HPE Hyper Converged Reviews

We use HPE Hyper Converged for IT infrastructure. 

The solution needs to add a module or plugin of vCenter for clear monitoring and insights. 

I have been using the solution for five years. 

HPE Hyper Converged is stable. 

The solution is scalable. We have more than 1,200 users for the product. 

We get very good technical support for HPE Hyper Converged. 

The tool's installation takes three days to complete. We need two resources to handle the tool's deployment. 

We deployed the solution in-house. 

HPE Hyper Converged is an affordable solution. 

I rate the product an eight out of ten. 

These days, most of our customers prefer Hyper Converged because of its performance and because it's an all-in-one solution. It's easier to manage. Our current client has 200 users.

Hyper Converge is easier to manage and performs better than traditional infrastructure.

We have faced some challenges when upgrading. With Hyper Converged, you have to fully upgrade because there are no incremental upgrades available in this solution. For example, let's say we have two nodes. If we want to upgrade storage, we also need to upgrade computing. That means a full upgrade EME. 

We have been using Hyper Converged for nearly four years.

Hyper Converged is highly stable because it's installed on our VMware platform. It's well designed and integrated with our Hypervisor software. 

Hyper Converged is scalable but there are some complications.  If we want to scale, we have to scale to the full capacity. We cannot go for granular upgrades. You can mention that we can upgrade, but for scalability, we need to add more notes. There is no granular options to upgrade the system.

I rate HPE Hyper Converged eight out of 10. I rate Hyper Converged eight because there are still some competing solutions doing better than HPE on Gartner's Magic Quadrant. 

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.

We primarily use the solution for internal applications.

Hyper-convergence is the most valuable aspect of the solution. We can avoid downtime when there's maintenance or updates needed. Also, we have homogenous hardware, so we have a lot of trust in the solution's reliability.

The pricing could be improved. It's quite an expensive solution.

The solution would be better served if it integrated with other solutions better.

The stability of the solution isn't bad. It's a good product.

The solution is scalable.

I would rate technical support seven out of ten. Sometimes we have had some delays in receiving parts or resolving issues. 

By the time I had started working with my employer, the solution was already set up, so I can't speak to how easy or difficult it was to implement.

Our technical team deployed the solution. It takes about four or five people to deploy and maintain it.

I use the on-premises deployment model.

HP has more experience making hyper-converge conversions, so they're easy to manage, and there are a lot of products that are compatible with it. Whether or not it would work for others depends on their environment. The solution would work best for businesses that are small to medium in size. I'm not sure how well it would work in a large environment.  

I would recommend the product to others. I would rate it eight out of ten.

So far the solution has simplified the usage.

I've found the data protection features the most valuable.

The price can be improved. We would like to see support for some open source virtualization technology like for example KVM.

Stability is very good. 

In terms of scalability, a lot has been done so it's quite easy to add additional load. Since it is only a testing system, there is a relatively small number of people using the solution right now. Less than 10 people are using it.

In general, HP has good technical support. There are local teams here, and usually, the first level is done by contacting them. HP is not directly present. They changed their model, and a new company, that they selected, represents them here.

We did previously use another solution, but we felt it was time to try something else.

The setup was quite easy.

We implemented with the help of HP.

I would say that this solution is good depending on your needs and on budget. It's a good solution. Compared to the previous solution we used, it may not be vas good. But generally speaking, it's okay. I cannot say anything bad. It's only very small differences.

I would rate this solution eight out of 10. I would still like to see some other hypervisors available as an option to be used on the system - like KVM or Microsoft Hyper-V.

Our main use of the HPE Hyper Converged is for datacenter consolidation.

The most valuable features are the ease of use, resiliency of solution and data protection.

I would like to see more flexibility in the offered configurations.

For instance a software-only version of the solution, without the hardware, would be nice. This would give me the opportunity to use existing hardware in my datacenter and run the Simplivity software on top of that giving me access to all nice features of the Data Virtualization Platform of Simplivity.

I haven't had any issues with stability.

It fulfills all my needs. All the things I need to scale everything up is possible with the solution. It depends of course on how many users have already used it. I have no plans to increase, but the solution allows for growth. I just don't actually use it today.

So far, the support has been really good.

Adding InfoSight to Simplivity will make support even better with its AI engine.

I used the previous generation of HPE hyper converged, which was based on VSA technology. We switched because the VSA was going to end of support and I need a solution that is supported by the manufacturers.

It was really straightforward. The deployment took in total somewhere around two hours.

I did the deployment by myself.

When I look at the TCO of this solution is this much better compared to my old traditional environment

I watched to vSAN and Storage Spaces, but found some limitations that I did not see in the HPE solution.

The assessment of the current configuration is the most important to make a good sizing of the new solution because it does good duplication and compression, but it's really hard to select the correct product sizing.

I would rate this solution as nine out of ten because ten is perfect and there is nothing on the market that is perfect.

It helped our business continuity. For example, if you have a failed disk or you have some errors, the system keeps running and you have time to fix it. The HPE computer center is notified automatically and they help us fix the problems.

The solution is integrated in a Hyper Converged unit. We don't really use this tool, but it manages our storage for us so that it becomes one logical unit that you can attach to the server.

Because it's so well integrated, you can't get away from it. You can't replace one part without the whole tool going down.

I would like to see more deduplication. This is incredibly important, because if you have five sets of the same piece of data, it is stored five times. We only want it stored once to save space.

This is a very stable tool. However, if you run out of space, the warnings are not very clear. Our administrators don't know that it ran of space and then the whole system is locked up. This is pretty annoying.

The scalability of this tool is very good. You can basically add more storage and seamlessly expand the current storage that you have.

We have used technical support. When we had downtime, we called technical support to help us troubleshoot the problem. It took us a very long time to get connected to them. We had different numbers on the website, and some of the numbers were wrong. You have different websites with different numbers and it's very difficult to get through to them. It took us about half an hour to deal with a P1 priority system that was down. Once we got in, it was perfect. But it took us a while to get in.

Previous to this solution, we were using normal blade servers. However, we wanted one unit where you can upgrade all of the OS and the firmware in one shot. We don't want to upgrade all the different pieces separately.

Our short list of alternatives was IBM and HPE. We don't use anybody else besides HPE for our data center. We don't use Dell. We have ordered all our stuff from HPE, so this solution was the logical choice.

You can build similar solutions by just using regular servers and then using 3PAR Storage. You can create the same kind of continuity and reliability so you don't have one unit that is enclosed.

When choosing a vendor, I look for reliability, continuity, and price.

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.