HPE MSA (modular smart array), formerly HP StorageWorks MSA, is a series of storage appliances, from Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, a product line built for a modest budget, available as the HPE MSA 2052 hybrid flash array, the HPE MSA 2500 SAN storage appliance, and the MSA 1050 SAN storage.
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Veeam ONE
Score 8.3 out of 10
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Veeam ONE is virtualization management technology from Ohio based VMware partner Veeam Software.
The HPE MSA is best suited for basic SAN requirements. Having dual controllers provides redundancy and allows for firmware upgrades without incurring downtime to the environment. It provides enough IOPS for most workloads be it VMWare or servers requiring storage. For applications such as MS SQL or Exchange, other SAN solutions would be better. Plus the lack of storage snapshot capabilities is also a detriment to the product line. Lack of any reporting capability is also an issue especially when determining workload capabilities.
Veeam One works great for monitoring virtual infrastructure. However, other dedicated server monitoring apps do better with monitoring the individual VMs. Where it stands out is its reporting functionality, which allows you to forecast growth and keep track of how you are using your resources. It is also great for companies without a big monitoring budget, as there is a pretty functional free version.
Proactive Alerting - the product can provide email alerts to notify one of any issues in the environment.
Capacity Planning and Forecasting - it has the ability to provide an analysis of the current environment as well as provide a report to forecast future capacity requirements.
Monitoring and Reporting - the software can monitor you environment 24x7 with the ability to provide comprehensive reporting.
Firmware upgrades. We have had major issues on two occasions, causing extended downtime. HP was quick to help and resolve, but I am not sure why our simple implementation caused an issue that should have been picked up by testing prior to release. Once was bad, twice painful. The end result is that we purchased a unit solely to test firmware upgrades on, not really great for us!
Support life span. Units go end of life support after around 4 years, a little too short for us.
The licensing is tricky to understand. You can have an enterprise BR license or a Veeam ONE license, and the split modules read from only one module where the license is actually loaded into it.
Documentation could be a little better.
It's not exactly pretty to look at. Themes and tweaks are pretty limited.
It is a functioning Replication system for us and checks all the boxes that the auditors are looking for. Further, it is inexpensive and the storage we purchased was cheap. HP has a good reputation in the industry that plays into the decision also.
The software is a joy to use. The user interface is good overall and you can find frequently needed things easily and quickly. Some less frequently needed things eg. settings are hidden under several menus and one might have to look for those for a while. We also haven't had any issues with the products reliability.
We rarely if ever call support, but overall Veeam is very responsive, quick to get a hold of, and knowledgeable in there help. Some companies get big like Veeam and their support drops off, but we haven't seen that with Veeam (but again, their products seem really solid and trouble free so we rarely need help).
The dual controller configuration of the HPE MSA trumps the Synology DiskStation's single controller configuration. For that alone, I would select the HPE MSA. Without that setup, any controller issue or firmware upgrade is disruptive to the systems the SAN is providing storage to. Furthermore, HPE's support is better than what Synology currently provides. The lack of phone support on Synology's part slows down the troubleshooting of issues compared to HPE. Furthermore, HPE's engineers are able to do a remote session and can work on the problems directly compared to Synology's support.
Veeam One is very easy to use, easy to configure and get what you want. The integration for Veeam Backup is perfect, for today i think Veeam need to make Veeam One monitor Microsoft 365 envirioment, this will give great imput and integrated with Veeam Backup for 365 will be amezing.
The most positive impact has been a centralized platform to manage all our vCenter Tags, which orchestrate all our BCDR solutions with Veeam.
Response time for analyzing system performance when there are issues has greatly increased due to the simplicity of the software, plus we have been able to allow access to application developers and managers to view and asses their servers when they feel there are issues, without the need to contact the infrastructure team members.
