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reviewer1675029 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Support Executive at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
Reseller
Easy to set up with reasonable pricing and great documentation
Pros and Cons
  • "The pricing is very reasonable."
  • "Technical support could be more helpful."

What is most valuable?

The solution makes migration very simple. 

The initial setup is very easy.

The management of the solution is easy and documentation is very much simple. 

With the help of its documentation, if someone is new to the solution, all they need to do is follow the documentation and they can handle the product with ease.

The solution is scalable.

The pricing is very reasonable. 

What needs improvement?

I cannot recall coming across areas that need specific improvements. 

Technical support could be more helpful.

I'd like to see some cloning or snapshot functionality in the near future. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with the solution for the last five years or so. It's been a while. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution can scale well. A company that needs to expand it can do so with ease. 

Buyer's Guide
Huawei OceanStor
November 2024
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How are customer service and support?

Technical support is okay. However, sometimes within the support system, they provide some sort of canned automatic reply to the customer instead of setting up communication with the customers.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very simple. Even if a user is new to the product, they can just look at the documentation, and it will guide them through the process. 

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

We do not find the pricing to be very high. It's quite affordable. 

What other advice do I have?

We are a distributing partner of Huawei. I have experience in terms of installation, configuration, and professional services.

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

I'd recommend the solution to others. I'd also advise on Dorado Storage, however, they would need to use a professional service. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
PeerSpot user
Technical Lead at Computer Marketing Company Pvt Ltd
Real User
Easy to install, good configuration and extremely stable
Pros and Cons
  • "Generally stable with good technical support."
  • "Could have a more stable, lighter Metro and better logging system."

What is our primary use case?

We have some Huawei 9000 cases for our virtualization, and for the storage block-level and mass as well, For HyperMetro too, for 18560 and 6800, this solution is critical for our company. The product is the main one on the line, it serves the entire company. Our usage expands daily.  We are partners with Huawei and I'm the technical lead. 

What is most valuable?

The solution is easy to install and configure. It's also very stable. 

What needs improvement?

I'd like to see a more stable, lighter Metro and better logging system for issues and resolution in the future. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using this solution for the past 12 months. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

For HyperMetro there are some requirements for stable and dark fiber links. We have some issues with the dark fiber, but mostly their storage is very stable. We have around 3,500 users for 6800 and a total of almost 6,000 users. We used Huawei for the initial deployment but for the second deployment we mostly did it by ourselves.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer support is very good but if you want support and you don't have SNS switches as well, the complete solution is not there. Sometimes Huawei support doesn't extend to that. For other products they generally ask you to contact other principals. I don't think Huawei isselling their SNS switches anymore.

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

We didn't abandon the solutions we were using before Huawi. We have some EMC solutions which are also installed and running. 

How was the initial setup?

It's very easy to install and configure the solution. It didn't take too long, it was more about fulfilling requirements for storage and deployment, so probably a month to six weeks. 

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution and rate it a nine 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
Buyer's Guide
Huawei OceanStor
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Huawei OceanStor. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer730659 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Good availability, stability, and it is competitively priced
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the availability."
  • "The upgrading process needs improvement. Deploy it and notify the customers when new versions and stuff comes out. I don't think they're doing that well."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case of the 6400 and 6800 is as flash in our private cloud and the 5400's we use for backups in private cloud.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the availability. 

What needs improvement?

The upgrading process needs improvement. Deploy it and notify the customers when new versions and stuff comes out. I don't think they're doing that well.

In the next release, they should have encryption. Compliance is a very big thing in security. If we got encryption in the boxes, clients would be satisfied. We'd also like to see deduplication, compression, and NVMe capabilities. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable. What we're currently working on is very stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We've got about five or seven clients that are using it.

How are customer service and technical support?

We struggle a bit with technical support with the language barrier. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of the 55-5400 didn't take long because the guys knew already how to deploy. The 68's took long. 

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

Pricing is very fair. It's competitively priced. 

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

I would recommend it to someone considering it. Pricing is very competitive and the routing is very good. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
Chetan Woodun - PeerSpot reviewer
Chetan WoodunSenior Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User

(a)Makes sense to have the 6400 and 6800 is as flash in our private cloud and the slower 5400's as backup , but please make sure that you have an offsite copy as well, both for compliance and peace of mind!
(b)Also, when implementing those higher Tiers (Tier 1 : NVME), please make sure that the requirements are streamlined as the cost of NVMe can be 2.5 times those of SSD ( Tier 2) and the price even by Huawei standards is not on the lower side! Only the application requiring the fastest response time should normally be NVMe. Its important for users to understand the cost difference.
(c)About encryption, best done at application level.

Architect at a recreational facilities/services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Top 20
Has sped up our operations and it is easy to maintain and support
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has improved our organization by speeding up our operations."
  • "The deployment took a little longer."

What is our primary use case?

We use it as primary storage for our Virtualization environment (vmware) under HP Blade system. We store the VM and the data on int (SQL Server, etc).

How has it helped my organization?

The solution has improved our organization by speeding up our operations and increasing the scale of operations (growth capacity).

What is most valuable?

I like the solution's speed and the use of SSD technology. If I have to compare it to what we had before, I would say that it's easier to maintain and to support (on top of performance). It offers great capacity.

it servers not only as SAN but also NAS. The conectivity has a lot of options and prepares us for the use of Ethernet 10Gbit.

The configuration (web interface) is very simple and the dashboard provides all the basic information (health, etc) in a glimpe.


For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Huawei OceanStor ( /products/huawei-oceanstor-reviews ) for about nine months now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't experienced any problems since we started using the solution a few months ago. I hope that this continues. Considering that this is a new technology and not a fast prototype, I don't think there will be any stability problems.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

According to their specifications, the scalability is very good. We didn't have to scale yet, but in the future we might add more disks.

How are customer service and technical support?

So far we never had to call support. We currently have a contract who is available 24 hours a day with four hours response time. But as we haven't used it before, I don't know if it's really good or not.

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

We had an Hitachi SAN AMS 2100 system, that provided us a great service along a lot of years, but that at the moment was completely obsolete (limited FC speed, disks starting to fail frequently, low relative capacity). The storage was not in par with the new servers and their capacities. The main cause of removal was the lack of official support. 

How was the initial setup?

The deployment took a little longer. The installation and setup were just like any other product. It was not complex at all. We want everything to run smooth, so deployment took us about a week or two. But it could be done in two days' time, it is just that we preferred to be more secure and going step by step. In our case, we were moving a lot of data from the old system to the new one and we did this one thing at a time. So that is why it took so long.

What about the implementation team?

We use a vendor team with great expertise in the solution.

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

Pay attention to other systems with licensing. This system included everything in perpetual mode. Setup cost and time is very simple. As a new player price is very competitive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

There are many different companies and products out there and we did look at a few of them, like HP, Dell, PureStorage and IBM but in the end the best quality-price ratio made this product the winner.

What other advice do I have?

It would be very pretentious to give advice to anyone since the product is very simple and easy to use and we have it only for less than a year. I think the system has more features than we are using right now. Fortunately we have not the opportunity to check the quality of the service as till the moment we have not any problem. 
Perfection is difficult to achieve, so on a scale from one to ten, my rating is nine. F

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Chetan Woodun - PeerSpot reviewer
Chetan WoodunSenior Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User

Great to hear that you are using HP blade and Huawei Oceanstor and all being managed by VMWARE. We used it before and it works.
As for the storage, afterwards, have a look at the Dedup features , it will help you to save on disk space
Also, you may want to do a quarterly or monthly health-check to make sure that you are proactive unless your logs are shipped to Huawei support automatically. There are many features which enables maintenance of a predictive nature and Huawei has them.

reviewer934503 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer Specialist at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Straightforward installation, stable, and good technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "Huawei OceanStor is stable."
  • "The solution could improve by having better integration."

What is our primary use case?

We use Huawei OceanStor as a storage solution for our organization.

What needs improvement?

The solution could improve by having better integration.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Huawei OceanStor for a few years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Huawei OceanStor is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Huawei OceanStor is scalable.

We have many users using this solution in my organization.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support from Huawei OceanStor is good.

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

We previously used another similar solution to Huawei OceanStor and we switched because the price was better.

How was the initial setup?

The installation of Huawei OceanStor is easy and took approximately three hours.

What about the implementation team?

I am able to do the implementation myself.

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

The price of the solution could be less expensive. However, there are not any licensing costs.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Huawei OceanStor 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.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
IT Support Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
The possibility to split disks into domains also provide a way to get the best "money saving" over "performance" ratio using tiering of disks, so you can use the right tier for any application
Pros and Cons
  • "If your virtual machine that resides on it completely fills the storage space, thanks to it's built-in function of all-zero data space reclamation, you just have to ask to System Engineer to run a zero-free on hosts (thin provisioned) and you will get more space instantaneously."
  • "Unfortunately, this product doesn't support Flash Disks, but it's IOPS capacity is a great compromise."

How has it helped my organization?

Once we had to implement a completely new environment and we didn't need to buy another storage because of it's flexibility.

If your virtual machine that resides on it completely fills the storage space, thanks to it's built-in function of all-zero data space reclamation, you just have to ask to System Engineer to run a zero-free on hosts (thin provisioned) and you will get more space instantaneously.

What is most valuable?

The horizontal scalability up to eight members and the possibility to distribute disks in domains made it my choice, it's perfect for any purposes because there is no waste of space.

The possibility to split disks into domains also provides a way to get the best "money saving" over "performance" ratio using tiering of disks, so you can use the right tier for any application you want to run on.

For example: for a server that only need to stream videos (sequential reading) you will create a mixed tier using SSD for caching and HDD for backend storage.

What needs improvement?

Unfortunately, this product doesn't support Flash Disks, but it's IOPS capacity is a great compromise.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The kernel stability makes it the best choice for preventing disasters, every member in cluster also had at least two active intelligences for redundancy, but in my experience, I never encountered any kind of problem. I think this hardware can last 50 years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Absolutely not, as explained previously, with it's up to eight members for cluster, you can also start a new cluster if you need to expand the business over and over.

How are customer service and technical support?

Unfortunately (or not), I've never had to interface with it, not even for an initial setup. It's really easy to implement in any existing environment.

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

The company for which I set up the system was born with this core solution.

How was the initial setup?

Absolutely not, the product work out-of-the-box, you just need a knowledge about networking (in case of ISCSI) and FC protocol (in case of FiberChannel LUN provisioning that was my case).

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

This product value matches its price.

What other advice do I have?

It's the best co-worker you could have with you! And he never gets holidays.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1554462 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Its management interface it's quite simple
Pros and Cons
  • "OceanStor is cheaper than Dell EMC, and its management interface is quite simple."
  • "CFS integration is one area where OceanStor has some room for improvement. The CFS on OceanStor is dedicated, so it's not integrated with the existing active directory domain."

What is our primary use case?

We are using OceanStor for enterprise and block storage. It is connected to our company and used as backend storage for different virtualization and database solutions. 

What is most valuable?

We purchased the HyperMetro feature, but we have not really used it. It would've been very interesting, but we have mainly used the option and clean features.

What needs improvement?

CFS integration is one area where OceanStor has some room for improvement. The CFS on OceanStor is dedicated, so it's not integrated with the existing active directory domain. That's a big issue with this service. Huawei could also improve the power unit on this storage solution. When we conducted some tests, we noticed that the autonomy for the BBU is not really long. Within 15 minutes, it totally went down. OceanStor is out of support and off the market, so Huawei is moving now to Dorado.

Also, the interface is in Chinese in some places. It would be helpful if they could release some versions without Chinese.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used OceanStor since 2017.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

OceanStor's overall stability and performance are quite good. In terms of storage in full flash, we have not been pushing it to the extreme. But we haven't had any performance issues so far. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

OceanStor is supposed to be scalable, but we have not really tried it. For scalability, the company chose to move to another solution. They have a couple of systems for storage, with more than 200 hosts. 

How are customer service and support?

Huawei technical support was not needed to fix production issues. But I got in touch with them once, and it wasn't very good because we did not get the solution. They were pushing us to embed it, which didn't work for our use case.

How was the initial setup?

Setting up OceanStor is pretty simple compared to Dell EMC, but the time needed for deployment depends on many things. It took around a month because it has to go through several processes to access the data center, get approval, plan the activity, and follow all the internal procedures. So these things make the process take longer.

In terms of maintenance, we load patches from Huawei by open request. They have patches that need to be applied from time to time. Three people are administrating OceanStor directly within the company. We have outside support who can access it on demand, but three people are storage administrators within the company. 

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

OceanStor's pricing is based on features and volume. If you have a feature like IPCC One or HyperMetro, you will get the license for a specific volume. So when you reach that volume limit, you need to extend the license. That is a significant issue with it.

With many other vendors, the licensing model is mainly based on the feature. For instance, if a file is part of the license for Snapshot, once you have the license, it's not linked to the volume or the number of snapshots you do, even when you extend your storage capacity. It is a perpetual license not based on volume. But with Huawei, that is an issue because you need to extend it to still benefit from the feature if you exceed the volume. You have to pay a lot for data. I would estimate that it accounts for about 10% of the license, but the fact that it is based on volume is not a good point, in my opinion.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

OceanStor is cheaper than Dell EMC, and its management interface is quite simple. Dell EMC's interface is also straightforward. When I compare OceanStor with the full flash of another vendor, I will say that it performed well with the full load, and we have not seen any efficiency issues.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Huawei OceanStor eight out of 10. I would recommend it to other people.

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
reviewer1457181 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Good flexibility, straightforward to set up, and it is stable
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the flexibility in the rail, as it is hybrid storage."
  • "The administration should be simplified because there are a large number of options that make it too complicated, and the customers can get confused."

What is our primary use case?

We are a system integration company and we are working with Huawei OceanStor products. It is mainly used for virtualization.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the flexibility in the rail, as it is hybrid storage. It can be used for many different use cases, depending on what our customer requests.

What needs improvement?

The administration should be simplified because there are a large number of options that make it too complicated, and the customers can get confused. The V6 has already been improved and is much simpler, but the V3 is not.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Huawei OceanStor for a couple of months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not seen any bugs or glitches.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is okay. It depends on whether you are asking the right questions. If you do then you get the right answers, but when the team is asking something that is not straight, then you won't solve the problem right away.

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

In the past, I have had lots of experience with different storage vendors. I worked for many of them. I have found that most of them are using the same disks, so it is hard to point to things that differentiate them. For the most part, the functionality is the same but the functions have different names.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is okay and there is not much difficulty involved. The deployment can be completed in a couple of hours.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution an eight 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
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Huawei OceanStor Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Huawei OceanStor Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.