HPE Synergy vs Lenovo Flex System comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lenovo are both solutions in the Blade Servers category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4, while Lenovo is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.7. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 21.8% mindshare in Blade Servers, compared to Lenovo’s 3.1% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

HPE Synergy

Read 89 HPE Synergy reviews

3,366 Views
2,439 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Lenovo Flex System

Read 10 Lenovo Flex System reviews

450 Views
346 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

HPE Synergy

Lenovo Flex System

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HPE Synergy and Lenovo Flex System based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Blade Servers solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

HPE Synergy

Ranking in Blade Servers

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Composable Infrastructure (1st)

Lenovo Flex System

Ranking in Blade Servers

10th

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of HPE Synergy is 21.8%, down from 22.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo Flex System is 3.1%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

CarlosArdila

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.

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Syed Ibrahim

Assistant Manager Systems - IT Infrastructure at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

Provides a high initial ceiling before upscaling is required, user-friendly and rich in resources, but has occasional stability issues

The solution should come with cloud native applications to prepare for cloud based solutions. Forced restarts due to free upgrades is an issue that needs to be resolved. We can manage this as we have high availability and redundancy, but without that it could be a real problem. The level of customer support needs to be improved. There is currently an issue with Lenovo switching out SAN switches from the chassis, which will cause problems for people who already have a set up with the SAN switch connected to the central storage. This could require an entirely different network, adding an additional cost for the user.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Support is very helpful."

"The initial setup is fine."

"Where it used to take one week to re-image or upgrade our hosts, it can now take one day."

"The manageability is its most valuable feature. It is a fully managed platform, which is very simple to manage."

"The initial setup is straightforward. The infrastructures as code enables you to fill out the configuration before you even deploy it, then it is just a one-touch deployment."

"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."

"The product enables the centralization of all administrative tasks."

"Everybody noticed very large improvement in data processing. A lot of activity which took hours now takes, let's say, tens of minutes."

More HPE Synergy pros

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"The product is very user-friendly and has many resources at the enterprise level."

"The stability and speed are always good. The processor is good and it's still working with our loads."

"Flex System's best features are its performance and stability."

"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo Flex System is the storage system."

"The functionality is reliable and requires minimal support."

"The Lenovo Flex System is very stable."

"One of the most valuable features of this solution is its ease of use."

More Lenovo Flex System pros

Cons

"We have flaky things, like a lot of bad fans."

"Its management needs some work. It is not the best in terms of management. It has decent management. Its user interface can also be better."

"The lowest echelon of HPE technical support is sadly uninformed, unknowledgeable, and dependent on wrote scripts. They won't answer a question without going through their script. It's not like you're actually talking to somebody who has any depth or time using any of the equipment."

"The power consumption is very high, and there should be a more efficient way of reducing the power requirements while maintaining high performance."

"The stability is not good right now. We have had a couple of outages where we have receive very good support from HPE. However, we have not been able to come up with cut and dried reasons for why the outages have occurred. They have not been able to be reproduced, so it has been difficult getting our trust back."

"We had an issue during the initial setup with the 40 Gigabyte cards. They weren’t working, so we had to work really closely with HPE support to get them to work."

"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."

"I would like more storage with this solution, because we still need 3PAR or other storage outside the box for the amount of data that we have."

More HPE Synergy cons

"I had some difficulties with the initial setup."

"Forced restarts due to free upgrades is an issue that needs to be resolved. We can manage this as we have high availability and redundancy, but without that it could be a real problem."

"The solution could improve by providing more integration with other platforms."

"Continuing the production of this product is necessary. It is currently out of support, and we are seeking support from other sources besides Lenovo."

"Flex System's integration with the XClarity Management System could be improved."

"The product could improve its integration capabilities."

"The user-interface needs improvement, because they have an application from which we have to manage the whole system and all the infrastructure. This application is not working at our premises, because of some problem with the hardware itself. So although we brought it with our systems, and we used it to manage all the systems: the storage, the switches, and everything, nevertheless we have to support every part alone and enter the interface in one-by-one."

"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo Flex System is the storage system."

More Lenovo Flex System cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"We pay for licensing on the fibre channel uplinks, on the Virtual Connect, which is an add-on."

"We don't have to pay for Synergy because it's part of our plan."

"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."

"For me, the scalability is how much money that I need to spend on switches for how many frames, which ultimately means servers. To get the best bandwidth before the most recent product announcement, I have buy new switches every three frames. The competition is shipping a product right now where I only need switches every ten frames."

"We pay about £500 for the solution."

"The Nutanix platform came in a little more expensive than the Synergy."

"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs by 50 percent."

More HPE Synergy pricing and cost advice

"We have the whole maintenance for the 3 years, starting the deployment. We also have the VMware license for 3 years and I think we have another license to buy. There are no additional costs besides licensing."

"We are just paying the operational cost, which is not much."

"The 14 blade server allows significant room for upscaling before having to invest in another chassis. You would have to purchase another chassis much sooner in the case of an eight or nine blade server."

"The price is interesting. I am able to quote a client based on their needs and offer them either Lenovo or Dell."

"The is an annual license cost to use the Lenovo Flex System. If the price was less expensive and flexible overall and for additional features, our customers would be happier."

"There is a one-off payment to buy the equipment and the support is purchased annually."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

25%

Computer Software Company

17%

Government

12%

Real Estate/Law Firm

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...

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What do you like most about HPE Synergy?

It is a good product for hypervisors.

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

Synergy is more expensive than Cisco.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo Flex System?

Compared to its quality, the pricing is very reasonable and represents good value.

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What needs improvement with Lenovo Flex System?

Continuing the production of this product is necessary. It is currently out of support, and we are seeking support from other sources besides Lenovo.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Lenovo Flex System?

We are using Lenovo Flex System on the server for our VMware environment, which includes our VMs and all our servers, Linux and Windows. It manages the daily operation efficiently.

See all answers

Comparisons

HPE ProLiant DL Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 24% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs HPE Synergy

Compared 24% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs HPE Synergy

Compared 22% of the time

Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs HPE Synergy

Compared 2% of the time

More HPE Synergy Competitors

HPE Superdome X vs Lenovo Flex System

Compared 55% of the time

More Lenovo Flex System Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy

December 2024

Download HPE Synergy product report

Buyer's Guide

Blade Servers

December 2024

Download Lenovo Flex System product report

Also Known As

No data available

Flex System Blade Servers, Flex System SN Series

Learn More

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Lenovo

Overview

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.

Flex System is Lenovo’s proven, 2nd generation blade, that efficiently runs your infrastructure applications with up to 80% better density than standard rack server deployments.

Sample Customers

HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System

December 2024

Free Report: HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System

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