HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy comparison

HPE BladeSystem and HPE Synergy are both solutions in the Blade Servers category. HPE BladeSystem is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.9, while HPE Synergy is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4. HPE BladeSystem holds a 13.3% mindshare in Blade Servers, compared to HPE Synergy’s 21.3% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of HPE BladeSystem users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of HPE Synergy users who would recommend it.

HPE BladeSystem

Read 137 HPE BladeSystem reviews

2,821 Views
2,000 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

HPE Synergy

Read 88 HPE Synergy reviews

3,569 Views
2,572 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

HPE BladeSystem

HPE Synergy

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

HPE BladeSystem and HPE Synergy are competitive solutions within modern IT environments. HPE Synergy holds the advantage due to its innovative features, positioning it as a noteworthy investment.

Features: HPE BladeSystem offers reliable infrastructure components, scalability, and caters to traditional data center needs, providing a dependable solution for established environments. HPE Synergy features composability and flexibility, facilitating seamless integration and a future-ready architecture, making it ideal for dynamic workloads.

Room for Improvement: HPE BladeSystem could benefit from more intuitive management tools, better integration options, and enhanced customization capabilities. HPE Synergy users note complexities in configuration management, the need for streamlined operations, and improvements in user interface to simplify its versatile configurations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE BladeSystem offers straightforward deployment, making it practical for existing infrastructures. HPE Synergy, while beneficial with customer service support, presents a modular approach that may require users to overcome an initial learning curve.

Pricing and ROI: HPE BladeSystem provides a cost-effective upfront setup that appeals to budget-conscious buyers. HPE Synergy, despite higher initial costs, is considered to deliver better long-term ROI through efficiency and adaptability, supporting sustained business growth.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE BladeSystem vs. HPE Synergy Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

HPE BladeSystem vs. HPE Synergy

October 2024

Download the complete report

Helped 816,406 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

HPE BladeSystem

Ranking in Blade Servers

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

137

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

HPE Synergy

Ranking in Blade Servers

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Composable Infrastructure (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of HPE BladeSystem is 13.3%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Synergy is 21.3%, down from 22.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

JuanDuque

Manager of Capacity and Control Management at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Very reliable, expands well, and is pretty simple to set up

It is very straightforward to set up. It's not complex. The length of deployment depends on the way that you configure the Blades. For example, if you're going to work with VMware, the time could be at least 25 to 30 minutes. It is not going to depend on the BladeSystem; it is going to depend on the time of the operate system deployed. The number of people you need for maintenance depends on the monitoring system that you have. For example, if you have a good monitoring system for this platform you're going to need less than ten specialists, but if you don't have a monitoring system to check the platform, probably you're going to need more than ten people.

Read full review

Petr Student

Senior Technical Architect at Tietoevry

The composable infrastructure allows you to build and stack shared capacity

The hardware is fine but OneView needs additional event management and filtering options. Documentation could better describe the solution's configuration possibilities. Sometimes there are firmware or software difficulties when connecting between networks or with storage. The solution is a hardware that is defined by its software so management issues can occur on servers or within the software running the hardware. For example, an electric car depends on its software. If the software is bad, then you can expect issues and problems that might not allow you to start the car. A technician might have uploaded the wrong code into firmware or a software developer might have make code mistakes and these things cause issues. The solution can only be as reliable as the software used to run it.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution uses a smaller space in our data centers. It uses less feeder and network cable, which reduces costs."

"The benefit is the density and the capability for global harmonization on the hardware, because all the hardware chassis are the same. We can also purchase the same network cards too, chassis by chassis, so it gives us a global solution."

"The product has been simple to set up."

"It also has a pretty solid design and management."

"When it comes to the BladeSystem, what we love about it most is being able to actually manage it using OneView."

"It's very scalable."

"The virtual connect and network management port is a valuable feature."

"The density of the BladeSystem, that we can keep adding blades as we need more VMs."

More HPE BladeSystem pros

"Synergy is much easier to use, which is saving us time. We are able to set the profiles for firmware upgrades. This makes the process for the care and feeding of the IT environment much simpler, quicker, and cleaner."

"Orchestrating automations is great because you can connect to other tools with the REST API and automate components."

"OneView, as a single point, a single management tool, it makes me delirious. It's really nice."

"OneView is head and shoulders above the competition in this space."

"It is first in class for composable infrastructure. It has the scalability that meets our future needs and the automation that builds into something that we are really looking forward to using."

"I like that it's suitable for virtualization. It's also stable and scalable. The newer version has a lot of memory, and you don't have to worry about updates."

"The solution help us to implement new business requirements quickly, since it is easy and quick to upgrade our capacity."

"Great data storage and very good for software defined solutions."

More HPE Synergy pros

Cons

"We would like to see OneView software features as an additional feature."

"The support you get is dependant on the region. Some regions are better than others."

"BladeSystem is an old-fashioned server and not very well developed for new features and new areas of data centers, which is not very good for enterprise companies."

"It could always use new tools."

"It will be discontinued so we will have to change to another product shortly."

"In terms of improvements, I'd suggest enhancing the stability of the HPE BladeSystem, especially regarding network connectivity. We once had an issue where a system didn’t communicate with the network, and it took a while to diagnose the problem. Eventually, we discovered it was a motherboard issue, but we initially thought it was the network card. Improving the onboard administratordashboard to provide more granular insights, like clearly identifying faultycomponents, would make troubleshooting much more efficient. Aside from that, the system is superb and has been reliable."

"The only side that must be improved is the active-passive interconnect module architecture."

"We had a few hard drives that crashed, and we couldn't find them locally. We've tried internationally, but we are still struggling to get its spare parts. This is the main challenge that we have faced with this solution. Fortunately, the other drives are still working. There should be easy availability of spare parts. I should be able to request a quotation online from HPE for things that I am not able to get locally. Currently, I can order online, but when I type the serial number, most of the time, it is rejected. I don't know why it is happening. It could be because the company that sold us the system didn't buy it through the normal HPE channel. HPE should assist us as users to get the spare parts. Its security needs to be beefed up. I would like some security features. It was also challenging for us to set it up because we didn't get enough training from them."

More HPE BladeSystem cons

"Technical support for this solution has a very good initial response; however, escalation takes time, and most of the time the first level of support cannot solve your case."

"The solution must concentrate on improving the product quality."

"The post-sales activity needs improvement. There is some sort of convoluted spreadsheet that you have to fill in prior to the platform being delivered. It seems a little bit out-of-date and inefficient. Surely, there is some sort of web page configuration tool online that a customer could use. Then, it could be validated by somebody else, like a partner or HPE technical resource, then that would be a lot more efficient."

"You can always improve some things."

"The setup was a bit complex."

"The only good thing is that they have some powerful machines that you can use, such as the latest generations of HPE Compute that you can use."

"Having a seamless DR implementation would help significantly."

"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."

More HPE Synergy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is competitive."

"Their licensing program is pretty simple."

"The price of HPE BladeSystem could improve. They need to reduce the price to be able to compete better with other vendors, such as Dell."

"The chassis itself, with no blade server inside, so expensive. The C7000 model costs around $100,000."

"The HPE BladeSystem is an expensive solution."

"It is not expensive, really, in this class of server products."

"Regarding the cost, HPE BladeSystem is not cheap. The solution and its support are costly, and there are challenges with renewal and pricing, especially in Nigeria, due to the dollar rate and FX issues. However, it is reliable. I don't have specific figures for licensing costs, as the procurement and finance departments handle them."

"We have an annual license."

More HPE BladeSystem pricing and cost advice

"We do CAPEX."

"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs because we have had to buy less services than we used to."

"We are satisfied with its price."

"When we made the purchase of the hardware, we added Professional Services to it."

"The hardware licensing cost is reasonable."

"In our whole environment, the cost is in the millions. On this particular chassis, the annual cost is 12 blades times approximately $40,000."

"There is a perpetual license given when you purchase HPE Synergy."

"We do a biannual renewal. I know how much that renewal is, but I don't know how much it breaks down to be just Synergy, since we have our VMware, all of our physical equipment, etc. all rolled up into one renewal, which is a little over $300,000 every two years. However, only a subset of that is the Synergy product."

More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Blade Servers solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE BladeSystem?

The solution is scalable, offering flexibility and expansion options to meet changing business needs.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE BladeSystem?

When HPE was competing with Cisco BladeSystem, it was competitive. However, recent years have seen Cisco winning more deals due to aggressive pricing.

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE Synergy?

It is a good product for hypervisors.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?

Synergy is more expensive than Cisco.

See all answers

What needs improvement with HPE Synergy?

The pricing could be improved.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerEdge M vs HPE BladeSystem

Compared 16% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE BladeSystem

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Superdome X vs HPE BladeSystem

Compared 6% of the time

Super Micro SuperBlade vs HPE BladeSystem

Compared 4% of the time

More HPE BladeSystem Competitors

Dell PowerEdge M vs HPE Synergy

Compared 22% of the time

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 22% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 9% of the time

HPE Apollo Systems vs HPE Synergy

Compared 6% of the time

HPE Superdome X vs HPE Synergy

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Synergy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HPE BladeSystem

November 2024

Download HPE BladeSystem product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy

November 2024

Download HPE Synergy product report

Also Known As

HP ProLiant BL Series Servers, HP ProLiant BladeSystem, HP BladeSystem

No data available

Learn More

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Overview

HP ProLiant BladeSystem share power, cooling, network, and storage infrastructure via the blade enclosure. Since equipment is not needed for each server, you get a dramatic reduction in power distribution units, power cables, LAN and SAN switches, connectors, adapters, and cables. And you can add the newest-generation technologies by simply changing individual components.

HPE Synergy, the first platform built from the ground up for Composable Infrastructure, offers an experience that empowers IT to create and deliver new value instantly and continuously. It is a single infrastructure that reduces operational complexity for traditional workloads and increases operational velocity for the new breed of applications and services. Through a single interface, HPE Synergy composes physical and virtual compute, storage, and fabric pools into any configuration for any application. As an extensible platform, it easily enables a broad range of applications and operational models such as virtualization, hybrid cloud, and DevOps. With HPE Synergy, IT can become not just the internal service provider but the business partner to rapidly launch new applications that become the business.

Sample Customers

EMIS Health

HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United

Buyer's Guide

HPE BladeSystem vs. HPE Synergy

October 2024

Free Report: HPE BladeSystem vs. HPE Synergy

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE BladeSystem vs. HPE Synergy and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.

DOWNLOAD NOW

816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our HPE BladeSystem vs. HPE Synergy report.

See our list of best Blade Servers vendors.

We monitor all Blade Servers reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.