HPE SimpliVity Reviews

I use the solution for general virtualization, different workloads, and VDI.

HPE Simplivity Simplifies our infrastructure thanks to HCI with Data optimitation that includes easy and Simple Backup so we reduced the time oriented to manage the infrastructure and reduce the investment in Storage and different technologies and consoles

The product can be managed easily. The storage efficiency is valuable. The tool has an integrated backup. The data protection capabilities are very good. I did not face any issues with it. We do the standard virtualization. We use VMware. Everything we do on VMware, we can do also on SimpliVity.

The solution must provide other hypervisors. VMware is changing its licensing model. I would like to test the VME version to see if it maintains all the features I like from HPE Simplivity

I have been using the solution for six years.

The tool has been working fine for a very long time. The stability is very good.

I rate the tool’s scalability a seven out of ten. It's a system based on appliances. If we want to scale, we must get a new appliance. Every hyperconverged infrastructure has a similar model. If I want more storage, it's not flexible because I need to add more appliances. The tool is suitable for medium and small companies.

HPE provides good support.

Positive

Yes, compute and Storage with Virtualization, we change to simplify the infrastructure and get more features in less components, compute, storage, virtualization and backup

The setup is easy. We have two on-premise clusters deployed in our organization.

Nutanix and VxRail are competitors of the solution. HPE SimpliVity is better than its competitors because of its storage optimization and backup features.

I will recommend the tool to others. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I like SimpliVity because it can be adapted for small clients or the biggest ones. It's flexible.

I don't have any criticisms of SimpliVity at the moment, but I would like to see how it stacks up to vSAN and Data Core. It's essential for the client to have the comparison and be secure that they made a good choice.

I've been using SimpliVity for about two years.

SimpliVity's scalability is good, but you definitely need to opt for two processors if you want scalability. It's limited otherwise.

HPE's technical team helped us implement and support SimpliVity. Sometimes they took too long to respond.

Setting up SimpliVity is pretty easy. You just have to use the consultants from HPE. They handle the initial installation after you do the maintenance and the preparations. I rate the deployment eight out of 10. 

SimpliVity's price is excellent. You can get a good discount on the price, which is important for a small client. However, I'm not familiar with all the latest solutions because I've never implemented them. I only implement SimpliVity. It's not too expensive for a small client.

I rate HPE SimpliVity eight out of 10. If you're thinking about implementing it, I recommend conducting a good evaluation of your existing system so you have a decent understanding of your storage needs. Once you select the size of SimpliVity, it could be risky for you to downsize it because you may need maybe to reimplement some things. My second recommendation is about the network. If your network is not up to snuff, SimpliVity will not perform the best that it can.

Most of the installations are for branch offices that need an integrated solution for backup.

It helps branch offices in having an integrated solution for backup. That's the greatest benefit of SimpliVity.

Its performance is quite good, and it is also easy to use. One of the biggest benefits is the included backup solution.

The greatest disadvantage is the update process. Every patch or release update must be checked and deployed with the HPE solution, which sometimes is a little bit difficult. It is not difficult in terms of installation, but it is difficult to get the patches in time.

Its scalability can also be improved.

It is stable.

If I compare it to our recent solution, it is not so scalable. We have had about 10 customers. Normally, it is in a branch office, so there are less than 200 users.

Their support is customer-friendly. You can use the support portal. You can call them through telephone or web interface. There is an interface for an automatic call if there is an issue in the hardware system.

It is straightforward and easy. It takes one to three days. Our SimpliVity installations are not so big. Therefore, it takes a little bit less time.

We need an engineer or an admin guy from the storage team, and sometimes, we also need a networking guy.

Its licensing is quite easy. There is a model license, but it depends on the system you buy. 

There are no extra costs. There is only one license.

I would recommend this solution. I would rate it a seven out of 10.

The solution is used for server consolidation and, with SimpliVity and other hyper-converged solutions, we can reduce the footprint and we can give them added benefits, like backup, DR, compression, and deduplication. The main use case for SimpliVity is for backup and cloning, and rapid DR. If you take vSAN, we can say the selling point is server consolidation, and then you can start your STDC journey.

The backup is the main and most valuable aspect, followed by the rapid DR (Disaster Recovery). With a traditional network, we have to have some WAN optimizers, however, with SimpliVity, we can go with their Omni and the rapid DR software.

Technical support is great.

The solution is quite stable.

We can scale the solution easily.

The initial setup is simple. 

When we failed it, there was a hardware accelerator card, however, now HP is saying the hardware is no longer available, and it will be the end of life. Now, we have only the software. That is a shock for us. When someone is using a hardware accelerator, then he needs some upgrades. Now, we have to say there is no hardware card. Now you have to use the software. There will be a mismatch.

The Omni Card consumes a lot of memory and CPU. On the HP selling site, it says Omni Card can offload your CPU and memory, however, in reality, it consumes more memory and CPU.

We have been working with HP SimpliVity for three years. 

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is quite scalable. 

We closed six deals. The largest one is a 4-node cluster, and another is a 2-node cluster and 3-node cluster. Very recently, we closed a deal with the largest private sector insurance company which is about four nodes. They are going to expand the environment. We have another five HPE SimpliVity references in Sri Lanka. Currently, we are working with a few customers on some upgrades. 

Technical support has been great. We get direct HP support and have had no issues with the HP support.

The initial setup is easy. Nowadays, it is all very straightforward. There is no rocket science involved. We can do a simple installation.

We are able to handle the implementation process for our clients. 

We deal with a variety of products. It's case by case. We are not selling any product. We are selling solutions. If a customer prefers Nutanix, then we can go with Nutanix, however, we can tell them the features and advantages. As a product, SimpliVity is better than others due to the fact that it has its own WAN optimizer optimization technologies then dedupe and compression ratios are high, and we can get support from a single vendor. SimpliVity is the leader.

We are an enterprise partner for HPE and we are dealing with HPE SimpliVity. We are also new Nutanix partners, so we are working with a couple of hyper-converged solutions. In addition to that, we are an advanced partner for VMware. At the moment we don't have any vSAN references, however, we are a certified VMware partner.

We might work with an older version. I'm not familiar with the latest one. Mainly, I'm a part of the pre-sales team. Our implementation guys handle the deployment. They are dealing with the versions and upgrades. I'm involved in pre-sales.

I'd advise potential new users that, if you have large volumes on backups and if you have any plans to go for DR, so you can start with SimpliVity.

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

We are using the SimpliVity HCI servers to work as a VDI solution. Mainly it's a VDI solution that is using the HCI nodes.

HPE simplivity makes the computer technogy as simple and enjoyable to use as possible, HPE Simplivity design efficient, effective and satisfying. 

The HCI concept by itself is the most valuable feature of the solution. It is a full-fledged HCI. It is the main component. I think this is what makes the project valuable

I think our LAN and branches started to use the VDI. We are hitting the point of a bottleneck with the end users and are complaining to support about this. Now, after using the SimpliVity with these nodes, we solve all the problems to cut the support cases for the end users. Also, the applications that they are running over the SimpliVity and HCI solutions are running better than the normal traditional solution. Bottleneck is the main issue.

Our connection with HPE is not a new relationship. It's 15 or 20 years old. It's such a long history with HPE that they were just HP when we started.

I think the stability is perfect. We deployed the first part one and half years ago, or more. I think we had only one or two cases that needed support, otherwise it's stable and very convenient.

In terms of maintenance for SimpliVity, we have a three year support with the vendor through SMS partner for HPE that covers us until the end of the period. After that, we usually do a reassessment and ask for an estimate for maintenance for the coming years. So at the moment maintenance is handled by HPE and HPE partner (SMS) . 

In terms of scalability, our expansion depends on how many end users I want to be using it because the sizing of the HCI depend on the number of end users that will connect to the HCI node.

I think that we have witnessed improvement in the performance between the HCI solution and traditional servers.

We have 600 users now, and next year we will have an additional 400. This brings us to 1000 users. Then we'll look for an expansion.

The quality of customer service depends on the cases. At the beginning of the projects, every environment has customized procedures. Our environment needed a little bit of customization that made some headache for HPE and SMS partner. But after that, it worked perfectly. And their responses are quite good with all the cases that we brought to them.

Positive

The initial setup was simple because it has a wizard GUI interface that helped to set up the project and set the needed configuration. Additionally, SMS partner was already connected step by step with a vendor. So it was quite easy and simple.

The licensing depends on the servers that it is going to run on. But SimpliVity didn't have a license to run on their devices. I think the license will be on the VMware or Citrix or the environment that you want to run on it. With SimpliVity, it is just a one time purchase and not actually any license.

We started using SimpliVity after we made several POCs with many vendors. We did a POC for Dell EMC, for Fujitsu, for Nutanix, and also for HPE SimpliVity. They all succeeded with the POC projects, but HPE won the competition and got the tender.

I think the reason that HPE was chosen in our tender was the technical level. Our tender was for a technical and financial proposal. 70% of our proposal depended on the technical offer and 30% on the financial offer.

SimpliVity was the first HCI solution we deployed in our organization. It was a good experiment to start with. Now we are planning to start with a new HCI deployment next year.

I recommend SimpliVity to other organizations because it is quite easy to deal with, quite easy to start the configuration, and it is easy to manipulate if you want to track anything.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give SimpliVity a 9.

We are an SIEM integrator. We are working with a lot of products that our clients have, and we are studying products in our clients' production. 

It is mostly used for remote sites. It is sometimes also used for production. Its version depends on the customer.

SimpliVity is integrated into the virtual center, so there is no additional management software or management interface. It's quite simple to manage because there is only one interface. It is all in one, which makes it different from other solutions.

Its simplicity is most valuable. The management is easy, and you don't have to have a lot of knowledge about storage, network, etc. It is simple to manage and simple to implement, and that's its key feature.

Its scalability can be improved. When we put a lot of nodes, sometimes, its performance decreases. Its price can also be improved.

I would like some reporting about backup and replication.

I have been using this solution for about four years.

It is quite good. It is really stable. We have no issue with performance.

Its performance decreases when we have a lot of nodes.

It is suitable for small, medium, and large companies. It can be used in almost all companies.

It is pretty good. Their support and maintenance are really good, but the installation services that HPE provides for SimpliVity are sometimes not so good.

It was quite straightforward. Now that I know how to deploy it, it takes less than 30 minutes.

Our company provides the implementation services. The maintenance of hardware and software is done by the vendor.

Its price is pretty good as compared to the other solutions, but it is quite expensive if we compare it with non-HCI solutions.

I would advise others to give it a try. We did a lot of proof of concepts where we just put a node, and the client tried it.

I would rate it a nine out of 10.

The cache functionality is great.

Technical support is helpful and very knowledgeable of the product.

The initial setup is pretty simple.

The performance is good. It's stable and easy to operate.

The scalability is very good.

The price can be dropped a little bit. The product should be competitive with other brands. 

The technical support around the world can be a lot more open as you cannot search all the KBs or the community for support. Most of the time, you need to call HPE directly. The solution really just lacks documentation. 

The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. The performance is very good. 

We have found the solution to be scalable and simple to expand as necessary. However, you need to do the sizing properly at the outset.

Technical support could be better as the documentation doesn't help you avoid calling them. You often need to reach out.

While their technical support is good and the staff is skillful, every time you could avoid the need to process a phone call if you could just Google it. We'd like the answer to just be available and easy to find online.

The setup process is simple and straightforward. it's not overly complex or difficult. I'd rate the process of four out of five for the general ease of deployment. 

It's a pretty expensive solution.

Technical support is included in the pricing. 

I'd advise potential new users to ask a lot of the standard questions. For example: what are you going to use within the solution? You need to check the expandability as you need to use the same capacity that you are purchasing. You need to understand if you need a small, medium, or large capacity. 

There are different sizes of hardware. If you want to do an expansion, you need to think about if are you going to expand and where and what you will need, and whether that's in the near future, or maybe three or five years later. That is the consideration you need to keep in mind from the outset.

Overall, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for disaster recovery. 

It's a very good solution for disaster recovery.

The support on offer is very good.

We don't mind the pricing.

The configuration capabilities are good.

For consolidation purposes, it's a very good product. We are able to reduce the footprint for space, including rack space in the data centers.

The initial setup process is not too hard. 

It's not exactly straightforward to use. We need to train our people as some features that are there we are not used to or maybe we don't know how to use. Therefore, we need to train our people.

Maybe the price could be a bit better. 

The compatibility with other products needs an improvement.

There's a controller or something that is used. Instead of using vSAN, they use another technology, NFS. I don't like it. That said, it works.

I've been using the solution for two years at this point. 

Technical support has been great. they are helpful and responsive. 

The setup is fine. I haven't heard of the team having any issues with the process. It's my understanding that it is largely straightforward. 

The pricing, for the most part, is pretty good. However, it could always be a bit less expensive. 

We are an HPE partner.

I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.