HPE StoreOnce Review

The ease of use and configuration once implemented and the deduplication features.

Before the StoreOnce solution was implemented all kinds of backup solutions and software were being used in this international company, making it very difficult to manage, keep control over the backups, losing data left and right, very unprofessional.

Also a lot of tapes needed to be kept offside, using one of these companies that comes and collects tapes to store in a secure location, this costs the company a lot of money.

Now several StoreOnce appliances sync with each other to take care of the disaster recovery compliancy, remote offices stream deduplicated backup data to the StoreOnce and use the same backup software as all other locations.

The initial installation and configuration into the network and the integration into the infrastructure needs some improvement, but it's not too difficult if you plan right.

For well over 1 year now.

The deployment of the solution is done by HP, they insisted on it, the initial planning was the task of the client, there were some bumps along the road, but in the end it was deployed rather quickly.

No issues during initial config, can't say there were any stability issues.

The scalability is something you need to plan for ahead, the amount of TB you're looking to backup now and how much it would grow in the future. Depending on the outcome of your calculation you need to choose the model accordingly (the higher models allow for more scalability - read higher amount of TB that can be stored).

No issues with customer service, quick and correct.

They could answer all our questions and helped us to get going without too much time and effort.

Previously it was a bunch of solutions (backup to disk, to tape, etc) and all kinds of different backup software dispersed over different locations, very unmanageable and lots of issues with backup. It needed to be consolidated and in the meantime it needed to provide the necessary Disaster Recovery abilities. That's why this solution was chosen.

Initial setup was done along with HP, it wasn't overly complex if you know something about backup and the software solution to go along with it, if you have to start from scratch it can be quite the task, it isn't plug and play, there is quite some configuration to be done, you also need to know your backup environments in and out, plan ahead. You need to know what goes where and how it will be replicated.

As mentioned earlier, the solution was implemented along with HP, their level of expertise was above par.

Too soon to tell, but initial reports tell us it definitely will save us a lot of money, on tapes and tape handling alone.

Yes, some other solutions came across our desk, but I can't remember which ones though. Pretty early on we chose to go with HP StoreOnce.

Read up on the solution, there are a lot of advantages in this product, all depends on your environment, if you are one of those companies that has a lot of tapes and different locations, it could definitely be something for you. The deduplication is great on this solution, no more TB's of wasted space, send deduplicated backup data over those expensive leased lines saving bandwidth, and so on...