HPE Alletra Storage Reviews

We use it in our customer environment that has more than two or three hosts. We don't have to worry about meeting any of the network vendor requirements for storage.

It's made everything faster.  On the array that we use internally, it has eliminated all of our storage bottlenecks, which has really quieted down all of our alarm systems, so it just made our days quieter.

It's easy to deploy and maintain, and it's made everything faster. 

It does offer a cloud-like infrastructure. However, it depends on what you are trying to do. The cloud-like perception is mostly seen during the deployment of HP GreenLake. While it is multi-tenant, that's not how we use it day to day.

While it's good for predicting problems, we don't have many. I don't know how many tens of thousands of sensors are on the Alletra arrays. Whenever there has ever been a problem, there has been a sensor, an email, et cetera. If it's a problem with the hardware or a failure that's even pending, something gets shipped out, and a case is auto-created and auto-closed for us. So it pretty much just does all of it.

The data availability guarantee is crucial. While it doesn't reduce the time spend on storage provisioning, it's fixed and has made the management easier. That's where its time savings comes into play.

It's improved our storage performance in terms of IOPs. I don't know what our figure was before, but it's at least double, and we upgraded from a Dell EMC Unity.

It's reduced the time spent resolving storage-related support tickets. It's not that we have so many storage-related support tickets. It's that when we have storage issues, latency issues, or alarms, someone has to look into them. I'm not sure if it's the product itself that's made this better or if it's been the upgrade and support that we get from HPE. 

Our main array that we upgraded from was a Dell EMC Unity. We also had Nimble and MSA storage in the network. The reason we switched is we just needed the performance and the networking.

I'm not sure if I've gone through all the features. There's always room for improvement. 

I'd like an easier way to tune the alerts that email us. If we have a remote site that has issues, we have alerts that queue up and then once that gets resolved everyone gets flooded with alerts. 

I've used the solution for the last three years. 

The stability is very good. I've never had an issue with one dying. 

While it may be possible that the solution is infinitely scalable, I don't have the network need to continuously scale up. I don't know where the ceiling is.

HPE Nimble support is world-class. I'd rate it ten out of ten. Non-Nimble storage support is horrific. I'd rate it two out of ten since it takes so much longer to get to the correct team. Once you get to someone, the support is pretty good. It's just getting there that is hard. 

We previously used a Dell EMC Unity. We also had Nimble and ASA storage in the network.

Deploying the Alletra iSCSI platform was easy peasy. I could do it in my sleep. The Alletra dHCI platform was more of a headache. It requires a lot more planning and is more unforgiving during the initial setup. Once it's up and running, it's excellent.

We used a consultant to assist with the implementation. 

We've witnessed ROI in terms of smoothing out the bottlenecks and discovering the root problems. I don't have specific KPIs or metrics for ROI.

The pricing is very good. That said, every vendor is a spiderweb to navigate. It's a pain, everywhere.

We evaluated five different vendor solutions and this one, based on its performance and cost, was a win-win. We had hands-on experience and were more comfortable with HPE products. That said, the main driving factor was the cost.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. It's my personal favorite piece of storage. That said, there's always a new product and feature coming up in tech. 

We have a virtualization platform running over there, with block and file usage

It is very easy to manage, so we spend less time going over it. It does not require very specific and advanced storage knowledge to get involved. It is easy to start using it. Creating VMs or new data storage clusters is very simple from the virtualization platform, so we save time. Also, thanks to the protection and snapshot, we can also quickly recover from ransomware attacks or things like that. Now even offer ransomware detection include on the system

HPE Alletra Storage provides a cloud-like operational model on-prem for managing data infrastructure. I can monitor and manage whatever I need at home. It helps a lot. I do not need to open a VPN connection or any kind of connection to know what is going on. I can manage my platform remotely.

We have protection and snapshots. InfoSight alerts us on any issues that could be there. We get to know what is going on.

HPE Alletra Storage has helped reduce the time spent on storage provisioning. Instead of a couple of hours, we can do storage provisions in 15 minutes. With block and file capabilities we have the possibility to use one system with multiple usage.

HPE Alletra Storage has improved our storage performance in terms of IOPs. We have much more than what we need.

HPE Alletra Storage has helped reduce the time spent resolving storage-related support tickets. The InfoSight information that we have and the performance-related capabilities that we have seen help us a lot. When we know a problem, we also know where the issue is and what is causing the issue, so an open case takes a couple of hours rather than a couple of days.

It is simple to manage and integrate with our virtualization platform. There is also the storage efficiency. We are saving in terms of storage capacity. It is very easy, and we get the performance for the requirements that we are requiring. 

Expand the amount of File Storage that can be used and add more NAS protocols

We have been using HPE Alletra Storage for more than 2 years.

We never have any issues.

We do not need to scale. We would have had to scale if we could buy a smaller one. It is enough for us.

Everything is great. Sometimes we get an email saying that we are having an issue on a drive or something else even before we realize it. Nowadays, when we are having an issue, most of the time, we also have a solution. It is great. 

We have used 3PAR from HPE or MSA. We needed to perform a refresh. Most of our use cases were VMware-related, we wanted to integrate data management capacities and capabilities. That is why we moved. We received everything that we needed.

We have seen an ROI. We have started to take away the old storage solution. We have simplified management. For anyone new to the company, it is very easy to understand what is going on, how to manage, how to get access and know what it is doing. The onboarding time is saved. We require less training and there are also fewer errors because they understand what they are doing. It is a simple management environment.

Its licensing is good. Pricing-wise, there can be a little bit more flexibility. It would help to have different sizes. However, it fits into the budget that we have, so we are happy.

I would rate HPE Alletra Storage a nine out of ten because there is always room to improve, but we are happy with what we are receiving from Alletra and how simple it is to manage. The optimization of the storage means that we do not need to scale and grow. We are not looking for new refreshments or upgrades on the platform. All my colleagues are also confident about what they are doing over there. We like the environment.

We typically use Alletra NVMe drives for high-performance applications requiring more than 200,000 IOPS per second. We also have HPE's 3PAR, the most advanced version of the storage array. It can address most application issues and has less than 2 millisecond latency. 

We had faced issues with 3PAR because the drives slowed down, and we constantly had to change the capacity. There was too much incoming data, and the CTDs were always full. We needed some compression, deduplication, and provisioning. Even after applying all these techniques, we still faced some issues with space. 

But Alletra has high-capacity NVMe drives, so we no longer have a problem. There are no spikes, regardless of our incoming IOPS or my customer's application requirements. The solution immediately addresses the needs of any applications. 

Also, you need not worry about backend vulnerabilities. It is an awesome product. You deploy and run it without worrying about what's happening at the security level.  It's better than other storage classes like MSS. These NVMe models have played a significant role here.

We achieve storage availability by maximizing usable storage while minimizing hardware storage requirements. We have almost three petabytes of data space, and we're only using one petabyte, leaving two petabytes available.

We have the most advanced HPE products available that we can monitor with the HPE InfoSight feature, which enables us to check every metric, including bandwidth and latency, at a granular level. Alletra's mechanism is excellent and can handle multiple traffic sources. Anything is possible. Regarding your application, the IO behavior can be random, sequential, or a database. It serves web and e-commerce applications better. 

HPE InfoSight lets you see all the alerts from SSMC and proactively log cases. It will automatically raise a ticket to HPE when critical hardware fails. You get an idea about what will happen and be proactive. You can see when a node will restart so we can investigate and work with support. We can also see how nodes and ports are performing. 

DataCare helps you manage allocation mapping and firmware upgrades. We can also replace drives, troubleshoot, set up applications, update proxies, and take backups through DataCare. 

More training videos would help. We could learn some best practices. Sometimes, people may not follow the best practices and reach out to support, who will tell them that they need to follow these best practices to get this performance or result. 

I have used Alletra for nearly two years.

The batteries, BIOS configuration, and power supply are much more stable than the previous models.

I rate HPE support eight out of 10. Their support is kind, and they respond quickly.

Positive

We have IBM's flash array. We face too many problems with IBM's flash array because the code is unstable and nodes must be restarted. We haven't seen these issues with Alletra. We also use Oracle Cloud and plan to use AWS, but the cost is too high. 

Alletra is straightforward if you connect it properly. Once it's plugged in, you assign IP addresses and start configuring the security

I rate HPE Alletra nine out of 10. 

We use it for our backend Tier 0 storage.

It is the core foundation for our disaster recovery plan and high availability plan. We use Peer Persistence in conjunction with VMware vSphere Metro Storage Cluster to fail over critical workloads between data centers on a quarterly basis.

HPE Alletra Storage tries to provide a cloud-like operational model on-prem for managing data infrastructure. The cloud-like operational model has not affected operations such as deployment, provisioning, and day-to-day management. It is not enterprise-ready.

We have not seen much evidence of the fact that HPE Alletra Storage can predict problems and prevent them before they occur.

It is important that they guarantee data availability. They have had to pay up multiple times because they were not able to provide the availability, and so far, they have kept their word.

HPE Alletra Storage has helped reduce the time spent on storage provisioning. It has saved about 20% of the time. With each iteration, they are getting better at their user interface.

HPE Alletra Storage has improved our storage performance in terms of IOPS. There is about 50% improvement.

Multi-node or the four controllers and the port persistence are valuable. The overall redundancy and performance of the system is valuable.

They can continue developing their V vaults and peer persistence. They can implement active-active peer persistence so that our organization can use it.

In the next release, we would like more V vault support with metro clustering or peer persistence.

I have been using HPE Alletra Storage for two and a half years.

We were early adopters, so we got to see some of the worst of Alletra. Since then, it has become much more stable. It is definitely a much more stable product now.

It is very scalable.

Their support is pretty good. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

HPE has dedicated a lot of resources to our organization to ensure that we are successful. There is definitely a lot of collaboration between our organizations to support Alletra.

Positive

We were using 3PAR and Primera. We switched because it was a refresh into the newer technologies.

We are mostly on-prem, but we do use Azure as we have started to do a hybrid model. 

Its deployment was very smooth and simple.

We did it ourselves. It was very straightforward.

We have seen an ROI. As data continues to grow in our environment, driving down the price per terabyte is essential for us to be able to continue to afford the performance they give us.

HPE was a clear winner on price per terabyte. It was very smooth.

We evaluated Pure, and we evaluated EMC. The main difference was the price per terabyte.

I would rate HPE Alletra Storage an eight out of ten. If they can improve some of the things, that would take it to ten.

It runs our corporate and restaurant data center.

It reduces the need for a specialized storage engineer. Uptime has been high, so it has reduced outages or downtime.

HPE Alletra Storage provides a cloud-like operational model on-prem for managing data infrastructure. It reduces the need for advanced engineers to do configurations and customization.

It routinely opens tickets on its behalf for support and hardware replacements without our intervention and downtime.

The guarantee of data availability is very important to our organization.

HPE Alletra Storage has significantly helped reduce the time spent on storage provisioning. We have always used it, but I know from dealing with other storage devices that it significantly reduces the complexity and the time to deploy.

The operating system works well for IOPS. It has got more overhead than we use, so performance has been good. 

HPE Alletra Storage has helped reduce the time spent resolving storage-related support tickets. There is auto ticket generation and auto hardware replacement with support.

There is ease of use for junior admins. We have VMware integrations for data stores, cloning operations of existing data stores, and InfoSight analytics.

I do not have any issues with it. It has been good for us. There are no cons that I see, and that is why we use it.

There are no additional features that I would want to see. 

I have been using this solution since HPE bought Nimble. It has been five years.

It is stable.

It scales fine. We have added shelves on an add-need basis in the past without any issues.

HPE provides good customer service for us. We have never had any issues with response time and resolving problems.

Deployment was very simple and straightforward, performed by junior administrators.

In my view, we have got our return with the ease of use and reduction of technical skill sets. 

It is fairly priced. It is in line with industry standard pricing and cost models.

I evaluated IBM, NetApp, and Dell solutions. I chose HPE in the end because Nimble was a very stable platform that I have used for a long time with great success.

I would rate it a ten out of ten for simplicity, uptime, cost, and InfoSight analytics.

We use the solution for our data center compute. We have three HP ProLiant servers that use it for storage and 40 virtual servers. 

We now have much more storage and the uptime is very good.

The performance is very good. We expanded our storage four-fold over the previous product and managed it within a reasonable price range. 

It's increased performance and uptime. 

Uptime, to us, is very important.

It's helped us reduce the time spent on storage provisioning. There's less management that's necessary overall.

We have lessened the number of storage-related tickets. We don't really have any since we implemented Alletra.

They could be a little more intuitive and user-friendly in terms of management, and it could be easier to find technical documentation. 

I'd like the solution to offer more free training.

I've used the solution for two years.

I've had no issues with stability. It's very good. 

I'm not sure if we'll need to scale. I'm not an expert on scaling; however, we do have the ability to upgrade our system should there be a need. 

Support is good. I had to get a password reset and they were very quick about it. It's better than general HP support. I've had a bad support experience, for example, with Aruba. There were language barriers, and I needed to redo tasks. Alletra's support, however, is very good.

Positive

We used to use Pure Storage. I didn't have to spend too much time managing storage availability. However, I did have to manage it more. With Alletra, I barely have to manage it at all. We switched to Alletra based on cost. The cost to replace Pure Storage would have been similarly-priced to the Alletra 6000-series. It made sense to go with a newer, better product if the price was the same. 

It was very easy, especially with the help of a third-party party. They did most of the setup and some on-site training, which was helpful. We had everything set up with minimal to no downtime. 

We had a third party help set it up. The experience was good. The main problem we had was getting a long time to get the product after purchase based on post-COVID supply chain issues. 

We have witnessed an ROI. It's a cost we have to have regardless of our data center. However, we have additional ROI since we could reuse our Pure Storage as a sandbox/DR solution. 

The pricing is decent. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. The only improvements would have been more on training and getting more out of my existing system.

We primarily use the solution for our block storage for VDI and VMware.

Speed-wise, we went all flash, so it's really reduced our user issues with VDI and some other things we're using.

The usability is very good. It's really easy to use, especially with the DHCI. It's very easy to upgrade and maintain.

There's unlimited lifetime on their arrays where you can keep upgrading.

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

Day to day, we really don't have to touch it as it runs. As far as operations, it's made it a lot easier to manage and set things up and delegate those tasks to junior engineers now instead of having to do it all myself.

It has helped reduce the time spent on storage provisioning.

The product has helped use time spent resolving storage-related support tickets.

The licensing could always be cheaper. 

I've been using the solution for probably ten years. 

The solution is stable. I'd rate it ten out of ten.

The solution is scalable to a degree.

Technical support and customer support are excellent.

Positive

We did look at Nutanix. We had previous experience with this solution, and we already had existing arrays. I also liked the DHCI stack with the conversion infrastructure.

The support team is excellent. They take ownership of tickets and save us a lot of hassle. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It offers good usability and support. It's been a good product overall. 

The tool's notable feature is that we don't need to log a case directly with the vendor. The tool has access to all the logs on-premises. This is an on-premises solution. Additionally, we can provision data as thick or thin provisioned. Moreover, it includes data grid duplication and compression features.

We allocate volumes to various clients based on their requirements and requests. This has resolved the problem of bottlenecks for applications requiring a high number of I/O operations, as the storage was previously unable to deliver the necessary throughput due to SAS, NL-SAS, and SATA drives. However, with NVMe drives, a single drive can provide up to thirty thousand IOPS. We can configure rate levels and disk drives according to the client's needs, ensuring no bottlenecks in IOPS.

The cloud-integrated feature allows users to HPE Alletra access from any location, eliminating the need for VPN connections or on-premises access.
It offers high-intensity IOPS for data operations and delivers extremely low latency for disk operations, often within sub-millisecond response times. This ensures minimal latency experienced by databases or applications, resulting in significantly faster read and write operations than other solutions. This is particularly beneficial for scenarios with many users accessing applications simultaneously. For instance, for many users checking results concurrently, the tool ensures optimal performance without latency or slowdown in the application portal.

The cloud-native connectivity feature allows you to deploy your private cloud infrastructure. However, it's important to note that integration with public cloud services is unsupported due to its hybrid channel-based solution, primarily designed for on-premises deployment. It will not give you any bottlenecks and offers the best performance on storage. 

It would be better if there were an option to incorporate the NVMe feature alongside other storage tiers. Currently, the system operates on Autotier but can manually peer and mix different types of drives, such as SAS and SATA drives. 

I have been using the product for 12 years. 

The tool's stability is excellent, providing a hundred percent uptime.

The product is scalable. Approximately 10-15 major customers are utilizing the product, with almost 400 plus servers.

The product's support is good. It is better than Dell EMC. 

The tool is very easy to deploy. It's like a plug-and-play system. You need to plug it in, and it's ready to go. There's no need for extensive configuration or setup. When the engineers from the HPE vendors arrive, they connect the HPE Alletra system, which requires Internet connectivity. After that, the person who registers will receive a signing code. This code must be input during the installation process, along with configuring the management IP.

The solution is expensive and can cost around five lakhs. 

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten.I advise those considering implementing HPE Alletra to thoroughly evaluate your requirements and workload. It is a top choice in the market if you primarily need block-level database storage. However, it's worth considering other options if you have a mix of workloads and require unified storage.