HPE BladeSystem Reviews

I'm working just with the Generation 9 and Generation 10 as Generation 8 is obsolete. We are leaving that kind of solution. These generations are a little bit obsolete since the processor, and the spec of the Blades are behind a newer HP solution.  

Right now, we're using that with a Citrix server and use it with VMware SX 7.0.

It's scalable, and it's stable.

The product has been simple to set up.

We are using HP BladeSystem for our internal applications.

The feature I find most valuable is the ease of use. It is quite a stable system, and I rarely have to call HP support for issues. The system's reliability is also commendable.

We use HPE BladeSystem primarily for high availability. It's installed on an HP Converge BladeSystem, and we utilize ten of the sixteen available slots. All ten HPE BladeSystems are clustered, which allows us to leverage their high computing capability to spin up hundreds of VMs. This setup provides us with the performance we need. I work in IT within a telecom infrastructure company and am one of the IT infrastructure engineers responsible for managing the data center infrastructure.

Currently, we're using HPE BladeSystem BL460, but we're planning to migrate to the Synergy System as part of our strategy since the OEM support for the BL460 will eventually end. The most valuable features are its high computing capability and availability. Additionally, the ability to manage all resources from a single dashboard using the OneView solution that comes with the HP Converge system is incredibly beneficial. The efficientand unique environment makes it an excellent fit for our needs.

Here are the valuable hardware and software features:

Hardware:

• Multi-generational blade system which supports all the way from Gen1 to Gen9 without a forklift upgrade or keeping old enclosures around.
• Up to 16 servers of varying physical sizes (half and full height) allowed in a single enclosure.
• Multiple scalable backplane options (including 16Gb Brocade fiber switches and 10Gbe Cisco Fabric Extenders) to ensure optimal redundancy and interoperability with other datacenter hardware.
• Allows the use of network defined architectures without the need for additional training.
• Allows storage admins, server admins, and network admins access to each component without additional cost or delay due to lack of familiarity.
• Multiple power options: Single and three phase power for different datacenter layouts.
• Versatile with optional virtual connect module to enhance east/west traffic flow for virtualization, reducing unnecessary north and south traffic.

Software:

• Onboard Administrator
• Insight Control
• HPE OneView

This solution has improved our organization as follows:

• Ease of management and configuration through a single pane of glass for up to 16 blade servers.
• Leveraging the Onboard Administrator for control over troubled servers without the need for physical access to the servers.
• Ability to reset blade server fuses remotely if they become completely unresponsive. Removes the need for many calls to a datacenter for support.
• OneView has taken this a step further with newer generation blades. This cannot be leveraged on the blades older than Gen7.

We have our ERP system, which is SAP, running on the blade servers. Additionally, we have business applications like intelligent tools and network operations tools running on the BladeSystem, all running on the VMware platform.

We never faced downtime due to hardware failure. The BladeSystem provided stable performance and we were satisfied with the contract from HPE, which renewed every year.

I was using the solution for virtualization. I used it for all Microsoft products, Unix and Linux.

Basically, in a cluster, it works really nicely, especially within a cluster environment. Also, it's easily configurable.

HPE BladeSystem c7000 is a complex piece of engineering.

• I appreciate its simplified interface that gives the administrator the power to build a complete processing infrastructure remotely.
• I like the on-board administrator as it gave me a very detailed set of information that allowed me to manage every aspect of the infrastructure remotely.
• It allowed me to centralize the iLO remote access to every blade in the cabinet with very good performance.

You can view a Bladesystem like a modern car. The first thing you see is the body and the glossy paint, but under the hood, a bladesystem is essentially a group of servers (multi-core processors, RAM, Buses, storage, etc ), with redundant variable speed cooling blowers, redundant power suppliers, a large set of redundant connectivity options, and a big quantity of temperature and power consumption sensors, all of those connected and administered from a redundant administration module with many configuration parameters that you can accommodate in a bunch of ways to satisfy many different requirements.

Everyone of this modules are an appliance (a complete computer itself), and you can have a duplicate of the OA and the VC, just for redundancy and high availability purposes.

Before this brief description, probably you would agree that this is a complex architecture.

But the most attractive part of that , is that you deal with this complexity through a web portal that concentrate all of the configurations options, easy this tasks and guide the user with several wizards.

To manage all the parameters related to the Enclosure or Chassis, security access, and monitoring, you have to enter to the "onboard administrator module" (OA).

To manage all the aspect about LAN or SAN connectivity to the server blades you have to jump into the "virtual connect Module" (VC), but don't desperate, you have an hyperlink from the OA, that open the VC portal, to give you a seamless navigation between modules.

At last, but not least, you have the blades servers itself. You can have up to sixteen of those servers, with processors, memory, Out of Band management processor (Insight Lights-Out or iLO) and I/O cards (NICs, HBAs, CNAs, etc)

All of those have several Firmware (BIOS, NIC firmware, Power Regulator Firmware, HBA Firmware, iLO Firmware, Onboard Administrator Firmware, Virtual Connect Firmware, etc ) and you need to solve incompatibility issues between all of those.

The best part is that HPE give you an utility (HP Smart Update manager) that can manage all those firmware in a consolidated way.

HPE works hard to provide a centralized administration and good experience with the software, and if you are an advanced user, also can use an add-on to access all the configuration parameters using powershell (the administrator's task programming language that come in every windows operating system).

The first goal was to use blades. This stemmed from a space problem in our data center. We needed to add more servers, but the space became short quickly. The first consolidation approach was a blades server.

• We administer all the systems remotely.
• The blade server standardized more of our configuration processes with less manual intervention.
• We also found that we needed less cabling. Now we can connect 16 servers in 10 rack units with 3 LAN and 2 SAN Fiber, instead of 48 LAN and 32 SAN fiber.

Years ago, before BladeSystem, we had an EDM platform. We were working with IBM. We had IBM platforms. They consume much more energy. They are so big, so they take up a lot of space in the data center. At the time, when we migrated to BladeSystem, we reduced the amount of energy, amount of space, and we got more capacity. It's been very useful to us in that sense.

The solution has good scalability.

We can consolidate our learning infrastructure into just one chassis. You can have infrastructure scalability and capacity with memory. It is a great way to pull up together everything inside multiple platforms and in just one chassis.

Overall, its a very good product.