Scale Computing HC3 Reviews

We use Scale Computing HC3 to host almost all of our servers.

Our entire unstructured file system and authentication system runs on Scale Computing HC3. We are able to add terabytes of storage at the drop of a hat, spin up new controllers quickly and easily, and when it comes time to expand beyond the hardware capacity, adding new nodes is a snap.

We use the Scale Computing HC3 virtual environment for our entire organization. It provides us with an efficient and inexpensive solution for us to run our 12 virtual servers and 100Tb+ of storage. It was easy to set up and implement and their assistance along the way was incredible!

We are running file storage servers, SQL Servers, Reporting Service Servers, RDS Servers, and Web Servers. All have shown increased performance over the previous environment.

While performing a DRP process review in 2018 we identified a need to obtain more compute and storage resources for our secondary datacenter to lower our RTO deliverables to the organization. We were a strictly VMware shop, utilizing a traditional architecture of compute nodes and storage nodes connected over the network.

When right-sizing the expansion of our compute resources we performed a review of our Hypervisor needs and determined that we were not using a majority of features in the VMware suite, and did not see a compelling reason to continue paying a premium for those features.

We discovered Scale Computing and the HC3 on a recommendation from a colleague, and their simple hyper-converged design coupled with an intuitive interface was perfect for a team of our size. Once we did a site tour of a current customer and after lengthy conversations with Scale we knew this solution would simplify our daily operations for our hypervisor infrastructure, at nearly half the cost of a comparable VMware solution.

The relationship with Scale since then has been great. We are now running all of our production servers on the Scale Computing HC3 solution, and the support and upgrades have been seamless.

Being able to quickly scale up virtualized solutions has and continues to be critical to our daily operations. Coupling that with the automatic backups of VMs to a paired cluster and we have seen a dramatic improvement in our RTO and RPO deliverables to the organization.

We use Scale for our primary and DR compute, storage and backup needs. It has helped to greatly reduce the overhead that the previous VMware system it replaced created.

We run all of our production DBs, case management, document management, Exchange, and most other primary systems on Scale. Performance has never been an issue. We have a 4 node cluster in production and a 3 node cluster in DR. Auto load balancing works well.

We implemented Scale Computing HC3/Lenovo solution last year across our entire firm replacing our aging VMWare and Cisco UCS. This was deployed in our Primary Datacenter, our DR site, as well as smaller remote clusters at each office. We have the primary datacenter replicating and backing up to our DR site, with the DR site having the ability to completely take over the full workload should the primary datacenter ever go down. The smaller remote clusters are being used in each office as some combination of domain controllers, file servers, and/or print servers. Our servers and back end systems are now 100% on Scale Computing HC3.

We have transitioned our company (~90 VMs) to 100% HCI on Scale Computing HC3. We run everything from file/print servers to Exchange servers, to full server compute-intensive database/accounting software. Previously we were an 80/20 split between VMWare and physical servers.

Scale Computing HC3 is being used by all vessels in our fleet. Every vessel (Pipelayer) is equipped with 2 servers. They are connected for replication purposes. On each server, there are few services running: MS 2016 DNS, DHCP, SharePoint, mail server, company-specific software for maintenance, and some similar bits and pieces of software. Scale Computing HC3 is very convenient to use because of easy deployment and resource monitoring.

MS Server 2016 and MS Server 2019 were running with several features added on. The server had at least 10 virtualized instances of OS running at the same time and never had any issues. And there is something very important to be considered in this case. All of these services were running on one server, while the other one was running only for snapshots and backup purposes.

Scale is being used for our primary private cloud infrastructure and at branch offices. It addresses loaded costs of a hypervisor, dense storage, live migration and overall resiliency. It simplifies the management and doesn't require specialized resources from an engineering perspective, allowing our IT to be a jack of all trades vs a SME. This ultimately enables us to focus on our core business alignment services.

BI, System of Record, MS AD, SIEM, IAM, DB, data warehouse. Seemless transition from a functionality perspective. Found it was easier and less business impact to rebuild systems than migrate when size was exceeding 1TB for overall storage. Experienced licensing issues when trying to change MS licenses from retail to VLSC. This is more of a MS issue, but is good to be aware of during your transition.

We are currently using the hybrid (part flash, part HDD) version of the HC3 appliance in a 3 node cluster. We replaced 5 physical HP Proliant servers running Hyper-V. We are now running most of our business-critical servers on a high performing hyper-converged appliance at a fraction of the cost of some of the other vendors we looked at. While cost was a big reason we purchased, the biggest reason was that we didn't feel like we were being oversold on features that we didn't need or that didn't matter to us. We felt that Scale Computing really catered to the SMB, and we were the customers that mattered. The feature set provided us everything we need, and very little we don't. The sales team encouraged us to plan for the future, but not overbuy. What a refreshing sales process. We ended up purchasing what we need, not what a Fortune 500 company needs.

We run multiple SQL and other database servers on the scale and have been able to easily provision additional hardware as required. We run nearly all of our business-critical application servers on the HC3 as well. Performance and uptime have improved significantly.

We use Scale Computing in our North America location. It addresses the problems and limitations of using VMware. Scale Computing allows for a better set up of virtual server environments.

One of the many applications we run on Scale is our companies' ERP system. It requires a lot of memory and disk space to run, but it handles it with no problems.

Scale is being used as the primary virtualization platform running all production VMs as well as a replication endpoint for DR in a data center. We run all server VMs on the Scale platform and then have a snapshot schedule that replicates them offsite to a datacenter for disaster recovery purposes.

We currently run an Inventory Management system for a manufacturing company on the Scale platform. It is literally the life blood of the company as everyone in the company uses it to track their product from start to finish. This particular application releases monthly updates and Scale has been an excellent way for use to test deployment of updates and move them into production.

Scale devices will replace our internal VMWARE/SAN/HPE environment at corporate and our DR site. Additionally, we will be using it to power 25 (50%) of our bigger retail stores. If this is successful and we see enough ROI we will implement a smaller version of the solution Scale is working on in the rest of the 25 retail stores. I expect this will increase up-time to almost 100% and allow upgrades and changes without issue. Additionally, these units will assist during power events as they have great redundancy.

We initially purchased Scale H3 to shrink our physical footprint on servers and allow for affordable expansion across the entire district. This has allowed us to to lower maintenance costs as well as increase our server count to more evenly disperse services resulting in faster operations. We have also been able to create a reliable and ultra fast disaster recovery plan will little to no data loss.

Scale allowed us to load balance our services. Rather than have one application server supplying antivirus protection, print services, and windows updates I now have three separate VMs that run more efficient resulting in faster service.

We have replaced most of our physical servers with virtual machines running on 2 Scale systems in two locations. We will be adding a third in the next year. We run domain controllers, file servers, email server and application servers virtually. We have a DR solution by using the remote connections. Additionally we use the snapshots to protect against malware/ransomware attacks.

The first systems that I created on the HC3 clusters was a backup server and a file server. We were able to quickly get the data transferred and now have several layers of protection from lost, corrupted or maliciously attacked files. Since then we have added several domain controllers at each location and other business critical application servers. Eventually I plan to have 90% of my servers running as VMs on the Scale systems.

HC3 replaced our organization's single server allowing for multiple servers to be built and maintained for separate uses. Going from a single server to nine has allowed Intervine to grow while protecting resources, increasing security, and streamlining processes. With ease of duplication, server buildout, and scaling, Scale has been instrumental in our organization.

For security reasons I rather not list applications we are running but rest assured our entire organization is on Scale. From AD, DNS, Fileservers, to security software we use Scale for everything and without issue. I was worried that some of our applications would not work on Scale but I have never had an issue and look forward to a long partnership.

In a multi-site, highly secure industrial control environment, we needed a solution that would simplify administration, provide test/development cloning capability, N+1 redundancy, and allow for host replication between sites for disaster recovery. Scale's HC3 delivered everything as promised and the solution truly is easy enough for a non-system administrator to manage on a day-to-day basis. Scale is an absolute home run for SCADA/ICS infrastructure, and offers unprecedented flexibility, especially if upgrading from a non-virtualized infrastructure.

Most SCADA vendors are behind the times in terms of utilizing modern infrastructure. If your application runs on common Windows or Linux distributions, you can absolutely run them on HC3. Scale certifies about two dozen operating systems on the HC3 platform, ensuring compatibility and supportability. If the SCADA solution utilizes software replication, there are architectural decisions that should be made regarding how to design for true DR, but the beauty of HC3 is its flexibility -- you can use the built-in software replication, let HC3 replicate guest VMs, or use a combination of those two approaches, like we do.

We are moving all possible units to Scale (except for phone system, and legacy systems).

Exchange and our business-critical applications on SQL. One of our domain controllers resides within the Scale cluster for extra redundancy.

We migrated our VMs to Scale from SimpliVity. The VMs on our Scale clusters are used across our whole organization.

Active Directory, SQL Server, File Servers, Kronos, MySQL, and various application servers have all been running great on our Scale clusters.

We use Scale Computing's HC3 servers for running our entire IT and OT Operations. We are always looking for improvements in the IT Infrastructure and to efficiently use our IT Resources. Scale computing provides us with a ton of great benefits. We reduced our foot print in the server room by half which helped in reduced power consumption. We were using a virtualization solution from a big name company and we found ourselves inundated with managing performance, licensing, and increasing maintenance. As we had three different vendors to deal with every time we had an issue on the system, it made it very difficult to troubleshoot and resolve problems. Scale computing was our answer to consolidate services, run servers more efficiently and reduced or eliminated daily maintenance tasks.

We run applications which range from Identity Management, Physical Security, Databases and resource intense servers. We have run every type of scenario and Scale has so far handled them very well. We use a backup replication host which is replicating a 3 node solution and we have not seen any degradation of performance. The critical application that run on the solutions are SCM, ERP Systems, HR Systems to name a few. On the Operational Technology side, we run some of the reporting and monitoring servers for utilities etc.

Scale HC3 is being used across the entire organization for all our server needs. It is housing all our VMs as well as all of our network storage. It has solved the issues with VMWare licensing, an outdated SAN as well as multiple host servers required to properly run a VMWare environment.

We run everything on our Scale solution. This includes a SQL server for our ERP software, multiple licensing applications as well as file servers and domain controllers. I even have some desktops set up for VPN purposes. Everything works flawlessly. I can't imagine a scenario where Scale wouldn't meet our needs.

We replaced our physical servers with the Scale HC3 solution at all three plants in the US. We host everything from file and print services to our ERP system and database on them. We also host a terminal server and a variety of other server infrastructure on the HC3 Cluster. Disaster recovery and business continuity are also completely managed on three clusters around our organization reducing the need for expensive and hard to manage DR solutions. Management and cost of operation of all these resources have been drastically simplified by this technology. The web management interface is simple and easy to use, yet extremely powerful and comprehensive. Because the Scale nodes have such a small 1-U footprint, we've found cooling and energy consumption has also been minimized.

Our ERP system runs on our Scale environment and it's flawless. Scale's data prioritization algorithm allows us to assign solid-state storage to that application so it performs with lightning-like speed.

Our AutoDesk Vault application has synchronized instances across two of our locations allowing local copies of our design models for our drafting and engineering teams to have instant access to.

We replicate our VMs to the nodes at the other plants so we get offsite backups which can be instantly stood up to verify their content or recover files.

The Scale Computing HC3 solution is used across the entire organization. It replaced over 50U of traditional hardware down to 3U. Saving us a lot of aggravation dealing with multiple third party vendors for support and maintenance agreements, while simplifying our own internal support and maintenance of over 50 Virtual machines. The savings was so significant, that we realized an 18 month ROI and saved tremendously on energy costs. Additionally, a battery backup unit now provides us with over 7 hours of backup power vs. 45 minutes previously.

We run a SQL based document management system from OpenText that manages close to 30TB of documents. Moving to Scale Computing HC3 gave users much faster search and fetch times by a factor of 5. We run 4 Exchange Servers along with 40 other application servers, which have all run seamlessly in the last two years. The hypervisor (KVM) allowed us to import old and new servers that are critical to our business. We converted many standalone servers to consolidate our physical footprint, for better management and performance.

We implemented Scale clusters in both of our offices as a replacement for the prior HyperV-Based VM infrastructure. We utilize Scale's built-in snapshot and replication technology to provide VM-level backup & DR protection. All of our primary storage is now managed as part of the Scale environment. Scale integrates VM operations, management, and protection into a unified system that provides more capability at lower cost than the multi-vendor collection of products we used previously.

Our environment is 100% virtualized and entirely on Scale Computing. This includes Main file servers; Active Directory domain controllers, SQL servers; speech processing systems; print servers; security management servers; e-discovery hosts; RDS server farms; legal application servers. Our experience is that, no matter what we ask Scale to do, it does it very well. We P2V moved our primary file server on to the Scale cluster with zero issues.

Scale HC3 has replaced our traditional stack of servers, storage, and networking for our entire organization. We have two clusters, a one node, and a three node. Implementation of HC3 reduced our server refresh cost by 40% and provided a flexible architecture where, going forward, we can add or replace nodes on a planned periodic basis rather than monolithic refreshes every four years. The ease of deployment and maintenance are a significant benefit to our small organization.

Primary loads in our environment are databases (MS SQL and Postgress) as well as file and document management. These all have high demand and IO activity and the platform has responded well to these demands.

We use Scale across the whole organization - a trend started by our head office in Germany to fully virtualize our entire server-based network.

The biggest change for us (on the engineering side) was the consolidation of our Siemens TeamCenter servers. We were able to go from 4 physical machines down to a Scale HC3 cluster of 3 nodes (3 physical machines), and on top of that, I am able to run several other servers from this cluster all without affecting the overall performance of TeamCenter. This has allowed us to ultimately turn off 11 old single-host hardware servers in place of our overall two clusters of 3 nodes each (totaling 6 physical machines). The cost savings in power alone has been pretty massive.

Here at the City of Havre de Grace we have recently made the switch to Scale and couldn't be happier. This change was made from a performance need and so far Scale has passed that with flying colors. The speed has significantly improved and from a manager of the software, it is extremely user-friendly. When we made the change we made sure that Scale was going to take over our entire organization and it's done that and then some. Finally, I will say that for whatever problems we may have ran into with other brands we have yet to have any issues with Scale and could not be happier.

At the City of Havre de Grace our cluster on Scale host many of our servers/VMs. These servers that were running on our previous server seemed to be a bit slow even laggy on some days. After the switch to Scale, our active directory pops up in a second whereas before it would buffer and take some time.