HPE Alletra Storage Reviews

It is for dHCI, which is the hyper-converged infrastructure for HPE. It is replacing the tradition where when you have node storage, you have to purchase a model of switches. It combines the compute and storage.

Its benefits vary because I have used many models. I see it now handling VDI. Previously, when I had VDI and I put HPE for it, I would always go for Simplivity, whereas now, with the new model and GreenLake, they have attached Alletra to the cloud. It is serving people working from home a lot. They do not need to log in to do VPN anymore, create volumes, and manage their backups. If they have a full system for virtual storage, and they have Zerto for application replication, they can manage everything on the cloud. Zerto can also be managed on the cloud. If you have a stack, it does not matter how many systems you have. They all are going to show up in one interface. This is a huge benefit. Anything living in the storage can be monitored through the cloud.

HPE Alletra Storage has different models to cover SMBs, midsize companies, and enterprises. Enterprise companies with modern compute, CPU, and memory can have more virtual machines. It is easy for Alletra to grow and expand with the shelves. Customers are happy with it. Only one time I upgraded Alletra from 6010 to 6030 to add more storage and change the controllers. Customers are happy with Alletra. They do not complain. I never see them complain.

It is the simplicity of the deployment. They have unified all the features they have. For example, the creation and management of the storage was previously done through the plugins but with limited features. It was slow and had some challenges, whereas now, they have modern plug-ins that have more features and simulate the interface for the storage. Customers love it. The thing that they love the most about the plug-in is the one-click upgrade. They do not need to go to each device.

There can be more visibility and statistics for the customers to see. The customers would love to see AI. Even if it is not AI, there can be more visibility and real-time statistics that IT people can monitor and show to their bosses and impress them. To monitor things, they have reports, but the report system is old. Reports are by email. If they can show monthly growth and advise on the usage, it will make the lives of customers and IT people easy. They are going to love it. They would like to have one tool that can take them everywhere. There should be a single pane of glass. If they sit in a meeting, they should be able to answer questions related to whether they need more storage. They should not have had to go to different portals to get results, which creates confusion. If they have one place where they can see everything in graphics, it will be great.

We have been using HPE Alletra Storage for three years.

I have been working with HPE for six years. When I do an upgrade, I can see the Nimble that I installed for the customer five years ago as it is. No one touched it.

They continue to do a good job. I did not reach the max for anything. Every time I add a shelf for the customer, it takes 15 minutes. You just add a shelf, put the SaaS, and you are good to go.

Their support works very well. You can just grab the phone and reach out to their support. Their support answers you immediately. This is a big deal for the customers. 

I do deployment as well. Every time I get stuck at something or something goes wrong because something is missing or the customers do not have a proper configuration, I can reach out to their support immediately. I just pick up the phone, and they answer. We talk for ten minutes, and their support engineer understands the case. I open a secure channel for him to access or I give him a CLI with remote access. He applies his magic and reset the things.

I would rate them a ten out of ten because they get my issues solved. If the support engineer can not resolve an issue, he just escalates it. Being a technical person, I understand that the response can take longer. There could be some bugs, and their support team cannot give you the answer immediately.

Positive

I am HPE ASE certified. I do not bring any other customers to the game. I always present HPE. It has been six years since I have been doing this work for my company. We are beating Cisco. We are beating anyone with Dell PowerVault. We beat all of those models.

All the other companies have the same solution, but it comes down to knowing the expectations of the customer and putting things together for them from the switch to the compute to the storage. When you present them together, the result is going to be a yes. The price also plays a role, but HPE is what customers like to go for most of the time. About 70% of customers decide in advance where they will go, but some customers are surprised with the combination that we bring. We put Zerto, and we put the cloud for them. We provide them visibility and make the deployment easy for them. We give them administrator training. All these things that we add on top make customers comfortable to go with HPE even if they do not know HPE.

About 60% to 70% of customers go with the cheapest price, but they also need to see the performance and other things. We have a lot of customers. We took them to HPE Headquarters in Houston. We bring customers to events like HPE Discover. Last year, we brought a customer here and sold four sites to him with dHCI. We finished the Dallas one or the last one three months ago.

Our clients mostly use it on-prem, but they also use it for the DR site and HQ. 

The deployment is simple.

I would rate HPE Alletra Storage a nine out of ten. There should be 99% uptime. There are no issues with dHCI when it comes to upgrades, but with Alletra, they need to have the ESXi upgraded to the latest version. They need to use the correct or compatible plug-ins for it. Every time you go up with the storage, you need to look at your environment. Customers are probably not aware of all this because they do not create volumes every year or every day. There are certain things they need to keep in mind to upgrade. I do not blame the device. They need to initiate a call with the support for compatibility to ensure that everything will work.

The solution is our primary storage for virtualization.

It's got an integration with InfoSight. There are metrics that are provided by it and the support that we get from Nimble Alletra Support is great. The insights we get are important. All of the reporting we get and the recommendations we get on performance impacts are helpful. It predicts problems and helps prevent issues. 

It's helped us save time spent on storage usage. Due to its integration, we've had an 80% to 90% reduction in storage provisioning time. 

It's helped improve IOPs. We size the solution properly and customers have been happy with the results.

I would like to see some form of direct connect fiber channel options.

I've used Alletra Storage for a long time.

The scalability is good. There are options. 

Support is fantastic for Allerta. Everything else from HPE isn't as good. 

Positive

Our customers are switching from other vendor options. I've been recommending Alletra to them. 

I have experience with other storage solutions within the HPE family. I haven't used other vendors. Alletra is top-notch within the HPE family in terms of performance and support. 

I've deployed the solution before. An Alletra by itself is simple to implement. When partnered with dHCI, it's a bit more complex. 

The pricing is good for the market that I serve. The subscription model is tough for them. We can do multiple terms now. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

On-premises

We've been able to optimize storage with Alletra.

The data availability guarantee is great. Fortunately, we haven't had to use it, however, it's good to know it's there as an insurance policy.

It's helped us reduce time spent on storage provisioning. It's gone from weeks to days to hours and minutes. The automated tools and intelligence built in make provisioning storage a lot easier. 

It's helped increase storage performance for IOPs. With every new controller family comes more IOPs plus NVMe it's boundless.

We haven't had any issues with the solution so far.

We haven't had any issues with stability. Upgrading is easy. 

The product is easy to scale.

Technical support is excellent. Nimble support is the gold standard. They are always there and the follow-up is great. 

Positive

We've used EMC and 3PAR in the past. Alletra is easy to provision and rock solid. It also has INfoSight analytics. 

Many clients are using a variety of clouds, including AWS, Microsoft, etc. 

It's easy to deploy out of the box.

We help our clients with the implementation.

As a reseller, I can't speak to ROI. 

Licensing is great, even with the additional cost of data cloud services and the cloud console. As customers adapt to that and bring more cloud into their management plane, it's easy to see why many have moved to the cloud base, which is where customers want to be.

We have a lot of customers who are looking at Pure and other storage vendors. The ease of use and ease to provision alongside rock-solid support make Allertra a standout.

I'm a reseller, not a customer.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. It's easy to set up with a rock-solid performance. InfoSight is a clear differentiator compared to all the other storage companies.

We’re using Alletra as our primary data center for critical servers, including web and e-commerce services. It also handles our data and storage servers.

The solution offers faster resolution. The developers have noted how quickly it performs when they configure the application. The snapshots have been helpful as well. In the past, we experienced data corruption and were able to restore the entire volume using the snapshot feature without any data loss.

The solution is five to seven times faster than Nimble Storage and responds quickly to data requests.

The user interface is user-friendly and easy to manage.

The snapshot feature is very similar to that of Nimble Storage.

The solution offers easy management and scalability.

Alletra provides a cloud-like model for managing on-premises storage. I am already using GreenLake, and it has been good. The cloud-like model is decent, although we are not fully on the cloud yet. We have high bandwidth, so we haven't noticed much difference between on-premises and cloud.

It is good for preventing problems before they occur. Everything goes to the cloud, so we receive notifications if there is an issue. If there is a link disconnection or a system issue, I get notified.

The 100% data availability has been important for us. We knew that Alletra was scalable and more stable in terms of storage. We depend on Alletra 100% for our data and need to ensure its availability.

It has helped us reduce time spent on storage provisioning by 25%. For example, if I am creating a new volume, it takes just a few seconds and replicates quickly to the vCenter. The entire process is much faster than other solutions.

Alletra ensures that the time spent resolving storage-related support tickets remains consistent. It is always fast and scalable.

The solution is already quite effective, and I haven’t identified any shortcomings. In the future, it would be helpful to receive text notifications for alerts in addition to the current email notifications.

I've been using the solution for five months.

The stability is great.

The scalability is excellent. 

The customer and tech support are excellent. The technicians are quick to respond, and the overall support has been good. However, there can be a slight delay on weekends compared to business days, usually around five to ten minutes. Despite this, the response remains fairly prompt.

Positive

I've used Storwize by IBM. We also used Nimble. Alletra is a faster application.

The integration was straightforward and easy with vCenter and Nimble Storage's connection management tools. We also utilized the deployment tools from Alletra. We started with a hybrid setup with the goal of transitioning to the cloud. Currently, we are using GreenLake.

The deployment process was excellent. The shipment was prompt, and we had a technician on-site who assisted with the storage racks. Another technician handled the management setup, while I took care of the configurations. The entire process was smooth and hassle-free, with no complications.

We handled the initial setup ourselves. 

We made the right Invesment by choosing Alletra. 

The pricing is reasonable. We got Alletra at a great price, almost the same as Nimble. However, we doubled our storage for nearly the same cost.

Yes, we did. However, we found that Alletra is the best fit for our business.

I’d rate the solution ten out of ten. I’ve never experienced a hard disk or hardware failure, which is great.

Hybrid Cloud

Right now, we're using DHCI cloud infrastructure. It's primarily going to be the backbone for our ESX environment between stretched between two data centers.

It's been a cost-reduction and space-reduction asset for us. It uses less storage rack space and therefore, less power. It has less physical connectivity. So far, it's working fine.

The replication between the two sites, the presentation to the ESX environment, and the plugin that allows us to go directly into ESX and not have to manage the storage itself directly are all valuable aspects. It's easy for anybody to use. With 3PAR or any of the others, you have to go into the storage directly.

Right now, it's offered both cost reduction and space reduction. It uses less Storage rack space. Therefore, less power. Less physical connectivity. And so far, it's working fine.

The solution does offer a cloud-like operational model on-prem for managing data infrastructure. However, I don't use it that way.

It's helped with predicting and preventing problems before they occur. So far, that's been working well.

The plug-in with vCenter and integration into vCenter is spotty at best. The last three upgrades that we've had have been absolute nightmares. That said, we found if we did an upgrade outside of the DHCI infrastructure that it is part of and just did the Alletra upgrade itself, it's better.

For me, the solution has not helped reduce the time spent resolving storage-related support tickets. I've had more tickets open for this than any other system I've ever had.

I've been using the solution since November 2023.

The storage itself has been stable. It's just working. 

The scalability looks pretty good. It's all connected through switches and ICSCI. 

The support guys are on-point. They are next-level. You can talk to them like somebody you've known for years. You don't talk to them tech to tech. It's like talking to a normal human being. 

We previously used 3PAR. The purchase of Alletra was made while I was away.

The deployment has been a challenge. I've had more open tickets with this solution than any other that I've done. The software coding between Nimble and HPE has been a challenge. The backend Python script wasn't as fleshed out as it should have been. 

The ROI will end up being pretty good as we did get a good deal and it is replacing two racks of storage for six years. 

The pricing so far has been pretty good. 

I was looking at Pure Storage and the upgraded version of 3PAR, Primera, and one other option.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten. I'm coming from fiber channel. I feel it's a downgrade from ICSCI. Plus, with the backend, they tried to shoehorn Nimble Storage into an HPE product. Transitioning from one company to another is where they are having a problem. However, they are getting better about it. That's where I see the main problem - the transition. 

This is for NVMe faster performance.

It is cost-cutting. It saves costs.

HPE Alletra Storage provides a cloud-like operational model on-prem for managing data infrastructure. HPE GreenLake is doing everything.

HPE Alletra Storage helps predict problems and prevent them before they occur. This is all happening through HPE GreenLake. It works well, and I hope it continues to work well in the future.

The guarantee of data availability is most important. The data is most important. We cannot lose any data. I hope that HPE Alletra Storage will help us in this matter.

HPE Alletra Storage has helped reduce the time spent on storage provisioning. It has reduced the time by half.

HPE Alletra Storage has improved our storage performance in terms of IOPs, but it is not much. When it starts working with the NVMe protocol in VMware, it will improve by 10%.

HPE Alletra Storage has not yet helped reduce the time spent resolving storage-related support tickets. So far, I have not faced any support tickets, but I hope it will reduce the time spent.

More deduplication and compression are valuable because capacity matters.

I need the protocol expected. I want them to include NVMe protocol in VMware compatibilities.

I have been using HPE Alletra Storage for almost one year. 

Its stability is fine. It is stable.

It is easy.

The basic support is good, but when it comes to L2 and L3, it takes ages. The basic support is excellent, but the high-tier support takes ages.

Neutral

We have used other HPE solutions before. We have used 3PAR, Primera, StoreOnce, and MSA. HPE Alletra Storage is better because it has NVMe and the latest GUI. It is easier than others.

We have VMware. We are mostly on a private cloud.

It is easy to deploy. You just plug in and connect.

HPE helped us implement it. They were pretty experienced. 

We are still waiting for that.

So far, so good.

I would rate HPE Alletra Storage a ten out of ten. It is new for HPE. They need to work hard on it.

Alletra is the primary storage for our entire company.

It's bulletproof, and it's the right price point.

The reliability and cost are excellent. 

It provides a cloud-like operation model for data management on-premises. That said, we haven't taken advantage of this.

The solution is good for predicting and preventing problems before they start.

The 100% data availability guarantee was important when choosing a solution. We're stewards of our client's data in the financial services industry, and customers would not think of us very highly.

The solution has helped us to reduce the time spent on storage provisioning. We previously used Nimble, and we don't have data on how much difference there is. I don't have data yet.

Alletra has helped us improve our storage performance.

I don't have any specific areas for improvement.

It's already being tied into GreenLake. However, my understanding is that the dashboards are now going to be a charge. That's concerning. 

We purchased our first Alletra this year. 

The stability of Alletra is very good. It's very stable. 

The scalability is very good. It was one of the reasons we chose it, as we are interested in expanding our environment. 

From what I have heard, the technical support is pretty good. They are good at getting back to my storage team. They've had a positive experience. 

Positive

We previously used Nimble Storage. We are replacing our Nimble with Alletra. This is the latest generation so it's a bit of an upgrade.

The deployment process was easy. We didn't have any problems. My storage administrator was able to set it up.

We did not use any outside assistance. We managed the setup ourselves. 

The ROI is that the solution is pretty much bulletproof. 

We haven't had any issues with pricing and licensing. 

We had been a Dell storage shop previously and we did evaluate those options. We chose Alletra based on cost and reliability.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

Hybrid Cloud

Microsoft Azure

We have used HPE Alletra Storage on two or three occasions for proof-of-concept tests at the storage level in relation to Dell's tools.

We use HPE Alletra Storage to create zones with HP tools, generally with generation 11 and 12 servers. The most significant feature would be the integration with the HP generation 11 and 12 servers that we currently have. 

The greatest benefit we have seen is at the level of increased disk space and speed with the new features of the HPE Alletra Storage server. It gives us a lot of assistance since it is a complete solution that gives us the focus at the storage level and at the level of storage and consumption of resources at the level of virtualization processing. 

It reduces the use of resources by almost 90% and focuses more on the solution of the alerts that are found with the jobs that are running, and detecting alerts or opportunities for improvement in performance. It is a good option for the servers to self-provision, presenting them with storage at the SAN level.

According to the characteristics we have seen of the equipment, the licensing could be greatly reduced, given the integration it has with the tools.

According to the capacity of the HPE Alletra Storage equipment, several racks could be filled, and it would provide us with a lot of storage capacity according to the scalability we need at the bank level. 

The scalability would have to be evaluated at the level of tool compatibility, since being different technologies, there would have to be a bridge or a mechanism to be able to do the migration.

We currently use Dell's technology in relation to what is Brocade technology at the SAN network level, which allows us to map various technologies such as HP, Dell, and Broadcom.

We don't typically assess ROI for storage management, but theoretically, with the improved bandwidth, processing power, and speed it should drastically cut down on slow and low disk alerts from our monitoring platform.

Due to the topology and the amount of data and the type of data we use at the banking level, not all of it is 100% migrated to the cloud. We opt for a private cloud that allows us to save that data for the amount of time that the custody agreement that the owner of the data proposes. 

The company does not marry any specific storage. It focuses more on the characteristics and the use that can be given to it and, above all, the performance for the systems with which it currently works. 

I rate HPE Alletra Storage five out of 10.

Private Cloud

Other