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Hassle-free virtualization with an impressive ROI and industry-leading support.
Updated December 07, 2023

Hassle-free virtualization with an impressive ROI and industry-leading support.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Scale Computing Platform

We use the Scale HC3 Hypervisor as primary hypervisor for Windows and Linux servers as well as virtual appliances. We also use it as extension to our backup strategy, which allows us to create as many application consistent snapshots as we like, to go back in time whenever needed.
  • Customer support and service is outstanding.
  • Updates and upgrades are hassle-free with no downtime.
  • No need to worry about hardware, BIOS, drivers, firmware.
  • Outstanding handling of snapshots with thousands of snapshots possible with almost no disk cost and no IO costs. We snapshot each VM every hour and keep snapshots for 48 hours and 2 weeks.
  • REST API can be used to create your own reports and scripts.
  • The Hypervisor just runs. No downtimes since it was integrated 2 years ago.
  • Replication to another cluster is very easy
  • It exposes no backup API. You have to treat VMs as physical machines, with all the drawbacks. This is a huge problem, since the official partner Acronis can't deliver. If you ever worked with Veeam you want it back very very badly.
  • Assigned RAM is used RAM. The hypervisor can't share memory or only allocate what is used etc. It's wasted RAM most of the time.
  • No logging and auditing. (There is, but not visible to the customer).
  • The GUI is quite bad. It looks like done by a designer instead of an IT expert. But it's improving constantly.
  • The company relies heavily on KVM, but seems to have no developer in the open source community. This leads to answers like "we can't do anything about QEMU drivers". Yes, you can. Have delevopers working on it.
  • You can't do basic things like list all of your VMs and see how much RAM/disk, etc. they are using (e.g. in a list view).
  • No rules on which VMs start on which nodes, which VMs to prioritize, etc.
The customer support is one of the best, if not the best, in IT Industry. You always have someone available in a time span of minutes to one hour. Everyone is competent, there is no first-level support that nags you with log files and the same basic questions every time. Technicians connect remotely and will never ask you anything to provide except to open a port. Problems are solved in minutes to hours. No problem solving ever needed downtime. Questions are answered in depth if asked for.
Windows Domain, Exchange, File Server, Print Server, IP Phones, Web Server, Application, Server Load Balancer .....
  • We have a huge ROI because of saving on manpower for setup, maintenance, administration, updates, extensions, support calls and also our backup strategy.
  • Saving on administration time is at least 99% compared to the market leader.
  • The Hypervisor cluster can be extended without any planning, downtime and about 30 min of setup time.
  • Very good addition to our backup strategy. We generally don't need to restore from disk/tape, but just go back in time to a snapshot or mount any snapshot from any disk from any server to any other server to check for deleted files, etc.
  • Support calls are hassle-free, fast and have no overhead of collection logs or dealing with first-level support, etc.
KVM: Scale HC3 Hypervisors builds on KVM, but extends it massively with their hassle-free setup, integration and support. Proxmox: Also builds on KVM, but needs much more manpower to keep it running. VMware ESXi: I'm a long-time ESXi expert and had to deal with all the hassles of which driver and firmware fits which update. While ESXi can do more, it can't do the hassle-free "it just works" experience of Scale HC3 Hypervisor. Also the support went from ok-ish to catastrophic in the last two years (2020-2022). I sincerely hope I have never to waste months(!) of my lifetime with researching drivers, firmware, problems, fixes and everything else ESXi makes you do to keep the system up and running. And I never ever want to deal with their support again, that basically consists of one week first-level support (send logs. send more logs) and then maybe you get a technician that has a faint idea what you are talking about.

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

SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor, Microsoft Teams, 1Password
Well suited: Companies with smaller IT teams and standard Windows/Linux VMs. If you need a solution out of the box that is just working with almost no admin overhead. If you like the idea that you can extend your hypervisor cluster with a new server, 2 cables and 4 commands. If you want to enhance your backup strategy with hourly/daily/weekly real-time snapshots that produce almost no disk or IO cost. If you don't want to care about hardware, drivers, firmware, updates etc. If you want one of the best customer support in industry. Not well suited: Companies with big IT teams with many roles or more exotic needs. If you need granular user rights. When you have very dynamic RAM or CPU needs, that benefit from Hot Add or dynamic memory allocation. When you need to virtualize more exotic OSes. When you have big hypervisor farms where hosts need to go offline for power savings, etc.

User Experience with Scale Computing

What it does, it does hassle free and much better than the competition. But it also lacks crucial technology like memory balooning or hot swap.
Generally at every support case.

Using Scale Computing Platform

4 - Head of IT, Senior System Engineer, Admins
2 - IT Admin
  • Virtualization
  • Real time Backup
  • Replication
  • Hundreds of Snapshots per VM with no drawbacks
  • Creating very detailed and customized reports using REST API
  • Mounting disks from VMS to other VMs as independet copies. Using that as fast file restore from snapshots.
  • More replication
I would give a 10, but sadly Scale only supports Acronis Cyberprotect for native backups. And Acronis Cyberprotect is the worst backup product we ever used.

Evaluating Scale Computing Platform and Competitors

Yes - ESXi / VMWare
  • Ease of Use
  • Other
Security and Price
I would not bother with VMWare ever again. Bad support, security problems and complicated update process (if you do it the correct way).

Scale Computing Platform Support

ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
No need, normal support is great already.
Yes - It was resolved, but it took a long time and basically I had to find the source myself. That was the only time when support was not excellent.

Using Scale Computing Platform

ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Familiar
None
  • VM Handling
  • Snapshot handling
  • Replication
  • VM statistics
  • Host statistics
  • Reports