Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Reviews

We use the solution as a host environment for applications and also for VDI.

The solution is easy to use and to learn. It is well integrated with VMware. 

Additionally, the solution is flexible, we have projects in a few sectors such as the environmental and oil industries. It has been working well overall.

This solution is lacking in replication and backup abilities that I would like to see in a future release similar to HPE SimpliVity.

I have been using the solution for two years.

The solution is stable, it has been able to perform all the tasks we have used it for. It is very reliable.

The solution is scalable and it is easy to expand in storage and other areas, such as if you want to increase the nodes it is very simple. We currently have approximately 3000 users using the solution.

We have never had an issue that would need their support.

I have used HPE SimpliVity previously and it had some other features that this solution does not have that are useful.

The initial setup was straightforward, the solution does a lot of the configuration by itself. The installation should take approximately a few hours if you have all the prerequisites in place.

We did the implementation ourselves and we have two network engineers doing the deployments and maintenance of the solution.

We have plans to keep using the solution in the future. We have one standard traditional environment and also hyper-converged with Cisco. We are planning to add more hardware to increase capacity because we are almost at full capacity now. We are going to increase the infrastructure due to the ramping up of operations.

If you want a reliable solution then I would advise choosing this one.

I rate Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series an eight out of ten.

We use it in our production environment for some tasks, such as availability, easy scalability, easy setup, and independence from too many solutions put together. We use FlexPod as another one for mutualized infrastructure.

It is easy for one person to manage, and you don't need to have different expert specialists to configure your storage networking, on the server side, power side, etc. 

It is an out-of-the-box solution. It can be used with little to large size equipment and make things work quickly.

Its most valuable features are:

• Its flexibility
• It is a non-stop solution.
• It is an all-in-one solution.
• It is a cost saving solution. 
• When we use it for VDI solutions, it is very easy to deploy and support.

I would like to have an easy solution calculation to plan my infrastructure and complete my licenses. Because as of now, I have to read a lot of materials and documents.

We have been using this solution for about two years and nothing has happened. We have had no downtime yet. I believe it will work perfectly over the long-term.

It is very easy to scale with this solution.

Their tech support is very clear and easy to work with, and we haven't any problem with them.

We evaluated:

• Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series vs Dell EMC
• Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series vs NetApp
• Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series vs AppDynamics.

The setup was complex, especially since we usually do all the planning, sizing, and workflows before integration.

We always deploy all the solutions for our team. Because our market is not as large as in big countries, our partners sometimes do not seek out teams who can deploy difficult solutions. Since our company is one of the biggest in our country, deployments depends on very hard integrations between system. This is too hard for an external company because they would need to take a long time to understand what we need and how we need to deploy it. The easiest way is to have our own team.

Pricing is better if you buy more Cisco products.

Don't afraid to try other solutions. Companies are constantly changing. Sometimes some little companies bring about the perfect solution for other products. You should research everything.

Cisco has a very wide range of products. You can build everything within Cisco products, and it will be easily deployable. The programming language is the same between it and other software and hardware companies.

We normally use a UCS, a uniform communication service, I'm still learning how HyperFlex works. We are evaluating it for use in the intermediate to deep future.

I do troubleshooting and monitoring on Cisco HyperFlex HX for our customers. I do maintenance and monitoring for the infrastructure environment.

We do a lot of internal projects like optimization, we also use ACI for optimizing the network. It simplifies the cost reduction.

The most valuable feature for our company is that it works internally. We have a lot of internal projects for optimization. 

HyperFlex is flexible for various projects. We have a lot of vendors doing projects where HyperFlex has been good at solving issues.

The scalability could use improvement. 

HyperFlex performs very well.

The scalability is up around 75%.

My team works on ACI and HyperFlex. They've had great Cisco support for that.

Our marketing team told us about the solution. They introduced every new technology that came in and gave us a demo. My managers considered the options and approved Cisco. 

The initial setup for HyperFlex is straightforward. It doesn't take much time. 

HyperFlex lowered our deployment times around one to two days based upon the environment of workers that we needed to invest.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate this product an eight. 

I completely recommend whatever Cisco solutions you use. They provide the best option to maintain infrastructure environment. It's very useful. 

We use this solution for our Call Monitor and for Contact Center Express.

This is a robust product that we can rely on.

The speed, storage, and management are the most valuable features.

We would like to see better integration in the next release of this solution.

Managing this solution is complex and should be improved.

So far, the stability has been good. Since we implemented six months ago, we haven't had any issues. We were able to upgrade the code without interrupting the service, which is good.

We add more HyperFlex servers as we need, so it is pretty scalable.

Technical support for this solution is very good. This is a new technology for us, and we had to call a lot to ask for help with updating or integrating.

We were using UCS previously, but we needed better hardware for our Call Monitor.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward.

We implemented this solution in-house by following all of the instructions.

We have not yet seen the ROI.

Our licensing costs are large, but it is combined between all of the Cisco products that we have.

We trust Cisco and did not want to change vendors.

My advice for anybody who is researching this technology is to learn it before you implement it. This is a very stable product, but it is complex to manage.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for clients who has issues with their infrastructure.

HyperFlex is compatible with VMware. This is good since we are also a VMware partner.

In addition, the product is compatible with Hyper-V, which is another good solution.

It is a high availability solution.

The solution is stable.

The solution can scale up and out.

The technical support is good.

The initial setup is very easy.

The product is expensive. Other solutions are cheaper.

Cisco has the best solution for hyper-convergence.

The primary use case is for people who are tired of messing around with old school solutions, like SANs and NASs, and want to improve the storage side of things in the data center.

The storage system is its most valuable feature. It has eliminated our entire need for having to worry about storage. We were storing a lot of syslog data and using a lot of templates in our data center. With the storage system, we are now saving an enormous amount of space.

I would like to see more analytics. The storage data is just IP packets. It could use better infographs in the HyperFlex Connect on how traffic is running in the network. If you were reaching any capacity issues on the Fabric Interconnects, it should be able to cool all of the servers and Fabric Interconnects, then possibly integrate it with, e.g., Nexus Series switches. This should all be available in a single pane of glass.

I would also like a fast on-premise service. While there is Intersight, which does a lot, there is not the same clarity of information from Intersight, as with an on-premise service.

The stability is great. I can pull the power cord from one of my servers, and everything will keep on running. Then, the VMs will be automatically transferred to another server and the user won't notice anything. If we had two sites, we can down an entire data center without issue.

The scalability is good, though it used to be lacking a bit. Now, the HyperFlex system probably has the scalability to be able to cover every single customer in Norway and their needs. With how much it can scale, Norway doesn't have that customers with this many servers, at least in the same use cases or workloads using HyperFlex.

The technical support is good. We use 24/7 contracts and they have never been late. I would rate the tech support as a nine out of ten.

I did have one time where I had an engineer who was just running scripts. He was reading off a tablet (or something). However, that was a next-business day contract, and we were not working with a high-level engineer. We needed a high-level engineer, so we just escalated the case to receive a better engineer, then everything was resolved.

It would be nice to have more qualified support agents get assigned to HyperFlex cases, at least the initial case, not just someone reading off a script.

We had an old Cisco System, which was an internal company system. We also had an old UCS server, which was spec'd out, along with a bunch of other servers. When we were starting to lack in CPU, memory, and storage, we knew that we needed faster storage and networking. In addition, we needed more CPU and RAM with the possibility to scale.

Now, if we need a new node, we can just order a new node. Then, when we get the node, it takes an hour to put it up and we have a new node in the system.

We needed that scalability. We also needed to upgrade the data center. However, the reason that we chose HyperFlex instead of trying to build a system and making it work with open source software, was with HyperFlex, we receive Cisco tech support and services.

We chose HyperFlex because of everything that binds up into it: the scalability, reliability, and services. 

The first time I did set it up, I deployed it with an existing UCS Cluster on the same Fabric Interconnect. This was not yet validated by Cisco. We had no information from Cisco how to do this. While it was coming, but we had a customer who didn't have spare FIs, so we had some problems. However, this was due to a configuration error from the team who had put up the SAN which was connected on the same FIs. So, the HyperFlex was okay. It was just configuration errors on the other one.

In the other deployments that I've done. It has been mostly just racking and stacking the servers, putting in some IP addresses on the Fabric Interconnects, going down to the office, sitting remotely on the good couch, and typing in everything, then pressing "Deploy". Afterwards, everything just runs smoothly.

I deployed it myself. I am the HyperFlex engineer.

The main purpose of our data center is to run our monitoring system, which uses huge databases. When we transferred the monitoring system, all of our logging servers, and everything to the HyperFlex system, we saved an enormous amount of data. We obtained a huge performance gain out of the monitoring system because it could cache the data more quickly. Everything went faster and obtained more space. So, we have definitely seen a large return of investment.

I would like a clearer licensing model. It should explain a bit more what you receive if you buy the more expensive license rather than the standard one. This would probably help in a lot of cases.

We were looking into a lot of open source and white box solutions before we chose HyperFlex. This was mainly due to cost because Cisco isn't the cheapest solution. However, we completely trust the system because we have all this knowledge about HyperFlex along with knowledge about all the other competitors. The way that HyperFlex does storage down to the bits and bytes is something that we feel that we can trust a lot more than its competitors.

The Virtual Interface Cards (VICs) which the servers use are only available through Cisco. There are no competitors in this area.

Look for what your business needs are, what your data center is using, and keep in mind that all of the big vendors are doing hyperconverged. However, Cisco is the only one who is doing it with the network integrated. With all of the other vendors, you can have whatever type of network you want, but with Cisco, they include the network in the whole hyperconverged scene instead of pawning it off to another vendor. They are sort of forcing you to chose Cisco on the network. Yet, when you choose Cisco on the network, you get validated designs along with tried, tested solutions. The whole data center will come together in one single package.

Cisco was a little late to the hyperconverged scene.

The Fabric Interconnects integrates with UCS. The UCS servers are some of the best on the market. The UCS servers can manage all of the servers from the Fabric Interconnects, which is just phenomenal.

The management feature is the solution's most valuable aspect.

Overall, the solution is pretty good.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. 

We've found the stability to be very good.

The pricing of the solution could be improved. It's a bit too high. We find that most customers can not make it work with their budgets.

When it comes to the virtualization layer, we have issues. We can scale up, and yet we can't add storage.

We need to be able to scale out and not just up. When you want to scale up or scale out, you are quite limited.

It would be ideal to have the flexibility to scale out whereby you are able to do a single type of commodity upgrade. For example, if we could upgrade the memory only, or upgrade the process only or storage only,.

There is a general over-reliance on VMware, the form of the software layer which now includes things like Nutanix. Some customers - especially around Oracle - have a preference to not work around VMware. That's why we need more flexibility to be able to do any event on the top layer.

It would be ideal if we had local support here in Kenya.

I can't recall for how long I've been dealing with the product. It's been a while. 

The stability is quite good on the solution. It's not buggy or glitchy. It doesn't crash or freeze. The performance is reliable. 

We primarily deal with small and medium-sized companies.

While the solution can scale up, it can't scale out, and this is a problem for us.

Technical support is okay on the computer side. However, when it comes to the virtualization layer, that's where the problem is. I've been having issues. We can only scale up. We cannot scale out. I can't add an additional storage. We're trying to work this through with configurations and we're running into a lot of trouble.

Also, we'd like to have local support in our country. Right now, we are lacking that.

I also work with other vendors, such as Dell.

For small companies and environments full of Cisco I recommend that a company uses Cisco, as the transition is easy as the UCS manager connects well to Hyperflex.  

However, for an organization that doesn't have a clear growth plan, and grows randomly, PowerFlex is better, as it affords more flexibility and it's easier to upgrade.

The initial setup is really easy if you are using Hyperflex money.

I wouldn't describe the initial setup as difficult or complex.

The pricing is high for the solution. The costs need to be adjusted. 

The licensing is okay, however, the harder infrastructure needs to be adjusted.

We are a reseller.

My advice to other organizations considering the solution is to make sure you plan before deployment and put into place a proper plan. The initial pre-project timeline puts into place a proper plan and based on your focus. It will make sure that whatever you put into place meets your requirements both right away and into the future. 

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

Our primary use case of this solution is for VDI, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, for our community college.

It ultimately provides a virtual desktop so that we can backup user data a lot more easily. In the past, it was all a straight desktop computer so if your desktop dies, all your data would die as well.

In terms of it being flexible for various projects, it does seem to lend itself to other applications, for example, our VMware, as well as servers that we may want to bring up under the HyperFlex solution so we may go in that direction sometime in the future.

It has the potential of actually being a six million dollar impact to the college because it replaces people's computers. Until we start to transfer users over to it we really won't know how much of that six million dollars is savings for us.

I don't know if it's lowered the deployment time per se because we really haven't gotten to the point where we added shelves or added servers to it. We're expecting for that to be a simple process given what Cisco claims it will do. Ultimately we're expecting no downtime for that.

The integration between the storage and the server applications is the most valuable feature of this solution. It cuts down on the necessity to buy a secondary storage system. It saves money in the long-run. 

We would like to have the ability to not have to reboot while doing updates. Being able to work through updates with as minimal amount of impact to users.

The stability is great but ultimately we've noticed the updates and upgrades take a bit of an impact on the solution. More so, having to reboot the solution and having to restart it. While it is stable, rebooting it for updates isn't always convenient. Ultimately, just like any organization, we would do that on off hours whether it be weekends, nights, or whatnot. But that costs money because you have to have staff on weekends, nights and whatever overtime they have to account for.

Scalability is just as they predicted. It combined the frontend servers with the backend storage. While it is a little cumbersome to learn, it is scalable to be able to add more shelves if I need more memory or additional servers very easily. It does scale nicely.

I'm pretty neutral about technical support right now given that we're still setting up the solution to some degree. The support is great, as long as there is a maintenance contract in place. But because the overall solution is still rather new, using knowledge base or just generic knowledge base out on the internet is not as prevalent as I would like.

We are a Dell shop. We looked at HP but ultimately because of the features that Cisco brought with the HyperFlex solution, we felt that that was a superior product to everyone else.

The initial setup was straightforward. We simply wanted to understand how the two worked together given that the claim is that it's supposed to be easy to combine both storage and servers.

We used a consultant for the deployment that Cisco suggested. Because the solution is rather new to us the scenario was pleasant. They knew what they were doing but I felt like the knowledge transfer could have been a lot better.

I would rate it a high eight or nine out of ten because of the features and functions that it comes with that the competitors really can't do just yet. The advantage I think so far has been that Cisco developed the entire solution from scratch as opposed to other solution providers like HP and Dell who are still trying to reinvent existing solutions.

I think it's a viable solution if you have a need to cut down on your overall implementation costs on hardware. This does a good job of combining both software and hardware.