Item: HPE StoreOnce
Rating: 10
Author: Victor Padro

Overall Satisfaction with HPE StoreOnce

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We don't currently use it at our home office, but we have deployed it with two customers as a DRP backup for vSphere infrastructure and a couple of IBM LPARs running RMAN.

Pros and Cons

Pros

It handles the storage on a DRP quite well.
It was not that hard to implement it, even though 3Par was easier.
Setting it up on vSphere was painless.
It was easy to link the paths on a couple VIOSes.

Cons

Could be more user-friendly when deploying.
Cost is as friendly as Pure Storage Array.
HPE does well support this technology.

Return on Investment

Well, HPE is our partner so we support the product directly, which means it gives us a slice of the contract as long as the client is happy, which they are.
At first, our client was not happy about the deployment, which took some time, which could be a starting point for HPE.
The management console is easy to handle and very intuitive; we really like it.

Alternatives Considered

NetApp FAS series, Pure Storage FlashArray, Dell EMC Unity and IBM Storwize (now part of FlashSystems)

Price mostly. Netapp has some not so good quirks about it's licensing, which aren't there with HPE. The rest are good but the ROI is not that well since they seem overpriced sometimes.

Other Software Used

Pure Storage FlashArray, IBM Storage Insights, Dell EMC Unity, HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage, NetApp FAS series

Likelihood to Recommend

I definitely would recommend it since it's HPE and has support worldwide.

HPE StoreOnce Feature Ratings

Using HPE StoreOnce

Users and Roles

120 - Storing all the network shares for users and iscsi volumes for hyper-v and vsphere

Support Headcount Required

3 - Service engineers mostly and myself a sysadmin

Innovative Uses

nothing really, it just works as a storage backend for VMs and user shares

Future Planned Uses

Replication DRP
repositories for IBM Power systems

Likelihood to Renew

It just works and the support contract we have is good enough for the company needs

Evaluating HPE StoreOnce and Competitors

Products Replaced

Yes - Dell EMC Unity and a couple synology NASes

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Product Usability
Prior Experience with the Product

We used with another client and the needs for this new client were basic, so it was no brainer to pick this well known system from HPE

Well, definitely HPE support needs to improve its timing on reaching its clients, sometimes it takes too long, although this happens too on other division at HPE, so I would definitely not change my selection on choosing HPE StoreOnce again

HPE StoreOnce Implementation

Implementation Rating

It was pretty smooth, at least smother that a Dell EMC Unity we set it up last week

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Nothing really we are used to implement new features and new systems

HPE StoreOnce Support

Support Rating

It's been great so far.

HPE StoreOnce Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed Support cares about my success	Need to explain problems multiple times Slow Initial Response