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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
5.5
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Rack Servers (8th), Density Optimized Servers (2nd)
HPE Synergy
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Blade Servers (3rd), 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 18.6%, down 23.3% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 11.9% mindshare, down 21.9% since last year.
Density Optimized Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Apollo Systems18.6%
Dell PowerEdge C- Series23.7%
Huawei FusionServer X Series16.6%
Other41.1%
Density Optimized Servers
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Synergy11.9%
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series11.3%
HPE BladeSystem9.8%
Other67.0%
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.
CarlosArdila - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager, Information Technology at Telelago
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

"With HPE Apollo, we can propose configurations with many hard drives, making it suitable for large storage needs."
"Apollo Systems provide stuff that standard services do not. More HTDs, more compute power, at very reasonable pricing."
"It's going to meet our needs moving forward, it is scalable."
"The solution is well documented in a data sheet."
"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."
"We usually use three blades for two-rack units, and with enough storage, it's really a small system with a powerful CPU, powerful hard drives, powerful disks."
"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."
"When we moved to the Apollo and all flash drives, we gained a lot of performance."
"The i3S module can be configured to provision storage to all blade servers and boot to any operating system without needing local hard drives."
"The solution is built very well. It's very robust and durable."
"We have more control over the firmware and how we are managing our physical servers."
"It's very scalable. We like the idea that we can put four chassis in one of our racks, and we can connect up to 25 chassis, so the scalability to us, and being able to sync all those into one management portal, is unheard of. You can't really sync that many blades and chassis together in any other platform."
"All components in the HPE Synergy solution are redundant; if we experience any downtime in a component, a redundant one is available in our Synergy frame, therefore the downtime and stability for HPE Synergy solution are very good and highly appreciated."
"Give us the ability to seamlessly migrate from one operating environment to another within minutes, which is invaluable."
"The centralized management of HPE Synergy is beneficial because it is easy to manage and administer."
"It is a simple software to integrate with others."
 

Cons

"The support from HPE Apollo could be better, they are making knowledgeable."
"What's coming out in Gen 10 is very strong in terms of additional security."
"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."
"If there could be some training for our team, we would be better equipped to promote and support HPE Apollo."
"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."
"HPE Apollo's after-sales support and technical support should be improved."
"The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience."
"We had some challenges during the implementation and a few issues afterward, but they were all sort of related to how Synergy interacts with Nexus. Our Nexus on the network side is managed by another group, and they had just gotten Nexus, so they weren't really familiar with how Nexus even worked. Getting these two to interact well was the majority of our issues. It really didn't have anything to do with Synergy. It points to know the environment that you are putting it in and making sure you are dotting all your i's and crossing all your t's when you are figuring out what their requirements are to communicate."
"Technical support was time consuming and unsatisfactory. The initial product setup was complex, lasing around three weeks to a month."
"We haven't seen any ROI, and it hasn't reduced our cost of operations."
"The technical support was about the only negative experience that I had. It was a mixed bag when we were first standing it up. We had some requirements from our information security department, and technical support wasn't able to give me immediate answers. They had to engage engineering, which they did, then they got me the answers. However, it took a week of back and forth conversations and phone calls to get it all worked out."
"A faster Composer module would be a good inclusion for the next release of this solution."
"One of the issues that we that we have been having is with the firmware baselining. So, we need to just making sure that we get that working. However, we are in the early stages. It may well be that we just tweak a few things."
"The setup was a bit complex."
"The installation and initial setup process is complex and needs to be improved."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"The platform that we run Synergy on is all virtualized. Our primary cost is likely VMware."
"We do CAPEX."
"There was at least about a 20 percent savings in cost over our purchase based on the purchase price of the compute modules themselves versus what we've had to pay before. It was significantly less."
"Synergy has lowered our total cost of ownership significantly. I would say ballpark around 25 percent, maybe more."
"The price point is a little high. We were able to get a good deal on a promotion, to go with it. It would be nice to see the prices come down a little bit."
"VMware is part of the cost. We bought the chassis, we bought the solution. The blades are roughly running us $60,000 a pop right now."
"We don't have to pay for Synergy because it's part of our plan."
"The biggest cost is the VMware licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HPE Apollo?
Some features could be added to HPE Apollo Systems in the future, and I feel that some capability is needed. HPE Apollo Systems is a bit expensive, and there are some issues with scalability. Two f...
What is your primary use case for HPE Apollo?
I have been distributing this product for three years. I don't have specific use cases, and everything about the major use case for HPE Apollo Systems is good. I don't know the purpose clients are ...
What advice do you have for others considering HPE Apollo?
I am not using these products today, and I do not work with some specific firewalls. My company is TD Synnex, a distributor company, and I work for this company. My email is , and my first name is ...
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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