HPE Nimble Storage Reviews

1. Simplified storage administration

A dedicated storage administrator is no longer needed. All of our engineers have attended the one-day training and has the knowledge how to handle the Storage Systems. With our former SAN systems we had to have an external contractor doing part time administration for us due to the complexity. Now we can easily handle the Storage systems ourselves.

2. Very efficient adaptive flash technology

Even without having hundreds of rotating disks like we had in our former SAN system or having to buy an All-flash Storage, we get predictable and low latency numbers for all of our Storage Systems.

3. Simple snapshot management

Managing Snapshots through Volume collections and Protection Plans it’s easy to make sure new volumes get the appropriate replication and snapshot plan applied, which is easy to maintain and change for all volumes. The overview of used storage for snapshots and the ease of use when cloning a snapshot is remarkable compared to legacy Storage products.

4. Central monitoring and health check via the Nimble InfoSight

The InfoSight portal gives us an overall overview of all our Storage Systems and their volumes, snapshots and protection. InfoSight collects data and creates both automatically generated tickets for any problems or risk of problems as well as predictions of storage use based on usage trends. This helps us a lot avoiding anything from volume protection configuration mishaps to prediction on storage outage.

Increased administrative simplicity and predictable performance.

• Improved snapshot overview in array management GUI.
• Possibility to apply centralized policies across multiple systems.

Close to a year. In total we're running about ten systems.

One uptime related firmware bug, which was possible to work around and fixed in a later release.

No, not so far.

We rate the support as very knowledgeable in the product platform.

Yes, the switch was made to gain a less complex design with regards to setup and administration.

The initial setup was very simple and after one day of education all tech staff were comfortable with the platform.

One benefit with the Nimble Storage platform is that is doesn’t contain any software licenses. All functionality comes built-in to the platform.

We compared both traditional vendors as NetApp and HPE, as well as up-comers like Pure Storage, Violin, SolidFire, Microsoft Storage Server and others.

Embrace simplicity – no more in-house deployed admin tools or tricky CLI GUI’s, just a simple and understandable web interface.

Depending on which product platform you are about to replace – you will either just gain a far better and predictable performance or a journey where you will have to leave the comfort of having a multi-protocol NAS into NFS and OR SMB file servers using Nimble block storage in the backend.

The most valuable feature is the NVMe flash storage.

We would like there to be more enhanced features.

I have been using the solution HPE Nimble Storage for approximately one year.

The stability and performance are very good.

The solution is easy to scale, but there are some limitations. We would like to add more storage but there are certain limitations.

We have a small environment, and six people are using this solution in my organization on a daily basis.

We had some issues with the configuration and we contacted support. We were satisfied.

HPE did the implementation of the solution for us with their certified engineers and it took approximately one week.

HPE Nimble Storage is more expensive than some of the other solutions, such as Pure Storage. They charge more for every feature than other vendors.

We are not utilizing the maximum functions. We are utilizing the protect facilities. 

HPE Nimble Storage is a good solution. it is useable in a production environment. However, the useability all depends on the environment. After a year if you want to renew the support, or have enhancements it is going to cost you more. Planning is very important.

We have switched from HPE Nimble Storage and we now use Pure Storage. 

I rate HPE Nimble Storage an eight out of ten.

Our primary use for this solution is SAN storage for virtual server workloads. We do not use cloud volumes.

This is a storage solution and while it is faster than our old storage platform, that in and of itself hasn't really improved any of the operational aspects of the company.

Performance has been restored to the same level of what we replaced, although it has taken six months of working with Hewlett Packard to allow them to understand our unique environment.

I don't think that it's fair to say that All-Flash is for growth. It's the next logical progression that we had to make.

I really like the form factor, which is nice and compact and small. 

We do use Infosight, but it does not greatly affect us because we are one hundred percent Hyper-V, and the analytics are not yet released for that environment. I know that they are coming later this year.

The storage capacity efficiency is very good. 

It would have been nice if the vendor had informed us of a known bug that occurred during the firmware upgrade because we could have prevented our only major failure.

I would like to see greater integration with Microsoft's Hyper-V platform. We are one hundred percent Hyper-V and no longer have use for the expensive VMware platform.

This solution is very stable. The uptime is excellent. We had only one major failure, and it was during the firmware upgrade. There was a known bug, and it would have been nice if they had told us because we could have prevented the failure.

Performance has been restored to the same level of what we replaced, although it has taken six months of working with Hewlett Packard to allow them to understand our unique environment.

This is a very scalable solution.

The support for this solution has been phenomenal.

We needed additional capacity and our old SAN solution was seven years old, at about end-of-life. We had been using a Dell Compellent, and it wasn't really suited for our type of workload.

The initial setup of this solution is very straightforward.

We handled the deployment in-house.

I would say that we have seen ROI, but the specifics are elusive because it was replacing an older, end-of-life platform.

There are no licensing costs for this solution.

The only vendor on our shortlist was Nimble. We had investigated them years ago because other sister companies within the community had already begun using them. We want to have a synergy with them.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using this solution is to only make changes in maintenance windows, even when the engineers say that nothing will happen.

My advice to anybody who is implementing this solution is to go through a detailed sizing operation with HPE so that it can be appropriately scoped.

We do use this solution for business-critical applications but it is too broad and there are too many to name a specific example.

I like this product, but there is always room for improvement and nothing can be a ten.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

It's an adjunct storage repository and it compliments our 3PAR solution. We currently use it as a file store for backup, file, and compute storage workloads.

As an adjunct to our 3PAR platform, which is currently at capacity, it assists us in delaying the renewal of our 3PAR. It's an additional service on top of our storage solutions.

• Scalability
• User interface
• Reporting

Something I would like to see is more clarity regarding the positioning of Nimble versus 3PAR. I am struggling with the boundaries within which these two are competing.

I can't comment on scalability just yet. I've just bought three of them, and I've got another five on order, but I am architecting it on a scale set at the moment.

I had capacity issues, and my scale-out of existing solutions was not viable, so I had to look for something new. I was forced into a Nimble purchase through an acquisition that we made, so I became familiar with the product and then decided to expand the product.

I use it as a rudimentary backup, so it's not the most effective use for the hybrid storage solution that we bought. I have bought an All-Flash for some virtual workloads, and that was quite a cost-effective solution for us.

I think good evaluation criteria include checking the scalability of the product. I also think the reporting aspect of it is very complete.

I would rate it at eight out of 10, and the reason for that is it's not as flexible a storage solution as the current versions of 3PAR.

Improved performance. It's made my life easier. It integrates very well.

Deduplication and compression.

I would like to see SSL Certification. For someone like me who has been in the field for a long time, it’s easy to overlook. However, for someone who is fresh out of college, it will be hard for them.

The stability is good.

The scalability is really good.

I used technical support once. I would give them a rating of 10/10.

We knew we needed a new solution because we needed something for restored backup.

The setup was straightforward. It wasn't hard. I came from the background of NetApp. Compared to NetApp, it was really easy. It’s pretty easy to configure and easy to set up the volumes. It’s really good. It was more user friendly than NetApp.

It was a decision that was made before I joined to the company. The reason they chose Nimble over other products was because HPE required too many licenses at that time. Nimble didn’t require all of that.

Now that Nimble is an HPE product, HPE has changed their whole licensing for their other products as well.

The shortlist included HPE, Dell, and EMC. We chose Nimble because of all- flash, user-friendliness, and the compression and deduplication. It does way more than any of the other vendors. I have 10 terabytes with compression. That's a big change. Other solutions are not as user-friendly and cannot do all of that compression.

When selecting a vendor, I look for security. We want something that can be integrated and is compatible with our environment.

I would say jump on it right away, because it's really the solution. It is really user-friendly. It will make everybody's life easier. It's really wonderful.

The built-in performance profiles have made tweaking settings for different uses (SQL log files, SQL data files, VMware datastores, etc.) extremely simple. The built-in profiles are more than enough for most implementations, and if you need to create a custom performance profile, the process is simple and well documented. The analytics available via Infosight (The online Nimble support portal) are extremely well written and useful too. In particular, I find the analytics extremely useful when tracking down causes of latency that occasionally crop up and affect processing.

The Nimble SANs, as part of an overall move from standalone servers to a combined virtual infrastructure, have allowed my client to be much more responsive to their clients. The client is a SaaS provider that does large analysis/predictive modeling for the retail market. The previous hardware setup had database processes running for 14 hours or more, creating long turn around times for users. The new servers, running on the faster Nimble storage, allowed processing times of two hours or less to be achieved, allowing for faster results, as well as the ability to process more datasets concurrently, servicing more customers.

While I was not present for the sizing discussions, I believe there was some lack of discovery in selecting the model and features for my client. Even though the flash size on the array was doubled from Nimble's initial recommendation, the SAN still has latency issues during the largest dataset imports, due to CPU limitations on the SAN model that presales had recommended for this client. Certainly not the end of the world, and it can be fixed with an upgrade, but it was somewhat frustrating for my clients. I suspect estimations were used as to what the expected load would be, without a full understanding of the data processing being performed.

I originally installed one of these SANs for a customer just over three years ago. Since then, two additional SANs (same model, features and capacity, have since been added).

Deployment was great. The web configuration was extremely easy (and has gotten easier with every major release). Network configuration, utilizing Juniper QFX 5100 10gb switches, was simple too. All Nimble required was jumbo frames and enough network ports of each speed, 1gb and 10gb, for data and management.

The initial SAN that I installed has been extremely stable. The second of the three SANs has had occasional issues with a controller crashing, eventually leading to replacement of one of the controller heads. Failover was seamless each time it happened though, and we were able to keep working with no loss in performance (one of the few advantages of an active/passive array). Support replaced the faulty controller after appropriate testing and troubleshooting, and the problem hasn't recurred.

Yes and no. The SAN chosen was not ideal for the workload found, but growing in breadth, expanding the load across multiple arrays (with and without Group configuration) was very simple and fast, making use of the built-in replication to copy data. It is also easy to expand vertically via upgrading the controllers, though my clients chose not to do it.

Customer service with Nimble has been great every time I've dealt with them. They've always been very responsive and friendly to deal with. I definitely have appreciated the experience of dealing with Nimble Customer Service.

The technical support at Nimble is stellar. The analytics available via the Infosight web portal are extremely detailed, and yet well laid out and easy to peruse. In addition, the portal is regularly upgraded, with additional information, new views, and easier navigation. If the analytics there aren't sufficient, though, technical support is always happy to provide whatever additional help is required, including taking the time to do deep analysis of all settings in the environment (ie, Nimble and VMware settings, or Nimble and Windows settings) to ensure that things are configured optimally.

This particular environment was all standalone servers and storage previously. Decision was made to move to shared storage to support movement from standalone servers to a VMware cluster on Cisco UCS blades.

Initial setup was extremely easy. There was a Windows app for initial configuration to get the SAN configured on the network for management, and then subsequent work (volume creation, snapshot schedules, etc) is all web based and extremely easy.

I implemented these SANs personally, and did not make use of a vendor team.

It's hard to say, since it was a complete change in the datacenter going from

Licensing is dead simple and not a concern on this product, as all features are included. SANs are purposely CPU limited in a particular model, so be aware that even if you have enough flash for all your typical needs, you may hit a hard CPU limit on performance before you run out of flash. Luckily, head upgrades are easy and fully supported, allowing movement up to faster models.

I was not part of the initial hardware selection. My client was working with a VAR to choose and obtain the hardware for a data center refresh. During this process, it eventually worked out that I took over the complete data center refresh project, from design to deployment.

Ease of use with the hardware and software GUI. Easy firmware upgrades. The performance for the price is extremely valuable.

The hardware is simplistic. The physical wiring of the controllers, upgrading controllers, and adding expansion shelves or cache. The software GUI lays everything out nice and clean. You are able to intuitively find what you need to accomplish in few clicks. The reporting is excellent. The firmware upgrades are easy. Just click and sit back and relax. They are non-invasive and take minimal time. The performance is on par with some of the other solutions that cost much more.

We are heavily reliant on SQL databases. Because of the performance out of the array, we are not storage bottlenecked. The price makes the value extremely appealing.

I used to have some gripes with how the GUI worked such as folder organization but the developers listened and released that in a new firmware version. I do want close to real time performance metrics in InfoSight.

Over 2 years.

The product has been extremely stable for us.

We have scaled up and out at our primary datacenter with no issues.

One of the best support experiences out there.

Yes and because of the performance and abilities of the array such as encryption without purchasing new hardware.

It was easy.

There are no hidden costs, but go for InfoSight.

I inherited this vendor in my environment but it has proven to be a worthy vendor and no plans to change.

• Support, it is superb!
• InfoSight, especially VM Vision.
• Easy of setup and management, no need for storage experts.
• Performance, just delivers on all that it promises.
• Maintenance price is fixed for 5 years.

We do not need to employ storage specialists to set up and manage our storage.

InfoSight gives us in-depth knowledge to ensure our storage and associated systems are performing well, which is more than we could even get from previous storage systems.

Support for near synchronous replication.

Currently the smallest snapshot window is 15 minutes, that means if we replicate data from one array to another array we will be up to 15 minutes out of date, this is the RPO.

We have a small number of systems that need to be replicated in such a way that we do not lose any data if we need to fail-over to the replica on the second SAN, or at least it should be only seconds behind.

Some SANs, like NetApp, have a synchronous replication feature, so when data is written to SAN1 a copy is sent to SAN2, only when this has been written successfully at SAN2 does the data on SAN1 get flagged as written. This means both SANs are in-step.

This is great if you have the SANs locally and have a fast connection, but if they are in different data centres and the WAN link is slow you get latency issues while the data is written and acknowledged by SAN2.

When I talk about near synchronous replication I am thinking of how DoubleTake from Vision Solutions works, I have been using this for over 15 years to do this type of replication.

This works by copying the block of data on SAN1 directly to the local volume, but taking a copy and putting it into a buffer. This means latency at SAN1 is not compromised.

The copied block is then sent across the WAN to the second SAN, where it is written and acknowledged back to the DoubleTake system on SAN1. Once the acknowledgement is back the local copy on SAN1 is deleted.

This means if any latency on the WAN does not impact the speed of storage on SAN1, although the data on SAN2 could be a little bit behind, but in most cases we are talking seconds at the mots, and once any congestion on then WAN link has gone the replication is nearly as fast as a pure synchronous system will achieve, so for most purposes it is as close to real-time as required.

If the WAN goes down, or you need to take SAN2 off-line for any reason, the only impact on SAN1 is the buffer grows with data to be replicated, and once the WAN or SAN2 is back on line this is flushed to SAN2 as fast as the WAN can transfer the data.

You need a ‘re-synch’ feature in case the volume on SAN2 is corrupted, this checks the CRC on the data blocks between the two systems and re-transmits any blocks that do not match.

• AFA 5000 - 5 months
• CS260 - 3 years
• CS210 - 4.5 years

No, none at all.

The CS210 is very limited and could not be expanded despite having spare slot’s for drives. But we were able to scale-out two of these to create a larger single unit.

But we have first generation hardware that cannot be upgraded unlike newer systems.

Amazing. Nothing is too much trouble, and they have a wealth of information they can access to help you.

• We had Hitachi AMS2100 SANs.
• The CS210 reduced the required rack size from 12 U to 3 U for more than double the performance.
• Price was competitive with Hitachi’s and other solutions providing similar performance, when including all licences and maintenance over a 3 years period.
• Much easier to set up and manage than all our previous SANs.
• Improved monitoring, and no extra costs for providing this.

Biggest problem was fitting the arrays into the racks – need to bend the rails (shoe or hammer required). Fixed in the latest models.

Took less than 30 minutes to get up and running and connected to our servers.

Simple – one price for the equipment, one price for the support and maintenance (fixed for 5 years), any updates and improvements and all licences included.

Looked at options from Hitachi, EMC, NetApp and HP.

Make full use of their Pre-Sales engineers, make them your best friend, they will stay with you for the journey and can assist you get the best out of the equipment.

Don’t be frightened of asking Support for help, if you authorise full data collection they can look at a wealth of information on your behalf covering more than the actual storage elements.

Ratings:

• AFA 5000 - 10/10
• CS260 - 9/10 - Only because the AFA is better as it has in-line de-duplication.
• CS210 - 7/10 - Limited expansion without adding further trays.