HPE BladeSystem Reviews

The most valuable feature, of course, is its size as I can build a huge compute resource on it.

A couple of those HPE BladeSystem Enclosures can give you a stable and distributed compute resource for a virtual environment.

First of all, there should be a change in the disk bay. Currently, in the case of a disk failure there is a need to remove the whole bay and as a result, to disconnect all the other disks.

I have used this solution for maybe more than four years.

I have encountered a major issue with VMware on Gen8. There is no support for NetQueue, that resulted in network issues with the VMs.

There were no scalability issues.

I was not satisfied with the support. It seems that the support team does not know their products in depth. Their main approach is to upgrade the firmware/drivers and replace the hardware. They are struggling in giving any type of technical explanation for resolving issues. But, there are not many issues that were not addressed by the support team and I always received a solution this way or another.

I have used this HPE Enclosure as a part of the design; we are using this solution from the beginning and have not switched to it from any another solution.

The setup is not simple but if the low-level design is correct, then it is a straightforward implementation.

Their licensing program is pretty simple.

We evaluated other products such as Dell and Cisco Blade Servers.

Pay attention to the HPE's management solution as they are securing the management interfaces of their servers. You need to implement it correctly, otherwise, in a case of a failure, for example, an incorrect network configuration may result in complete loss of the management.

• Allows immediate access for server management
• Allows immediate detection of the access logs
• Secures access to the console
• Provides reliable administration

• Enabled remote management of the equipment's problems/issues
• Helped in remotely identifying the power to review the status of errors

I would prefer to have changes in the compatibility of the blade servers along with the new ones designed by HPE. The superior equipment does not allow this at the present time.

I have used this solution for a total of eight years as the infrastructure manager. Currently, we are using the HPE BladeSystem c7000 enclosure and the BladeSystem c7000 Onboard Administrator Tray 1.7 enclosure devices.

In the past, we have used:

• Server Blade ProLiant BL680c G5 HPE 2.12, Jul 16, 2012
• Server Blade ProLiant BL680c G5 HPE 2.06, May 31, 2011
• Server Blade ProLiant BL460c Gen8 HPE 1.20, Feb 01, 2013
• Server Blade ProLiant BL460c Gen8 HPE 1.20, Feb 01, 2013
• Server Blade ProLiant BL460c Gen8 HPE 1.30, Jul 18, 2013
• Server Blade ProLiant BL460c G7 HPE 1.20, Mar 14, 2011
• Server Blade ProLiant BL460c G1 HPE 2.23, Nov 05, 2013
• Server Blade ProLiant BL460c Gen8 HPE 1.20, Feb 01, 2013
• Server Blade ProLiant BL460c Gen8 HPE 1.20, Feb 01, 2013
• Server Blade ProLiant BL460c Gen8 HPE 1.30, Jul 18, 2013
• Server Blade ProLiant BL460c G7 HPE 1.65, Nov 08, 2013
• Server Blade ProLiant BL460c G1 HPE 2.06, May 31, 2011

We have not experienced any problems with the implementation of the product.

When cases were opened, we received very good responses to the issues. Escalations were also done in a timely manner.

I have not used any other solution.

The solution was implemented by the provider. It was done in a simple way.

It has not been applied from a remote site, only from the current infrastructure. You should have a personalized follow-up for the management/administration of the implemented solution.

In regards to the prices, it should adapt to the current needs of the country. Granting of the licenses has always been done in a prompt manner.

Probably the most value there is the compactness and the density you can get into the data center.

It would be nice if it could have better monitoring in terms of iLO and things like that. Some more interoperability between the different generations of blades.

Most recently, with some of our blades in our VDI environment we've had some stability issues. I don't know if that's a problem of HP or if it's a problem with HP with VMware and the VM-HP virtual connect on the backend of the Blade Chassis, but we have had issues in that environment.

We used VMware as a hypervisor on top of our BladeSystems, on our Blade Chassis, and on our blade server. It made it much more scalable for us to be able to spin up new architecture fairly quickly. What we've done is rolled back or moved, relocated some blades from one Chassis to another that didn't have virtual connect.

It's just as they always have been. They've been pretty solid in terms of technical support.

Most everything we had prior to building up our new data center was single server DL380s or 360 single servers. It would take too long to provision a DL380 to give people the access to a single server to be able to then do their development or build a new production environment.

We have a gentleman who's primarily our BladeSystem expert.

Make sure that if you're using it as a hypervisor, that you're doing all the pre-work on setup such as knowing the interoperability between different product statures that you're going to run on it.

One of the useful features is the Virtual Connect module as this approach allows me to utilize fewer physical ports to reach the total number of segregated ports that I need, especially for a virtual environment. Also, there is a server profile attached which is similar, but not yet full blown, to stateless computing.

This particular product allows us to mix up the environment - not only x86 but also the HP UX where the critical application were deployed. This particular architecture (BladeSystem) also allows us to have higher density which cannot be reached by traditional rack-mount servers. Currently, the latest trend (hyper converged approach) is still under observation.

The management is great but there are other competitors that are implementing a better approach. Even HP's own latest products have this composable approach, so if there are any changes that I would like to see, they are within this particular area.

I've been using it for two years.

There were no issues with the deployment.

We've experienced no issues with performance. There are several versions that have issues with the hardware that we need to replace and update firmware to fully utilize the blade.

It's been able to scale for our needs.

7.5-8/10 because currently our company has a partnership that allows us to provide services and tech support. We get a great response from the HP team, and our local teams are also ready to help.

We chose this product because of the stability and their market share is quite large. This means that older products come from the same principals that makes it easier to integrate, and the second one is that this particular item is good to implement.

It is quite straightforward, as there is a wizard. I think newbies with simple documentation can perform the initial setup.

If the project is a complex one that includes any other items (storage, network, etc.) I would strongly recommended to hire a vendor team as it is their job to not only initialize the BladeSystem, but also to integrate it with the entire solution.

We also use Cisco UCS and IBM Flex servers.

Keep observing the market as new technologies have emerged, but not all are useful yet. It is good if we have a good relationship with the solution integrator as they may also give feedback.

It provided integrated storage, networking, servers, and management.

It is a single integrated solution that can be deployed anywhere. Best solution for our mobile tracking station.

Nothing that I can think of. We can always upgrade.

I've used it for three years.

It's easy to deploy and the HP command-line interface is, in my personal opinion, similar to Cisco.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

I haven't had to deal with HP yet.

I haven't had to deal with HP yet.

We are also using Dell servers. It is not a switch, and we switched because this is more fit for our purposes.

It was not easy as we had to get vendor for deployment because of lack of internal skills and time constraints.

Through a vendor and they are well experienced.

It's high.

I believe it's worth the price you pay.

We also evaluated options from Dell.

Get experienced vendors for deployment and you won't have issues later, that is, if you don't have the skills In-house.

We use these chassis with Gen8 and Gen9 servers, Blade servers for virtualization, VMware servers.

They are reliable, and it's relatively easy to manage them. They also regularly provide patching for the servers. It's quite a good product.

HPE has told us that the c7000 will no longer be part of its portfolio, so I don't think so they will provide any new features. But if I had to say something it would be some features from the Synergy. They could go to a converged system with the c7000, so everything would be automatic in the system.

It's reliable. 

The problem is that when want to expand with a new chassis, you have to do everything manually. It's not automatic.

We have good support from HPE.

I don't know what the previous solution was, but in our company every four or five years we have a renewal process for the older systems. That was probably the reason for the switch.

For me, when selecting a vendor, the most important criteria are that the system must be reliable, and the support as well. The support is very important because we have a lot of business-critical servers and if something goes wrong with the hardware we need the support.

If you don't want to go to the new technologies, like hyperconverged systems or converged systems, if you want to use only the old-school technologies, I can recommend this solution.

I rate it at eight out of 10. It's a good product, it's reliable, the performance is good. You can expand with the new servers as well. It has been a leading product in the market until now.

I think the most valuable features that my management usually worries about are price, reliability, and its ability to be repaired and/or debugged.

What would make it better from my point of view is if HPE spent more time on testing with the actual built-in Red Hat Linux drivers, as opposed to always trying to say, "Use our driver."

The stability is pretty good.

It's scaling where we need to go.

The technical support sucks, would be understating it. Because the first line and the second line support tend to give out stupid suggestions that are completely useless, and they aren't listening to anything. It takes a lot of time to get through them, and that is every call I've been on with them. Oftentimes, I've got a very low expectation of HPE, and they go below my expectation a few times.

Initial setup was relatively straightforward.

• Easy to add new blades
• No additional cabling required for network or FC
• Nice single point of management
• Easy portal

It has given us a much reduced server footprint with a subsequent reduction in cabling and a lower carbon footprint.

• Ability to zoom in on the blade system graphic
• Easy way of reporting all the blades at once

This has been in use for three years.

In three years, we have not had any issues with enclosures nor with server instability.

We have had no issues with scalability. We have added ProLiant servers to the chassis which shares storage.

Technical support is great, once you get to it

We previously had rack-mounted HP-UX servers. Our hardware refresh dictated that we move to blade systems in order to keep using HP-UX systems.

It was a very straightforward migration.

Ensure that you use virtual connect modules. It is well worth the extra cost over traditional switches.

Always go for virtual connect modules from the outset.