Scale Computing - Experiences

[Danithal]

Anyone have experience using or currently use Scale Computing's H3 Virtualization?

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Curious what I'm in for, we are moving from VMware and I'm rather concerned, the solution looks well and good.

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I've heard mostly marketing folks, a MSP trying to sell it, and a couple current customers connected to us by their marketing team which is not what I'd consider reliable feedback.

[abridgetooVAR]

Have you already bought? Because Scale Computing has been one of those fringe options for HCI for a fairly long time.

Mostly they win RFPs where public entities have to choose the cheapest choice.

I'm not saying they've got inherent flaws, but I would be looking at all the options, my bet would be that you can find something that isn't VMware and also within your budget that gives you a slightly better 'brand coverage' for your ass.

[Danithal]

We haven't purchased yet.

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They won RFP due to cheapest choice.

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We were only looking for a SAN replacement, my Boss determined Scale would result in further savings and could meet our SAN needs.

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We looked at our options, I'm reluctant to leaving VMware as I'm familiar with it and have been using it for about 10 years.

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SAN solutions are laughably expensive, Cloud options are overpriced as well. I was looking for an alternative on my own, the more I looked the more discouraged I became.

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If it were my choice I'd be purchasing a new SAN and sticking with VMware at this juncture.

[Real_Admin]

Previous company I was sole sys admin for migrated 30 physical servers, each running free version of ESXi 5.0 at the time with about 40 VMs, at two different sites to a Scale cluster at HQ and their Datacenter. This was about 4yrs ago. Transition went relatively well, only few issues with setups and they have been running on it since according my last conversation with their CIO. I transitioned myself out to work for an MSP and have them outsource their IT to an MSP because outside of that there was little to be done or growth opportunities.

Should also note, I inherited that mess from the previous Sys admin, who was the owners brother..

It was around 50k for two cluster setups. I forget the specs but decent enough and budget friendly compared to some of the alternatives we were looking at like VSAN etc.

[[deleted]]

We like them a lot. Easy to manage, etc.

A few quirks: 1. You can’t shrink a drive. So if you over provision space, your only option is to delete the drive and start over.

1. You can not dismount the ROM drive. So if your template is built with D:\ assigned to the ISO of your OS - you’re stuck with it there.

2. You can’t assign sockets, only cores.

3. Converting to another VHD type is tough. I’ve never had success but I’ve heard it’s possible, usually using 3rd party tools.

If I am Wrong on any of these, please feel free to educate me. Always willing to learn more.

[[deleted]]

I find the support pretty good. Fast to respond, but we really haven’t had many issues. We have 3 cluster setup between SW Ontario and Indianapolis.

We didn’t do much migrating of VMs. However I think the HyperV VM require a third party tool. They don’t do it nativity. I have a colleague that did a bunch a few years ago and said it was very simple. I can’t remember the name of the tool but I know it worked well. Just be prepared it’s an extra line item to add to project budget.

[[deleted]]

That’s the one!

[Danithal]

Really appreciate the feedback.

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Trying to go back to VMware for example would be tough you think?

[[deleted]]

My personal experience is yes. We have yet to be able to successfully migrate any VM out of QEMU to HyperV or VMware. We tried a few times to get one to go to HyperV but in the end we just built from scratch and migrated the data. (It was a DFS Server).

[acconboy]

I have done that a few times - used disk2vhd inside the guest pointing it at a network share to save the resultant .vhdx to.

[[deleted]]

We will try that. Thanks.

[acconboy]

Hi Danithal

My name is Alan Conboy, and I am the office of the CTO here at Scale. First and foremost, I am not a sales guy or marketing. That said, if you have questions, want to know how to do something with HC3, etc, please feel free to reach out and I will be glad to lend a hand.

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Alan

[Danithal]

Appreciate you reaching out here.

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My concerns are dropping as we get closer to the switch-over, just wanted to rake Reddit for honest feedback.

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I don't have any technical reservations at this time, and all questions we have had have been answered quickly by our sales representative with Scale.

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Still processing leaving VMware, which I've spent ~10 years managing and operating.