HPE Primera Reviews

My primary use of Primera is as a storage solution for a huge conglomerate with multiple critical businesses including banks, airlines, and retail chains.

The most valuable feature is an all-flash system, which means the data access speed is amazing while the latency is almost nothing, and it can deliver IOPS up to 16,000.

An area for improvement is how the product gets integrated with the technical support and how cases are raised. There are also certain features that require engineering-level access, which should be accessible to storage admins as well. In the next release, I'd like to see support for external KMS (key management system) because some organizations want encryption based on their encryption appliances or methodology.

Primera is quite stable.

The technical support is very good and very effective in resolving any problems.

The initial setup was quite straightforward - everything went very smoothly, it took a few hours, and I didn't face a single issue with implementation.

Our implementation was done by HPE consultants.

I would give this solution a rating of nine out of ten.

This product is used for all of the backend, core storage infrastructure. We migrated from spinning-disk, so it has the same type of workloads. It is 80% virtual machines, and then file services, and database workloads.

One of the most valuable features is the ease of deployment.

Integration with the compute capacity is good, as this is just the storage component.

Orchestration and management are good.

The performance and capacity-based costs are also good.

Another advantage is that HPE sells everything. This includes all of the capabilities of the hardware, like replication, snapshot, and other specific features. They are all included from the get-go, as opposed to everything being separate and in another budget. When you buy it, you can do whatever you have to be able to do with it out of the box.

On the software side, in terms of integration, everything gets aligned with the software-defined data center concept, which means that everything needs to be done programmatically. There is room for improvement in this regard.

On the hardware side, you should have the ability to expand capacity to larger numbers.

I would like to have the ability to do direct file services. This is a block-based solution, so if you need to do file services with it, you need to put servers around it.

From the controller side, if we could have NAS capabilities then that would be great.

Between Primara and it's predecessor, 3PAR, I have used this product for about five years.

This is a rock-solid product.

This is the product that is running the data centers for the shop, so everybody in the organization will be affected one way or another by what is there. Currently, we have 6,000 people.

The technical support is very well organized. There is a feature called Home, where the hardware calls to their NOC and reports and alerts or events. Then they have a pretty standard protocol to call back. They're quite insistent; they'll send you emails and if you don't acknowledge then they start calling.

The mechanics of the support is very well put in place. 

We use the HPE 3PAR in addition to Primera.

The initial setup is straightforward.

Professional Services installation is embedded in the cost. The setup can be done by the customer but it's a pretty sophisticated solution, so we use the vendor Professional Services. It was not a third-party on top of the cost. Rather, it was included in the options that we chose.

The price to capacity ratio is good.

We had a selection process with all the major vendors, and we ended up with this solution in part because of stability. One of the primary reasons we selected it is because we can buy storage and compute from the same vendor and everything gets optimized. Obviously, everything is designed to work with one another.

I will definitely recommend this product. I'd say that anybody looking to implement it should do their cost analysis very carefully. There's a multitude of solutions, but some of them are more software-oriented. The math can become fuzzy, but once they figure out the financial aspect of it, I think from a purely technical perspective, I highly recommend it.

In terms of quality for block storage, it is one of the best on the planet, if not the best, in my view. If they had block storage, NAS, and iSCSI out of the box then I could rate it as perfect.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We are using HPE Primera as a storage solution.

There has been a lot of changes in HPE Primera OS, and most of the time any package related to it is simple to upgrade. It does not require any support for the operation. The customer can easily deploy any code directly from the GUI which is very good. Additionally, we have individual storage we can allocate and easily manage.

We used to receive hardware errors a lot of times. The ambient temperatures rise rate was approximately 35 to 55 degrees, but when it was approximately 27 or 28, we used to get errors a lot.

I have been using HPE Primera for approximately one year.

The solution is stable. However, in the older versions, we used to see a lot of hardware failures and any indications we have a node battery to be replaced. We have almost 18 storage for the last three months, we are not receiving LSA messages, whereas before we were receiving one per month. We used to receive storage or hardware issues from the HPE Primera side. Things have been better.

The scalable of the solution is good. Recently, we have upgraded one of the storage from 50TB to 100TB. It's very easy to mount and connect. There is be no issue with expansion. We can easily upgrade the endpoint and does not take much time. It all can be done without downtime for that. Adding in an SD card is similar to how we have mounted the expansion.

We have around 20 storage HPE Primera's, and we have approximately 30 applications that are using HPE Primera storage. We have a dedicated mobile application used for banking purposes and a database dedicated to working on HPE Primera.

I would rate the technical support of HPE Primera a three out of five.

The support could improve because it would take a lot of time to get an expert to analyze oh problem. We would be connected to the L1 support and then L2, it can take a long time. If the issue is a P1 case, they are taking a lot of time to get back to us with a solution. P1 is the highest priority and the support we receive from the P2 level is the same.

High availability of primera storage .

The initial installation can take almost one hour. You only need to install the hardware to the rack and application. Once we powered it on, there is no need to create any write groups. Everything is automatically created by the HPE Primera OS.

The deployment was done by HPE.

Other than the support for HPE Primera it is a good solution.

I rate HPE Primera an eight out of ten.

The primary use case is for all of the backend, the core storage infrastructure at this point.

It's the migration from spinning disk, it has all types of workloads. 80% are virtual machines, file services, and database workloads.

The most valuable feature is the ease of deployment. 

The integration with the compute capacity because this is just the storage side.

The orchestrations and management, and the performance and cost per capacity.

Another advantage is that HPE sells everything. All of the capabilities of the hardware such as replication, snapshot, and the specific features are all included from the start as opposed to being on another license.

When you buy it, you can do whatever you have to, to be able to do with it out of the box.

On the software end, in regards to the integration, everything gets aligned with the software-defined data center concept. Which means that everything needs to be done for software and programmatically. 

This is an area that needs improvement as well as on the hardware end, the ability to expand capacity to larger numbers.

In the next release, I would like the ability to do direct file services. This is a block-based solution, if you need to do file servers, you have to put servers around it.

On the controller side, I would like to see NAS capabilities. That would be helpful.

There are two lines, and they are evolving into one another. Primera is just a word, it was called 3PAR before that. I have worked with both.

Between the two lines, I have worked with these solutions for five years.

There are multiple components, there are many different versions. The software has versions and the hardware has versions. We are using the latest version, the latest incarnation.

It's a stable solution, it's rock solid.

This is running the data centers for the shop. Everybody in the organization will be affected one way or another by what is there. We have 6000 people in our organization.

Tell us about your experience with customer service/technical support.

Technical support is very well organized. There is a feature called Home. The hardware calls their NOC center and reports any alerts or events. Then they have a standard ideal protocol to call back. They are quite insistent, they send you emails if you don't acknowledge and they start calling.

The mechanics of the support is very well put in place.

The initial setup was straightforward.

Professional services are embedded. It can be done by the customer but it's a pretty sophisticated solution. We need to use vendor professional services.

It was not a third-party in addition to the cost, it was included.

The hardware came with installation services. We decided to go with it.

Stability is one of the reasons we chose this solution, and that we could buy storage and computer from the same vendor to optimize everything. It's designed to work with one another.

I will definitely recommend this solution. For anyone who is interested in implementing it, they should do their cost analysis very carefully. There's a multitude of solutions, but some of them are more software-oriented.

The math can become fuzzy but once they figure out the financial aspect of it, I think from a purely technical perspective, I would highly recommend it.

In terms of quality for block storage, it's one of the best on the planet, if not the best, in my view. 

If they had, block, NAS, and iSCSI out of the box, I would rate them a ten out of ten.

I would rate HPE Primera a nine out of ten.

It serves as both the primary production area and the backup location. We have one at the primary site and another at the secondary site for applications. This involves a form of remote copying between the two arrays, allowing us to switch between them seamlessly during working hours.

The greatest advantage is the support when we encounter incidents, as HPE's support is highly responsive. Furthermore, it's worth reiterating that we've observed its exceptional speed compared to other solutions we've used in the past.

The distinction between Primera and Freeport becomes more apparent for us when we implement rollbacks, particularly on-site. In such situations, we've observed that the transition from one side to the other is significantly faster and simpler, whether it's done automatically or manually.

I would like to highlight the aspect of security, especially when compared to certain other vendors. We've encountered issues in the past where maintaining a read-only state is essential to prevent data encryption when VPN access is impacted.

Some vendors have showcased the functionality of their arrays automatically transitioning to a read-only mode when they detect ransomware or suspicious activity, safeguarding data from corruption. Regrettably, we haven't seen both of these features in the HP ARAs we primarily use.

However, I can't state this with absolute certainty, but it's what we've observed so far. It would be beneficial if your organization could demonstrate any additional functionalities we may not be aware of.

I have been using this solution since 2019.

It is very stable.

It offers scalability. We have ample room for expansion through disk upgrades and the addition of new storage areas.

The process has been smooth for us, thanks to our local HPE partner's assistance. Their involvement has made the initialization process trouble-free, and we haven't encountered any difficulties.

We collaborated together as partners in the installation process.

We handle maintenance tasks ourselves when they're straightforward. However, if we ever have uncertainties or questions about certain actions, we reach out to our partners for assistance. Additionally, we benefit from online support provided by HP, which is readily available when required.

It’s a reasonable choice. When compared to other options, we've found it to be accessible and within our means.

Before we adopted HP, we lacked options, but various vendors visited our office to showcase their different solutions and the functionalities they offer.

For me, the primary concern today is ensuring data security in the face of ransomware and potential incidents. As I mentioned earlier, with the tenant's array, in the event of certain incident scenarios, it automatically switches to a read-only mode to protect the data. We find this feature highly advantageous given the prevalent threat landscape in today's IT environment. It's crucial to have self-controlled arrays that can prevent ransomware from spreading across the network.

This is the key benefit we've identified with the mechanics area, but the question that remains unanswered is whether HPE offers such a functionality on its own.

I can state that it's important to explore and enhance other security functionalities. If there are any available, we should be informed about them and consider implementing them to bolster our security further.

I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

HPE Primera is a multipurpose process. 

We have one customer in the banking environment using the solution at one of their locations. 

We use it for configuration and perspective, and for data storage. 

Our customer is happy with HPE Primera. They said they are getting good information and performance from the product. 

The solution is good and has 100 percent availability.

I would like to see improved training offered with HPE Primera. Being the front-end facing the customer, it would be beneficial to understand better how to support the customer with their questions. Currently, the customer reaches out to me with their questions and I take the questions to customer service. It would be better if I had the knowledge to be able to resolve the concerns myself.

I have been using HPE Primera for two and a half years.

HPE Primera is stable.

The product is scalable. 

Our customer has employees that are using HPE Primera, and also their end users using the product through the mobile application and mobile banking. 

HPE provides good support through their customer service.

Neutral

The initial setup of HPE Primera is easy.

HPE Primera is less expensive than HPE Alletra.

We did not evaluate other options. I had experience with HPE Primera and recommended it to our customer because it had a good impact, 100 percent availability, and has all-flash devices with the best performance.

Overall, I would rate HPE Primera an eight out of ten.

We not only use HPE storage, we use their hardware as well. We use it for our incubated environment because we have some applications which are running on these journeys, applications, and APA . That storage actually helps us because there are multiple transactions and queries. Our applications are running and that's why we require fast storage.

HPE Primera is mostly integrated with our compute infrastructure and because of that, the particular storage is very much compatible with that compute. It's efficient.

Reporting can be improved.  The reporting console should be better and there should be some out of the box reports. That's the only thing.

I have been using it for two and a half years.

It's very stable. We didn't face any issue with stability.  

As per HPE, they said that it's pretty easy to add more storage in HPE Primera. With the existing controllers, I think it's pretty easy to add more storage. Right now we are using around 600 TB, not more than that, but it can support up to four petabytes.

Their support is fine although it can be slow. It's mostly regional so we can't comment on it, because for it to change regions, it'll take some time for them to know about our whole setup, and then get used to it. Eventually we'll have to get used to it. If they were to change regions and a new engineer is assigned, then we could face some issues. There could be some kind of delay, so that's the only thing. Other than a lack of communication, the support is not that bad. The engineers are capable enough.

We previously used Dell EMC PowerMax, which is a five to six year-old setup.  Primera is a two year-old setup. With Dell EMC, the discs crashed, which needed to be replaced. In the two years we've used Primera, we haven't faced this kind of issue. 

PowerMax has very powerful storage. The number of IOPS and the control stability are the things I liked very much, but it's more expensive than other solutions. They are top of the line, but on a higher price range. 

Setup was a straightforward. We didn't face any hurdles in that because it was a new deployment during that time. It was a new setup when we were going for this new journeys and application service. The deployment was straightforward.

Deployment was done by HPE's partner.  I would rate it a four out of five.

I you compare it with some other storage, then the HPE licenses are much cheaper.  If I had to rate it, I'd give it a 3 out of five in terms of pricing.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Until now, I haven't given any thought to Primera and how it's going to work for us because we are moving towards cloud transformation. In a year, we may not require any on-premise solution, since our whole idea is to take all the workers to the cloud.

For advice, it all depends on what the requirements are. There are other solutions to consider. In all-flash, there are many other vendors, so it all depends on what kind of solution is being deployed and what kind of compute infrastructure they have which can work with that storage. If you're using HPE, then I would recommend HPE Primera because its performance is very good.

We primarily use the solution for customers, for their hosted virtualized infrastructure storage.

HPE Primera had helped us achieve very low latency performance, hence enhancing the customer experience of higher IOPS demanding applications. 

We really like the HPE infosight. it is an AI driven interface for hybrid cloud. it gives some more insights into any virtualized infrastructure such as performance issues, proactive recommendations etc. for example, get alerts and items of that nature It's been quite helpful so far. 

The performance of the solution is excellent. It performs far better than you would expect.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It's not overly complex. 

It outperforms on latency. It's very fast. We're talking about 0.4 milliseconds. The faster, the fast data works, the faster you'll get the response. This is really low latency; it's a great performance.

The dashboards are very good.  It has a very user-friendly kind of dashboard that is easy to understand. There isn't any complex stuff or too much information. That said, it has deep integration in to HPE Infosight. It gives you so much information, even more than you want.

The customization capabilities are excellent.

We haven't come across any issues with the solution. I don't recall missing any features.

They could work to make scalability easier.

It's quite expensive to upgrade right now maybe just now as its a new model.

Their latency is good, however, if they can continue to push their capabilities, that would be ideal.

I've only been using the solution for just over one month. It hasn't been an extremely long amount of time just yet.

The stability and performance are excellent. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's quite reliable.

We haven't attempted to scale the solution just yet. It's still very early on in the process, as we have just had the solution for about a month or so. Therefore, I can't speak very well about its scalability. However, it's my understanding that scaling it not that hard. 

Primera supports all flash additional enclosures, where you can expand SSD

Good support from HPE and local suppliers as well. 

The solution is quite straightforward. It's not complex. We had already done the sizing and we had already done the planning. The HP engineers were well aware of our needs. In the end, we just plugged in and gave them access, and they themselves did the configuration as per the initial requirements.

HP engineers did all of the heavy lifting on the implementation. We simply provided them with our exact requirements.

We are under a perpetual license in terms of software. 

Evaluated Huawei OcenStore Dorado storage and DELL Unify 380. As per the sizing and cost, HPE Primera A630 was better and most cost-effective.

We are using the latest version of the solution at this point. the model number is HPE Primera A630

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations. It's fast and the performance is very good. 

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten.