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HPE Apollo Systems vs HPE Synergy comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

HPE Apollo Systems
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Rack Servers (8th), Density Optimized Servers (2nd)
HPE Synergy
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Blade Servers (1st), Composable Infrastructure (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are IT Hardware and Infrastructure solutions, they serve different purposes. HPE Apollo Systems is designed for Density Optimized Servers and holds a mindshare of 28.5%, down 29.9% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 21.0% mindshare, down 23.5% since last year.
Density Optimized Servers
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Aruna Udawatte - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 2, 2023
An affordable and easy-to-implement solution, but its after-sales support and technical support should be improved
We use HPE Apollo for specific requirements of Linux servers HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products. HPE Apollo's after-sales support and technical support should be improved. The solution should provide fast delivery when it comes to replacing a…
CarlosArdila - PeerSpot reviewer
May 14, 2024
Helps grow horizontally or vertically within one box or chassis
The initial setup is very easy. We deployed this in two days, including installation, system setup, firmware upgrades, configuration, and network connection. By the next day, we were already deploying virtual machines. We initially began with the Blade system. As the migration to SAP HANA approached, it seemed prudent to upgrade our hardware. Consequently, we facilitated their transition from the Blade system to Synergy. Subsequently, we collaborated closely with the SAP consultancy company to oversee the migration process, ensuring seamless integration of all workloads and sub-environments. We have four people working on the deployment, including a project manager, two specialists, and one tech support.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The cost benefit of this solution is most valuable. It is quite effective for the work for which we are using it. We are mainly running video servers on these, and we are quite happy with the resilience, density storage, and streaming capacity of the system."
"we can use the same platform for several use cases: Hadoop, Ceph, and we are considering the server for another use case right now. It's a single solution, we only have to integrate it once and we can use it for several technologies."
"HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products."
"With HPE Apollo, we can propose configurations with many hard drives, making it suitable for large storage needs."
"The solution is well documented in a data sheet."
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance."
"HPE Apollo's support is the most valuable feature."
"Absolutely being able to mount into Omni-Path architecture, HFIs on those nodes, because we were the very first site in the world"
"We build out a whole stack at one time, so we don't have to worry about it until that stack is full, then that gives us time to get the next one ready."
"OneView is head and shoulders above the competition in this space."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the ease of management and the integration with OneView."
"I love the satellite architecture for the Virtual Connect. I think this is great. I love the storage drawer, which you can present volumes to any compute node within the same frame."
"We have been able to give the deployment team what they request more quickly. We are able to quickly deploy what is being asked of us. If the development team needs a platform of 20 servers to run a particular platform, we can give that to them within a day or two."
"The composable infrastructure allows us to build our own server profiles, then build up the infrastructure that we need from compute modules."
"Everything is in one place. We have one place to with OneView. It provides one console with one place to get to everything. The one interface makes it easier. We have one guy who does almost everything in it."
"The solution helps us to implement new business requirements quickly, by using the Composer for efficiency. It has also improved the productivity of our development team due to the efficiency of being able to deploy via Composer."
 

Cons

"I would want to see the flexibility of being able to run various network protocols including InfiniBand, Fibre Channel, as well as iSCSI, with iSCSI going up to 100 gigabytes per second -that would be outstanding."
"We have tried to used standardization using Ubuntu Linux and it's been hard. They had some difficulties getting the RAID configuration up and running because there are no drivers for it. It's not supported by HPE."
"The solution's deployment, security, and scalability need improvement."
"The support from HPE Apollo could be better, they are making knowledgeable."
"We would like to see SimpliVity on top of the Apollo."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."
"One drawback which I had: When I needed to expand storage on the Apollo, I had significant problems getting disks for it. It was a very long wait-time. So, if I were to give any advice in regards to improving this product, I would say make more of the 8TB disks available quicker."
"The setup was a bit complex."
"It has affected the productivity of our development team in a bad way. When we first stood the hardware up 18 months ago, the image streaming capacity and capability were not very good at all. We had hoped that it would allow us to be more composable and be able to switch over from one version of an operating system to another version of an operating system. However, it wasn't ready for prime time yet. Therefore, we had to go back to a deployment of bare metal install. We are still waiting and trying to figure out how we can do the composable infrastructure."
"We'd like to see faster networking in the back-end."
"The cost is quite high."
"The only issue that we had was our rack was too small. The product is heavy, so it took a lot to get it in there."
"It would be nice if the updates were not accompanied by downtime."
"I would be more comfortable if Ansible actually rolled back the data used for automating platforms. If it could be communicated to the upstream Ansible, I wouldn't need to go back and forth and validate the libraries as we upgrade the Ansible version."
"The main challenge we faced was that when it was installed it just did not work. There were faulty components and it took weeks of troubleshooting to find the faulty components, get them replaced. Getting help from HPE was difficult. Nobody knew about the product. It was a brand-new product and people had not been trained on it. That part was not a great experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is more expensive than Dell which is their main competitor. However, there are times we have managed to receive a comparable price."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
"It is an expensive solution but it is worth the money. The standard licensing cost is for the GPU and the features that someone is using. There are additional charges but they depend on the solution."
"The solution can be expensive because it requires both hardware and software purchases."
"We pay about £500 for the solution."
"For temporal use, when you throw on the fact that you're essentially doubling your capacity, right there you could claim a 50 percent TCO reduction."
"We are satisfied with its price."
"The cost is high and that is a drawback for some customers."
"When we made the purchase of the hardware, we added Professional Services to it."
"In our whole environment, the cost is in the millions. On this particular chassis, the annual cost is 12 blades times approximately $40,000."
"We outright purchased Synergy."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HPE Apollo?
HPE Apollo's pricing is low, and implementation is very easy compared to other products.
What needs improvement with HPE Apollo?
HPE Apollo's after-sales support and technical support should be improved. The solution should provide fast delivery when it comes to replacing a particular product that is under warranty.
What is your primary use case for HPE Apollo?
We use HPE Apollo for specific requirements of Linux servers.
How would you choose between HPE's Bladesystem and Synergy?
For me, choosing between HPE’s Bladesystem and Synergy came down to which solution was more powerful, reliable, and stable. It turns out Bladesystem was the winner. Bladesystem is excellent because...
What do you like most about HPE Synergy?
It is a good product for hypervisors.
 

Also Known As

HP Apollo Systems, HP ProLiant SL, HP Apollo
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Weta Digital
HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and others in Density Optimized Servers. Updated: August 2024.
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