Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure Reviews

We primarily use the solution for the AD, Active Directory, as well as file services.

The product is very easy to manage.

The cost is a lot cheaper than VMware.

The solution is stable.

It's scalable.

The initial setup isn't hard.

Technical support is helpful.

I can't recall missing any specific features.

The interface could be a little bit better.

We'd like the solution to offer a built-in firewall.

I've been using the solution for two to three months.

The stability has been good. There are no bugs or glitches. it's reliable. If does crash or freeze. 

We have found that it is possible to scale the product. We have about 200 devices connected to it and haven't had any issues. 

We've dealt with technical support and have found them to be helpful and responsive. We are satisfied with the level of service we get. 

We previously used Hyper-V, which was costlier. We had to change solutions to move towards a newer solution and chose HCI.

We found the solution very simple to set up. It was not overly complex or difficult. The deployment, due to the fact that we spread it out with a few servers, actually took a few weeks. If it's just one server ready to go it might take less than two weeks.

We have a three-person team that can manage the solution. 

We had a third party, a systems integrator, who assisted with the setup process. 

The pricing is pretty good, especially compared to VMware. If we are talking about this initial cost to set up (and not talking about future maintenance), it's about 40% cheaper than VMware.

We have a three-year license that we pay yearly. I can't speak about the exact price. 

I'm a customer and an end-user.

We're using the latest version of the solution. 

I'd recommend the product to others. It's easier to manage and scalable. However, much like VMware, you do need to engage with a third party to integrate it.

I'd rate it nine out of ten.

On-premises

We are using Sangfor HCI for cloud computing and operating it as an infrastructure-as-a-service.

We find the topology feature of Sangfor HCI particularly valuable. It allows us to design and define the architecture according to our specific requirements.

We can choose the components we want to use and easily visualize the layout we create.

It would be beneficial if Sangfor HCI provided us with more tools to perform various tasks. Currently, when we need to do capacity planning, we have to rely on Sangfor's support team for assistance. However, if there were dedicated tools available, we could handle it ourselves and increase efficiency.

For instance, Nutanix has some tools called Nutanix sizing tools. I would like Sangfor to offer similar tools specifically for IT sizing. These tools would help us accurately size our infrastructure since we operate on a service basis. We have numerous customers with different needs, and being able to easily size the infrastructure based on specific criteria would be advantageous. Currently, we face challenges in obtaining customer information, as it is not feasible to visit each customer individually and collect data. 

Having a dedicated tool for this purpose would greatly improve our operations. I've heard from the community that such a tool exists, but I don't know where to download it or how to access it as a user. 

If such features exist, it would be beneficial to understand how we utilize those features, check their functionality, and manipulate them.

We have documentation available for this solution. However, it may not provide detailed information about these specific tools. It's not easy to find comprehensive documentation for this type of tool.

I have been using this solution for more than two years. 

Sangfor HCI is a stable solution. I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. It's quite good.

However, there are some points I'm concerned about. Particularly, it relates to the ITC and application delivery controller (ADC). We had pushed out licenses for that component, but we recently learned that it had reached its end of life. We received this information from the community, but we're unsure if it's confirmed. Initially, we implemented it, but later, Sangfor support advised us to discontinue its use. So, we didn't fully deploy that component. As a result, we are unable to achieve load balancing as planned. We purchased the ADC license, but now we can't utilize it.

On Sangfor HCI, you can usually integrate various components, including a virtual ADC. However, in our case, we faced limitations due to the ADC license.

I would rate the scalability of Sangfor HCI a seven out of ten. I haven't implemented all aspects of Sangfor HCI. 

Currently, there are around ten end users using Sangfor HCI in our organization. 

The customer service and support have been helpful in assisting us with various matters. However, the response time could be better. It should be faster.

Positive

We have used Hyper-V and VMware vSphere in our lab environment. In my opinion, Sangfor HCI stands out because of its comprehensive features and very easy to implement, which I haven't experienced with Hyper-V.

The initial setup is simple. 

We deployed the solution with the help of Sangfor's support. 

The price is a bit better than overall.

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. It's mainly because of the sizing tools. When comparing it to solutions like Nutanix, for example, they have already signed and implemented tools that provide more functionality. They offer software-based solutions that can be accessed online, providing greater convenience.

So, having more comprehensive and easily accessible tools is an important aspect. It gives you a clearer understanding of the available space and enables you to communicate with the service providers to ensure better security measures.

On-premises

My customers use Sangfor HCI for the virtualization platform.

The most valuable feature of Sangfor HCI is the built-in recovery functionality. The migration is simple to do from other solutions, such as VMware.

The solution could improve by including backup capabilities.

I have been using Sangfor HCI for approximately two years.

I rate the stability of Sangfor HCI an eight out of ten.

We have approximately 1,000 users using this solution.

Our customers are mostly medium-sized using this solution.

I rate the scalability of Sangfor HCI an eight out of ten.

The support can take some time to respond to fix the problem.

I rate the support of Sangfor HCI an eight out of ten.

Neutral

My clients were using VMware prior to using Sangfor HCI.

The deployment of Sangfor HCI took approximately three weeks.

I rate the initial setup of Sangfor HCI a seven out of ten.

We had the vendor do the implementation of the solution.

The solution is on-premise which does not have a subscription. However, there is a need to purchase support. The solution is on a perpetual license model. There is not any extra cost other than the standard licensing fees.

The price is affordable for the solution.

I rate the price of Sangfor HCI a six out of ten.

I rate Sangfor HCI an eight out of ten.

I gave my rating of eight out of ten for the solution because it is feature rich and has enhanced protection.

On-premises

Sangfor HCI is very easy to use. It has a single pane of management. When it comes to network configuration, you have to drag and drop things, so it's very GUI. It's not a conventional command line thing. Whenever customers see that, it's very appealing for them.
Moreover, whatever Sangfor offers, it is offered in a very simple package, unlike other manufacturers where, if you need a feature, it comes with the enterprise or enterprise plus. It is very simple for customers to understand whatever they offer because it comes in a single bundle. Sangfor also mentions if there is some feature you need to buy separately, and they mention it very clearly. Likewise, for other solutions, when customers buy them and check, they find that a certain feature is not there, and whenever they call them up here, they are told to buy it separately. However, it's not like that in Sangfor. This is also a powerful point where the customer builds trust with Sangfor's solutions.

When it comes to backup, the native tool they have in their offering is not up to the mark. They need some improvement with that. When it comes to firewalls, they don't have email spamming or a complete email spam filtering solution compared with other competitors. For example, Fortinet has a separate solution for that. And with HCI, they don't do very well regarding backup. They have a very basic thing.

I've been using the solution for about five years.

Sangfor HCI is very stable.

Technology is evolving fast. Let's say a customer has some servers with certain processors, and they have Sangfor HCI. When they want to add a new server, it normally comes with better performance, and it causes a mismatch. That is not the technology's fault because new technology is always coming up. But this is a problem when customers are charged on a pay-as-you-grow model, where they want to add more nodes into Sangfor HCI's cluster after three or four years.

My clients are small, medium, and enterprise. A small customer can do that if a customer wants to start with a two-node HCI cluster. This is something that others don't offer.

Talking about HCI, the support is very good.

Positive

Sangfor has recently increased their products' prices. It was better before, but it's on the higher side now.

I rate Sangfor HCI a nine out of ten. Nobody is 100%, and there is always room for improvement, so I never rate any product a ten out of ten.

We use the solution for the virtualization of servers.

It’s a new technology. The solution enables less space utilization. The solution provides a single management console. It is easy and manageable.

The cost must be improved.

I have been using the solution for six months.

The tool is stable.

Around 1500 people are using the product in our organization. We have configured multiple servers. Every department might have access to three servers. A dedicated team manages the solution.

The initial setup was easy.

The tool is very expensive. Not all customers would be able to afford the solution.

Different products like Cisco and H3C are capturing the market.

If we are using 50 servers and if these servers could be combined into five servers, we could save power, space, data center, capacity, and racks. I recommend the solution to others. Every vendor is different. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

If you're dealing with a huge workload running on a massive infrastructure, Sangfor HCI can reduce the physical hardware while maximizing resource utilization. 

Sangfor HCI is a one-stop solution that enables you to store and centrally manage your VMs. 

Support may be an issue for customers in some industries. For example, financial institutions may require 24/7 support. 

I have used Sangfor for two or three years. 

I rate Sangfor HCI 10 out of 10 for stability. 

I rate Sangfor HCI seven out of 10 for scalability. We have nearly 80 users, Most of our clients are small and medium-sized businesses. 

I rate Sangfor support eight out of 10. 

Positive

I rate Sangfor HCI eight out of 10 for ease of setup. Deployment is pretty straightforward and can be completed in four or five days. 

Sangfor HCI is reasonably priced, and there are no additional costs. 

I rate Sangfor HCI eight out of 10. You should give Sangfor HCI a chance. It has more advanced technology and is more user-friendly than other solutions. 

On-premises

We are primarily using this product to store our applications. We are using to host data for us to perform analytics on.

The interface is typical for this type of product. I would rate the user-friendliness an eight out of ten.

Sangfor does not support a SAS configuration, which is something that we would like.

I would like to see support for Kubernetes and Docker.

We have been dealing with Sangfor for less than eight months.

I think that there are issues with scalability because Sangfor consumes a high amount of power. In order to scale using Sangfor, I would also have to scale up the amount of power in my data center.

I am currently not getting enough technical support because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am looking for direct support, but I don't have it.

The price of Sangfor is cheaper than other competing products.

I am currently looking to replace this solution with something from perhaps Nutanix or Dell. I am still looking for the best solution to use in our next project.

Overall, I think that this is an average product. I am not satisfied with it and do not recommend that others use it.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

On-premises

We were look for less expensive virtualization solution that can accommodate our VM workload and provide virtualized storage as well.

Our old environment consisted to multiple SAN storage devices. Maintenance such equipment is very costly and requires a separate in network infrastructure.

We wanted to utilize storage capacity available in our hypervisor nodes to provide clustered storage service using storage virtualization technologies similar to Microsoft S2D and VMWare vSAN, but at a low cost.

No, it did not improve our organization. At first Sangfor HCI look good product, but one we started to use it we faced many comparability issues. It is an appliance style of product and we cannot have administrative access to it. Where as in Hyper-V, ESXi, and/or KVM we can have an admin level access to install or add-ons or agents. Also it is not compatible with any cloud service providers e.g. Azure/AWS/GCP and neither it has hardware certified by any leading ERP providers.

After using it for 3 years only thing good about it is that it's cost less compared to Microsoft, and VMware solutions.

The features that Microsoft, and VMware gives on their Data Center and Enterprise licenses are provided by Sangfor HCI on Standard license.

Other than this there is no valuable feature.

Sangfor HCI can improve it's self in many ways.
1) Admin need a granular control on their system. There is no command line interface like we get in Hyper-V and ESXi.
2) The documentation and support from the community are not available. Support engineer lack knowledge also.
3) GUI also requires much working as well. The web interface of HCI and SCP are not user friendly.
4) No compatibility with third party solution and also no support with cloud services (Azure/AWS/GCP) and leading ERP providers.

I've been using the solution for 3 years now.

The all appliance solutions are stable and reliable, Sangfor HCI is the same.

The solution is scalable. You just have to add a node to the current cluster. It's not difficult.

The support engineer skills are not that good. They especially the support team we got in our country lack knowledge of their own product. There's a general lack of information. The documentation and knowledge base or community portal are lacking. I'd rate this aspect two out of ten.

Negative

We were using Microsoft Hyper-V. We decided to switch because we needed a solution that consists of storage virtualization. We also needed to remove our out dated SAN environment.

Since it is an appliance the setup is straight forward and quick.

We had three people from our company and two people from the vendor
handling the initial setup. Maintenance after setup is fairly basic and
requires simply looking after the hardware and looking out for heavy
usage of the processor. Three people are looking after it on the admin
side.

We have deployed it at two of our sites. One is at the head office, and the other is at our disaster recovery site.

We had help from the vendor. They were on-site and helped to integrate everything. But they lacked expertise.

ROI is not that good. After running it for almost 3 years and we had not a good experience with it.

Pricing is very cheap compared to Hyper-V and VMware.
Since it is an appliance setup cost in terms in time is very low.

Yes we evaluated VMware's solution. But management decided for Sangfor HCI as it was very cheap in cost.

With the experience we faced we will give it 2 out of 10 as the admin level experience is not good. No command line support. No third party integration. No public cloud support. No proper documentation.

If anyone is looking for a less expensive appliance type HCI then they can consider it. But for hybrid environments the solution fails.  

Hybrid Cloud

Microsoft Azure