Simple and high performing solution
October 05, 2019
Simple and high performing solution
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Scale Computing HC3
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.
- Incredibly simple deployment and cloning of VM's. Makes managing a very high-tech architecture simple.
- Auto negotiates SSD disk usage based on requirements and prioritization, maximizing utilization of the faster I/O for disks that need it.
- Customer Service is great. I think everyone says this (and it was preached to us before and during the sales process) but they really have been great.
- Simple, simple, simple. We kept asking ourselves "Is it really this easy". Some people need more advanced and complicated feature sets, but for us "simplicity that performs at a high level" is very important for our small IT dept. Managing is a 30mins per week job vs 20 hrs.
- Offsite backup configuration options are lacking. There is room for improvement here. Full replication to another HC3 is easy, but customized snapshot and full VM export is lacking. We are confident this will be addressed.
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.
- I think Scale Computing is hard to beat in terms of ROI. If you go with a cheaper solution you will most likely spend more time supporting and managing. Go with a more expensive solution and you buy features you may not need. Scale Computing was the perfect balance for us and provided the best ROI.