HPE Apollo Systems Reviews

We have been working with the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center for around ten years. They are picking the hardware and they had picked this hybrid system. It has several different kinds of components in the system and we had worked with them for a long time. We knew that they were picking the stake of that stuff so that's why we selected this solution.

It's very hard for a professor to amass the supercomputing resources, so I've been very fortunate to have that level of supercomputing at our disposal and that has really enabled us to do the world's leading superhuman AI research. That is what we did, we actually beat the best heads up in all Texas, holding human players in the world this January. So, we're at a superhuman level in the strategic reasoning.

One thing that we are looking for is the better stability of the Lustre file system, it could be improved. I have heard that they are coming out with a better memory bandwidth, so that's good or maybe, it's already there in System 10.

In that case, of course, then there is need for more CPUs, more storage and all of that.

It has been fairly reliable. In the beginning, of course not, but then we were a “baiter customer”, so in the beginning, there was nothing, literally there was nothing in the racks. We've been with it from the beginning and of course, in the beginning, it was less stable. However, it became more stable over time.

If there's anything that hasn't been that stable, then it is the Lustre file system. I would say that they have made some improvements with that but this is not just a problem with bridges. We have computed the other supercomputing centers like San Diego Supercomputing Center in the past as well and Lustre seems to be just a little bit unstable overall.

It's going to meet our needs moving forward, it is scalable. Having said that, our algorithms are very compute-hungry and storage-hungry, so more is more and there's no limit as to how much our algorithms can use. The more compute and the more storage they have, the better they will perform.

I would support the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) support; they gave us the support and their support has been awesome. We don't directly contact HPE, they contact HPE if needed.

The PSC installed everything, i.e., both hardware and software. So we didn't do any of that; from our perspective, it has been easy to use.

Whilst looking for a vendor, we do not look at the brand name at all. Instead what we look for are just reliability and raw horsepower.

It has been great. The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center guys have been great in supporting us very quickly and sometimes even at night or on weekends. I've been very fortunate as a professor to get this level of supercomputing, so we've been able to do the world's leading research in this area. The only things that I would improve are the ones that I have mentioned before, i.e., the Lustre file system, and maybe, the memory access from the CPU.

We're using the Apollo 4200 as a data capture system. The most important things for us are the amount of storage on there, the ability to configure it, and change the configuration so we could do the network captures we need at very high data rates. It meets our network requirement of being able to capture up to 40-gig with a small form factor.

We are moving from existing 10-gig environments to a 40-gig environment. The ability to capture those high data rates is really important to us. We need to know what's going on in the network. We need to be able to explain to our customers any issues or problems, and where they might have occurred.

We're looking for faster capability to write to drives. We're fully loaded with all the small form factor drives loaded into the system. It is practically at the limit of the capability supported by the architecture. So we need new solutions, new types of drive capabilities, and faster bus speeds.

It is good in terms of stability. We are struggling a little bit with some of the configuration we need to do, particularly with write capability to drives. That's the only part where we struggle with getting the solution going; but we've had significant conversations with HPE, and worked through a load of issues. We are actually getting the solution that gets to our capabilities.

We tend to only use a single rack-mount server for what we're trying to do. The ability to keep it small, reduce the footprint and reduce costs are the most important things that the Apollo 4200 gives us.

Technical support has been very good. We've been given access to senior HP personnel in America. They've given us lots of guidance and help in actually configuring the system.

We were previously using the older DL 380's with MSA drives. We knew their limitations using the fiber channel in terms of the transfer rates we could get out of it, for example, but we needed something that would work with the move to a 40-gig network environment.

The initial setup was fairly straightforward. What we're trying to do with the solution added to the complexity; so we needed some guidance, mainly on how to configure the way the drives and everything were allocated to enable us to actually do the captures. From that initial build to where we are now, it's taken a little while to get there; but it is a fairly complex system.

We looked at four or five different vendors. Some of them were talked about very expensive solutions. The HPE solution cost about one-third less. Taking into consideration the cost, HPE gave us the ability to actually do what we wanted to do. Also, the relationship and being able to talk to them was important in our decision. Getting access to their technical people is very important to us. We've been an HP user for many years.

Not many companies will have a similar type of requirements as we do. But if you need a low cost solution with a low footprint, then the Apollo 4200 is an ideal system for that.

The HPE Apollo is used as a server for our system clusters.

HPE Apollo's most valuable feature is the ability to expand our storage capacity.

I have been using HPE Apollo for approximately one year.

HPE Apollo is stable.

The scalability of HPE Apollo is good.

We have approximately 10 clients using this solution.

The support from HPE Apollo could be better, they are making knowledgeable.

There is an annual license required to use HPE Apollo.

I would recommend the solution to others.

I rate HPE Apollo an eight out of ten.

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 are quite happy with it, but its price and storage density can be better.

I have been using this solution for three to four years. We have two different generations. We have servers that were bought four years ago and two years ago.

It is stable.

It is easy to scale. We are on top of it. We have an application from a specific vendor. We, as well as the software vendor, are happy with it.

It was really straightforward. The process for installing and commissioning the services was easy.

We are using our own teams for installation. We are quite autonomous on it. We internally have the knowledge to do the job. We are happy with it.

Our infrastructure team is managing all the hardware, virtual machines, and operating systems. We have around 2,000 servers. We don't have a dedicated team for Apollo. We have a team that takes care of all the generations of servers, including Apollo.

I can recommend this solution. It is easy to maintain. If you have an infrastructure team, you won't have any problem with it.

I would rate HPE Apollo a nine out of ten.

We primarily use it for high-performance computing. Our customers really do like it because of the density they can achieve in the racks. Apollo provides so much compute power and storage as well.

It's performing extremely well.

It enables us to implement software defined solutions very easily, because Apollo servers are certified for use with Linux systems, which is really a big thing for us.

High compute density and high storage density at a reasonable cost

Obviously I would like to see the cost go down. That speaks for itself. 

We would like to see improved cooling because that is quite an issue. If you put that much compute power into a single rack, cooling really becomes an issue. And there is room for improvement there.

Extremely reliable. We've been using it for three years now, and it's been in production without any downtime yet.

Especially if you use software defined storage, for instance, scalability is just great.

We have not use HPE support. We have our own engineers, so we're really proficient enough. And it's really easy to use. So it's not a big deal.

We actually had a business case. We were looking to address this business case with standard IT storage solutions but they were way too pricey for us. So we figured we needed a way to use a standard service, make the most of these standard services, and came across Apollo Systems. Apollo Systems provide stuff that standard services do not. More HTDs, more compute power, at very reasonable pricing.

It was straightforward.

We do look to Super Micro whenever price is king. But if we are looking for reliability, then HPE is the way to go.

Our most important criterion when selecting a vendor is reliability. We need a vendor to be there for us, even when the product is already three or four years old. That's a big thing for us.

I give it an eight out of 10. It does what we expect it to do. As I said, cooling is still an issue, you really have to keep that in mind if you implement the solution. But aside from that, we're really happy with it.

Talk to a partner who has implemented a solution with HPE Apollo, talk to customers who have actually used it in the field. It's really simple to do.

We're using it for big data and storage servers. So mostly Hadoop for big data, Hadoop elastic search, and Ceph storage for our OpenStack private cloud.

The Apollo is performing fairly well. We've run into minor issues, but overall it does the job and we feel it's a good product for the money. 

It's allowed us to benefit from IP-based storage instead of using only fiber channel SAN storage. Also, I don't think we could have afforded that quantity of storage in a SAN array.

It's pretty flexible. You can choose how much storage you put on the server. You can have one to three nodes, depending on whether you want more CPU or storage. And 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.

There should be truly independent nodes for your rack, which can contain three different servers. I like to make sure when a component fails, I don't have to take down all three nodes. This is especially true as we usually have replication between these nodes. It would be a great asset to be able to contain the downtime to one of the nodes.

It's pretty stable. We've only had very minor issues with it. No major downtime. 

The only issues we've really run into so far is that there is a shared battery for all cache controllers in the node. When you have to replace that element, you have to take down all three nodes and not just one. That's something of a design flaw, but it's the only real issue we've had so far.

Yes, we've called tech support. Mostly for hardware faults.

When selecting a vendor the most important criteria include

• overall trust in the company
• the financial side, of course, the price of the hardware 
• the quality of the support we can expect.

I rate it at eight out of 10. As I said, true independence between the nodes would be an improvement. At least make sure that the nodes aren't dependent on each other. Also, we've had a few difficulties integrating it at first, so I'll stay with an eight.

Test the solution and do a proof of concept until it works with your own integration procedures, the way you install systems, that kind of thing.

The solution could improve the hardware, such as the motherboard or servers. We have had hardware faults in the past.

I have been using HPE Apollo for approximately 10 years.

The technical support from HPE has always been good in my experience.

I have used Dell solutions.

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.

I rate HPE Apollo an eight out of ten.

The most valuable feature is the amount of programming storage available.

The predictive analysis feature could be improved. We would like the solution to be able to implement automatically in the next release. 

We have been using the solution for about two months. We are currently using version eight, and it is based on-premises.

This product is scalable. A large team is currently using it.

The customer service and support are available 24/7.

This is the only solution we have used. It was implemented from the beginning.

The initial setup was straightforward. The solution is well documented in a data sheet.

The deployment was done through a third party.

I cannot comment on the licensing costs as a different department handles it.

I rate this solution a ten out of ten. Unfortunately, I have been working with it for only two months, so I cannot give advice to others. However, the solution is good and can be improved by including automatic implementation in the next update.