We primarily use the solution for ERP.
Director at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Great performance and a fast deployment but can be expensive
Pros and Cons
- "The deployment is fast."
- "It would be ideal if all these enterprise-class high-performance products would come at a cheaper price."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The performance of the solution is excellent. It's the most valuable aspect of the product. The stability is great.
The scalability of the solution is great.
The deployment is fast.
Technical support is helpful.
What needs improvement?
It would be ideal if all these enterprise-class high-performance products would come at a cheaper price.
The initial setup could be simplified a bit.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been dealing with the solution for a few years.
Buyer's Guide
HPE Nimble Storage
November 2024
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable and reliable. The performance is great. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is good with this product. If a company wants to expand it, it's not a problem.
We have two or three clients on the product right now.
How are customer service and support?
I've had no issues with technical support. They are helpful and responsive.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is always complex, however, it is manageable. Of course, it could always be a bit easier in the future.
The initial deployment is pretty fast and takes less than a week.
A company would typically need one or two engineers for deployment and maintenance tasks.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is quite expensive. We'd like them to lower the cost of the product.
You can buy the solution outright to avoid ongoing licensing costs.
What other advice do I have?
We are resellers of the solution.
As resellers, sometimes how easy or hard the solution is to deal with and set up depends on the customer requirements. It's really subject to what a customer wants in their environment.
I'd rate the solution at a six out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Tehnical Business Dev at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
InfoSight is like AI for the data center, helping our customers to troubleshoot
Pros and Cons
- "InfoSight. It's AI for the data center. It's very easy, it does a lot of the work for the customer... InfoSight and the whole system, help them to deal with troubleshooting."
What is most valuable?
InfoSight. It's AI for the data center. It's very easy. It does a lot of the work for the customer. That is why HPE bought InfoSight, so they could deploy it across all their other platforms as well. It's a big game-changer. It's one of the easiest things to talk about when you're working with a customer. Customers don't want to do a whole lot of troubleshooting themselves, and with InfoSight and the whole system, it helps to deal with all these issues.
What needs improvement?
From what I've seen personally, customers that have Nimble don't really switch away from it. When newer versions come out, they usually have everything in terms of all the support and all the additional components that might be needed to help.
With the newest models, you're getting decompression and dedupe on some of the entry-level models, and this fixes a lot of issues for customers. Therefore, I am not hearing anything at this point. They just released the newest version, and so far, it's going well.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable product. They just released Gen 5 a couple weeks ago, and there's a lot of ability, depending on the need.
How is customer service and technical support?
They have very good, high-level support. You deal with Level 3 technicians, so that is a key takeaway. Customers don't want to be triaged, jump from here to there, and be in the line for X amount of time. They want things done, and they want them done now. With Nimble, in my experience with it, this is where they has been beneficial.
For the Nimble product line, support is very strong. There is a lot of different information, but you get a lot of support with Nimble, and Level 3 technical support is a huge benefit for customers. Especially knowing that you receive it right off the bat, as opposed to going through all the stages. Support, coupled with the InfoSight, triages a lot of their issues.
How was the initial setup?
I did not set it up myself, but based on conversations with some of our solution architects, it seems like it's a straightforward setup: out-of-the-box and easy to deploy.
What other advice do I have?
I have had a lot of personal success with it. Our organization has had a lot of success with it. It has a very straightforward presentation. It does the job for a lot of customers, and it's a great enterprise solution for many of them.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller.
Buyer's Guide
HPE Nimble Storage
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about HPE Nimble Storage. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
817,354 professionals have used our research since 2012.
VP Of Global Technology at Synexys
Solid stability - I haven't had to initiate a service call in three years
What is our primary use case?
Nimble is a secondary VMware environment in our organization, so it's not running mission-critical applications at this point or responsible for complex business needs.
How has it helped my organization?
When we initially bought it, Nimble helped improve our organization as that was when we went through and we virtualized everything. Nimble was the back-end SAN for everything.
What is most valuable?
Now that it's owned by HPE, all of my SANs are under one support organization.
What needs improvement?
I haven't thought about what I might want to see in a future release mainly because we're trying to figure out where we want to head next: if we want to go with the Synergy system or if we want to continue down the hyperconverged path.
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't had a service call on it for three years. I would say that is pretty good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We were able to take on and add the second one with the first one fairly easily. The second one was actually in Cincinnati and we brought it to Arizona. We had them separated and now they're co-joined.
How is customer service and technical support?
We haven't needed any technical support on the two Nimble SANs that we've had, for the last three years.
What was our ROI?
They're now coming up on six or seven years old. I think we got our money's worth.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Nimble an eight out of 10, with cost probably being the big factor. It was a little on the pricey side at the time that it was bought. I came in late to the game, it was already in place when I got to the company. But, going back over the documentation, it was probably a little pricey.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Sr VP Dep Director of IT at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Gives us a dramatic performance boost over our legacy stack
Pros and Cons
- "The setup was very, very simple. When we got our AF5000, no kidding, we had it up in production within two hours"
What is most valuable?
I feel most IT consultants, traditionally, would consider Nimble a mid-line or a starter-line, but I feel that they operate in an enterprise-class. I believe that especially their All Flash Arrays that came out, that was their new adaptation from their hybrid. We use an AF5000 in our environment, and we're getting almost 20-to-one performance compared to what we had with our traditional legacy stack, the EMC VMAX 10K.
What needs improvement?
I think HPE is headed in the right direction. From what I know, their management is actually putting Nimble on the forefront to be the leader, and I think that's where it belongs. To stay ahead of the game, they need to put Nimble in front and stay there, and ride that horse throughout.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable for us, from a hardware standpoint.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have been fortunate enough to deal with still with the Nimble engineers and not had to transfer over to HPE. Now if you were to ask me about the HPE support on the SimpliVity stack, I would have to say "failure to deliver."
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
It was actually one of the bleeding edge technologies we reviewed over the legacy stack that we were dealing with traditionally. We used EMC in the past from a spindle and, at that point, we didn't feel EMC was adequate to fulfill our needs. So we looked at Nimble from price and technology points of view and it met everything, all of our reviews and all of our requirements.
How was the initial setup?
The setup was very, very simple. When we got our AF5000, no kidding, we had it up in production within two hours. If we were to take the similar setup, with the EMC VMAX, it took us over three months. Big difference.
What was our ROI?
The return on investment for us has been a tremendous asset. Before, we were on the legacy stack with the EMC and we just weren't getting our nightly batch jobs done on time, and that was having to run throughout the day. With Nimble, we have actually reduced that window from 12 hours to six hours, so we got a 50 percent return on investment, right off the bat.
What other advice do I have?
I am actually here, at the HPE Discover 2018 conference, to find out what they plan on doing with Nimble in the future. We're also a user of the SimpliVity stack and I didn't feel that the roadmap for that has played out. We're here to see how the Nimble is going to play out. I'm very interested because we're coming up on a refresh cycle and we want to know whether we want to go down that path or not.
I would rate it a 10 out of 10. I'm not being biased by any means. It checks all the boxes for us.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Head of IT at Law Firm
Lowers latency and resolves boot storm issues in virtual desktop environments.
What is most valuable?
It's not that expensive and it really brings the latency down; that was the promise from their end and it really did.
How has it helped my organization?
Since we are using virtual desktop environments, we had to deal with boot storms and we solved this issue with Nimble.
What needs improvement?
For me, this product has everything I need in there. What could be improved is performance monitoring, i.e., if it can get even better than what it is now, I will be happy. For example, there should be an exact drilling down to any workload/any virtual machine/any identified issue. So, if an issue appears and there is latency, there could be a faster or easier way to know what the reason is and how we can resolve it with Nimble.
For how long have I used the solution?
15 months
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
no issues
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We are considering to scale it. We did consider it once and we might consider in the future as well. I had the impression that we can easily scale it.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
very good
Technical Support:very good
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using a different solution. I was visiting a specific software house conference (the software that we were using then), they had Nimble there and I was really interested; I asked them questions and then, eventually, it turned out into a project.
While selecting a vendor, I want to be sure that we are getting good value for money and having good performance; for me, that's the main priority.
How was the initial setup?
The setup was very easy, it was a matter of a couple of hours.
What about the implementation team?
the vendor came here at the very beginning and set all up
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I looked at the traditional products out there and did a comparison with Nimble as well. For example, we compared EMC Storage with NimbLe and I also did consider SimpliVity, at the time but for this specific workload, it turned out that Nimble had the best approach.
What other advice do I have?
Absolutely, try it out. For me, it was very easy because Nimble offered us to try and buy. They just came, set up the box, and I had a whole month's time to try it; it worked perfectly. For me, it was really easy.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Vice President, Products and Services with 51-200 employees
Hybrid storage, all-flash storage, and hyper-converged products offer software capable of running on commodity hardware, providing a better end-user experience at a reduced price.
Originally posted at https://www.freeitdata.com/
Over the last 15 years, the storage industry has primarily been dominated (market share) by six companies, EMC, NetApp, IBM, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), HP and Dell. In 2013, these six companies made up approximately 85% of all storage sold in the United States.
The remaining 15% of the storage market is made up of all the other storage manufacturers. Needless to say, it is a very crowded 15%. For as many new products that are introduced into the market each year, just as many disappear. However, a few of the very best have found ways to grow. Innovators like Nimble Storage, Pure Storage, Tintri, Simplivity, Tegile and the like are most commonly referred to hybrid storage, all flash storage, or hyper-converged products. All these technologies are considered disruptive storage technologies to what the Tier 1 storage providers have been offering. These organizations are pushing known boundaries and finding new ways to innovate, store and protect data.
What is the biggest driver for their success?
In addition to being true innovators these companies manufacture products that are easy to implement, easy to use and affordable. These companies are doing things differently based on the ever-changing Information Technology eco-system. These disruptive technologies have evolved to fit the changes in virtualization, utilize improvements in flash technology, feature faster CPUs with more cores, and feature new software/GUI innovations. How?... They have figured out, that by developing better software capable of running on commodity hardware, they can provide a better end-user experience at a drastically reduced cost. Even with the use of commodity hardware, they still provide up to five 9’s of availability through redundancy in the infrastructure.
Nimble Storage Graphical User Interface
These companies are also providing new methods of data protection, replication, inline de-duplication, in-line compression, and encryption. They allow tighter integration with virtualization hyper-visors and application software. Because the innovation is in the software, these companies are able to more quickly improve capability and provide features to adapt to the changes in the technology eco-system.
How much did virtualization change the game?
Arguably the x86 server manufactures were blindsided by how much virtualization was going to affect their servers business. At this point x86 servers have become utility devices, which are fairly inexpensive, when you look at 25-75 virtual guest servers are running on what used to be a physical box only a few short years ago. These emerging storage technologies are starting to do the same thing. It is possible that the legacy storage vendors could find themselves in the same position as the x86 server manufactures as more and more development goes into virtualization of storage and placing data on commodity infrastructure.
What does this mean for the future of storage technology?
Well, 12 years ago VMware was emerging as a disruptive technology. Now VMWare is the standard for virtualization. VMWare could quickly become a disruptive technology again, with Virtual SAN (VSAN). I predict over the next 5 years, we will see even more consolidation of storage vendors, as newer and better ways to store data are developed and the traditional SAN that we know today will be drastically different. It is quite possible that Object Based Storage and the use of data protection via replicas will overtake the traditional and very antiquated RAID technology solutions and fundamentally changes how we store, manage, search and protect data.
Pure Storage vSphere Web Client
There will probably always be a need for the traditional storage methods, but as we have seen, that segment will continue to shrink as virtualization and storage innovation continue to change our IT landscape.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are vendor-agnostic implementers.
HPE Technical Support Manager at Servicios GZ, C.A.
Can manage storage requirements and can be rapidly deployed
Pros and Cons
- "The fact that you can manage the requirements is one the most valuable features of HPE Nimble Storage. The other is the rapid deployment time."
- "I think the scalability of HPE Nimble Storage could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We currently work with banks and insurance companies, who are our primary customers with regard to HPE Nimble Storage.
How has it helped my organization?
Our clients have been very happy with this solution and like the fact that it is very easy to install. They have also had no problems with migration.
What is most valuable?
The fact that you can manage the requirements is one the most valuable features of HPE Nimble Storage. The other is the rapid deployment time.
Our customers are also happy that they can easily manage the requirements from the very beginning.
What needs improvement?
I think the scalability of HPE Nimble Storage could be improved.
In Venezuela, we have to purchase the solution for two years and cannot obtain a secondary storage platform. So from my perspective, the scalability is not as easy as that of 3PAR StoreServ or HPE Primera.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Our clients have not reported any issues, so I think that HPE Nimble Storage is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of this solution is not great in comparison to that of 3PAR StoreServ or HPE Primera.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Most of our clients used 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I think HPE Nimble Storage is less expensive than Primera and is the best solution for Venezuela.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Our clients evaluated other options such as 3PAR StoreServ, HPE Primera, Pure Storage, and Dell EMC.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale from one to ten, I would rate HPE Nimble Storage at nine. It is less expensive than some of the other options and is very easy to install.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Good performance and processor, with a good support system for assistance
Pros and Cons
- "The performance and the processor are good."
- "I would like to see an added feature to auto-fix, or a dynamic alerting system on storage."
What is our primary use case?
We are resellers. We provide products to our customers.
Unfortunately, we were not able to sell this product because it is too expensive. We use it in our own cloud. We created a VMware VCPP cloud to provide VMware services to our enterprise customers.
What is most valuable?
The performance and the processor are good.
HPE has very good technology in terms of storage, and they have very good support assistance.
What needs improvement?
The problem is the price. It needs to be improved.
I would like to see an added feature to auto-fix, or a dynamic alerting system on storage. This is very important because we would like to prevent a disk failure before it happens.
If we had some sort of AI in place to alert us then we could replace the disk before it occurs.
Also, we would like to receive alerts if space is over the limits. This is necessary for us.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been selling HPE Nimble Storage for a few months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's a scalable product. We have one POC user in our organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is good. HPE has a good channel system in Taiwan.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, we used Dell.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Nimble Storage is too expensive for our enterprise customers.
What other advice do I have?
We are still trying other products. HPE GreenLake has very nice packaging. It's a financial program, and we used Nimble through this financing program. We didn't purchase it, we were testing.
We are still testing other products, such as Dell Storage.
We have some local storage vendors, so we are not formally using it in production.
We are not able to recommend this product as we are still in the testing phase. We are still doing the POC tests.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Updated: November 2024
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Thanks..this review was very helpful.
I would like to know what tool you used for SAN migration from EMC to Nimble?