HPE SimpliVity Reviews

We have sold about three SimpliVity solutions. They are very small implementations. The use cases are mostly related to virtualization in terms of getting rid of SAN for virtualization and making management easier.

It makes it easy for our customers to manage all virtual machines and different workloads and be agile.

The backup feature is valuable, and replication is also valuable.

It is very quick and easy to use. 

I'm not a technical guy, and I am pretty much okay with the way it is, but it would help if it was closest to Nutanix in Gartner's Magic Quadrants. Nutanix very often beats us. Nutanix provides Acropolis for free. It probably would be great if we have a virtualization layer. It is something that might be lacking in our solution. We depend on VMware, and it is very expensive. It is lacking the software that allows us to install it with HPE and not depend on a third party.

We were a partner for HPE for 16 years. So, when they bought SimpliVity, we just started selling the product.

It is very stable.

It is scalable.

I'm not sure about that because I'm not an end-user, but I suppose it is great as other products.

Its initial setup is very easy. For its deployment and maintenance, all three customers have only one engineer.

I'm not a technical guy, but it is very easy. I've heard a few stories that some of the other solutions are not that easy, but our engineers have implemented it very quickly. So, I would advise others to go for it because it is a very easy solution. The backup feature is built into the application. So, you don't need to spend money on the licenses for backup.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

I am primarily using the product in order to create our open banking solution.

Although it is still early, we are optimistic that it will decrease our management costs and many resource costs due to the fact that everything is included in one box in SimpliVity. That includes the storage network, CPU, memory, et cetera. If everything is in one box, it will likely reduce our managed services cost.

We really enjoy the virtualization that the solution offers. It's an aspect of the product we use a lot.

Technical support is quite helpful and responsive.

It looks like the solution will help us decrease management costs. It seems to be providing us with good value.

The product is expensive. We are in Turkey and the Turkish Lira currency is higher than in other countries. $1 is about 9 Turkish Lira now. If you buy something in US dollars, and if you calculate it in our currency, that means we need to multiply the total by nine. It's costly.

The initial configuration is complicated. HPE had to help us. 

HPE is complex. 

HPE SimpliVity uses some additional memory inside in order to do site infrastructure work. However, you need to calculate this. You need to make sure you have enough memory and CPU for your purposes now and in the future. However, they don't explain that you might lose, for example, 10% of memory during configuration. Knowing that might affect what you actually need in the long run. They really have to lay out for their customers at the outset what is used and how much space is taken up, et cetera. That way, you can calculate that into your capacity. 

I've only really been using the solution for less than a month. It hasn't been too long just yet.

We haven't yet had a chance to do any benchmark tests on the product. We still have to go through this process. Therefore, it's difficult to gauge stability at this time.

We recently started using the product, and therefore not everyone was on the solution. We're at about 60% uptake now. 

While we may expand in the future, we have not yet tried to scale the solution. It may be something we consider down the line.

We've been in touch with technical support, especially at the outset. We found them to be very helpful and responsive overall. We have been quite satisfied with the level of service they have provided to us. They are quite knowledgeable.

We previously used Intel services and products previously. We decided to switch, and, due to Turkish regulations, we couldn't use a public cloud product. That's why we chose HPE.

The initial setup can be pretty complex, especially in relation to the configuration. It was different from what we used and managed before. As it was a new system and a new way of doing things, we needed help.

We had to get HPE to help us with the initial configuration. We couldn't handle it ourselves.

The pricing is expensive, and even more so due to the fact that we have an unfavorable exchange rate between the Turkish Lira and the American dollar.

I have not seen any other costs over and above the licensing fee itself. 

We're just customers and end-users. We don't have a business relationship with HPE.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Our clients' primary use for HPE SimpliVity has been for general infrastructure, not for any one specific thing. This includes different uses - for the server, SQL, the internal information server, different servers, etc.

The backup solution is a good functionality that the client is very happy with.

In terms of HPE SimpliVity's most valuable features, its backup integration is a good thing. Its performance is very good as is the whole integration.

In terms of what should be improved, I think that the local support in Argentina is not good. This is a new technology and HPE doesn't have a lot of technology specialists here in Argentina. It's very hard to find the specialist here.

Additionally, the price must be better. Here in Argentina, Dell is very competitive. If the client doesn't understand the functionality that SimpliVity has, he will chose by price, and Dell is very, very competitive here in Argentina.

Lastly, Stretched Cluster is a new functionality and is something that the client needs.

We have been using HPE SimpliVity for two to three years.

The stability is very good. Stability is not a problem.

Our clients are small and medium-sized businesses, so we implement small infrastructures - three nodes to five nodes.

Our clients are very happy with this solution. I don't know if they will buy more SimpliVity though.

Here in Argentina tech support is very hard to find. But, if we scale our problem with external support in, say, the United States or another country, it's good. Here in Argentina, though, it's not good.

Initial setup is very simple. It takes one or two days.

Dell is a competitor, as is Nutanix.

Dell is a good solution and is cheaper than HPE, but their support is bad here in Argentina too. We've found that the client likes HPE because he knows it.

For now Nutanix is still very small here in Argentina.

We recommend our clients use SimpliVity.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give HPE SimpliVity a nine.

We use the solution for HCM, secondary distribution endpoints, file sharing, domain controller, all many kinds of applications.

I find the replication feature valuable.

There are a lot of different components to choose from in the chassis. This could be easier by providing a standard or a base model to create and configure from. 

I have been using the solution for a couple of years.

I believe the solution is stable, I did not see any issues.

The solution is converging in a public place, the scalability is good. We have approximately 70 users using the solution in my company,

We previously used Dell PowerEdge rack servers.

I found the installation straightforward. However, I am not sure about others.

The solution took a couple of hours to do the implementation with two technicians, and we have one technician for the maintenance. Next time I am going to use a consultant or a supplier to do the implementation.

The product is expensive.

We are going to continue to use the solution in the future, and I recommend it to others.

I rate HPE SimpliVity a nine out of ten.

We use it for storage.

The scalability is its most valuable feature. It's also able to do stretch clustering.

There are a lot of features that they need to improve on, such as the backup and DR feature sets. I would also like to see it able to restore item levels, especially for databases. They don't have that right now.

The stability is okay. I'm not that impressed.

The scalability is good.

Technical support is okay.

We were using what is called a traditional conversion solution. We switched to SimpliVity because it enabled us to consolidate our nodes. 

The initial setup was straightforward.

We used D-Plus. They're pretty good.

We have seen ROI.

It's about $10,000 monthly.

We compared it with other products, such as Nutanix and vSAN, and we weighed the features that we needed. This solution was the one that met the greatest number of our requirements. It's also less complicated to deploy and has a smaller footprint.

The product is good. It might not meet all your requirements, but it is one of the solutions that met most of our requirements. There's no "best product" out there but this is likely the best for your needs.

I would rate SimpliVity at a seven out of ten, based on the features and the requirements that we have.

I was searching for a high availability system that could replace our traditional SAN and be responsible for computer configuration and backup.

This solution was an easy way for us to ensure high availability along with offsite backup of data. It has made offsite recovery a faster process than in the past.

Offsite backup, replication, and duplication of data are important for our plant environment since we are hard on our equipment. The ability to restore quickly and get the business back up and running is priceless.

Bandwidth throttling during offsite backups. When we implemented this solution for the first time to replace another system we brought down the WAN line until the initial data set was replicated. They do have an off-peak time setting but throttling would be better for a 24/7 shop.

Our customer has a limited IT staff, so they were looking at something that will:

• Be a little more centralized
• Be easier for them to manage
• Give them the functionality that their customers really need
•  

We have a lot of customers who are looking at the whole hyper-converged infrastructure. Comparing this solution to some of the other competitors that we've been going up against, they like the ease of use, the centralized management, and big cost-savings. We had one SimpliVity deal so far, but that's what everybody from the customer standpoint really liked about it. They just received the product and they were just setting it up. Hypothetically, it's going to solve a lot of business problems that they were running up against.

That's a good question and I don't really have a good answer for that right now. I'm still learning about the product as a whole and I really want to see, once it's stood up in our customer environment, how it performs. I will then probably have some better ideas once our engineers go through it and talk with the customers as to what improvements there could be.

In terms of what I would define as a perfect solution, I am looking for one that is easy to manage, has a real user-friendly interface, and something that is not too complex. I want something that is the best bang for the buck, especially when we're trying to keep HPE onboard. There are all the competitors that are always trying to come in and say, "We can bring in our product for you, and you'll spend less, ours is easier to use." We want HPE to do whatever they can do to improve, in order to make it a better customer experience.

From what I've seen, it looks like it's a really stable solution. This is our first one that we're implementing. I believe it's going to do everything we want it to do. As far as how it will be in the real world, we will have wait and see.

No customers have tried to scale yet.

Technical support will be involved in the implementation, but that's it for right now. It's in process right now, so I would rate their support as "so far, so good." We'll see when it has all been completed.

We were partnered with SimpliVity before they were bought by HPE, but we never really had any deals as far as HPE goes.

We've sold a lot of blades and 3PAP. We've had some other solutions, like ExaGrid, that tries to compete with HPE. We've done a couple of deals for them. Usually, we try to promote the HPE infrastructure whenever we can, so this product is going to help out with that.

I really can't comment on the setup right now, because I was not involved in that. I don't want to say one way or another.

My advice would be to actually listen to the whole SimpliVity story. Really compare apples to apples, when a lot of manufacturers will bring up their own selling points, which are geared towards their product

It looks like a good thing in the initial presentation. In the long run, it may not answer all of your business needs or it might be way more expensive. Really go through the story and see everything that SimpliVity has to offer.

When selecting a vendor, the first thing I look for is if they stand behind your product. I want to know that when the customer has issues or problems arise, support will be there right away.

Pricing is always good to have, but more importantly, check for a quality product that has been researched, has been proven in the market, or is following business trends.

It's a game changer. They have the inline compression, which is really good. It can present itself as the NAS, so it can leverage our existing compute and then the backup. The backup in DR has been a lifesaver. It makes jobs so much easier. It makes my job a lot easier.

Overall benefits include reducing the cost of administration. We have a small head count of IT. This simplifies the job duties and we don't have to worry about performance or backup issues.

I'd love to see more of their cloud analytics. I guess big data kind of stuff, where we could practically monitor some of the stuff. And some of the integrated software they have with the DR.

The stability has been very good, very solid. I used to check on the SAN or the VM on a daily basis, and now I don't. I can work on other projects and worry about other stuff. Their DR is just super simple.

It scales very easy. Like I told you, I have coverage. You just rack and stack, and it just scales.

I would rate technical support as excellent. They are one of the best.

The setup was pretty straightforward. If you can get that design requirement down and you design it right, then you can basically hand it over to their deployment support. It's pretty easy.

We definitely evaluated others, including VMware, vSAN, Nutanix, and Pivot3 lead hyper-converged, along with SimpliVity.

Then we evaluated the traditional Dell, EMC, and then a couple more of the players. I basically looked at all of the Gartner top vendors out there and we started filtering down based on requirements and budget.

When selecting a vendor, I look for customer references if they claim to do something. I definitely had to research. I did a lot of reference checks.

the number of customers they have is important, their reference, and where they are at in the industry. It's a very innovative game changer. Go after your requirements, your budget, and your stakeholders.

SimpliVity is probably the way to go if you want to stay nimble, innovative, have a smaller IT team, or if you want to have everything centralized with one login.

I would like to see what Nimble has done with their InfoSite cloud monitoring, and analytics integrate into with Simplivity since they are now HPE. Nimble Storage has a simple licensing model which includes everything with the purchase, and that is a great trend that most new vendors are heading to.