From my side, five years ago, we started the journey on hyper-converged, basically because we are HPCPenney. So, we started the journey with HPCPenney after the acquisition. And since then, the only one and the ones we sorted out, I started myself.

So, HPE is the only vendor I have worked with for HCI products.

However, we are open to working with other HCI vendors in the future because the nature of a distributor should cover the end-to-end. 

So, we are open to working with other HCI vendors, like Nutanix, for example. We can also set up the VMware vSAN through our HP ProLogistix. 

Dell PowerFlex is a competitor. It is more reasonably priced.

We looked at Nutanix. We looked at some other hyper-converged units.

We also looked at Simplivity and Nutanix. Simplivity was really our vendor of choice, but the price point was a little high and they didn't have the longevity that we were looking for in a vendor. If we were to do this again today, we probably choose Simplivity, because they were acquired by HPE.

Our short list of alternatives was IBM and HPE. We don't use anybody else besides HPE for our data center. We don't use Dell. We have ordered all our stuff from HPE, so this solution was the logical choice.

In my pre-sales role, I see other customers looking at competitive solutions, be it Intel, EMC, or Nutanix. They all have some strengths.

The Nutanix solution is cool, because it's simple. But it's software and I'm not convinced about any of the hardware underneath it. Some people say, "Yeah, the hardware's not important." However, I have some real-life scenarios, cases with customers, in which it was proven that they had the software, they had the hardware, but they had a hardware issue and the software screwed up.

I prefer to go for the HPE solution. This is not because Nutanix is bad, but they are just a software company, independent of the hardware. I feel more confident with HPE because I know they build the hardware and the software. If I have a problem, I can contact one person with one phone number and I can make contact. I know the hardware guy and I know the software guy.

With Nutanix, for instance, this is not the case. They also say, "we have one phone number," but if they have a problem with the rate controller in their server, they have to call Dell or Lenovo. They have to escalate the case. They are not going to be able to solve my problem. They are going to escalate it.

I'm with HPE. I know that HPE will solve my problem directly.

The competitors in the market are HPE SimpliVity, VxRail, and Nutanix. All these solutions are extremely pricey. 

I feel VxRail is one of the best solutions you might ever have because of the protection it offers. 

SimpliVity is good, and it's reliable. It supports one node.

HP 380 is not up to the level of VMware products. They have more features, such as duplication or compression. 

Our customers would be looking at the top competitors like EMC and Dell. They chose StoreVisual because it’s a better product. I don't know much about the others. I only work with HPE.

I watched to vSAN and Storage Spaces, but found some limitations that I did not see in the HPE solution.

Yes, Nutanix and SimpliVity. 

Nutanix pricing was slightly more expensive. After three years, I have to pay support three times more than what I will pay for HPE. 

For SimpliVity, buying two servers of SimpliVity would cost me twice as much as buying three servers of HPE HC380 at that time of purchase. Now, the gap has been reduced, that is why I am in discussions with them.