HPE SimpliVity vs. VMware vSAN

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HPE SimpliVity
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution. HPE acquired SimpliVity for its Omnicube line of products in January 2017.N/A
VMware vSAN
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
VMware vSAN is an enterprise-class storage virtualization software that provides a simple path to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and multi cloud. VMware vSAN is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.N/A
Pricing
HPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
Considered Both Products
HPE SimpliVity
Chose HPE SimpliVity
We have decided to sign with Nutanix. We feel they are improving technology and are just a better software now.
Chose HPE SimpliVity
My organization was a relatively early adapter back in 2014. Nutanix was really the only other competitor we were aware of at the time. We felt the data management and integration features of SimpliVity were superior to Nutanix. Pricing was also very competitive from …
Chose HPE SimpliVity
In our testing, HPE SimpliVity had slightly better data redundancy than Nutanix.
Chose HPE SimpliVity

There were not many others > 4 years ago that stacked up.

Nutanix at the time just was too pricey compared to what HPE SimpliVity offered.

Chose HPE SimpliVity

SimpliVity OmniCube supported NVidia Grid cards when we did our POC where Nutanix didn't.

SimpliVity also had a better business case for us as it gave us the DR planning that we wanted as well as a way to be innovating and reduce our space usage in the server room.

SimpliVity …

VMware vSAN
Chose VMware vSAN
Upgrades and maintenance are little difficult in other solutions available. Also, VMware vSAN offers a vast range of features optimizing the CPU and memory to great extent resulting in faster performance . Performance is enhanced with VMware vSAN and support of vSAN is also …
Chose VMware vSAN
VMWare stand out compared to all the products. However, it is worthwhile mentioning the following products can be used to achive similar results. Hitachi Virtual Storage Systems Nutanix Cloud Infrastrucure. In case if we are using Nuatinux at the Hypervisor level then it …
Chose VMware vSAN
We have done the POC with both products to understand the differences, similarities and to select the best option for our purpose.
At this moment in time both products still have their own pro's and con's.
At this time decision was taken to work with both products, in the …
Chose VMware vSAN
I came from environments where we used hosts and a san. The Sans are always very expensive and to add additional resources to the san it's in large amounts. Most of the environments only had a couple of hosts so downtime or outages were always a concern. Being able to spread …
Chose VMware vSAN
Nutanix was the first hyper-converged solution, but it requires its own hardware. hyperflex looks promising, but it's also only working on cisco hardware. in both cases the costs are much higher, compared to building a custom vSAN solution on certified hardware, leveraging …
Chose VMware vSAN
Our VMware solution is built in-house for the organization's private application, we don't want to put our data on cloud premises. Also, vSAN is a cost-effective solution for our environment. We have done the POC with both products to understand the Flexibility, Management, and …
Chose VMware vSAN
Currently[,] we are testing both technologies in a time frame so we [still know] after some years which one is the best, according to our loads' needs. We had VMware before moving to vSAN, one [of] many [reasons] to move to vSAN is the opportunity to make the jump in a …
Chose VMware vSAN
Nutanix and VMware are comparable solutions but VMware ESXi is a leading hypervisor. Nutanix also support ESXi and AHV and other hypervisors. We support both Nutanix and VMware and it is customer choice to choose considering many other things like software, channels and …
Chose VMware vSAN
vSAN was handy to do our testing. It helps to provide plenty of storage performance with a simple interface. It is easy to configure and works just great. VMware software, in general, provides the best performance and reliability for the virtualization platform. It's always …
Chose VMware vSAN
We used HPE Simplivity in the past. HPE Simplivity provided a similar functionality, but it required a virtual controller VM on each host which consumed CPU, RAM, and Storage. Upgrades and maintenance on the HPE Simplivity nodes was more difficult because the controller VMs …
Chose VMware vSAN
VMware vSAN is the only hyper-convergence product we have used, but it replaced multiple dedicated Nimble storage arrays. Nimble had a vCenter plugin which made it much easier to use, but VMware vSAN is baked right into the vCenter. vSAN also really doesn't require much if …
Chose VMware vSAN
HP LeftHand P4000 (Discontinued), HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage, Pure Storage FlashArray and Dell EMC Data Domain
Chose VMware vSAN
vSAN is far more integrated than any other SDS solution running on vSphere. It is also a simpler deployment and management model.
Best Alternatives
HPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
Small Businesses
StarWind HCA
StarWind HCA
Score 9.1 out of 10
StarWind HCA
StarWind HCA
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
StarWind HCA
StarWind HCA
Score 9.1 out of 10
StarWind HCA
StarWind HCA
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Score 8.3 out of 10
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
5.5
(0 ratings)
7.5
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
HPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
Likelihood to Recommend
SimpliVity Omnicube is well suited in any environment. Especially if you are not currently using any VMware or Hyper-V products. It is a great gateway into the virtualization of your data center. For environments where VMware is currently being used, SimpliVity will be a great addition. Less cabling is required. Better performance is guaranteed. Two boxes are required as they work as a high availability pair. As the years go by you can simply just add a box or two to grow your environment. You can also get them configured with NVidia Grid cards to bring graphical performance to the VDI environment.
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vSAN is well suited for any application that can run in Virtual Environment. vSAN serves better for VDI, NSX, and vSphere on Cloud solutions. vSAN is a good fit for small and medium business companies. vSAN can't be a good solution where you have Oracle Solaris or IBM power systems. vSAN can't provide storage space using FCP protocol.
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Pros
  • HPE SimpliVity has built in incremental backups, and the restores are incredibly fast. I have seen 2TB VMs restored in 20 seconds.
  • HPE SimpliVity has also made DR/BC a possibility. We have purchased and off-site DR box at a fraction of what tradition DR would cost.
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  • VMware runs VSAN certification programs to make sure the OEM sells validated nodes. It helps customers to select appropriate certified ready nodes like Lenovo ThinkAgile VX which comes factory configured and easy to set up.
  • Hyperconverged solutions reduce real estate space and networking costs when compare with shared storage. The host overhead also less.
  • Supports All-Flash (SATA and NVMe SSDs) and Hybrid vSAN with HDD and SSD. So customers can choose cost-effective solutions appropriate to their workloads.
  • Supports different storage policies, RAID and duplication, and compression features and it makes a complete storage solution.
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Cons
  • Upgrades are better than they used to be, but still complex.
  • Make existing RapidDR product integral, versus a separate licensed component.
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  • It would be nice to have fabric-based storage acceptance to disaggregate storage and expand beyond the node concept. The assumption that increased storage needs require increased compute or ram is simply not true.
  • The licensing costs are high but you do get what you pay for.
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Usability
It sits nicely ontop of VMWare and is easy enough to use. Some improvements to the UI could be done, such as placing buttons where it is expected to have them not in unusual places, so you have to hunt for them. The backup and restore is intuitive and makes things super easy if you need to do a quick rollback. Space savings on multiple VMs and backups means we are backing up more than we need which gives us confidence in what we do. Updating the system is also fairly easy and their support has always been fantastic. They will contact us if they detect any issues, usually before we notice them!
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Deploying and configuring VSAN is a relatively simple process for people that are already used to working in virtual environments, primarily for those that are familiar with vSphere. The compatibility of those two products is amazing. You shouldn't really encounter any issues and if you do, you surely did something wrong.
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Support Rating
Support is very good. With proactive support, you are supported by an engineer in North America who answers the phone and immediately begins assisting with your issue. The folks I have dealt with in the last several years have been very skilled and it is rare to have a ticket open for more than a day or two. Issues affecting production are dealt with appropriately and are escalated within the support organization.
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Support is (as always forVMware) top notch and easy to work with. The majority of computer companies are outsourcing their tech staff, and it seems they do as well. But their guys know the product well and are quick to respond to your ticket (if the severity is right!).
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Alternatives Considered
There were not many others > 4 years ago that stacked up. Nutanix at the time just was too pricey compared to what HPE SimpliVity offered.
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VMWare stand out compared to all the products. However, it is worthwhile mentioning the following products can be used to achive similar results. Hitachi Virtual Storage Systems Nutanix Cloud Infrastrucure. In case if we are using Nuatinux at the Hypervisor level then it would be recommended to use their very own product for storage virtulization even though the vendors say that all their products are cross platform supportable. However, during tests we have found high performance when using same products accross virtualization.
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Return on Investment
  • We have been able to go from spending 53L per annum on backups to 23K with the HPE SimpliVity Solution
  • When not needing Servers, Storage, and networking and combining it all into the one we have saved a considerable amount of space and money.
  • The DR and backup confidence we have has meant we have been able to reduce risk and meet our cyber objectives and RPO / RTO times.
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  • The ROI for VMware vSAN seems very positive. We have yet to need to upgrade since we put it in a few years ago, but without the heavy cost of dedicated storage, we have already seen reduced hardware maintenance costs and reduced management time spent.
  • With the cost of dedicated storage and its separate maintenance costs, all this is rolled back into the hosts. The hosts cost more with drives in them, but not near as much as the separate dedicated storage did.
  • Before VMware vSAN, you had hosts and storage devices aging out, running out of capacity, or underperforming. With vSAN you only have to worry about the hosts.
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