experience using it in production.

In my company, there are more than 2,000 users. This does not include our clients. The initial deployment of HPE Hyper Converged is a dimension that is going to be here in the future.

We value the ability it offers to create a fault-tolerant site. At the moment, the solution permits us to use a default domain but is not supportive of many simultaneous customers. HPE offers many enterprise solutions for our business clients.

The most valuable features of the HPE Hyper Converged (standard version) are deduplication and compression. We need more of these features on the platform.

Some improvement is required in the availability of the data and performance. The solution is too expensive for our customers. The pricing should be lower. HPE Hyper Converged is more expensive than traditional solutions without HCI, but our customers are impressed with the overall features of this product.

The stability is very good. I've executed a lot faster. The system responded very well. 

We require scalability for accomplishing financial requirements in customer accounts, as well as for augmented media and resources. HPE Hyper Converged is very scalable.

I can expand the space on the disk simply. If the need for computational capacity increases, I can add a new server and increase the amount of RAM and CPU. 

I can increase the RAM and CPU allocations without disruption of business operations for the customers in just a few simple steps.

The initial setup of HPE Hyper Converged is straightforward. It is simple. I prepared for it very well. I didn't have any problems or issues during the setup phase.

We did not use an integrator or reseller for the deployment. We installed it ourselves.

The price of HPE Hyper Converged is too high if I compare the product with a traditional solution or an alternative like SimpliVity. 

I have to pay the licensing for the CPU on top of the software and device costs.

On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate HPE Hyper Converged an eight.

The flexibility, scalability, reliability, and all the various abilities. Those are really the key elements to it.

Flexibility, it can spin up new server to meet business needs at will. I don't have to worry about buying a new box, provisioning it, all the issues that go along with that. I like the fact that it's taken us from approximately 23 servers down to three ProLiant servers running the StoreVirtual VSA. We have had a big reduction in our electricity consumption, the cooling requirements for our server room dropped dramatically and the reliability has been fantastic with it.

Ease of management, as I come from a software background, and I'm responsible for IT overall. I can get in there and turn some nuts and bolts and make things happen without any trouble and they've done a really nice job putting that all together. I'm very happy with it overall.

It could be cheaper, everything could be cheaper.

Excellent, I can't think of one instance where we've had downtime. It's been just outstanding all around.

We've had to add virtual machines to fulfill different server needs. Other than that we haven't had to do much since we implemented last summer. Last July is when we went live with this solution. That would be the key thing that we've been able to do with it.

I've only contacted them once when we had an issue. It was our issue, as the managers of the system, we had a space provisioning issue that we had to reach out to HPE to get assistance with. I wasn't actually on the phone with them. Our vendor, who provided this system, was interacting with HPE support but as far as I know it went very well.

We had two eight foot tall racks stuffed full of servers that were connected together in various ways.

I was in charge of hiring the people that did the setup. We had an outside vendor come in and do the installation for us and the setup seemed to go extremely smoothly. Probably out of the 23 bare metal boxes we virtualized 18 of them or something, 16 or 18 of them and that all went exactly as expected. Very few hiccups during that project.

For us, once our vendor explained this option we knew it was right for what we wanted to do. We're a marketing company and we need to change and react quickly and respond to business ideas very quickly. This virtual environment really is responsive to that. I don't see a downside to it from anybody else's point of view. I would recommend it to just about anybody who was considering it.

Our biggest considerations were how big we were going to go with it so we would end up with three ProLiants, but we need four. What's the storage capacity? What percentage of it is SSD as opposed to hard disks and those kinds of things. That is, for us, where we really had to scratch our heads and think very carefully about that to get the most out of our dollar for that and then how we would budget in the future. When you're putting it together, if you're on a tight budget, we're a small company so we had a pretty tight budget, we were able to do it in such a way to provision it pretty lightly, without a lot of headroom, knowing that in the future the scalability and flexibility of the system will really allow you to add and expand later with very little pain.