Dell's deduplication technology is on par with HPE's.

Both products deliver similar results and outcomes. However, their internal processes might differ. The structure is the same, but Data Domain uses an inline source-based approach with deduplication, while StoreOnce has its own method and different terminology for similar functionality. 

Ultimately, both products offer similar features and are competitors in the market.

I don't have any practical experience with many other solutions. Coming out of HPE, going to work as an independent consultant in a company that is using a lot of HPE products, I'm obviously quite satisfied that they are using StoreOnce, and they will keep on using it. 

We evaluated EMC Data Domain. We decided to go with StoreOnce because it was more cost-effective and suitable for our budget. Its interface was also easy to use.

We also looked at Data Domain, and another whose name I can't remember.

We did look at NetBackup, they had an appliance but it was about twice the cost. I didn’t look at Quantum because we didn’t have a lot of success with them in the past. I probably could’ve looked at them but it didn’t feel like a partnership with me with them.

With everything that I buy from HP, I just don’t feel like a customer all the time, I kind of feel like a partner, and at Shields Health Care we like to collaborate and partner with people.

From a solutions perspective, in terms of what we’re doing from data protection and data recovery, we knew that we needed to have a tier two solution in terms of storage. We looked at many different avenues within the market, and we really felt that from an ROI perspective and a total cost of ownership perspective, that HP StoreOnce was really the way we needed to go, so we built our data protection and data recovery strategy around that using HP and Veeam. That actually helped us to build RTOs, RPOs, and real SLAs and OLAs from a restoration perspective to the business.

There were other vendors on the short list, and to be completely honest, they paled in comparison. We were actually considering an EMC product, DataDomain, and Exagrid and they just didn’t have the compute power or the price point that we really wanted to be in, so we just leveraged the HP relationship that we already had and went complete StoreOnce, and we’ve been extremely happy with it so far.

We did evaluate other options but due to the fact that HP has set the standard, we stayed with them.

The capabilities of HPE StoreOnce are not good, especially when compared to its competitors like Dell Data Domain Boost and SolarWinds.

We looked at EMC Data Domain. We looked at Microsoft Storage Server on a number of different appliances, including an HPE option there. We found with Windows Storage Server, the performance wasn't there. It just didn't meet our requirements. We use Veeam backup and replication, and the integration that StoreOnce provides works really well. We have a very strong relationship with HPE and in the end they kind of swayed us.

We actually work with HPE a lot, but also with Dell EMC. For now, we balance the distribution 50/50. There's some good in both vendors.

We looked at EMC, IBM, NetApp, and some others which I cannot recall at the moment.

We are building an entirely new infrastructure. We chose HPE StoreOnce after considering the servers, the storage, and the backup all at the same time. HPE had a better global solution, especially in terms of the backup solution.

We did not evaluate other options before choosing this product. We only chose this product because we use HP’s Data Protector as a backup application and it has great support.

The time to implement, the time to acquire the solution, integrating with our infrastructure was easy and the price was very good.

We also looked at EMC.

No, we have an extensive support contract with HP and were given a heavily discounted educational agreement as opposed to what other vendors such as EMC were offering.

The solution that we suggest to our customers depends on their infrastructure. For example, if they have HP infrastructure then we propose HPE StoreOnce, but if they have a Dell Infrastructure then we might propose Dell EMC Data Domain. Normally, if they have a Microsoft Infrastructure then we propose this solution. These two solutions are similar in terms of pricing.

We also looked at Dell. We went with HPE because we want everything to be from one vendor.

Veeam obviously does a lot of virtualization but it is only virtualization so we have a very diverse set of applications in our environment. You have NetBackup and Symantec that have their backups as well. They've been around for a long time but I think that the maturity of Data Protector at StoreOnce has really surpassed their technology and just usability and support. That's why we went ahead with StoreOnce.

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.

Dell and IBM. We chose HP because of the price and the vendor support.

We did evaluate Data Domain from EMC, but I didn't like it because Data Domain has other limitations. In terms of density per rack, it was using more rack capacity. Also, they were selling three different products, so it was adding too much complexity. I decided to go with StoreOnce.

I evaluated EMC before choosing this product.

We consider HP, and the pricing we get is good and reflects that. If it was an open marketplace, we'd look at anything and everything because we'd evaluate the marketplace for cheap D-to-D devices.

On the short list was to continue with IBM. We were in a TSM environment, and we had been with TSM for years and years. The HP Data Protector solution with the StoreOnce on the backend seemed like a logical next step for us, because we have other HP products in-house, including the 3PAR, for some of our tier one storage needs. I would give it at least an eight or a nine. Yeah, it's a rock solid platform for us. It's got a very direct application, and purpose. It's not trying to meet many, many needs like some of the file services platforms do. It's a backup and it does its job.

I think it was mostly a price win, really, between the two. The pricing that was offered in conjunction with a lot of other purchases we've made with HP made it a very attractive offer, and the technology behind it was solid and passed all of our testing needs. It just seemed like a logical fit for us. Sure, with StoreOnce we were actually seeing quite a bit of dedupe benefit where we weren't getting any dedupe before, so we're actually getting reports generated where we can see the dedupe ratios for various datasets that we're actually backing up. Basically the net effect is that we're using a lot less space to do our backups, and it gives us the versatility to spin off certain backups to tape, or to replicate off-site or to just let age out in the system and get overwritten.

I looked a few EMC solutions and a couple other vendors, but basically the price point and feature set was not there for any other vendor. HP has earned a reputation in our organization for reliability and stability, and they get first pick on things due to that reputation because it just works. I actually have one server sitting in a closet from 1997 that's still running, so that's kind of a testament to how much we believe in HP.

It really came down to relationships. At the time it wasn't just going from EMC, it was also going from Cisco to HPE Networking. We went through a pretty good process, where we talked about our needs and requirements, and also comfort levels of technology change. Some of my engineers were a little reluctant to move away from Cisco. But HPE ecame and sat down and just said "We'll do whatever it takes. What do you need? What are your concerns?" Just worked with us in real detail: able to understand what our concerns were, where we were going, and making sure that the engineers were made comfortable. But also making sure, which was the last part which comes across the line, was that the technology was what we needed, was enough for growth. Whereas Cisco was just a "here's a quote, sent it to us" which I think for me swung me over to HP. The commitment to the customer.

Our client evaluated Dell, Lenovo, and Synology. Synology is a cheaper solution for storing data. However, our client was looking for reliable equipment with full-support — Synology doesn't come with support. With Dell and Lenovo, it was also complicated to obtain support in Ecuador. HPE provides the best support in Ecuador.

It is at the top of its class, in my experience.

That was before my time, so I'm not sure.

We are not evaluating other companies.

When selecting a vendor, we look for reliability in the market, the capacity for growth, and how the company integrates their products.

We also looked at EMC Datadomain.

I could not find a better product.

• EMC
• Comvault

No, this was the first choice, based on internet reviews.

We evaluated this against other products and based (mainly) on cost we selected the HP solution.

We also looked at EMC DataDomain. We chose StoreOnce because it was cheaper by more than 60,000 Euros.

• Quantum
• Symantec

EMC, I can't remember what it's called, but they have a booster technology software also. We chose HPE because we had Data Protector. So we needed that to integrate into the StoreOnce.

No other options were evaluated.

Yes, EMC Data Domain.

This was done by the planning team.