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Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs HPE SimpliVity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE SimpliVity
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
155
Ranking in other categories
HCI (6th)
 

Featured Reviews

Nuno Mendes - PeerSpot reviewer
High performance solution that makes it easy to efficiently manage VM resources
In our case as a credit recovery company working with the state, our infrastructure is fixed and stable as we don't have the same need for growth as other types of companies. That said, one of the biggest problems with HyperFlex HX is that if you want to adjust your solution in terms of processing power, memory, or disk capacity, you have to buy completely new hosts. From a financial perspective, it can be very expensive to do so, and from a legal perspective, there are all kinds of compliance issues we would have to sort out before buying any new solution or application. Since we as a company will only be operating for perhaps the next ten years, when our HyperFlex solution comes to its end-of-life in 2024 our next step will likely not be with HyperFlex or any other solution from Cisco. Instead, from a financial point of view, we will likely turn toward a cloud solution because, that way, we won't have to spend so much money on physical infrastructure. We are, after all, only a small company and HyperFlex can be very expensive for other companies of our size, whether in Portugal or elsewhere like the United States. One other area for improvement is in regard to HyperFlex's integration with VMware. HyperFlex integrates with a specific version of VMware in such a way that HyperFlex doesn't always resolve security issues with VMware at the same pace as what you see in native implementations of VMware. This has happened in one or two situations in the past. On the other hand, the integration is otherwise adequate, especially in terms of availability and virtualization features (such as being able to split up each of our four hosts within VMware).
Mohammed Lokman Hossen - PeerSpot reviewer
Has integrated solutions and rapid recovery made management smoother and more reliable
There is the latest update from HPE regarding HPE SimpliVity. For virtualization, HPE has to depend on other manufacturers, OEMs such as VMware or Hyper-V. Recently, HPE declared the VM essential virtualization solution. In the future, if HPE integrates HPE SimpliVity with VM essential, that will be a great combination. Functionality-wise, I am totally satisfied with HPE SimpliVity, but for improvement, if HPE integrates its own virtualization solution, this combination and integration will be beneficial because this integration can be configured with the cloud-based system. A VM can be uploaded to the cloud from this, which will be advantageous for backup to other sites.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"With our four HyperFlex HX hosts (consisting of processor, memory, and disk), the performance is very fast and we have no problems at all. In all of the five years that we have been using HyperFlex, we haven't needed to increase our budget to buy additional hosts."
"The flexibility is its most valuable feature; the ability to quickly deploy a number of help machines. It is not constrained by what we want to do."
"It is very scalable. It is also very secure. Cisco's security portfolio is integrated with it, which makes it secure. It is a platform-based device. Its performance is also fairly good in comparison to any other solution."
"The compression and deduplication are very high. Therefore, we can use the size of the product more efficiently than other storage solutions."
"The scalability of the product is quite good overall - as long as you plan correctly from the outset."
"The solution can scale up and out."
"The product is stable. No one complains about the stability, which is fabulous."
"The technical support has been helpful. We are always able to get through to the right person."
"Backups happen very quickly."
"The access, high availability, and interface are the most valuable and important for us. There is one interface for the whole product, which is very important because you have a single pane to view all the infrastructure of a customer. You can improve your data recovery plan or DRP, or you can make a special emergency plan if a disk has any problem."
"It is easy to set up."
"I have found backup and replication to be useful. We have a 10 megabit line between the data center and our main site. The backup and replication are very good. Additionally, the solution runs on VMware which is a benefit."
"The compression and deduplication ratio."
"SimpliVity has provided our organization with a cost effective DR/data protection solution."
"What I like about the solution, is that SimpliVity is easy to deploy and maintain. It's really performing very well. The ratio of price to performance is really good."
"The feature that I like the most is the backup feature embedded inside the HPE SimpliVity. When we have any activity, within five minutes, we have a backup. It also has PDR for performing disaster recovery."
 

Cons

"A stretch function is really needed. Germans think that because of the high availability and the security that two data centers are better but we want edge all in one cluster. This is a needed feature, the cluster feature, and we'd also like to see a possibility for ROBO offices."
"I would like it to be easier to manage the server, create VMs, and manage the VMs on the client."
"They can't get a POC to work because there are big latencies between the two sites we have. Even though we have a private fiber connection and everything else works well, they can't get the two products to talk to each other. They are not able to build it up. It looks like it's a firmware issue. They said it isn't but now it's looking like it is. I hope we can sort it out."
"Its price could be better."
"The scalability could use improvement."
"I would like to see them expand onto the cloud."
"The problem is that we always have to keep an eye out for new releases to make sure that the version we're running is up-to-date."
"Sometimes when there are multiple technologies involved in a support case, this is when there is a bit of a lag."
"The way that it handles the memory could be better."
"Bottleneck is the main issue."
"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."
"The product should be competitive with other brands."
"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."
"I have not seen ROI."
"There may be issues around scaling."
"One thing that I would like to see improved is the flexibility of the node expansion."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's much more expensive than rack servers. It was an issue, but when you compare it to the number of people who were administrative assistants before, it's on the positive ROI side. It's much cheaper."
"We negotiated with Cisco and we got some price benefit from that."
"The product is expensive. Other solutions are cheaper."
"Our licensing costs are large, but it is combined between all of the Cisco products that we have."
"Here in Brazil... it is very expensive. It's very hard for almost all companies to buy even the small version of this solution."
"HyperFlex is relatively expensive, but you get good value for money."
"HyperFlex is a little pricey."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is expensive. It's a standard license, and we pay for it yearly. I think we pay about 700."
"The product is expensive."
"It is expensive for this market. Everyone says that it is a very good product, but the only complaint is about the price."
"Its licensing is yearly."
"The pricing is very high."
"For most use cases, look to see if you can use all-flash as the price point, as it has come down significantly."
"Scaling isn't cheap"
"The time savings on the administration side of things is huge. We had somebody who was dedicated pretty much full-time to hardware, and now, they spend about a quarter of their time a year on hardware-related issues."
"It is not too expensive, but it is quite expensive for me."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise57
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business68
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise79
 

Questions from the Community

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How does VxRail compare with Cisco HyperFlex HX Series?
VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if you are working with a limited budget, this platform offer...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...
What do you like most about HPE SimpliVity?
The solution's technical support is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE SimpliVity?
The price is almost equal to VMware vSAN, making it not much cost saving. However, the time-saving during upgrades is notable.
 

Also Known As

No data available
SimpliVity, HPE HCI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest
Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House
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