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HPE Apollo Systems vs HPE Synergy comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

HPE Apollo Systems
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Rack Servers (9th), Density Optimized Servers (2nd)
HPE Synergy
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Blade Servers (4th), 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 21.0%, up 20.9% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 9.0% mindshare, down 20.6% since last year.
Density Optimized Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Apollo Systems21.0%
Dell PowerEdge C- Series20.3%
HPE Moonshot17.1%
Other41.6%
Density Optimized Servers
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Synergy9.0%
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series8.9%
HPE BladeSystem8.2%
Other73.9%
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Gökhan  DURMAZ - PeerSpot reviewer
Account Manager at TD SYNNEX
High-quality integration and strong support have optimized our rack server operations
HPE Apollo Systems is a good product because it has better support and best quality with integrity. When I speak about integrity, I speak about GPU integration or other integrations such as GPU integration, backup software integration, and hypervisor integration. Regarding the integration of high-speed interconnectors in HPE Apollo Systems, they impact computational tasks because the high-speed interconnect affects performance. I don't remember the specifics. Regarding the cooling technologies, they help to reduce operational costs. The positive impact I see from HPE Apollo Systems is that support is good and quality is good. In general, HPE Apollo Systems appears to be for rack servers with some optimization capabilities.
MS
Works at Saudi Telecom Company
Manage servers efficiently with an integrated view while reducing downtime
My use case is to serve the complete IT environment of the telecom, including all cloud applications. I use HPE Synergy servers for my private cloud and for network management systems. 70% of my workload is running on HPE servers The integrated view, such as managing complete servers and…

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."
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance on that."
"Absolutely being able to mount into Omni-Path architecture, HFIs on those nodes, because we were the very first site in the world"
"It's pretty flexible."
"Stability has been extremely good."
"We had a PoC, as I said, and we were happy with it and decided to implement it, as it satisfies all our needs and is the perfect solution."
"It's very reliable, I haven't had a single failure at all in the year and a half; not the slightest problem with it, and it's been a pretty good product so far."
"We previously used the DL380s; compared to those, Apollo has roughly four times the amount of space per server, which means we can really do a lot."
"It helps us manage our IT landscape because it is easy, standard, and very consolidated."
"It makes life easier for us when we are deploying new technology, as we have the building blocks already in place."
"Synergy has great data storage and it's a storage module."
"The most valuable features about Synergy is the composability of it."
"On the previous HPE platform, we struggled because everything was independent. We had to manage firmware on each server, storage and network configuration on each server. Synergy is template-driven so we can ensure consistency of all of those settings. It allows us to standardize configuration and ensure consistency across the board."
"There is no comparison between installing a server by hand versus having everything automated in place, which makes a big difference by averting human errors, making life easier, and making operations much easier."
"They are responsive, and we don't have any problem at all when talking with them."
"Support is very helpful."
 

Cons

"We are quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better."
"The support from HPE Apollo could be better, they are making knowledgeable."
"Big stability issues with the CPU on the first generation which made them virtually unusable."
"The solution could improve the hardware, such as the motherboard or servers. We have had hardware faults in the past."
"The predictive analysis feature could be improved."
"Our first batch of Apollo servers that we got were so new that it was just hard to know kind of what to expect from HPE and what they wanted to deliver to us."
"We are struggling a little bit with some of the configuration we need to do, particularly with write capability to drives."
"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 installation and initial setup process is complex and needs to be improved."
"We have flaky things, like a lot of bad fans."
"The profiles aren't so easy to work with."
"The possibility of using storage directly in the frame in order to have bigger storage directly there, and not having an attached storage like SAN or NAS. That would be helpful."
"The initial setup was complex. It was slow and just didn't work. Even HPE couldn't make it work for 45 days."
"The initial setup was complex. We had a couple of bright engineers working on it, and they figured out a lot of things that they don't know... The problem was that they couldn't find documentation easily, to walk them through setup when they just didn't know the platform."
"ICMs could be better in this model. When you look at its competitors, the most critical point is the throughput. HPE is the best with the ICM module, which is an interconnect module that connects the servers of the frames to the LAN and SAN. HPE Synergy should also support the latest processors provided by Intel."
"The technical support was about the only negative experience that I had. It was a mixed bag when we were first standing it up."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo."
"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 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."
"Compared to other products, HPE Apollo is not an expensive solution."
"Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself."
"It costs us around $60,000 a year."
"The licensing is more around the software for RGS, because we are deploying bare metal installs. It is mainly the operating system and any lights-out management. So, licensing is minimum. We are licensing it annually."
"The cost is high and that is a drawback for some customers."
"Synergy has lowered our total cost of ownership significantly. I would say ballpark around 25 percent, maybe more."
"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs by 50 percent."
"We outright purchased Synergy."
"We are satisfied with its price."
"The Nutanix platform came in a little more expensive than the Synergy."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HPE Apollo?
It is too early to say what improvements HPE Apollo Systems could implement because the report still needs to come out and the customer needs to properly evaluate the solution.
What is your primary use case for HPE Apollo?
My main use case for HPE Apollo Systems is replacing many of the servers and storage boxes at one of the customer's sites to achieve workload optimization and optimized solutions. Additionally, whe...
What advice do you have for others considering HPE Apollo?
My advice for someone considering HPE Apollo Systems is that if they are looking for consolidation and their workload involves high availability requirements, or if they want to utilize GPUs, then ...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?
As far as the prices are concerned, rack mount solutions are less expensive than HPE Synergy prices; however, HPE Synergy prices are higher but justify themselves as the solution accommodates all t...
What needs improvement with HPE Synergy?
In my opinion, for future improvements in HPE Synergy, there should be better management of power consumption complexity as well as an increase in the number of servers that can fit in a single Syn...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Weta Digital
HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
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