Perfect system for us, peace of mind with performance.
Updated November 27, 2020
Perfect system for us, peace of mind with performance.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Scale Computing HC3
We are currently utilizing an HC3 cluster for district wide applications including ADDS, DHCP, DNS, wireless controller, door access controller, VOIP, HVAC, perfSONAR, freeNAS. Previously I utilized in-house built servers running XCP-NG. This system worked well, however it was time to host more critical applications as well as a hardware refresh. Scale HC3 provided a few items I didn't have before including high availability, redundancy, an excellent support framework, all of which provide peace of mind. I did not have any support with my previous system as I built it and maintained the software with backups but no true redundancy or HA. All of these were my criteria when sourcing my new solution and in the end Scale provided exactly what I needed and with the lowest TCO.
- High availability.
- Support.
- Ease of use.
- I am used to more options to tweak. Scale's focus is ease of use but I'm used to being more in control of all options.
Active directory, DNS, DHCP, Ruckus vSmartzone, Symmetry access control, Avaya IP Office. Digital Watchdog Spectrum VMS.
- No negative.
- All positive.
- Only thing better would be free.
User Experience with Scale Computing
Do you think Scale Computing Platform delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Scale Computing Platform's feature set?
Yes
Did Scale Computing Platform live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Scale Computing Platform go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Scale Computing Platform again?
Yes
Every time. I have had no failures in hardware or software. The times I needed to contact support were for things that only support can do such as initiate an update outside of the current release path or access deeper logs.
Using Scale Computing HC3
1 - Director of Technology/Network Engineer.
1 - I am experienced with Xen, XCP-NG, VMware, KVM and Hyper-V. Honestly, a basic understanding of what a VM is would be all that is required to manage a Scale system. If you have installed a desktop or server OS, managed any basic networking, etc you will should only need to browser the Scale interface to learn it.
- Hosting all our internal applications.
- High availability
- Support. I never had support on the systems I built myself. They worked but support was a huge weight lifted from my responsibility.
- Replication using old nodes. Hyperconverged is great but having seperate replicated nodes is better.
Evaluating Scale Computing HC3 and Competitors
Yes - I replaced an XCP-NG install on old hardware. This was entirely managed in house with no support. Everything worked great but the hardware was old and needing replaced for performance reasons.
Single most important would be hyperconverged and the high availability it provides at the cost it does this at.
I wouldn't.
Scale Computing HC3 Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
None | None |
Yes
It was a major reason I went from an in house system to Scale. I wanted support for the increase of VMs I was managing and the peace of mind that hardware would not be an issue.
Using Scale Computing HC3
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
None | None |
- Nothing is available that isn't required.
- Starting a VM is truly just a few clicks.
- Moving VMs between nodes is simple. Sometimes I do it for reason.
- Getting into any low level system is not supported.
- Managing snapshots is a one by one process I don't like this.