HPE Hyper Converged Reviews

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.

HPE Hyper Converged handles all the network setup for my servers and data.

My experience is in SMBs.

Before we bought the HPE Hyper Converged servers, we had scattered systems and servers. Our data was scattered. When the solution came into place, we were able to connect all our data and organize it in one place. Now, our storage and IT are at an enterprise level with all the necessary controls and restrictions being enacted.

We will also be using the HPE Hyper Converged solution for simulations going forward once we install SAP.

The performance is robust for HPE Hyper Converged. We have been underutilizing the storage. Though, we have almost consumed 70 percent of the storage, and I can access my data whenever I want without searching all over the place for it.

In comparison, the VxRail is better in resource utilization and performance. It is also faster. It automatically will detect anything and configure anything. Learning VxRail is easier, as everything is native and linked together.

The storage efficiency is weak and needs to be improved. However, I do not think HPE is planning to improve it at this time. They will probably look to EOL it, because HPE SimpliVity has resolved this issue, but at a higher price tag.

To resolve this issue with HPE Hyper Converged, I will buy a backup appliance, then I will shift my data which I am not using often to a backup appliance. This will be offline data and solve my issues.

It is a stable solution because combined with VMware, which is always stable. It is very robust. 

HPE Hyper Converged supports up to 60 nodes. It is scalable, but we have to use the HPE OneView solution and have it to pass through vCenter. This consumes 10 cores of CPUs, which compromises performance.

Dell EMC VxRail supports up to 32 nodes, but is more futuristic and easier to scale. If you want to scale up, you just plug the nodes, then the cluster will detect the new node and configure it.

With Dell EMC, they own everything and create one solution altogether. They design it in the way where they know the weaknesses of every solution that they have. 

This is much better than HPE. For example, I remember during the last storage issue that I had. HPE technical guys weren't able to support it, so I had to go back to VMware. This creates a loop or weakness. 

When you buy from Dell EMC directly, you receive that one point of contact for service and support.

The implementation took almost two days for us, even though HPE told us that it would take two hours.

When comparing VxRail vs HPE Hyper Converged, VxRail is easier to implement. You just initiate the start, then it automatically starts the configuration. It detects the nodes and everything else. Everything which is connected to the data center is set up within two to three hours (maximum). While I haven't done the set up, I have seen it done.

Pricing with Dell EMC is double the price which I paid for HPE. However, in the end, Dell EMC is double in performance. This is not an apple to apple comparison though, as I have a four node from Dell EMC and a three node.

I don't feel VxRail is that expensive.

The competitors in the market are HPE SimpliVity, VxRail, and Nutanix. All these solutions are extremely pricey. 

I feel VxRail is one of the best solutions you might ever have because of the protection it offers. 

SimpliVity is good, and it's reliable. It supports one node.

HP 380 is not up to the level of VMware products. They have more features, such as duplication or compression. 

My entire environment is actualized in VMware.

Before choosing a product, think why you are buying, the reason, and what you are looking to get from it. If you have too much data or you want to store data, seeking a hyperconverged storage will be costly. It will not be efficient for you. You should look into alternative storage solutions and ways of implementation before buying a hyperconverged solution. Make sure you are actually need those features.

The future is in hyperconverged solutions. They are much easier to manage and run. They are flawless. You can just log into VMware and have everything in front of you. However, it's costly compared to a traditional setup. 

A company should look at the data protection features, because in the end, the most valuable asset in any organization is its data. It should be protected as much as possible. Consider the way it works, with its space saving and space efficiency. Those are the key factors you should look at before deciding on a solution.

I would rate HPE Hyper Converged as seven out of ten.

I would rate VxRail as a nine out of ten.

The customers we have think it's a valuable product because of its ease of management, and its ability to work over different locations, and so on. The ease of management helps our customers’ business because they don't need to do so much with it. It just works. It's easy to provision, and so on.

I would like to see price points when there are larger solutions. If we have a solution where we’re going up against a couple hundreds of TBs, the price point is often too high.

It is a very stable solution, absolutely. When you're doing network RAID and so on, it's very stable because if one node goes down, it's still protected.

It is very scalable. You can scale up from two nodes to almost infinite nodes.

It is not difficult at all to deploy. You just plug and play, sort of. It's not very consultant-friendly.

Our customers would be looking at the top competitors like EMC and Dell. They chose StoreVisual because it’s a better product. I don't know much about the others. I only work with HPE.

We like that HPE Hyper Converged requires only information about the solution.

It provides unmatched performance, productivity and reliability, and its HPC technologies and workflow provide downtime and increase the technology. It is an investment that improves profit margins to achieve breakthrough results.

This solution has optimized utilization and efficiency that simplifies the administrations for the cluster and close and supercomputers. It is also beneficial to maintain the HPC workload.

We like the fact that it is reliable.

This solution is very costly.

We have been using this solution for about three years.

It is a stable solution. 

The scalability is fair. 

We have had no issues with the technical support. 

I rate this solution eight out of ten.

Our primary use case of this solution is to keep all our data storage in one solution. 

What I really like about this program, is that it needs little space and it works really fast, so it saves us time. 

I would really like to see an improvement in the stability. We've experienced a few issues with the stability, because HP brings out a new version every month, and that's very complicated. For instance, we see firmware from the host, vSphere itself, and then there are many steps you have to do in a very short time. I would prefer fewer updates because we as customers, who don't have IT experience, aren't familiar with these steps and it is really difficult for us.

In the next version, I would like to see an easier upgrade procedure that doesn't take much time and that is easier to understand. 

The solution is not very stable.

I believe the solution is scalable, but the license gets more expensive if you add more users. And then you also need more hardware from HP when you scale. You need the license from vSphere, from VMware, and then it costs a lot. That makes us wonder if it is really the best solution for us. I, therefore, think it is just too expensive to scale. 

I am not very impressed by the technical support. The problem is that HP came out years ago and it was independent. But then HP bought out DVT so we had to learn how to work on the new equipment and how it works. That was not easy and the support was medium. You have to do it a lot for yourself.

The solution is expensive - not only the hardware costs but server costs too. And the more you scale, the more expensive it gets. 

My advice to others would be to clearly know what you want. Do you want more disk space? More storage? What is your goal with this program? In a hyper-converged environment you have many applications that need more storage and then it gets expensive. Also if you want to scale and if you have to do backups and make snapshots. If you need regular storage, you simply use a disc in and it's easier. 

I rate this solution a five or six out of ten.

Before deploying the product, we did not have any enterprise IT infrastructure. Now, with the HC380 deployment, we succeeded in building all the required servers, organizing the data and protecting it, which has increased our operational efficiency and level. 

Now, we have flexibility thanks to HPE HC380 and VMware.

1. The ease of use and management. 
2. The speed: It is extremely fast. 
3. The price per value compared to other solutions, like Nutanix and SimpliVity. (We made the deal before approval of HPE SimpliVity deal). 
4. The HA, which means I have a copy of the VMs always available, and the moment a VM is down, the system tries to power it on again. 

The drawback: I do not have deduplication, compression, and DR features, which were later addressed through HPE SimpliVity acquisition.

Data protection and optimization: It is really weak. They do not offer deduplication or compression. Also, we do not have a real backup solution. It is just snapshots, which is forcing us to do automatic backups of the extremely important data on different servers. Thus, if I can have a deal with HPE to have an upgrade to SimpliVity with our current agreement, it would work well. We are in negotiations and we hope to reach happy ending soon.

Not yet at all. It is very stable and robust. The only problem HC380 has is the data backup and management (deduplication, compression, and WAN optimization).

I have not faced this as we have not scaled up yet. We might scale up as we are planning to implement SAP S/4HANA.

I have proactive support from HPE. Their support is really good and the moment you need them, you can find them.

Not at all. Previously, we did not have a hyper-converged solution.

The initial setup took almost two days as we were the first to implement this solution in the region and none of the team had experience, although they were trained. They were always in contact with HPE support.

HPE pricing is good. It was much cheaper than their competitors. It does not have any hidden costs as the other competitors. I just have to pay for the support after my three year support contract finishes.

Yes, Nutanix and SimpliVity. 

Nutanix pricing was slightly more expensive. After three years, I have to pay support three times more than what I will pay for HPE. 

For SimpliVity, buying two servers of SimpliVity would cost me twice as much as buying three servers of HPE HC380 at that time of purchase. Now, the gap has been reduced, that is why I am in discussions with them.

It is a very robust solution and easy to manage. If you do not have the budget limitation constraints, my advice is to go for HPE SimpliVity as it is the most complete solution until now, if I am not mistaken.

The time to deploy is very fast.

The provisioning is very fast. It’s not a problem for us to achieve the goals of the client.

I would like to see a more intuitive, user-friendly UI.

It is stable 95% of the time, and the rest is due to human error.

We haven't developed a scalability platform yet.

I would give technical support a rating of 10/10. We call for typical issues. Even for those of us who have taken the courses and are certified, we sometimes have issues that we need help with.

We knew we had to invest in a new solution because we needed more stability and faster connections. We didn’t have a solution previous to this one. In my country, we don't have many choices to select companies to provide us with hardware. HPE is in my country. We also had Dell, but we don't trust Dell. We had so many issues with Dell. So now it's all HPE.

The installation was very complex.

Take a course first, even if you are an engineer. At least take a course for the administration of this product. This can be very complex to use.

We are partners with HPE.

The solution is reasonably priced and easy to manage for the smaller to medium size business companies where they don't need an IT department. HPE is a great company with a great product. All the tools that we use on a daily basis are great. We can use configuration tools that HPE provides for sizing the solutions to our clients, and they have several tools to gather information from our data centers which don't cost. 

The downside of the solution is the scalability because they grow using nodes, but it's not desegregate. If you want to add more computers or more space, you need to add another node. It's the only negative in the solution. 

I've been using HPE products for the past 20 years. 

I rate this product a 10 out of 10.