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Scale Computing Platform

Scale Computing Platform

Overview

What is Scale Computing Platform?

Scale Computing offers edge computing, virtualization, and hyperconverged solutions for customers around the globe. Scale Computing HyperCore software promises to eliminate traditional virtualization software, disaster recovery software, servers, and shared storage, replacing these with a fully integrated, highly available system…

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Recent Reviews

Love SCP

10 out of 10
December 07, 2023
Incentivized
We utilize the Scale Computing Platform as a central element of our IT infrastructure. SCP provides us with a highly scalable and …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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HE151

$3,300

On Premise
per node

HE501

$6,800

On Premise
per node

HC1300

$11,900

On Premise
per node

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.scalecomputing.com/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $3,300 per node
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Product Details

What is Scale Computing Platform?

Scale Computing offers edge computing, virtualization, and hyperconverged solutions for customers around the globe. Scale Computing HyperCore software promises to eliminate traditional virtualization software, disaster recovery software, servers, and shared storage, replacing these with a fully integrated, highly available system for running applications. The vendor says that, using patented HyperCore™ technology, the SC//HyperCore self-healing platform automatically identifies, mitigates, and corrects problems in the infrastructure in real-time, enabling applications to achieve maximum uptime even when local IT resources and staff are scarce. The vendor says ease-of-use, high availability, and TCO are key differentiators. The product works for distributed enterprises, global retailers, and SMBs alike.

According to the vendor, its key features and benefits include:

  • Install in less than an hour
  • Deploy new VMs in minutes
  • Built-in Browser-based Management
  • Software-defined, hybrid storage system with automated tiering
  • Fully integrated, cluster-wide resource utilization and alerts
  • Single vendor support experience, no disparate systems to integrate
  • Integrated all-in-one appliance
  • Scale-out Architecture
  • Mix and match new nodes
  • Incremental resources improve performance of existing workloads
  • Fast and easy to expand, no downtime required
  • No additional licensing required
  • Start small and grow as your business grows
  • No forklift upgrades

Scale Computing Platform Screenshots

Screenshot of Scale Computing Fleet Management Dashboard - 
At-a-glance summary of the health of the fleet upon login.Screenshot of Cluster Details -
Details of a particular cluster, including health, fleet manager connectivity, nodes, and VMsScreenshot of Scale Computing Fleet Manager -
Manages an organization’s fleet of Clusters.Screenshot of Hypercore UI -
Simple Web Interface for Local Management of the Cluster and its Workloads

Scale Computing Platform Videos

SC//Platform Success Story - Detroit Symphony Orchestra
SC//Platform Success Story - American Foundry Group
SC//Platform Success Story - Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township

Scale Computing Platform Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux, Unix
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported CountriesGlobally
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Frequently Asked Questions

Scale Computing Platform starts at $3300.

VMware vCenter, VMware ESXi, and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure are common alternatives for Scale Computing Platform.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.

The most common users of Scale Computing Platform are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).

Scale Computing Platform Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)20%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)70%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)10%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(338)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(176-200 of 234)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Scale to visualize our whole server environment including database, exchange, and terminal servers. Each user is impacted directly by the performance of the cluster. Scale helps us simplify our server infrastructure as well as provides redundancy and backups. With a simple GUI, the Scale nodes are easy to manage as well as add resources such as memory or virtual hard drives. As the name implies, Scale is a solution that will be easy to add additional nodes should our capacity needs change, this helps us budget future years with more certainty.
  • Scale care support provides, by far, some of the best support of any issues that arise.
  • No downtime for Scale updates.
  • Migration of virtual machines and cloning machines is incredibly simple.
  • I'd really like an Android app where I can view the status of and manage nodes. Their GUI is perfect for this use case.
  • During sales, I would have liked to be up sold to SSD's in each node.
Scale is great for mid-size organizations with 50-200 employees. Anywhere under that, there are likely solutions that are more cost-effective, over that I'm not sure but you can expand as needed. IT admins who want to focus less on server hardware will appreciate the all in one package and manageability of scale.
January 10, 2018

Scale HC3 - It's for me.

Brenda Hartson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
All our VMs (except 1) are on the Scale Computing HC3 system across the organization. It lives in our colocation facility and snapshots across the network to a remote site. It is our virtual platform and storage area network and hosts SQL, SharePoint, Exchange, File/Print, Citrix, payroll, DHCP, DNS, and other miscellaneous. servers.
  • Easy to snapshot servers offsite and recover - We actually had to test this in real-time as we had a corrupted file server that had been snapshotted previously. Easy to log in and turn on the snapshot'd server, verify and re-replicate it back to replace the production server. What could have taken hours only took a few minutes.
  • Support - Scale has always been responsive to any questions or needs we have had and are easy to work with. We've done several os upgrades have had no issues.
  • Easy - it's just an easy platform to manage. Not too complicated. Visually appealing to manage through the GUI.
  • Using the GUI is good, however, when I have several servers on a box, it's sometimes hard to tell which node the server is connected to. It does not clearly, visibly display which node. If you hover over the node, it will give the name of the server.
Small to mid-sized companies that want something easy. We have approximately 20 servers in production on the cluster and sleep well at night knowing it works. Have not tested but it may not be suited for high volume transactions. Not sure.
Tyler Moser | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
We don't have an HC3 implementation in-house but we sell, manage, and support it for our customers. Our implementations have been organization-wide and address the issue of needing a highly available virtual infrastructure.
  • Cost - very competitive on cost vs. the competition
  • Pre-sales support - very thorough in understanding the environment and providing assistance in right-sizing the solution
  • Post - sales support - very responsive with any issues
  • Migrating existing virtual workloads into the cluster could be easier. Relies on third-party software to work.
HC3 is well suited for small business clients needing advanced virtual infrastructure pieces but not looking to incur a large CAPEX. It may be less appropriate at the enterprise level.
Albert Smid | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Other than the ERP system, all other services are implemented in the Scale cluster, domain controller, file sharing, HR applications, EDI - FTP server etc.
  • The main strength of the system is that the system is fault tolerant. We have had issues on one server in the HC3 cluster (it went down!), no production downtime, end users did not even know that we had issues.
  • The support from the ScaleComputing team has been excellent.
  • User interface to manage the cluster is simple, the migration from various sources (VMware, stand alone servers was simple).
  • Requires just common sense knowledge to manage the system.
  • Like to see an option to export a VM external to the cluster, like to a NAS.
It is great for the normal IT Server functions and light database. At this time based on our deployment, I would not recommend this for high database loads. Having said that I would not deploy an ERP database on an Intel based system.

We're planning to migrate in the third quarter MS Exchange on the Scale cluster as well, our analysis indicates that we should have enough resources within the cluster to accommodate this.
Nathan Beam | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Scale HC3 is being used to virtualize a large portion of our physical IT stack.

We purchased it for the following reasons:

1. Simplify administration of our infrastructure.
2. Provide out-of-the box High-Availability and/or near High-Availability for critical systems
3. Decrease TCO for our physical infrastructure
4. Simplify our infrastructure by collapsing all of the requirements for a clustered virtualization solution down into one software/hardware stack, including compute, storage, and networking.
5. Decrease deployment time for new environments. Using near-instant thin-cloning we can deploy multiple systems in a very short amount of time.
6. SCALE provided a solid platform alternative to other traditional high-availability solutions, like SQL Clustering. In this case we simplify life by deploying SQL server's as stand-alone but because they are virtual and on a Hyper-Converged platform, they are HA by default. So we get a lot of the benefits of SQL clustering without the headache and complexity of actual SQL clustering.
  • Scale has focused on ease-of-management and it shows. Their UI is incredible and easily the best in the industry.
  • SCRIBE - the underlying storage layer is brilliant and if you are a techie, worth taking a closer look. The way SCALE has done storage for hyper-converged is very different from almost all of the other major players in a very good way. SCRIBE VM snapshots and cloning is incredible, very fast, very efficient.
  • Simplified licensing model - NO VMWARE - this is a big deal. Scale has built-the-entire-stack from almost the ground up. You only have one company to deal with when it comes to licensing your hyper-converged stack. Furthermore, all SCALE HC3 clusters have ALL FEATURES. There is no nickel-and-dime (and arm-n-leg) for additional functionality.
  • I think the company has been focused on the SMB market and as a result are not familiar with dealing with the issues and concerns of either larger companies/deployments and/or companies like ours which service larger clients. We have no tolerance for unscheduled downtime. When it comes to dealing with support they are mostly all very knowledgeable but they seem a bit green when it comes to understanding how "serious" uptime is for their customers that are running mission-critical systems.
  • I think the company has been focused on the SMB market, and as a result I get the impression they are not overly familiar with companies that run mixed and/or more highly-demanding workloads. We are pushing our cluster hard. We run a heavy mix of both virtualized SQL and WEB tier systems. Based on multiple interactions with the company, I don't think they have very many customers operating in this space and as a result, the platform hasn't been as well vetted based on these kinds of workloads. That said, I realize that virtualizing multiple busy database servers on a single platform is huge ask. All of the above being said... we have not had any system failures that have impacted any of our production VM's and by-and-large the platform is pretty darn solid. We are seeing some performance hits, particularly around storage, as our cluster gets more busy however we haven't done wide-spread performance testing to get an accurate measurement and I believe scribe is dynamically tiering data to keep our busiest systems running effectively. I guess I would like to just see a higher "low watermark" for storage performance on VM's.
  • Support is overall very responsive however in-depth issues can drag-on a bit, which is understandable.
  • They are still missing some features such as role-based administrative access which are important to, once again, larger companies and/or those who service larger companies.
  • All-in-all - Scale has historically targeted SMB - and as a result they have a ton of core strengths that are unique to their company and their product. However, in focusing on this market segment, I think they have a bit of tunnel-vision which has resulted in them missing some crucial areas for businesses that take their IT very serious because it is a critical part of their service delivery/day-to-day operations.
Based on my experience, I think smaller SMB shops that want to simplify their infrastructure and primarily have a mix of light-weight systems (Domain Controllers, Web Servers, some SQL but not a ton, File Servers, etc.) are the "perfect fit" for SCALE.

I think if they straighten out a few of the kinks in their process and product, they will actually be a perfect fit for us. That all said, this probably sounds overly negative so I will state that I am very glad that we went with SCALE HC3 and in retrospect, I wouldn't change that decision. I think they are one of the best hyper-converged platforms on the market.

If you are looking at an IT refresh and you realize you also are using a mix of a bunch of different products and platforms to achieve high-availability, to provide backup and recovery, etc, etc, SCALE could very well be an excellent fit for you because you can collapse all of that "stuff" into one platform that by-and-large does it all very well.
Russell Lund | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Coming from an IT background I have never used such a dynamic and and versatile system for VM's. Currently our system is running VM's which are used in all departments in my company, from IT to general research. If we need a new system we can immediately implement it for use the same day. It eliminates the need for group computers and management. We are able to integrate it into our network without issues and manage it right from my desk.
  • The scalability is amazing.
  • The ease of use is great.
  • The flexibility of the VM's helps each department on a daily basis.
  • I can't think of any areas where it need improvement. The system does everything we need it to do.
We have multiple hardware that may need a new computer with its own specific settings, Scale makes this very easy to implement within hours instead of waiting days and weeks for systems and set up.
December 18, 2017

Scale and the SMB Sector

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We run 75 virtualized client and server systems across a 4 node cluster, which serves the entire organization. This encompasses our: Active Directory and Exchange stack, virtualized desktop infrastructure, and our production order injection, processing, and rendering systems. The Scale cluster provides simplified management of the virtual machines, and the Scale team provides a strong support infrastructure for the software and hardware.
  • Single pane of glass management console with the ability to 'Tag' virtual machines into separate groups for organization, making it easy to view resource utilization and VM state. Additionally, direct in-browser remote control without the use of a third party plugin makes direct control seamless.
  • Quick and easy cloning of virtual machines makes life easier, providing the ability to maintain a single master template for a given class of system.
  • Moving a VM from one node to another is as simple as clicking Move, then selecting the target node. Because of the way Scale backend the storage for their VMs, all migrations are Live.
  • Support reps are very friendly, and are available at varied hours of the day, thus not limiting you to a 9-5 window if there is a problem.
  • On high memory nodes, the current view pane does not provide an easy means by which to view a detailed list of VMs on a given node. I'd love to see an additional view which provides detailed list of VMs per node, or something on the VM 'card' itself with the host node information.
  • I'd like to see the ability to control how many replica copies of data are stored on a given cluster. The ability to configure the environment so that every node has a copy of every VM's data is something that I feel would be beneficial if you have the storage.
  • Scale currently lack a comprehensive in-built backup solution which can communicate with external storage. The snapshot system is good, but the ability to configure an external storage point for redundancy would be appreciated.

Scale's feature set targets the SMB sector, particularly those companies without a full-time in-house IT team. This is a good fit, as they offer the ability to replicate VMs to a remote Scale cluster for redundancy and disaster recovery purposes. Their remote support is also well suited to this, as if there's a hardware issue, they will send a replacement chassis/disk, and walk you through the required physical steps for replacement, while they remotely manage the software-level changes required for a node which is joined to the cluster.

In a much larger environment, with a dedicated server team, I think that is where a company begins to outgrow Scale's targeted feature set.

December 18, 2017

SCALE WON'T BAIL!

Mark Snead | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Scale HC3 for multiple departments. We host file servers for 8 departments and over 200 users. The HC3 solution allows us to provide stability are reliability to our entire server environment. Management is easy and the technical support provided by scale is one of the best I have ever worked with!
  • Stability is key! The HC3 platform allows us to almost never reboot. Thanks to its Linux operating system updates are rarely needed and when they are its a snap!
  • Better availability than others. Scales multi layered system environment ensures that you will not be left with VM getting destroyed.
  • I really can't say enough great things about how their customer service! They are always available when I need them and they provide a professional and quick solution.
  • The GUI is great, but sometimes I find that I can't do something I wish I could. Like cancelling an export job for example.
Well Suited: 1. Small to medium environments. We have maxed out our ability to add more nodes at 6. (Not sure if that's because of the level of boxes I chose or a limitation of the system. However, I believe that this size works well for us. 2. Anywhere there is a need for high availability. Since we have switched to Scales HC3 environment, about a year ago, we have not had a single server down!

Ill Suited:
1. Large environments.

Bryan Watson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Scale Computing HC3 across all departments within the City of Hudson. The main reason we went with it was because of its built-in replication ability to other Scale Computing clusters, which is perfect for not only a backup solution but also as a disaster recovery solution.
  • I marvel that I can create a new VM, give it an IP address, a name, and join it to the domain all in about 10 minutes. After the first 3 or 4 VMs, I realized that I can take that freshly installed VM and just clone it to have new VMs under two minutes! I now have a VM that is strictly for cloning to make a new VM servers.
  • If a user accidentally deletes a file, I can clone that VM from a snapshot in about two minutes to recover the file. Or, depending on the replication schedule, I can retrieve the file from another clusters just as quickly.
  • The dashboard for the cluster has great gauges to show the usages of the CPUs, RAM, Disk space, and IOPS. It also has a box for each node in the cluster to show which VMs are on which node and its RAM and disk usages.
  • There is a tile for each VM that also has its own set of gauges to Disk, CPU, and network usage.
  • I like that I manage the cluster from a web browser instead of a KVM in a rack.
  • The gauges for the cluster could be improved. The Disk Space usage shows the total disk space before the RAID and not the actual usable amount after the RAID. The RAM cluster show a total off 188GB but show be 192GB; each cluster has 64GB of RAM and I have three clusters.
Having multiple clusters in the same location that are replicating to one another would be a good fit for a high availability environment. I do not believe it would be suited for a small business environment.
Brandon Rasler | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We replaced our aging VM environment with Scale for a fraction of the cost that was quoted by our current vendor. Implementation time was lower than what was expected to upgrade existing equipment with new hardware and software.
  • We bought two HC3 so we have DR covered with ease by Scale Snapshots and Replication.
  • Tech support has been phenomenal. We have only called a few times but they have always been available and were able to immediately address our issues.
  • While we were not making the switch for improved performance reasons, our users have noticed speed improvements across several applications.
  • The time that Scale spent helping us with planning and implementation has been better than we have had with other vendors and far exceded our expectations.
  • If I could resize drive size without a VM shut down that would be great.
I would recommend to any colleague. I honestly think it is priced at the low end that most mid-sized businesses could afford and I wouldn't doubt the ability for a Scale system to handle a very large implementation as well.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our Scale HC3 system is being used for a data-intense multi-server public safety application suite. It is primarily used by our police and fire departments to collect, store and make accessible large amounts of historic incident records. It addresses our customer requirements for high availability while offering ease and flexibility for our system administrators.
  • Very easy to use. Intuitive and simple web-based administration interface, all the necessary features that we'd expect without any of the clutter that's irrelevant in day-to-day use.
  • Flexible resource allocation between nodes and easy use of available processor, memory and storage capacities. Very fast on-the-fly changes of settings. No worries about separate storage management when compared to basic virtualization solutions (not hyper-converged).
  • N+1 node concept provides for ultimate expansion and contraction flexibilities when designing systems, building out systems, or splitting systems.
  • No integrated backbone. I'd rather see a node interconnect system similar to network switch stacking (loop of directly attached Twinax cables, for example) than a requirement for multi-gigabit switches with very narrow specification guidelines due to lack of support for some industry leader products.
  • Manufacturer-dependent initial deployments and configurations. The customer is required to coordinate with manufacturer/vendor, which can be inconvenient to arrange.
  • While we have seen perfect reliability in pure storage and backup scenarios we did observe occasional "mysterious" application issues that we do not see on non-HC3 systems. So far we have been unable to better isolate problems and perform root-cause analysis but it has lead to a diminished trust and prevents us from more aggressively deploying the product.
HC3's greatest strength would have to be its tremendous flexibility in scenarios where an erratic or uncertain growth rate needs to be accommodated. While performance can be matched by other vendors or system designs, HC3 shines when it comes to its ease of system administration (creation/sizing/moving of VMs and their storage resources within the system).
December 18, 2017

Scale Review

Colin Craig | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We utilize two infrastructures. One for our main system that hosts an IIS and SQL server and a secondary cluster for DR. Both clusters support the majority of our businesses functionality.
  • Their raid set up is pretty neat. When a drive goes out, it permanently moves the information to another. One the drive is replaced, it builds on the new drive instead of transferring information back to the new drive.
  • We were able to cut our server room down from 4 racks to 2.
  • We were able to cut our energy consumption in half.
  • 3 words. Redundancy, redundancy, and redundancy. Excellent setup.
  • There are some things on the UI that can be implemented.
It’s great for small to mid size companies, not so much large companies. Scale meeting our budget was crucial for our decision making.
December 15, 2017

Tipping the Scale to HC3

Lew Pollock | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Currently we are using Scale HC3 in all our regional offices. All have their own server farm and we wanted to do something with virtualization without the cost of a VMWare cluster. We discovered Scale at a conference and discussed how it would fit with our plans for this office. We currently have two 3 node clusters and a single node in a very small satellite office. We have started replicating between our sites for backup and redundancy.
  • Ease in creating a new virtual host. Amazingly simple for our support people to create new VMs quickly and efficiently.
  • Easy to manage. Everything for the cluster is on one screen and easily to read and manage.
  • Great support team to help us troubleshoot issues.
  • Easy installation.
  • Would love to be able to manage all my clusters from one device.
  • Would love to make certain changes live without having to shut down a VM.
The only place we have not been able to use a Scale HC3 is when dealing with a software vendor which will not support VMs on any other software/hardware not related to Hyper-V or VMWare. We have been successful using these devices to replace all types of servers.
Nicholas Hempenius | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have a six blade Scale cluster that supports our 20+ servers that are essential in providing the back-end of the Hammock Source e-commerce presence. The servers also provide services to our shipping, receiving, and customer service departments. Our Scale VM cluster addresses our need for a large amount of servers within a limited amount of space. It also allows for business expansion that is continuously going on.
  • Scale Computing provides a simple and easy to use graphical interface.
  • The VM export feature makes it easy to backup VM images to remote storage servers without having to use external tools.
  • Resource allocation to various VMs is easy and seamless using the graphical interface.
  • The VM Disk usage meter seems to be broken, we have an in house work around to track this.
  • The cluster logs could provide a little more feedback and be more verbose.
  • Automating VM export would also be extreamly helpful.
A great scenario where Scale computing is almost perfect would be in class room type environment. I am a technical lead for the East Carolina University Collegiate Cyber defense competition, we need to have a lab environment with many different operating systems that can all communicate with each other so that we can practice cyber security techniques. With my experience in using the HC3 I feel that it would be a wonderful environment to practice cyber defense.
December 12, 2017

Scale review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SCALE to host our production/test/dev environments across the organization - We are currently in a transition from physical servers to virtual, and have extremely limited resources to manage a virtual environment. We needed a solution that was flexible, affordable, and did not require a lot of dedicated resource commitment.
  • Simplifies deployment of a resilient virtual platform with minimal dedicated resource commitment on our part.
  • Excellent tech support.
  • Very stable environment that recovers well from unexpected system glitches.
  • Reverting to a previous snapshot is a bit convoluted, not as straightforward as in VMWare.
  • Increase granularity of visibility into VM operations - they have been adding details to the main GUI, and are making progress, but still leaves a bit to be done as far as monitoring/managing individual VMs - overall system monitoring is good, but would be more useful if we could also drill down to individual BMs.
  • Currently there are unexpected issues with changing networking after the system has been deployed (for example: we need to change our default gateway - same subnet, but a different IP, and under the current version, we are required to take the entire system down for that one small change. SCALE is working on a better modification policy and we are hopeful they can develop a different solution so we do not have to totally shut down the system).
This is a quick way to deploy a resilient virtual environment that has decent specifications and flexibility, but not as good as some other solutions if you need to closely monitor individual VMs or require regular snapshot management.
December 11, 2017

Surprise Surprise

Marc-Andre Ciccariello | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Scale Computing to reduce physical servers and better management of our ressources. Redundant between 2 sitesm Simple and fast. Currently converting all my DC and share to put on the scale...
  • Simple
  • Fast
  • Always update for better use of the HC3
  • UI is too simple and not always giving the right info
  • Possibility to have 1 main interface to manage all the Scale/cluster
  • Nest Virtualization
All the virtualization without Nesting (a VM in a VM) is great with Scale. We don't have many tools either to control the server so we are always with a small 5% that we can't be autonomous.
Scott White | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our existing infrastructure was getting old. The hardware was excellent and provided more than adequate performance. Apart from the insecurity of age the only complaints were from the IT team. It was taking too much work to maintain.

The 3 node Scale cluster replacees and aging infrastructure of Linux Red Hat/HP hosts running 80% of the company's virtual servers. The Scale cluster will essentially run our company. When all VMs have been moved over to the cluster It will encompass Windows a windows domain controller, our MRP system, several database servers, analytics, and server and network monitoring appliances. A remote Scale node acts as a backup to the cluster and maintains daily backups with varying retention to reflect daily, weekly and monthly, and quarterly backups. We have moved about 30% of the infrastructure to the scale cluster.
  • The ease of use of the Scale interface is fantastic. All the basics are within easy reach and more complex tools are readily accessible. I'm used to simple interfaces meaning limited scope and simplistic products. But the scale interface is on top of a very sophisticated and powerful system. The interface works so well it needs no training to use - having said that training always helps.
  • Scale's Remote replication is fantastic. Setting up and applying a schedule and setting a lifespan for the replicated images was a breeze. Initiating the replication was a single click and the replication was fast. Replicated VM's could be cloned and started in seconds. Restoring data for users was so fast my users were not ready to deal with the quick results.
  • Scales continually impresses me with the way the product is maturing. Their product road map is not merely a future wish list. New features are regularly being delivered and delivered on schedule.
  • Installation and set up is FAST. the longest part was mounting the hardware and connecting the interfaces. Scale technicians held my hand from power on to instantiating a new VM. It mas more of a formality than a necessity.
  • Their tech support is effective. The best I have ever seen. Their staff are astute and great communicators. Follow up is quick, and they often log in and resolve the problem without my having to generate and upload logs. They minimise my work and maximise interaction. The unusual part is how they communicate among themselves. On a single issue i spoke to multiple staff and they all were aware of case. I never had to repeat the details of the problem or the steps taken.
  • We have been importing all of our VM's fairly easily. There is a need for improvement with the import process for non HC3 VMs. It works but is the only poorly executed part of the HC3 environment i have come across. It's as if in the design of the product Scale only thought companies would be creating and working with new VM's., and forgot completely about migrations from other systems. HC3 easily imports and exports Scale VM's directly from the Interface in a single step. But, non HC3 images, even if they are qcow2 images just like HC3's, require a multi-step process. Having said that, the process is not complex at all. Apparently this will be corrected in a future release.
  • Pricing. Wow! A friend in another company opted for a competing HCI system. It took about 3 months to get the system fully installed and stable. But the ongoing costs of licensing Vmware and paying hardware maintenance have forced them to reconsider their purchase. They are desperate to cut costs and are planning to pull out VMware and go with KVM. With Scale I paid less and got at least equal performance without any configuration headaches.
  • That raises another point. The HC3 system is fully integrated all in one solution. All the components needed for HCI, Virtualisation, VM Management, Integrated and distributed storage, and redundancy are included and fully supported. One neck to wring.
  • As mentioned, Scale needs to refine the rocess used for importing non-native VM's. It is a multi step process that "fools" HC3 into thinking it a native VM. All of our VMs, except for one, are KVM. I can't comment on importing other image formats.
  • HC3 has all the basics covered and does a fantastic job under the sheets. but is lagging in more modern features .Scale needs to provide applications under HC3. A "cloud" type storage service that VM's could tap into directly. A database service which would reduce the need for us to maintain database servers. A containerisation service would be an excellent addition. Currently we have to run containers in a VM, which is not optimal.
  • Missing is a simple way of upgrading storage. Disks are hot swappable., but upgrading storage requires a lot of work.
Scale hits the sweet spot for the SMB market. The product and support are what a small company needs to get into the efficiencies the big boys enjoy and does it without the costs they pay. They do a great job of lifting SMBs into the true disaster recovery. I think it would be overkill where files sharing is a major activity. We are keeping only user folders on our hosted VMs. We use Synology appliances for shared storage and for hosting data on our DMZ accessed by external clients.
Morgan Rinehart | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
Scale Computing HC3 has been used by our organization to support virtualization of existing physical servers and migration from another vendor platform. Scale Computing HC3 is being used by all departments in our organization. Scale Computing HC3 has addressed our business problems that occur by unpredictable growth in our departments that requires IT infrastructure upgrade and improvements that were very costly with other vendors. Scale Computing gives us a platform that can easily be expanded to meet immediate needs.
  • Very simple to use and requires minimal training to operate.
  • Streamlined upgrade process that can update entire site with click of button.
  • Shared storage is present across Scale Computing HC3 system has allowed us to limit investment in expensive SAN storage systems and add resources on demand.
  • Increased support with VMWare and Hyper-V for customers that are migrating from these systems to Scale over time.
  • More robust backup support with vendors already in the industry. Very little support with existing players in this market.
Scale is great for an environment that needs shared storage and organization and lacks resources to invest in a SAN environment.
December 08, 2017

Scale HC3 Review

Karl Sharkey | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Scale across the whole of our organisation as we have moved our network to the "cloud". It addresses issues around updating hardware constantly with using Microsoft Hyper-V as in we no longer have to update the Hyper-V server as Scale updates can be carried out on the live system.
  • Snapshots are very good and give you peace of mind that you can go back to as many points in time as you wish
  • Incredibly easy to set up initially
  • Support line very good
  • Ability to increase disk sizes of VMs "on the fly"
  • You currently need to shut down the server and clone before you can
  • Being able to plug in USB drive and get files off
In a business where they need a large amount of VMs that need to be highly available.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's being used across the firm, housing all our production servers. Scale gives the addition of high availability/failover in case of server outages along with an easier path to replication and DR. Something we did not have in our previous traditional server setup.
  • Ease of installation. Took us longer to rack and cable than initialize the nodes. I was adding my first system 30 minutes after power on!
  • Ease of use. Being an IT generalist, building out any other similar setup would have taken longer and cost much more $$. I could have the least knowledgeable user in this office adding VM's in 5 minutes with their product!
  • Scale Support. A phone call away from the answers your looking for. No multi vendor support situation with Scale, they support from the hardware up the stack.
  • Lack of vendor backup support. Due to the APIs in use, there are no backup vendors at this time that can reach in and back up a VM. Have to use client/file level.
  • Little more robust on system history statistics reporting. Can't really see trending system info (past), only whats happening real time.
It's well suited for shops that are looking to move from other virtual environments and or had no virtual setup at all. There is some vendor lock-in, but for us, that is not a big deal. We had no existing virtual setup to integrate with. This setup we felt was much more cost effective for what we were trying to accomplish. I'm sure there are the less appropriate scenarios out there, that's up to the IT shops that are doing the evaluations.
December 08, 2017

Scale was easy for me

Trenton Mengel | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We migrated to the Scale so my company would have failover capabilities and cost savings over traditional servers. We have moved many of our company's applications to the Scale cluster (Domain, Exchange, etc.).
  • Easy to start up and migrate systems.
  • Failover capabilities.
  • The display of usable hard drive storage shows actual space left not the usable space.
  • I would like to have the ability for the snap shots to be stored on a NAS as well as on the cluster.
Good for mission-critical systems. VDI desktops.

Not good for REALLY small business where 1 server is all the resource needed.
Donny Lynch | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SCALE Computing HC3 handles about 80% of our server needs across the organization.
  • SCALE Computing HC3 is easy to manage
  • Has a great support system when needed
  • Provides great built in disaster recovery options
  • Graphics hardware to support intensive graphic oriented software
Great in consolidating older legacy server hardware and server OS into one system
December 06, 2017

Scale up today!

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use SCALE Computing HC3 at several of our clients. It allows us to combine virtualization and storage. This saves the client on licensing costs. It also allows them to combine their back-end storage and virtualization. It also allows them to have a cost-effective disaster recovery solution offsite.
  • The user interface is well laid out and easy to use.
  • Replication is easy to set up and works particularly well.
  • Recovering VMs that that been replicated to storage is quick and easy.
  • Currently, there is not a straightforward way to add disk space to virtual machines.
  • With the latest release, we are having some issues with increased replication traffic to our branch DR site.
Well suited for smaller clients who would like to save money on storage and virtualization costs. Provides disaster recovery, virtualization, and back-end storage at a fraction of the cost of other solutions. It is easy to set up and manage. Customer support is top notch and always available. Less appropriate for enterprise or larger customers needing more functionality.
Jason Grilo | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We started working with a client that recently deployed a 4 node SCALE HC3 cluster. Our role was to help transition them from VMware/HyperV VM's to be on Scale HC3 instead.

It is being used now for 90% of all services/vms within the company. They still have a couple physical servers due to the complexity of moving those to Scale Computing HC3, this in addition to using the volume of storage they have on the physical servers.

The main business problem it addressed was stability and simplifying the environment. The HC3 cluster gives them the stability and redundancy they needed to ensure they have great uptime!
  • Simplifying building and running a Hypervisor Cluster for redundancy and uptime.
  • Fast deployment/snapshotting
  • Great technical support, really fast.
  • Expanding volumes is cumbersome (have to clone the vm and make the drive bigger)
  • Little support for UPS and network shutdowns
  • Tricky to migrate VM's to HC3 unless you use their paid software product
  • GUI is pretty simple and barebones, feels like it limits what you can do.
We would recommend a customer look at Scale HC3 if they want a simple/fast way to deploy a clustered environment. The price point on a Scale Computing HC3 cluster isn't very appealing compared to a HyperV cluster build with a SAN, but we understand the power behind the all-in-one approach of Scale HC3.
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