Scale Computing HC3 - Great, low-cost solution with some gotchas.
October 15, 2020

Scale Computing HC3 - Great, low-cost solution with some gotchas.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Scale Computing HC3

Scale HC3 provided a complete solution at a reasonable cost. We selected it for the core of our organizational infrastructure, allowing us to focus on delivering services and minimize the time spent on building and maintaining that infrastructure. The vast majority of our servers now run on the Scale cluster.

Pros

  • Scale has reduced the amount of time we spend maintaining host servers.
  • The management interface is simple.
  • We like to be able to seamlessly move servers with very little overhead.

Cons

  • The solution lacks support from major backup providers.
  • While it is simple to use, sometimes it would be good to have more powerful tools.
  • Tools should be included to migrate between virtualization solutions. While tools are available, they are at extra cost per virtual machine.
Overall, the product has been great, so we have required little support. That said the majority of the support we received was on point. The service is very much designed to take the burden off of the IT department.

On the other hand, an issue we had with data not de-duplicating took a long time to be answered, and the answer was not what we hoped for (the "de-duplication" Scale uses really is designed just for their built-in snap-shots). Also, scheduling for the initial setup was quite painful, it seemed they assumed our IT staff didn't really know anything about IT sometimes, and the process could be streamlined.
Our Scale HC3 cluster hosts all of our services. A number of (mostly) MS SQL database servers host the data for the application servers. Applications hosted include ERP software, appraisal software, and process management software. The most recent application added was information management software, and it runs just as well on this cluster as previously on VMWare.
  • In government, we must consider sustainability of what we choose. Scale is in a price range that improves our sustainability, while having predictable ongoing service requirements.
  • The Scale solution has made it possible to begin planning for business continuity, with minimal or no downtime. The costs with other solutions were not considered feasible.
For an organization our size, Scale is the complete package at a lower cost. While it doesn't have anywhere near the amount of configurability of VMWare, the features we really needed are included. Staff required almost no training (compared to VMWare), and setup of the cluster was included in the purchase price. It isn't a perfect solution, but at the price, it is awesome.
Scale Computing HC3 is a perfect solution for a smaller enterprise organization. The flexibility matches well with a moderate growth organization moving up from stand alone servers. The cost makes still having your data in your own care and control more feasible vs the unknown costs of moving to the cloud, or the high costs of getting data back out of the cloud. Larger organizations which have strong technical skillsets and the need for greater flexibility might be better off to choose more powerful, vendor-integrated solutions, or potentially looking at cloud-based options.

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