HPE SimpliVity Reviews

We use it for financial applications. We are a small organization, so it has all of our servers, financial applications, SQL database, file servers, etc.

I believe we are up to date with the latest version for our hardware specs.

The main thing is its performance. In terms of performance, it is a lot better than VMware. Obviously, technology is changing a lot all the time. We were on just VMware with a separate attached array. The performance was kind of a step backward from just running separate servers. Now, the performance is much better, and we can take snapshots and backups of really big servers in just a matter of seconds. We can even restore them in a matter of seconds.

The fact that it is tied to a certain hardware platform would probably be the bigger negative versus just being able to buy something off the shelf.

I have probably been using it for three years.

It is stable. We haven't had any issues.

It is not easy to scale. In our instance, we would probably have to upgrade to a whole new hardware platform.

In terms of end-users, our company is small, but we support school districts. There are probably 500 users.

I have used their support. They're good.

We didn't use any other hyper-converged technology. We just moved from a VMware system that was kind of the old school type with two servers, a disk array, and a separate disk.

It was kind of complex. There were just a lot of pieces. I wasn't so involved in the networking piece, but it seemed like it was a little bit more complicated.

We did get some quotes from Nutanix, and they were ballparks. So, it is not cheap, and there is nothing free, but those two were comparable.

I would advise others to just be sure and do their homework and compare. I'm not sure if we made the best decision, but I'm not dissatisfied with it. I'm pretty comfortable with the way it operates. I don't know enough about the other products to compare it in terms of the ease of doing updates and things like that. Usually, we get a support vendor involved when we do anything major. 

I would give HPE SimpliVity an eight out of 10.

We are using BHPE SimpliVity for hosting infrastructure.

The features I have found most valuable are the convergence of the infrastructure and multi-platform support, for example, VMware and Hyper-V.

The solution could improve by adding better support of the VMware add-ons and a more intuitive user interface for administrators.

In a future release, all the management features should be able to access from one location. For example, management of networking and system resources on the server should be in one place to view and manage.

I have been using HPE SimpliVity for approximately two years.

The solution is stable with many high availability features.

HPE SimpliVity is easy to scale. You can simply add resources, for instance, ram, or storage. Additionally, adding another node is possible. It is very easy and straightforward.

We have more than 5,000 people using the solution.

We needed help to integrate some of our older systems to use with HPE SimpliVity and we contacted support. We opened a ticket and they responded within five business days.

We have used Check Point.

The installation difficulty level depends on whose perspective. From a beginner's perspective, it is complex, but for advanced administrators, it is straightforward and not so complicated. 

The infrastructure is easy to deploy.

We used integrators to do the implementation of the solution.

We do not have special servers, only regular ones, the maintenance of the solution is simple.

If we compare the price of HPE SimpliVity with other vendors that are selling the hyper-converged infrastructure, all of them are not cheap and are priced similarly. However, the price we pay and what we receive makes it a good price.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate HPE SimpliVity an eight out of ten.

We are in the hospitality industry with 10 hotels, and all the systems are on HPE SimpliVity infrastructure. We have our 10 systems on the infrastructure, such as a huge hospitality application, finance, and material control systems.

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 interface is good but takes some time to get used to.

I have been using HPE SimpliVity for approximately two years.

The solution is highly stable.

We do not need to scale the solution because we have purchased it with servers, with two processors, and 750 gigabytes of memory per server. We have everything that we need and do not need to upgrade or scale the server or scale the infrastructure.

The technical support is good.

When the Dell PowerEdge infrastructure became old we then decided to switch to SimpliVity. We have also used Dell VxRail and all the other solutions that we had upgraded at that time.

The initial setup is a bit complicated. Setting up the networking and other infrastructure can be difficult if you are have not done it before. There are lots of things that you have to take into consideration, and at that time it was quite new to us. The total time it took for everything to work correctly was approximately four days.

HPE did parts of the implementation with us.

The price of the solution is reasonable. We have purchased a five-year license with all the support and upgrades.

My advice to others is HPE SimpliVity It is a very good system, very stable, and has lots of features that we have not seen work well in other systems. All the features work incredibly well with HPE SimpliVity.

I rate HPE SimpliVity an eight out of ten.

We are using HPE SimpliVity for our organization's backup and recovery solution.

The solution is user-friendly.

I have been using HPE SimpliVity for approximately five years.

HPE SimpliVity is stable.

The solution is scalable.

We have approximately 80 people in my organization in France and we work together with 2,000 other regions that all use the solution.

The technical, commercial, and marketing support is not at the level that it should be. They are not structured well. Other vendors provide better support, such as Dell.

We were previously using the HPE MSA solution.

The installation is easy and the basic installation takes two days.

We have the certifications to do the implementation ourselves, but it has to be checked by HPE.

There is not a license required for the solution.

I have evaluated other solutions from Dell.

I rate HPE SimpliVity a nine out of ten.

HPE SimpliVity is mainly used for virtualized environments.

The most valuable features of SimpliVity are the built-in backup and immunity to ransomware.

I have been using HPE SimpliVity for approximately four years.

When it comes to virtualization, SimpliVity is based on VMware, and VMware is more stable than other solutions, such as Hyper-V.

I would recommend this solution to others.

We have approximately 10 customers using this solution.

The technical support has been good. They know a lot of information and are helpful.

The installation is quite easy but it could still be improved.

You have to have the environment set up correctly before the installation of SimpliVity, such as vCenter Server and AD. If you have the environment configured then the installation is approximately 45 minutes.

We have approximately five engineers that do the implementation and maintenance of the solution.

The solution is priced high. However, there are plenty of features as part of the package that other solutions do not have.

The solution comes with the VMware license that you need, but you can also buy the license outside of the initial purchase.

The features SimpliVity has there is no other solution in the market that can match it.

I rate HPE SimpliVity a nine out of ten.

We are resellers. We provide HPE products to our customers.

This solution is used with UDI, HCI, the hybrid cloud, Microsoft Azure, and other Microsoft products.

The most valuable features of this solution are the backup rate and the backup transfer.

You don't have to purchase any other licenses other than Microsoft or for VMware, everything is included in your box.

Your backup and transfer time is less. You can move one TB of VM data in one minute, which is one of SimpliVity's benefits.

In my experience, the only improvement that can be made is the price. It is much more costly than other solutions such as VxRail.

We would like to provide our customers with a virtual demo and have not been able to find this available. We don't have access to show the demo virtually to our customers or partners. This is lacking in this sector. We are not able to provide hands-on experience.

The centric management could be simplified or more user-friendly. Customers require an easier way to handle any product.

I have been selling this solution for two years.

We always register our clients with the newest versions.

For stability, our customers prefer on-premises solutions, but they can also deploy the hybrid cloud, which allows them to instantly transfer from on-premises to the cloud.

This solution is quite stable. We have not found any issues with stability to remote to our customers.

HPE SimpliVity is easy to scale.

We have been in contact with technical support when we have had some issues. We have always received answers in a timely fashion.

VxRail is the only competitor, no other product comes near HPE SimpliVity.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's simple. 

Maintenance is required because it is complex. You are getting your storage, the server, and the networking protocol in one box. It requires a few technical engineers, otherwise, you can manage this product after the installation. 

We provide our customers with a demo in our data center and an hour per day.

It's a costly solution and is more expensive than VxRail.

When you compare with other competitors, such as Cisco HyperFlex, it is much more expensive than SimpliVity. In the rankings, Cisco is seventh and SimpliVity comes in fifth.

Many customers are using this solution and have said that it comes down to the price. Otherwise, it's a good product.

This product is not suitable for small companies as they don't require this much. Unless they have 20 to 30 lakhs (two to three million), it would be better suited for medium to large companies.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate HPE SimpliVity a ten out of ten.

We use it for servers, like the domain controller, DHCP, print server, file server, and distribution server as well as application servers.

We like the backup feature, which is inbuilt. This means that we didn't require an additional storage device. Everything is backed up in a single box and that always makes it easy to manage.

I think the licensing cost could be lower.

I've been using HPE SimpliVity for more than two years.

HPE SimpliVity is definitely a stable solution.

I think it is scalable.

I have found technical support to be good and have appreciated their immediate response.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We currently have a yearly license, and I think the cost could be lower.

If you go with a single node only, then you may encounter some issues if you don't have any backup nodes. However, if you go with at least two nodes, then you will be able to manage a disaster well.

If one of the nodes goes down, then the server and data center will be moved to another node. This will ensure that you don't lose anything.

I am very satisfied with HPE SimpliVity and would rate it at ten, on a scale from one to ten.

SimpliVity is used when a customer is looking to build a private cloud environment.

SimpliVity works well in a UAT environment.

They have made several technology changes. Compared to the previous version, SimpliVity was acquired by HPE and now the product has totally changed.

Initially, the response was great with SimpliVity. After the technology changed the feedback from customers was not good. As a result, we no longer focus on Simplivity.

Our focus is more on Nutanix Hyperconverged.

SimpliVity has very limited options for the virtualization layer. They may have to with VMware or something similar.

The flexibility should be present. It should be the customer's choice of what virtualization layer they will choose, and not mandated from the solution that you have to use VMware. VMware is not cheap. It comes with its own cost. 

If the customer has the option to go with the Microsoft Hyper-V then customers should get the flexibility to have Hyper-V in place of the hypervisor.

Ultimately, the hypervisor functionality by default when you go for the data center becomes more cost-effective.

It should have the intelligence, to alert you that a failure of the cache is about to happen. It should be able to give you the predictive alarm and it should create its own backup.

It should have some provision where the cache is being copied to another location. So when one copy has been deleted or a copy has been corrupted, we should be able to recover it from the other site to ensure the office data is secure.

It should have some provision wherein the cache is being copied to some other location so that even if one copy has been deleted or one copy has been corrupted, we are able to recover it from the other location which will keep the office data secure.

From a product perspective, it should be more flexible.

It should allow users to have more data control in areas such as the cache. It should allow the user to have more data reduction flexibility.

Data reduction is something that is completely missing in the current solution, once SimpliVity was bought by HPE. It was the primary reason customers were interested in it.

SimpliVity handles the data. HCI is about how RAID is maintained over the network, and how many duplicate copies have been stored, or whether you are going for RF2 or RF3. Those things have to be taken into consideration.

With VMware,vSAN, and SimpliVity they are more dependent on the cache. If the cache fails then I have to recover the data. It's complete downtown for me. Anytime the data is not recovered, it's business downtime.

We have been providing this solution to our customers over the last year, but overall, we have been working with it for between four and five years.

Now that the technology has been changed, the product stability will always be in doubt.

The more they are integrating and trying to match the flexibility that Nutanix has been providing, and it has become more complex.

The hypervisor is becoming the heart of the solution. It is controlling the complete solution. It is providing you the contour, the storage, and the configuration of the virtual infrastructure.  

This can be problematic when it comes to SimpliVity.

SimpliVity offers built-in scalability but there is an override with the data protection policy that they are providing, what kind of flexibility when it comes to managing the complete virtual machines. 

The cluster has its own limitation. You cannot go beyond 32 or 64 nodes.

You can have multiple clusters and you can share your application across the clusters, but, yes, there are limitations. Though the limitation is not small it allows you to have 32 or 64 nodes in a cluster. When it comes to managing it, the more you add, the more complex it becomes to manage.

We have given it to many customers. Few of the customers are running it for the highest number of possible nodes in the clusters.

They provide good technical support.

If the solution has any fundamental challenges then it is not something that anyone can address.

It will take less than one day to start with a basic three-node cluster.

It is simple to install but it is hard to maintain.

In terms of the licenses, customers do not actually get any benefit. They have to purchase the VMware vCloud Suite as a bundled solution.

There is no flexibility in terms of choosing what license the customer wants to use. Irrespective of the features that the customer needs, they have to pay more for fewer features they want to use.

The difference between the HCI and the basic traditional environment is that it mitigates the bottleneck of the traditional solution. 

Customers are looking to have an environment that is completely scalable. HCI is a platform that you can always choose. That is the flexibility that is in demand when it comes to the private cloud.

Whenever building a private cloud, scalability should be a built-in feature.

SimpliVity does offer it but there is an override in terms of the data reduction policy they are providing. What kind of flexibility in terms of managing the complete virtual machines.

Now when it comes to SimpliVity, they have very limited options for the virtualization layer.

They may have to go with VMware and that is something that I'll say not all the customers will be keen to consider.

If someone asks me today which product to implement, I'll say that if you have a UAT environment, then you try to put it on SimpliVity. But when it comes to the production, or when it comes to a critical application or critical business need, you put it on the Nutanix Hyperconverged Infrastructure.

I only recommend this solution in a UAT environment, but not for production or critical environment.

SimpliVity cannot be deployed on the cloud.

The technical team is good because it is being managed by the HPE team only. The HPE technical team is always good.

It has various limitations and over time, rather than improvising, they have diluted the real essence of the product. I would rate HPE SimpliVity a five out of ten.