HPE SimpliVity Reviews

• Integrated backup and DR features
• De-duplication and compression
• Management using the vSphere client
• Total ease of management

Backups - policies are built in and managed using the SimpliVity extension in vSphere. It makes working with backups and recovery extremely simple and removes all the complicated tasks of backup storage management. The ability to place backups at any datacenter within the vSphere environment is nice too. These are full backups too, not just snapshots.

Reporting - improvements have been made, but I would like to see some enhancements for recalling historical information: automated reports on storage efficiency over time and backup growth over time.

I have used it since January 2015.

I have not encountered any stability issues. We were able to migrate all of our legacy environment of physical servers and data over to SimpliVity with no issues. Performance was improved and storage efficiency with the deduplication really works. When we had an Accelerator card fail in one host (the card manages the deduplication tasks for the host), we got an alert the card had failed but never had a service interruption. The card on the other host takes over for the failed card until it is replaced. Very resilient.

I have not encountered any scalability issues. We initially started out with a 2+1 configuration and then scaled up to a 3+2 with no issues.

Technical support is the best. Their first-line guys know the product and can solve issues. I have always had any issue or support request resolved in a timely manner and by the same guy who was assigned the ticket.

Initial setup was very easy. I actually set up the “Federation” myself one Saturday morning with no help from support. I just followed the instructions for the rack and stack, powered up assigned IP addresses to the networks it required and the embedded wizard did the rest.

The nice thing about SimpliVity is that ALL the features are included in the base price. You don’t have to try to pick and choose and fight the pricing game.

We looked at other solutions before purchasing SimpliVity (Nutanix), but SimpliVity was a better fit for our requirements and had what I judged as features Nutanix could not compete with.

Do your homework and compare them to the competition apples for apples so that you see the value the product has from features, ease of use and pricing.

I have spoken to other customers at SimpliVity road show events and serve as a customer reference for them when asked. I really believe in the product that much.

I was searching for a high availability system that could replace our traditional SAN and be responsible for computer configuration and backup.

This solution was an easy way for us to ensure high availability along with offsite backup of data. It has made offsite recovery a faster process than in the past.

Offsite backup, replication, and duplication of data are important for our plant environment since we are hard on our equipment. The ability to restore quickly and get the business back up and running is priceless.

Bandwidth throttling during offsite backups. When we implemented this solution for the first time to replace another system we brought down the WAN line until the initial data set was replicated. They do have an off-peak time setting but throttling would be better for a 24/7 shop.

It is used as a data center solution. We run all our company's workloads on SimpliVity. It has been running for a year now. We have no complaints as it has been running seamlessly.

• Fast data recovery
• Low on operational costs

There are two main drivers:

• Data protection
• Low operational costs.

I have some worries about the support after the acquisition. The support was better before HPE acquired SimpliVity. They are not very clear on what to expect. That makes me a bit nervous.

Stability is pretty good. We have no complaints as it has been running seamlessly with no downtime.

There was no downtime when this solution was acquired by HPE.

The scalability is linear.

The support organization has changed a bit since the switch to HPE, but that has not impacted any of the services yet.

Yes, we did have a previous solution. 

We switched because we have to renew components in the datacenter every so many years. First year, the storage; second year, the switching; third year, the computing; and so on. So, with SimpliVity, we know that we have boxes that we can add, and the oldest one can move out of the datacenter without all the hassle of making components obsolete. 

Other vendors fall short on price compared to HPE on this product.

Our reseller pitched SimpliVity.

Then, we consulted the market and asked for a solution for five years. We looked at the TCO, total cost of ownership, over those five years, including all the support. Overall, it made a good case to invest in SimpliVity. 

To really consider a solution based on SimpliVity. Also, look for a reseller that has the knowledge to give proper advice on the material. 

We have full trust that it will help us in the next few years to deliver the IT functionality that we need in the firm that I work for. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: I fit with that company's cultural, basically. I chose HPE through the reseller that I use. With the reseller, I had the cultural fit.

"Less space and power, less management". We have stored all data, compressed and deduplicated, with less transfer over the WAN.

Adding a node to the federation is as simple as plugging it into the network, selecting it in the GUI, and clicking "Join".

I would like to see a better price/performance in comparison with a standard ESX servers/storage farm solution.

As a trade and service SimpliVity partner since 2013, we have sold and installed dozens of systems based on CN-3000/5000 in various configurations. These include models from: CN3400-12abc, miniCube, 2xE5-2640v3, 16C, 4x400GB SSD, 20x1TB HDD, 256GB Memory to models CN5000-bcc - OmniCube CN-5000 platform, Dual 12 Cores, 384 RAM, 400GB SSD, etc.

In multiple cases, we have upgraded the first versions of OmniCube Box (delivered in 2013/2014) based on the request of our clients to higher configurations, in a time span of 12-18 months. Our company has been using the OmniCube CN-3000 system internally since 2013.

We did not have any issues with stability.

The scalability options are clear and mostly satisfying.

Technical support varies based on the level of paid service (Gold/Silver).

The SimpliVity OmniCube solution was the first that we have used for software defined, data center field. We have been using it ever since

The initial setup was fairly simple. SimpliVity offers high-level technical training and the system itself is well documented.

The price of OmniCube Box is still higher compared to standard ESX server/storage farm solutions. Its advantages are only appealing to clients who:

• Want to increase the efficiency of both physical and human resources
• Want to decrease complexity
• Are lacking data room space
• Have more branches

SimpliVity can help organizations take on the challenges of maximizing efficiency while reducing costs.

Performance scalability was easily achieved for a virtual environment running a mix of common IT business applications, while providing fast, predictable response times.

Combined with the ability to offer the same level of administrative simplicity, data efficiency, complete functionality across data centers around the globe, and low-cost cloud capabilities, SimpliVity OmniCube is noteworthy.

Visit the SimpliVity website for reference information and familiarization with the product.

We use the solution for HCM, secondary distribution endpoints, file sharing, domain controller, all many kinds of applications.

I find the replication feature valuable.

There are a lot of different components to choose from in the chassis. This could be easier by providing a standard or a base model to create and configure from. 

I have been using the solution for a couple of years.

I believe the solution is stable, I did not see any issues.

The solution is converging in a public place, the scalability is good. We have approximately 70 users using the solution in my company,

We previously used Dell PowerEdge rack servers.

I found the installation straightforward. However, I am not sure about others.

The solution took a couple of hours to do the implementation with two technicians, and we have one technician for the maintenance. Next time I am going to use a consultant or a supplier to do the implementation.

The product is expensive.

We are going to continue to use the solution in the future, and I recommend it to others.

I rate HPE SimpliVity a nine out of ten.

• Backup 
• Disaster Recovery (DR) capabilities

We now backup our core VMs on-site every 10 minutes and off-site every 15 minutes.

A better GUI for some functions.

Two years.

No issues.

No issues.

No, but we have only added one node so far.

Customer Service:

Very high.

Technical Support:

Very high.

Traditional stack with storage and compute.

I did not do the actual install. SimpliVity helped.

We implemented using a vendor team. They were good.

I do not have hard numbers.

Do not just go by the minimum. Give a little for growth and storage.

Yes, Nutanix.

I am very pleased with the performance and ease of use.

The inline dedupe and compression has allowed me to run all my servers and appliances (total 60) in an HA configuration while taking up just 8U of rack space (4x2U nodes). There is incredibly fast I/O and with the OmniCubes, my users are spoiled with the super-fast reads and writes. Did I mention that we truly enjoy our 99.999% up time?

The ease of managing this system! Recently added the All Flash CN3400F and oh my goodness are these nodes fast as lighting! I love having a private cloud for my organization. Public cloud will never care for my organizations data more than I do.

I gave it an excellent rating, thus I think it's well excellent! If there was anything I would like to see, it would be indexed backups. You have to hunt a bit if you have to restore a file. Index the backups and it would be perfect!

It's been a little dodgy this year on my CN3000s at Prod when they have lost HA Sync. This has only happened when we've lost Internet connection to our DR site. I'm still trying to understand why this happens. It's quite a pain when this occurs.

Slight inconvenience with scaling out with the All Flash nodes. We had to put them into their own datacenter because of compatibility issues with the CN3000s (seriously?). While it's not the end of the world, I unfortunately am not able to do inline vmotion of servers between the datacenters. Instead I have to do a cold storage vmotion with a powered off guest server. Not the end of the world, but is inconvenient to me because it makes for some late nights. A larger server takes many hours to move over my 1GB network. This may just be an issue with my configuration and lack of a 10GB switch.

Customer Service:

Customer service has been slightly impacted since HP purchased Simplvity. The support is still excellent, it just takes them a bit more time to get back to you when you open even a critical ticket. I'll give HP some time to adjust and update this part of the review later.

Technical Support:

Technical support is excellent +++. The HP purchase of Simplvity has not impacted the skill level of the engineers I have worked with. They are still great.

We had an aging Compellent SAN which was critically close to running out of disk space. Dell would not sell me an additional disk enclosure, thus forcing me to do a forklift upgrade. Moving to the Simplivity HCI allowed me considerably more resources and we came in under budget.

Initial setup was very straightforward. It's almost plug and play! Adding the All Flash node needed a little more effort.

A vendor team implemented it. Expertise was excellent. I couldn't have asked for better.

I'm not in finance, so I don't know the numbers, but I do know that I've since added 10 additional VMs and appliances, and can still add more without having to buy anything. I've saved on VM licensing because I was able to get rid of SRM. I couldn't even imagine how much it would cost to host all these servers in the public cloud!

This solution, while costly as all these solutions are, was in fact less expensive than upgrading my old SAN. Licensing is easily maintained. Keep in mind that you still have to license VMware per processor.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated Nutanix and Dell Compellent.

Having my private cloud within my Simplivity infrastructure has given me so much more than I could have ever expected. I love the ability to fire off a full, application-aware backup of a VM and have it complete in just under four seconds. Also, I can now fail my entire data center over to my DR site and have everything up an running in well under 30 minutes, with my mission-critical servers up in under 10 minutes (the servers do have to power on!). It's awesome. You do need EZ-DR by VM20/20 to accomplish this, but it is a fraction of the cost of VMware Site Recovery Manager.

In the world of traditional backups using backup software which writes to either tape or disk, the backup software will index the files to match exactly to how they appear on the server. When performing a native Simplivity backup which allows for file level restoration , the folders, subfolders and files are not indexed but rather are listed in a somewhat, but not totally, random order. More often than not, when I am asked to restore something from backup, it will be a single file that someone has either accidentally deleted or overwritten. I have very large file servers which contain thousands of folders and subfolders. Without the benefit of indexing, it sometimes takes a bit of searching to find the correct folder/file that needs to be restored. It is occasionally easier to just restore the entire file server (renamed of course), which only takes about 10 seconds, and copy the file from the restored VM than it is to find the single file in the backup. This is just an inconvenience, definitely not a deal breaker.