Simplivity - anyone use them?

scottalanmiller

@virtualrick said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

@Minion-Queen I will see if we can get a seat at the table.

That would be awesome!

JaredBusch

@virtualrick said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

Guys,

I am an SA for SimpliVity in the Chicago area and I'm sorry to see the unhappiness around the presentation. I was unable to attend, but I would be happy to answer some of these items.

Dell was actually the first platform, we added Cisco and Lenovo.

The nodes run from the mid 20k to 150k,
We have a higher density per node than most. One node is the minimum, 2 provides full HA for both the compute and storage.

We actually started with an SMB focus and began moving up channel. Again, very unfortunate that the messaging felt off.

Feel free to email me and I'm happy to jump on a webex to deep dive the tech and clear up anything else.

Cheers,

Rick

@virtualrick
As one of the people that was at the SpiceCorp meet up, the presentation and presenters were decent. They taught us well and answered questions well. Except for the point on price.

But for me, that is a walk away issue. For people that know my posting over the years, I have harped on this point quite a bit.

If you make me sign up for spam and marketing email/calls just to get a basic, rough MSRP, then you will not get me as a customer. Ever.

I complained to @scale for this exact same thing when they sponsored a SpiceCorp meetup in St Louis a year or so ago. The rep making the presentation immediately gave me a rough number though. Now they still don't have it on the website, but at least they were open about the rough MSRP.

Nic

Thanks for jumping in @virtualrick - appreciate the pricing details and other info! Like I said, the presentation I saw in Chicago impressed me, so happy to get more info.

scottalanmiller

@JaredBusch said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

But for me, that is a walk away issue. For people that know my posting over the years, I have harped on this point quite a bit.

Many of us have, it's been a common, recurring discussion point around vendors. As SMB IT, getting price points is more important than almost anything else. As we have more options than we can reasonably consider, we need to know which are reasonably possible and how they apply and what the target audience is up front.

scale

@JaredBusch said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

I complained to @scale for this exact same thing when they sponsored a SpiceCorp meetup in St Louis a year or so ago. The rep making the presentation immediately gave me a rough number though. Now they still don't have it on the website, but at least they were open about the rough MSRP.

We have this pricing on the website, is this what you would be looking for or is something more detailed what you had in mind?

https://www.scalecomputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/hc3-sales-brochure.pdf

JaredBusch

@scale said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

@JaredBusch said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

I complained to @scale for this exact same thing when they sponsored a SpiceCorp meetup in St Louis a year or so ago. The rep making the presentation immediately gave me a rough number though. Now they still don't have it on the website, but at least they were open about the rough MSRP.

We have this pricing on the website, is this what you would be looking for or is something more detailed what you had in mind?

https://www.scalecomputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/hc3-sales-brochure.pdf

Yes that, but it is not here where you get when you click the big ass green pricing button.
0_1471448366410_upload-4c2b64c8-fecd-4e49-a51b-5a47fb8af9d6

scale

@JaredBusch fair enough, I found it through Google but would have a better idea of what to search for to bring it up. I'll make someone aware that this should be under the green button as well.

virtualrick

@JaredBusch Thanks for the feedback!

bknudtson

Hey all! Original presenter from the SpiceCorp meeting here. Sorry to see all the confusion and distaste for some of the points we missed. Glad to hear the technology at least impressed. I always try to find something to improve from each presentation, and you highlighted a great one for me.

So @virtualrick has done a great job of informing and filling in the gaps, so I'm not sure there's a whole lot for me to add at this point. I mainly wanted to pop my head in, apologize for missed info, and make the same offer to conduct any WebEx presentation, demo, or discussion anyone would like to have.

The only point I would add to those already pointed out is to @scottalanmiller's point on hardware platforms. On our site, any references you see to "OmniCube" is our Dell-based platform. So they're there, just not called out as Dell. We can also go to market with Dell like we do Cisco and Lenovo. That part is definitely missing from our website.

scottalanmiller

@bknudtson Welcome!

scottalanmiller

@bknudtson said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

The only point I would add to those already pointed out is to @scottalanmiller's point on hardware platforms. On our site, any references you see to "OmniCube" is our Dell-based platform. So they're there, just not called out as Dell. We can also go to market with Dell like we do Cisco and Lenovo. That part is definitely missing from our website.

Ah ha, I was wondering if maybe that's what @virtualrick was alluding to. That makes sense, but would definitely look more complete if at least the go to market list included them as well.

bknudtson

@scottalanmiller

@scottalanmiller said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

@bknudtson said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

The only point I would add to those already pointed out is to @scottalanmiller's point on hardware platforms. On our site, any references you see to "OmniCube" is our Dell-based platform. So they're there, just not called out as Dell. We can also go to market with Dell like we do Cisco and Lenovo. That part is definitely missing from our website.

Ah ha, I was wondering if maybe that's what @virtualrick was alluding to. That makes sense, but would definitely look more complete if at least the go to market list included them as well.

That discussion is definitely ongoing. I will definitely add this input into the discussion. Thanks!

nadnerB

Thanks for stopping by and answering the questions @virtualrick and @bknudtson

dafyre

@virtualrick said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

The nodes run from the mid 20k to 150k,

Is there a spec or price sheet listed anywhere?

You've given us a price range (which is good to know, for sure!)... But what are we getting at those buy-in levels?

As others have mentioned -- welcome to ML and thanks for ~~taking our abuse~~ answering our questions!

virtualrick

@nadnerB Absolutely, thanks for giving us another listen.

virtualrick

@dafyre Not really, honestly there are about 50 SKUs based on 4 basic concepts.

ROBO (extra small) Starts at a single 6-8 core and 96gb-256 ram with 3TB raw useable (not counting dedupe and compression)

Small 1-2 cpus of 8c to 22c ,128gb - 1.4tb ram, 7.2TB

Medium 1-2 cpus 8c -22c, 256gb-1.4tb ram, and 14TB

Large 1-2 cpus 8c-22c, 256-1.4tb ram, and 20TB low latency storage

All are sold as appliances, but we have a rather unique performance guarantee, so we like to work with our customer to come up with a design based on actual performance data, then we look to get a design that fits the workload and scales appropriately.

We guarantee our platform (really who else does that?) and you will find we have many happy healthy customers as we don't undersize to make a sale. We are exploding in the market due to our unique data virtualization platform, and our data protection capabilities. Usually a 3x ROI vs legacy.

I'm not sure that the east coast event will work out, and if it does that is outside of my region.

I consider myself to be a down to earth technician vs a sales'y kinda guy, so if it pleases the forum I would love to demo over (WEBEX) to anyone who is interested, in a LIVE environment of course, and also happy to run a performance capture and build a design for any of you. (this would be an exclusive event for Mangolassi users) with all the Q/A you want.

I quit my job it worked so well, and presented twice at VMWorld over it, really is a completely different way of storing data and most of us and our customers are quite passionate about it, but not in an angry hostile way like some others. It is a joy rather than an obsession.

At that point we would put real numbers behind it, and a guarantee, and you decide if you like it. Worst case you waste several hours of my time and get a great looking report of your current environment. at no cost.

Ok maybe I'm a little sales'

VR

bknudtson

Data Sheets that lay out model types and config ranges, can be found on our website:

More data sheets, white papers, and other documents are available here: https://www.simplivity.com/resources/

JaredBusch

@virtualrick said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

All are sold as appliances, but we have a rather unique performance guarantee, so we like to work with our customer to come up with a design based on actual performance data, then we look to get a design that fits the workload and scales appropriately.

This is the crap ass statement that turned me off at the meet up. I do not care what you like to do and how you want to play safe with some guarantee on a piece of tech that I may or may not even damn buy. I am not going to waste my time doing the discovery you want in order to decide I do not want to pay for your damned product. FFS give me a price.

@dafyre Not really, honestly there are about 50 SKUs based on 4 basic concepts.

ROBO (extra small) Starts at a single 6-8 core and 96gb-256 ram with 3TB raw useable (not counting dedupe and compression)

Small 1-2 cpus of 8c to 22c ,128gb - 1.4tb ram, 7.2TB

Medium 1-2 cpus 8c -22c, 256gb-1.4tb ram, and 14TB

Large 1-2 cpus 8c-22c, 256-1.4tb ram, and 20TB low latency storage

This right here completely counters your statement. You have standard hardware spec'd out. list the price or get out. You have SKUs, this means that you have prices for them.

Example: Cisco based Small Starts at $XX,XXX with 1x 8core, 128GB RAM, 7.2TB HDD

We do not say that we want every detail of every configuration.
We are not even saying we want to know partner pricing.
We want MSRP pre discount.
We know that partners have better pricing.

dafyre

Including the price range as part of your sales pitches at group presentations (like the Spicecorps stuff) should be a must.

Bonus points if the price tags make it onto your web site! 8-)

virtualrick

@JaredBusch OK Jared, point taken, however, other that relaying upwards that some prospective customers REALLY HATE not knowing a price range, there isn't a lot I can do to change the overall operations in the industry.

There is a reason we like to size the solution and its boils down, that if I tell you the smallest node price to avoid any sticker shock, you may take that and cut a po immediately, we still wouldn't know how many you need to meet IO, CPU, RAM, etc.

If everyone rattles off the largest node, you'll think wow that's really expensive, and its likely you don't need it. This isn't just ESXi hosts where we can size based on ram. It is a holistic building block for a datacenter. We are sizing servers, storage, backups, dr, and offsite recovery all in one exercise. So data collection is mandatory from an engineering perspective.

Frankly, I haven't seen anyone say they don't want the product after seeing whet we do and understanding the architecture. I was a customer a year and a half ago, and I get what your saying, if a vendor dodges the price we automatically assume its too expensive, and in some cases were right. you now our ballpark range, from my previous post, you be the judge.