HPE SimpliVity vs. IBM Storage FlashSystem

I only know what I know...which is my IT world. Having two datacenters that were physical servers attached to a SAN that "attempted" to replicate and then migrating. For a SMB small IT shop that happens to have two datacenters already in place...this has been ideal. I can have a generalist maintain the system and we have a private cloud for DR with hardly any effort...the biggest gain by far!

Incentivized

Flash storage is an ideal solution for environments demanding high input/output operations (I/O) and frequent read/write cycles. We successfully deploy this technology for a client's high-performance backup infrastructure, where it serves as the backend storage for multi-stream data writes, connected via a 100Gb network interface. There is also a Tiered based approach.

Incentivized

• Deduplication and Compression - SimpliVity keeps the space consumption to a minimum. We currently have 60 servers running virtually and we still have room to grow. This really helps with the backups as we can have longer retention.
• Backups - Ability to keep backups for longer and to create multiple backup policies for a VM is a breeze. You can have a backup policy for each datastore as well as a separate backup policy for the same VM.
• Creating Datastores is very easy. No more messing around with LUNS and iSCSI. Just go to the SimpliVity tab and select create datastore and it's done. You can also increase the datastore on the fly as well as have a datastore bigger than 2TB.
• File level recovery is included as well. The whole backup process in SimpliVity can help you do away with other software.

Incentivized

• Cyber resilience with the new functionality of immutable copies called sfaguarded copies
• With the IBM FlashCore modules it allows us to have good levels of online compression of the information, besides that it is a hardware compression that would not affect the performance of the equipment
• the virtualization of other storages that can be IBM or other brands
• binary replication works great

Incentivized

• Upgrades are better than they used to be, but still complex.
• Make existing RapidDR product integral, versus a separate licensed component.

Incentivized

• Drive firmware updates are a bit clunky, the update files have to be sourced manually
• IBM has separate storage monitoring you need to set up to get good historical statistics.
• If you need 8 16Gb ports you will not be able to expand with a SAS connector.

Incentivized

As flash technology evolves rapidly, vendors should [adapt] to the changes and onboard them in their products. IBM is a bit slow in adopting advanced technology in [its] portfolio. Even though the current product is good, my decision is purely based on how the transformation of the product [is] being produced and supplied to [the] end-user.

Incentivized

I think Flashsystem has excellent usability. It is compatible with almost every platform we have at our enterprise. It is compatible with Power HA and VMware SRM. It has very well-suited interfaces, and spectrum virtualization is very easy to use. GUI and CLI are very well done.

Incentivized

we usually have never had problems with the storage going down, ofcourse there have been disk failures as part of redundancy it works well and didnt have problems with unavailablity.

Incentivized

We used aged file servers before, so boy did we noticed a speed increase when we switched over. We think this system helps you shape your data and integrate it in any development plans you may have. We found it very simplistic to justify with our finance team/CEO as it ticked all of our requirements

Incentivized

Support is very good. With proactive support, you are supported by an engineer in North America who answers the phone and immediately begins assisting with your issue. The folks I have dealt with in the last several years have been very skilled and it is rare to have a ticket open for more than a day or two. Issues affecting production are dealt with appropriately and are escalated within the support organization.

Incentivized

Sometimes the knowledge of the support agent is quite limited and the support always has to route through the level 1 agent to screen all the informtion provided. Then its esclated to the next level support with the all collected data . The logs are always uploaded along wiht the case but still its reviewed at the lower level and then escalated / handed over to the next level if its complex issue to solve.

Incentivized

THe training is often selfpaced and easy to follow if you have worked previously with other storage products. The content is clear and contains all the information needed for an admin to learn. However the troubleshooting part is not always included and this is dependent on forums or other sources where the information is not accessible very easily.

Incentivized

I was amazed by the way IBM Flash storage provides a huge amount of storage within the limited footprint, it helped us to replace big fat storage arrays, which aided in the process of moving towards lower hardware, carbon, and energy consumption footprint. We can comfortably say that Flash helped us to host applications fast with a blazing speed and user transactions are quite quick.

Incentivized

We have decided to sign with Nutanix. We feel they are improving technology and are just a better software now.

Incentivized

For the past six months, we have been utilizing this technology in our projects to manage a massive workload and produce swift business outcomes on a crucial production database. The IBM FlashSystem 7200, which offers high performance and compression, has so far been a great experience for us. The results and functionality of this product have delighted our consumers.

Incentivized

We have been able to scale this storage system whenever there has been requirement for additional capacity and performance. with the help of deduplication we have been able to build quite a robust environment.

Incentivized

• HPE SimpliVity provided us with the ability to replace our existing infrastructure with a solution that provided better backup and recovery, and an off-site DR solution, at a lower price point than other solutions.

Incentivized

• Flash System 5000 Built on a software foundation that delivers a 359% ROI.
• IBM Flash System 5000 Gain the highest levels of availability to support mission-critical applications.
• IBM Flash System 5000 benefits from [the] integration of modern data protection and rich cyber resiliency features.
• IBM Flash System 5000 Enhance storage efficiency.

Incentivized