HPE Alletra Storage Reviews

We use it to connect to our Synergy chassis as Storage. On the chassis, there are 12 blades running Hyper V. We put those in failover clusters - two clusters per Synergy chassis. Alletra is the storage where the virtual machines are stored in those failover clusters, Hyper V clusters.

It's simple to use and deploy, unlike its predecessor, which was a 3PAR system. I like 3PAR, but it is overkill and extremely complicated to manage.

The simplicity of use is great. You define the storage size and space that you need, the volumes, and then you give access to the clusters or to the host, the Hyper V blade servers. From there, I can build all the virtual machines that I need on Alletra.

Alletra provides a cloud-like operational model on-prem for managed use data infrastructure. Although we use everything on-prem, we do have some cloud-based storage with Microsoft Azure. We are doing a lot of stuff in Azure, although personally, I stay away from that. I'm the hardware guy, and prefer on-prem solutions.

Cloud-based is so much more expensive.  The on-prem stuff is cheaper; Microsoft charges us through the nose for Azure.

We have redundancy built into our products and Alletra through the Hyper V clusters. There is a lot of redundancy built in, so we never have downtime. \

It's easy to configure and provision. 

It's helped us reduce the time spent resolving storage by 50%. The cost vs convenience is very good.

Previously, the 3PAR gave us the ability to build on SSC or spindles. The Alletra doesn't allow for this. You can put spindles and you can put SSDs, but the operating system decides what goes where. If I could build a volume that was SSD only for some of the things like our databases, our Microsoft databases, which require a lot of IO and a lot of speed, that would be ideal. The 3PAR was better at that.

I've been using the solution for as long as it's been available - for about two years now. We used to use Nimble.

We've got several of these products running with no issues. 

Scalability is pretty good. 

We run them with the main head unit, which has 24 or so drives on it, and then we add the subunit, a secondary chassis, which has one more drive. The top one has 24 drives and the bottom one has 25. We get to choose whether they're SSD or spindles, and we use a mixture of both.

We carry five-year extended contracts with HP on all of our equipment. Support is pretty good.I dial their number and go through things with them, and overall, it works out well. 

The installation is straightforward. I help our reseller manage the deployment. 

Our reseller physically does the installation. I'm always present, giving them the IP addresses and access to our data center. 

I'm a field engineer. I install what is given to me. I know little about the cost. That said, my understanding is that it is considerably cheaper to go with Alletra. The pricing is cheaper, the setup is easier, and the licensing is likely the same

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It does what we need it to do, and it is more than enough. Plus, it's easy to set up and maintain. 

Alletra is used for our SAP environment, strictly. We needed a high level of performance.

We were on our SAP environment on a 3PAR, and we moved over to Alletra. When we got all the data moved over to the Alletra, the deduplication was so much better. Our space usage was so much better on this product, and we actually saw a better performance.

I've always said I love that it's easy to use. At one point in time, we had a 3PAR. And with 3PAR, I always thought it was a little more difficult. There was so much more to maintaining it, setting it up, and everything. With the [HPE] Alletra [Storage], it's just easy. It's easy to provision space to use and to set up.

InfoSight is invaluable to me. With it, I can just quickly go out there and see what is going on.

Alletra provides a cloud-like operation model on-prem for managing data infrastructure. 

[HPE] Alletra [Storage] is very good for predicting problems and preventing them before they occur. InfoSight has really helped with that. I honestly don't have to look at it much. However, there's the alerting and everything that will tell us what's going on. That said, I check InfoSight every once in a while. 

[HPE Alletra Storage] reduced the time spent on storage provision. It's so much easier than the 3PAR. It's just so much easier. I don't spend time in there at all. 

The product improved our storage performance experience in terms of IOPS. Our end users that use the SAP environment were a little concerned at first. We said we were going to switch over from the 3PAR to the Alletra since they've always been more familiar with the 3PAR. However, when we moved them over, they noticed a performance increase. 

I cannot think of a specific area that needs improvement. 

I've used the solution for probably just a year. That said, I've been with Nimble for many years, so I am very familiar with the product itself. 

Technical support is excellent. If I have an issue like a hard drive failure, and I've only had one or two, or if I just wasn't sure how something was working, I'd call into support. It was always phenomenal.

The deployment experience was really good.

My previous experience was more with the Nimble iSCSI within our VMware environment. This one was just setting up the fiber channel switch for us and doing that stuff.

We worked with a vendor. They came in and set up. We did a fiber channel on this one, and they came in and set everything up for us. We even had a little training session. 

We have seen ROI in time spent and money savings. 3PAR cost more and we had to do more maintenance. We used to have to do more maintenance with the 3PAR and when we would do upgrades, we always had to engage HPE at the time to do the upgrade. I would just sit there and wait while they did it, and it took hours. With With [HPE] Alletra [Storage], it downloads the software, and you just hit the button, and go.

The price is great. If you come from a 3PAR world to an Alletra, it's great. The vendor that we use was phenomenal in getting us great pricing.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. It's just so much easier to use than any of the other storage environments I've had. It's been more dependable. I've had Dell, which was awful. It's not easy to use. With anything that happens, you have to spend so much more time researching. From the get-go, it's been a great product. I've always loved it. 

If anyone was looking into the Alletra I'd tell them to 100% get it since it is so much easier to use.

My main use cases for HPE Alletra Storage are our data center, internal use, and also for our warehouse automation system in our customer warehouses to automate their operations. This is growing as we're at about 40 warehouses today, and we'll be at 100.

One example of how HPE Alletra Storage features benefited our organization is by addressing technical debt. We've only been a startup for about three years and in the process, we replaced older technology, specifically Cisco HyperFlex, and from a cost basis, Synergy has stepped in and been cost-effective.

The features I find most valuable about HPE Alletra Storage are the throughput and the visibility it provides because we have different workloads, and the flexibility we're looking at, being able to operate on a single platform.

I'm going to skip discussing how HPE Alletra Storage can be improved as I'm not in the technology area right now and haven't paid attention to that.

I've been using HPE Alletra Storage for approximately six months.

I would assess the stability and reliability of HPE Alletra Storage as having had no issues so far. It has been stable and we haven't experienced any problems during the last three months since the actual productive load has been on it.

HPE Alletra Storage scales effectively with the growing needs of my organization, and I don't see limitations or complexity for growth at the moment, as it has been selected among the top players.

Regarding customer service and technical support, we haven't had many direct interactions, but we do have calls with HPE, and they have been fairly responsive. I can't speak specifically to customer service and technical support since I haven't engaged with them directly for HPE Alletra Storage, but HPE in general has been responsive and our engagement has been positive.

Before adopting HPE Alletra Storage, I was using Cisco HyperFlex and Pure Storage for similar needs.

I would describe my experience deploying HPE Alletra Storage as seamless.

We have great engineers who handled the analysis and evaluation, making production deployment a straightforward process.

Regarding ROI with HPE Alletra Storage, there is some level of return if more hosts are being hosted on the same platform since it reduces power consumption and the footprint is lower.

I didn't oversee the pricing, setup costs, and licensing for HPE Alletra Storage, however, the HPE partnership has been phenomenal and we appreciated their support during deployment, including evaluating the hardware.

Before selecting HPE Alletra Storage, we considered cloud solutions to put all VMs into the cloud as other hardware options such as Pure and Cisco HyperFlex. We selected HPE Alletra Storage for its benefits, performance, and the partnership with HPE. 

In my considerations for changing solutions, key factors included performance, cost, and HPE's partnership with us, as the persistence of the HPE customer manager ensured our leadership made informed decisions during the evaluation.

For other organizations considering HPE Alletra Storage, a lot is driven by HPE's reliability and the importance of the partnership and people behind the hardware. On a scale of one to ten, I would give HPE Alletra Storage around a seven.

Currently, it is employed to serve our primary billing platform, supporting several Oracle databases ranging from 30 to 40 terabytes in size, integrated with HPe Synergy compute. These financial systems leverage its high throughput capabilities and low-latency performance.

The rapid speed has proven highly beneficial. Integrating low latency into our billing systems and mobile app enriches our application ecosystem, enhancing daily user interactions. The combination of low latency and high-speed storage has significantly bolstered our operations, particularly in billing processes.

The management and provisioning of data have been significantly streamlined.

As a GreenLake customer, we are collaborating with HPE to support us up the stack. They are overseeing the implementation of state-of-the-art storage services on our behalf, which promises to deliver substantial improvements to our business upon completion.

The SSCM micro solution for predictive issue detection and prevention holds great promise. We have experienced a trouble-free year, which is reassuring. Should there be any disk failures or other issues, rapid detection and resolution are assured. With GreenLake, telemetry data flows directly to HPE, enabling proactive maintenance without our direct involvement, which is highly beneficial.

The 100% availability guarantee is of paramount importance to us. Following a major outage 12 to 14 months ago, which lasted four days, we engaged Alletra from HP to assist. Having such a guarantee backed by a company like HP adds significant value to our operations.

This solution has not only reduced storage management time but will continue to do so moving forward. It has simplified our zoning practices, extending from computing to third-party products. With GreenLake, HPE handles much of this complexity on our behalf. Aligning new fabric installations with our Synergy infrastructure has greatly streamlined operations post VMware platform integration, resulting in performance gains of 30% to 50% over our previous systems.

The incorporation of InfoSight and telemetry, bolstered by AI, ensures ongoing support and efficiency enhancements for our users. As we prepare to deploy four new Alletra systems within the next six to 12 months, we anticipate further operational improvements.

To date, notable improvements have been somewhat limited in our experience. Currently, we are in the process of commissioning an additional four systems to handle our significant workloads. Given the cutting-edge nature of this technology, extensive setup of new fabric and infrastructure has been necessary. It's important for stakeholders to ensure thorough preparation upfront to facilitate a smooth and expedient implementation process.

I haven't particularly used it to its full extent yet. That will probably come in the next 12 to 18 months.

We have been using HPe Alletra storage for coming up 12 months.

We have not experienced any stability issues. 

The scalability capabilities are exceptional, having encountered no issues thus far. We conducted a thorough assessment of scalability, particularly with the impending addition of four new units. This expansion will facilitate substantial growth over the next two to three years.

The technical support provided is exceptional, characterized by a highly skilled team of engineers, service delivery managers, and other support personnel. Our experience has been seamless, with their integration into our teams proving particularly effective. Collaborating with them has been a positive and enjoyable experience.

Positive

We've had Nimble, Primera, EMC, Pure and NetApp. So many different storage arrays depending on the workload and requirements. 

We are modernizing our datacenter and deploying new fabric to simplify our footprint. 

We have established paired data centers, each equipped with two Alletra units, creating a metro cluster and standard storage infrastructure.

While the project has been extensive, it represents a pivotal step in replacing our existing storage infrastructure. Designing the desired level of resiliency for business continuity has been a priority throughout this process. Although the timeline of approximately one year may have seemed lengthy, we are nearing the final stages of implementation and are poised to commence utilization.

Spark has used HPe professional services to design and implement this solution, along with our own in-house experts. The team at HPe have been fantastic to work with.

While we haven't witnessed ROI quite yet, we will probably see it within the next six to 12 months.

The pricing and licensing are very simple, especially with GreenLake.

We evaluated IBM Storage and EMC storage solutions but ultimately opted to remain with Alletra. The decision was driven by Alletra's superior technology and speed, which we found to offer a highly cost-effective solution.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

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.

My main use case for HPE Alletra Storage is for storage.

HPE Alletra Storage is simple. The features of HPE Alletra Storage have benefited my organization as we have many different business processes. 

HPE GreenLake ops enable me to get assistance from my senior support engineers without having to go through support escalations. We don't need to call; it's point and click.

HPE Alletra Storage provides a cloud-like experience on-premises for managing data. HPE Alletra Storage manages data at scale for my organization very efficiently.

We're reduced time spent on capacity planning. 

HPE Alletra Storage pricing can be improved. The pricing, licensing, and software have changed.

I have been using the HPE Alletra Storage for six years.

I would assess the stability and reliability of HPE Alletra Storage as very minimal. I have experienced very minimal downtime or crashes.

I evaluate the storage services and technical support as awesome. I would rate my overall storage services and technical support as very easy to call and to get things fixed.

Prior to adopting HPE, I was using another solution to address the same needs, and it was also an HPE solution.

I would describe my experience deploying HPE Alletra Storage as simple.

I have seen a return on investment with HPE Alletra Storage.

The pricing has recently changed for us.

My advice to another organization that is considering getting HPE Alletra Storage is to be sure of what you're looking for.

We primarily use the solution as block storage for VMware.

For us, the benefits that translate to the organization include less cost, maintenance, and management.

The simplicity of the platform is its most valuable asset. The management is very simple and it's straightforward to use. 

Alletra's performance has been very good. 

The solution provides a cloud-like operational model on-prem for data management. It has improved our operations. As things progressed, we've been able to bring more of the HPE stack into GreenLake for management and monitoring. That's been very beneficial. It provides a single point of management. 

Alletra helps prevent and predict issues before they arise. We've had a few cases where, based on the data that they're collecting, we've been able to upgrade based on bugs that exist in our installation.

The guarantee of data availability was important to decision-making. We wanted 100% uptime and availability. Uptime is integral to our 24/7 manufacturing operation. It also minimized the need for standby hardware or data copies without having to accommodate a different solution that doesn't have the same uptime. 

We've increased uptime with Alletra to close to 100%. Although we have had issues previously, we have yet to have any problems with this solution. 

It's helped reduce time spent on storage provisioning by probably at least 75%.

We really haven't had to spend time fine-tuning storage in any way. We just provision and forget about it. The plugins for VMware are also great as we are provisioning VMs. We rarely have to go to the area itself to manage provisioning. 

It has improved storage performance in terms of IOPs by 60% to 70% compared to what we were running on previously.

Alletra has reduced the time spent on storage tickets. We haven't had any issues, performance-wise, and rarely have tickets. 

Technical support from HPE can be hit and miss.

I've been using the solution for about a year and a half. 

The solution is stable, performance-wise. 

The scalability is there. With the models we're using, we have not had to scale up. We are on the small side. Most of our Alletras are anywhere from 42 TB up to 240 TB.

Technical support has been very good. It can be hit and miss. I'm not sure if it is hit or miss or if it is just HPE. It depends on who you get.

Positive

We previously used Nimble. We also used to be on 3PAR.

The initial setup was simple and straightforward. We did not have any issues with deployment. 

We had some help with the initial setup via our reseller. 

While I haven't calculated ROI, we have witnessed a positive impact. 

The pricing and licensing are good. Alletra's pricing model and configuration options are very straightforward. 

We did evaluate other storage vendors, including Pure Storage and one of Dell's newest offerings. However, we've always been an HPE storage customer, and it's always worked well for us. We wanted a platform and company that we were familiar with. We chose to stick with HPE. We didn't want different vendors for different applications. 

I'm an HPE customer.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. I've been very happy with the solution.

I primarily use the solution for data storage. In the future, we'll use it for VDI and user profiles. 

We came off of the Pure and moved to Alletra. We're in the migration process of that right now. I haven't spent a lot of time on it yet. 

The installation of the agent that you put on each one of the file servers or host or clients, simplifies the process versus having to go through a process of manually configuring like NPIO and stuff like that for an ISCSI connection.

HPE has been great with some of the questions and the concerns we had coming up. We had an issue where we weren't getting the data deduplication and compression that we thought we were going to have, especially when compared to the Pure. They stepped up and gave us more storage.

Alletra provides a cloud-like operational model on-prem for managing data infrastructure.

The guarantee of data availability was an important factor in our decision-making when moving to Alletra. We want to ensure availability is always there. We were able to do an expansion the other day to add extra space, and it went flawlessly without any issues. The data stayed up, with no users complaining.

Alletra has helped reduce time spent with storage provisioning. I could just bring up a new volume and present and format it. It's probably very similar to Pure. 

Alletra improves our storage performance in terms of IOPS.

It has helped reduce the time spent solving storage-related support tickets. The only experience with that so far is during the upgrade to the expansion module, we had an issue where it wouldn't come back up. An automatic ticket was created. It was helpful to have a quick response from somebody higher up, a supervisor, checking in. 

We are a unique case when it comes to data compression. Mostly, everybody has VMware running on it. We're just using it for file storage. While our focus is dealing with compression algorithms, they just haven't focused that much time on that. They are putting their money where their mouth is, however, and helping us with more storage.

Due to their acquisition of Nimble, there are multiple portals. I'm hoping that that gets cleaned up. You still have InfoSight. That's just a traditional place for Nimble, and it was renamed and rebranded for HPE. There's been slow integrations into it, HPE Green Lake, and that web portal. Hopefully, that gets done quickly. It's confusing to know what portal to go to and for what.

There is a weird bug we're seeing. I always end up using the local on-site UI to do everything. As soon as that great one, it takes some time for it to show up in Green Lake or InfoSight. That said, I can see that it will help reduce time spent on storage provisioning.

I've used the solution for three months.

The solution has been rock-solid since we've had it. 

We just added 30TB onto it, and that went smoothly. It sounds like we could even add another if it happened, however, for now, that's enough for us. 

The setup was a little bit funny as we wanted to learn the system and they just wanted to program it. However, the people have been fine and we've been able to resolve issues. For the most part, technical support worked out well. When I get the right guy on the phone, it's great. There is some weird stuff going on with on-site support. They used to farm out on-site to third-party companies. 

Positive

We did previously use Pure. We switched when the contract came due. Everything we have is HPE. Pure was a one-off product. In the grand scheme of products and support, it just didn't make sense to renew.

We bought the solution outright. We aren't leasing the solution or anything. 

The deployment was pretty straightforward. We had scheduled it, and they showed up and helped us rack it. They could have been more clear on their process. They would say that we need a network discovery address, and we'd ask: "in what context?" They wanted an ISCSI discovery address. That probably should've been clarified beforehand and moments like that dragged on a bit. 

We have a TAM through HPE. 

I haven't seen anything faster. Now that we have 3/4 of the company on it, we'll need to start looking at performance metrics. 

I don't have any insights into pricing.

We've always had either Pure or HPE. There really was no other solution to look at.

We've only had the solution for a certain amount of time, and we are not 100% migrated over. I haven't had experience with many of the features just yet.

I'd rate Alletra eight out of ten. The compression may be an issue. I understand the theory of how it works (it compresses in deduplication as it's writing). The one thing I'm not a fan of is that you get compression at write-time, if, in six months, there's a firmware upgrade, and it helps the compression, the only way to get that added benefit of compression would be to write the data again. 

We use it for our primary production storage array as well as its DR capabilities, where we replicate our data over to another Nimble or Alletra.

The resiliency of its array capabilities and the data replication features they have available are the product's most valuable aspects. 

It provides a cloud-like operating model on-prem. It has positively affected operations. The management tools they have available make it easy to provision or add additional space. It's very easy to click through.

It's been a rock-solid system. We've had a couple of drives go down before we're even aware of it and they notify us and send us a replacement.  

It's important to have a data availability guarantee, being a hospital. We need to maintain that patient data. 

The workflows are very automated, for example, if we need something replaced.

We've been able to reduce the time spent on storage provisioning by 30%. It's so easy to provision a data store or a new chunk of disk.

We've improved storage performance. The all-flash system we have is incredibly fast. 

In the perfect world, it would be cheaper. 

I've been using the solution for about five years now. 

The solution is stable and rock-solid. It's been five years. A drive may be going out since it's been so long; however, beyond that, which is expected, we haven't had any issues. 

It's easily scalable. You can build up and out with this kind of storage. 

You can get around five additional shelves, and you're talking hundreds of terabytes of data that you can put on this solution.

Technical support is great. HPE provides some of the best support we've ever dealt with. We do pay for premium support. It's worth every penny. As soon as we have a problem, we open a ticket with them, and they immediately get back to us well within the four hour SLA that we have with them.

Positive

We have a 3PAR that's also an HPE storage array. We also have a Nimble. The 3PAR has been good. However, it's getting older, and it's in need of a change. 

We do use an Azure Cloud. However, it is a very small footprint. 

The experience deploying an Alletra was very good. It was nice and easy. 

We do go through a third party to order the solution; however, my colleague and I were the individuals who actually racked it. 

We have witnessed an ROI in terms of the IOPs. The speed at which we get the data from it is incredibly fast. 

If there was another solution that was evaluated, it would have been before my time at the company.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's rock solid with great support. It's just the price that is the sticking point.

We primarily use the solution for virtualization storage.

We have different use cases and 30 locations around the country. We use it to either replicate back from site to site or keep our footprint small at the edge.

The deduplication is very good. The array replication and V-wall storage are also really useful. 

We've been able to reduce our footprint. We get 4X on each array times 30.

The cost savings are pretty good. It does allow us to store more than we normally would. 

One of the best benefits I can think of is that the support team is top-tier. We've had a lot of good experiences with support, which I can't say for some other vendors.

It's pretty good at predicting and preventing problems. We can receive notifications on most of our problems, and, if not before, very soon after. Most of our problems are just failures such as power failures. We tend to receive notifications just before or right on time. If we didn't get those notifications our environment would be down.

The guarantee of data availability is very important to us. Data runs everything.

It's helped reduce the time spent on provisioning by over 50%. The way that we use it is mainly through the plugin into vCenter. It makes the provisioning of new data storage infinitely faster.

The solution has improved our storage performance in terms of IOPS. When I started, we had some other vendor arrays that were not as great, moving to Alletra, it's improved. We're a big SQL shop, so we're  running all their secret reports and all that faster. That's always a plus for the business.

Alletra helps reduce the time spent resolving storage-related support tickets.

I'd like to see a smaller chassis in the hybrid arrays. The one they have is a legacy chassis and is a lot bigger than it should be.

I've been using the solution for five years. We were originally Nimble customers. We've used a variety of versions, from the C1000s up to the Alletra 530s.

It's a very stable system. We have no complaints. 

The solution is fully scalable. There's no issue adding additional shelving, and we've had zero downtime. 

Alletra suport is excellent. They are always responsive and knowledgeable, and our issues are resolved in a few hours. I don't dread opening support tickets with them. 

Positive

We have used EMC and NetApp. We moved all storage over to Alletra. We wanted continuity. We have a small team and Alletra has made it easier to train people when using one platform.

We deployed the solution ourselves. It's really easy to set up and the documentation is step by step. Getting it from out of the box to up and functional we can do in 30 minutes or less. 

I don't know what the pricing is.

We haven't recently evaluated other solutions. The transition was already in motion when I took things over. We don't have plans to change.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten overall. It's reliable, has good uptime, and nice features. It doesn't cause me problems.