1. Home
  2. Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Systems
  3. Scale Computing Platform Reviews
  4. User Review of Scale Computing Platform
Scale Computing's HC3: Hyper-converged Computing for Everyone!
Updated March 06, 2019

Scale Computing's HC3: Hyper-converged Computing for Everyone!

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Scale Computing HC3

HC3 replaced our entire VMware stack of 3 host servers and 2 storage arrays. It hosts our Windows AD structural component servers (DHCP, DNS, AD Services) as well as a number of admin servers (security system, phone system, etc.). We went this route as a more cost-effective means, compared to a complete stack refresh.
  • Ease of setup: OOB setup was minimal and could be done by following the supplied Quick Start, although support was available.
  • Ease of use: deploying new resources or repurposing/cloning resources is super simple, with a clear GUI that is very intuitive.
  • Peace of mind: having a 3-node system with distributed compute and storage means more redundancy in case of any single component failure. Having all that run as part of the "OS" of the system is even better, as it's baked in: there's no set up like with a multi-home VMware implementation.
  • Great ROI: compared to a stack refresh, the HC3 came in at more than 50% less.
  • It could have been a bit easier to migrate existing VMs or physical machines into the cluster. Using Double Take was OK, but a bit expensive and somewhat tricky.
I've gotten a great response from the support team. I will say that there have been times when the person who responded didn't know the answer, but their willingness to respond regardless, even just to tell me they're finding someone who can help, is fantastic and not the norm in my experience. Pre-sales support, both for sales and technical, was excellent; they were always ready to make resources available to answer questions on pricing, support, and usage.
As mentioned, we run our entire company's Active Directory servers, including DNS, DHCP, AD on VMS inside the HC3. These form the backbone of all PC usage in the company, so they are critical. Migrating using the Double-Take methodology proved to be extremely smooth, allow a "clone" of a running AD server to migrate, then it cleanly shut down the existing server and startup on the HC3 exactly like the original machines.
  • As mentioned, ROI was great: an immediate cashflow savings of over $50,000 versus a hardware refresh, plus the benefits of capitalizing it over time.
  • No license fees like other hypervisor vendors means we have saved a lot of money since go-live, which we could "bank" toward adding additional nodes should we need additional compute or storage.
As a simpler, more cost-effective way to virtualize your infrastructure, I don't see a place this couldn't fit in well. While we aren't running any dedicated database-based applications (and so can't really speak to I/O contention or speed issues), several of our admin machines are running MS SQL Server and have not experienced any performance issues. Because of its expandability, I could see this in a smaller shop like ours, or as a niche in a larger infrastructure, or, if scaled properly, as a replacement for a large infrastructure VM host.