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PeerSpot user
GM IT Operations at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
The rapid backup and restore functionality improved our efficiency in the development area.

What is most valuable?

The rapid backup and restore functionality improved our efficiency in the development area.

How has it helped my organization?

We no have the ability to restore a production environment to multiple development environments with a few clicks in a very short time. With 6 development teams working on different modules on the same system, this helps a lot in their agile approach.

What needs improvement?

One thing that might be a deal killer is the additional VM Ware licenses. It is important to keep this in mind, especially when moving over from free hypervisor like Hyper-V.

This would be applicable if users migrate from a free Hypervisor like Hyper-V. With Simplivity not yet supporting these, one has to procure the VMWare licenses. As this cost is in US$, it can become very pricey, especially for clients in South Africa!

So again, it is just something people need to be aware of if they are not already using VMWare.

For how long have I used the solution?

18 months.

Buyer's Guide
HPE SimpliVity
February 2025
Learn what your peers think about HPE SimpliVity. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

None.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The only issue we once had (it took us and then engineers a while to figure out) was a heating/airflow problem. This was self inflicted after upgrading the cooling system.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

None. We started with two, got another one, and then another three. Deployment and expansion was a breeze.

How are customer service and support?

Customer Service:

Excellent. Local sales team always available and involved.

Technical Support:

Also excellent. Always helpful and available during upgrades or maintenance windows.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Had a traditional Server/SAN setup. Upgrading that turned out to be more expensive than moving over to the new solution.

How was the initial setup?

Lots of work, but straightforward. We basically rebuild all our VM's (from Hyper-V to VMWare).

What about the implementation team?

We made use of the local team. Very skilled!

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

One must make sure that you understand all the functionality that comes with the solution, and then try to establish the cost of not having these in place!

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes. Looked at expanding the old solution, and also looked at Nutanix.

What other advice do I have?

Apart from being a great product supported by a very skilled and friendly team, it is very sexy, and will give you lots of bragging rights!

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Support analyst with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Responsive support, integrated backup features, and simple node expansion
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has integrated backup features that are useful."
  • "There are some small changes that can be made to the interface to improve it but it typically works well."

What is our primary use case?

I use HPE SimpliVity for the virtual infrastructure of my servers.

What is most valuable?

The solution has integrated backup features that are useful.

What needs improvement?

There are some small changes that can be made to the interface to improve it but it typically works well.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using HPE SimpliVity for approximately one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is highly stable. I'm using the cluster deployment, site A and site B as if it was only one site and it is very good for zero downtime.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable, I only need to add new nodes to expand.

How are customer service and support?

The support from HPE is very good, they are helpful.

How was the initial setup?

HPE SimpliVity is easy to implement.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to others wanting to use HPE SimpliVity is for them to try it out. It's really good if you compare it with different solutions. I would suggest trying other solutions to see which one suits their business better. In this case, HPE SimpliVity brought a lot of things to the table, such as the backup is already integrated with this solution, which is very helpful. There are a lot of advantages to HPE SimpliVity.

I rate HPE SimpliVity a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
HPE SimpliVity
February 2025
Learn what your peers think about HPE SimpliVity. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior Project Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Valuable replication and backup capabilities, and good technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are replication and backup."
  • "When it comes to performing backups, the dashboard is not intuitive and not user-friendly."

What is our primary use case?

We are a solution provider and we implement HPE products such as SimpliVity for our customers. I am not a customer and I do not use all of the products that we sell, although I know these solutions. SimpliVity is a product that also we use ourselves. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are replication and backup.

This solution is very intuitive and flexible.

The vendor was quick to provide support for VMs in the product.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see support for having different clustered environments for production and testing.

When it comes to performing backups, the dashboard is not intuitive and not user-friendly. This is something that should be improved. It should be easier to perform backups.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using HPE SimpliVity for approximately four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Using SimpliVity improves the stability of the environment.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is the best in the market. We have between 10 and 15 users in our organization, and it is installed in the data center.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is very good and I would rate them a ten out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy and it will take five or six hours to deploy.

What other advice do I have?

My advice for anybody who is considering this product is that it is easy to deploy and set up replication for use in a data center. It can be used in production for DLP.

I would rate this solution a nine 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: Partner
PeerSpot user
Producti149a - PeerSpot reviewer
Production Support Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
It is a simple, self-managed product which makes my job simple
Pros and Cons
  • "It is simple and easy to use."
  • "It comes all in one box."
  • "HPE could give us more options for server models to chose when using the product. Right now, we can only use the DL380."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for hosting stuff for clients.

How has it helped my organization?

It easily backs up our systems, allowing us to recover them.

It makes my job simple.

What is most valuable?

  • It comes all in one box.
  • It is simple and easy to use.
  • Everything works as advertised.

What needs improvement?

HPE could give us more options for server models to chose when using the product. Right now, we can only use the DL380.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is self-managed.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability may be a little limited. It depends on what we select with it.

How are customer service and technical support?

We haven't had any issues or problems with the technical support. They help us by setting up a demo and making sure everything functions correctly with the product before we ship it to the client.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Our previous solution was hardware, not a one box solution. It had multiple servers.

It was time to upgrade the client's solution. We chose to go with this solution because it was a small market client.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward. It was simple to set up. After setting it up, it was easy to manage.

What about the implementation team?

We used HPE for the deployment. Our experience with them was great.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are an HPE shop. Most of the stuff that we have is HPE, so there was only one choice for us.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend buying this product. It is a simple, self-managed product.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Visual Compute Engineer at CrowdStrike
Vendor
Dedupe, compression, and replication of primary and secondary data, locally and remotely
Pros and Cons
  • "Dedupe, compression, and replication of primary and secondary data, locally and remotely."
  • "Needs decoupling of distributed data fabric to run in a hyperscale deployment outside the hypervisor on dedicated nodes."

What is our primary use case?

General IT workloads of core services and standard line of business applications.

How has it helped my organization?

Reduced storage footprint of primary and secondary copies of data and WAN replication bandwidth with good performance.

What is most valuable?

Dedupe, compression, and replication of primary and secondary data, locally and remotely. Less experienced admins can perform storage tasks.

What needs improvement?

Needs decoupling of distributed data fabric to run in a hyperscale deployment outside the hypervisor on dedicated nodes.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Nimit Puvar - PeerSpot reviewer
Nimit PuvarEVP for Enterprise Sales at Ashtech Infotech (India) Pvt.Ltd.
Real User

how about truly Software Define Solution as its give you freedom of choice for Hardware.

See all 2 comments
PeerSpot user
Solutions Architect with 51-200 employees
Vendor
It's an incredibly elegant solution that is built for the VM, not LUN, which delivers on the vision of VMware Virtual Volumes today.

Originally posted at http://blog.snsltd.co.uk/an-introduction-to-simplivity-omnicube-a-superior-hyper-converged-platform/ 

I have looked at many storage technologies over the last few years – these include All-Flash Arrays, Software-Defined Storage, Hyper-Converged Infrastructure and Cloud Gateways.

The vendors of these products claim that they deliver something significantly better than what can be found in most data centres today, and in certain ways they do, but they always have a big list of areas that need significant improvement (one key example is that storage platforms that do not have 100% inline de-duplication and compression are starting to look “a bit long in the tooth”).

I have also studied VMware Virtual Volumes in depth and the vision of the technology is impressive, the problem is that the current 1.0 version does not deliver on this vision – we need the ability to manage everything at the VM level from the point of view of storage (i.e. capacity, performance and de-duplication/compression policies), backup (i.e. frequency, target and retention policies) and DR (i.e. replication policies).

In addition if we want to restore a VM (or some of its contents) we should be able to do it from within the hypervisor’s management tools and not require a 3rd party tool – true VM-centric management.

I have recently been looking into SimpliVity OmniCube Hyper-converged Infrastructure technology and it is without doubt the most well thought out platform I have ever seen – key features include:

Accelerated Data Efficiency

  • Improves performance using hardware-assisted always-on inline de-duplication, compression and I/O optimisation
  • Saves a single compressed copy of primary data on each cluster
  • Runs as a single node or HA pair without requiring costly 10GbE switches
  • Tolerates double disk failure within a single node
  • Supports 3rd-party hypervisor servers

Highly-Efficient VM-centric Backup, Replication and Recovery

  • Creates near instant local VM backups using simple but flexible backup policies
  • Replicates and moves VMs, and backups between sites by only moving data that does not already exist at the remote site
  • Near instantly restores local backups no matter the size of the VM
  • Restores remote backups by moving only data that does not already exist locally


Global VM-centric Unified Management

  • Is administered as a single global system from vCenter

In conclusion SimpliVity delivers an incredibly elegant solution that is built for the VM, not LUN, which delivers on the vision of VMware Virtual Volumes today.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1295955 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Coordinator at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
A great solution for seamless experience and ease of use
Pros and Cons
  • "Its ease of use is valuable. It is being used in a mining company. They wanted their working nodes to be seamless, and they wanted ease of use. That's why they opted for SimpliVity. They are running VMware virtual machines on it."
  • "They can bring more awareness about this product. In this part of the world or this region, people normally don't know about SimpliVity and its capabilities. The company we have it sold to hasn't been able to fully utilize all the features or understand the features. So, product awareness should be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We are a solution provider. We don't usually use it for our own workload or for ourselves. We are partners of both Dell EMC and HPE. We sell their products and provide solutions based on their products to our end customers.

It is being used in a mining company. I'm currently working with it to upgrade the storage capacity for the load that was sold.

What is most valuable?

Its ease of use is valuable. It is being used in a mining company. They wanted their working nodes to be seamless, and they wanted ease of use. That's why they opted for SimpliVity. They are running VMware virtual machines on it.

What needs improvement?

They can bring more awareness about this product. In this part of the world or this region, people normally don't know about SimpliVity and its capabilities. The company we have it sold to hasn't been able to fully utilize all the features or understand the features. So, product awareness should be improved.

Its scalability should be improved. We should be able to add drives without disrupting the services.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have known this product for the last three years or more, but we first sold it to a customer in 2020 or 2021.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I don't have first-hand experience in managing it day to day. So, I don't know if there are any lapses somewhere.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are currently working on upgrading the storage capacity for a customer from medium to large. The solution is scalable, but they have to work more on the scalability part. That's because you can scale out and scale up, but based on my experience with this customer, scaling up is going to be disruptive. It's going to disrupt their service because the storage has got into a place where they cannot just add the storage node to it without disrupting the service. They have to look at that angle. When you're adding drives, it should be able to just load the drives, do the recalculation, and just work without disrupting your service.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate them an eight out of 10.

How was the initial setup?

Its setup is straightforward.

What other advice do I have?

It is a great solution coming from a pioneer in technology. If you want to go for it, you can go for it, but you have to be sure that this is what you want. 

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

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
PeerSpot user
reviewer1045770 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of ICT Infrastructure at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
A complete hyperconverged solution with useful hard disk compression capabilities
Pros and Cons
  • "I like HPE SimpliVity's hard disk compression capabilities. The data is compressed into very little space or volume. I think that the principal value of HP SimpliVity is its capacity to compress the data, and I'm saving a lot of disk space using SimpliVity."
  • "HPE SimpliVity could be more flexible and scalable. I don't feel SimpliVity is flexible or easily scalable because I still need to buy another server to add to my clusters. I can't just run or harvest and add to my solution. I need to buy another server. There are a lot of components that are not giving a lot of value to me right now. I also had a few problems with the built-in hard disk drives. I've had many issues with the harvest stripes that the servers use. Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's unusual to have a physical failure on the HPE platform. I don't see any value at the software level, especially in the software that manages that solution. I was waiting for something, especially in the application layer that I would use, but that is all over VMware, and it doesn't have an integrated module that I can use to manage the server and all the instances."

What is our primary use case?

I use HPE SimpliVity for my private cloud, and all my production servers are running on this private cloud. My ERP software and the most important system, SAP, is running on HPE SimpliVity. Their metal server is physical, but all the other digital ecosystems or digital platforms are running on my private cloud in SimpliVity HPE.

What is most valuable?

I like HPE SimpliVity's hard disk compression capabilities. The data is compressed into very little space or volume. I think that the principal value of HP SimpliVity is its capacity to compress the data, and I'm saving a lot of disk space using SimpliVity.

What needs improvement?

HPE SimpliVity could be more flexible and scalable. I don't feel SimpliVity is flexible or easily scalable because I still need to buy another server to add to my clusters. I can't just run or harvest and add to my solution. I need to buy another server.

There are a lot of components that are not giving a lot of value to me right now. I also had a few problems with the built-in hard disk drives. I've had many issues with the harvest stripes that the servers use. Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's unusual to have a physical failure on the HPE platform. I don't see any value at the software level, especially in the software that manages that solution. 

I was waiting for something, especially in the application layer that I would use, but that is all over VMware, and it doesn't have an integrated module that I can use to manage the server and all the instances. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

HPE SimpliVity could be more scalable.

How was the initial setup?

I think the initial setup was easy. It was really fast. 

What about the implementation team?

The technicians assigned by HPE implemented this solution in a very short time. At most, it took about two or three days. It was really amazing. It was very simple, and they helped us migrate the materials and the digital machine.

What other advice do I have?

On a scale from one to ten, I would give HPE SimpliVity an eight.

I trust HPE a lot because it's an excellent product. I think SimpliVity is a better solution than other basic HPE solutions. Maybe not the best, but it's a good solution.

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.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free HPE SimpliVity Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: February 2025
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free HPE SimpliVity Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.