HPE BladeSystem Reviews

The features that are the most valuable to us are its scalability, performance, and cost. It's also very easy to use, which is a huge advantage for our IT department.

The biggest improvement to our organization is that we can now expand our IT infrastructure easily. We can seamlessly implement additional IT assets if we want, whether that's to execute different plans or to remain consistent in our operations. We can changes things as we need to as we go along. With blades, it's a lot simpler for us to deploy, expand, and virtualize.

It lacks a reboot service when the firmware breaks and needs upgrading. It also needs easier installation.

We have no issues with deployment.

We had a few past issues, but they were mostly the result of old firmware versions and our fear of upgrading them in time.

It's very scalable as we keep adding more blades as needed. With one enclosure, we can have 16 blades or just three. I don't think we'll ever go back to the old DL3x.

Technical support is good. We initially went with a partner for support, but we now use HP services for going live of some environments, especially around some light-wear blades.

The initial setup was complicated. You have to understand your environment before you let yourself expand through it.

We're an HP shop with hardware and software, so we stick with them for all our IT.

Plan, plan, and plan some more. Really understand what you want to do because it can be a great integration opportunity. Make sure you work with a partner who understands your infrastructure well. Understand also how products from different vendors like NetApp, EMC, Cisco, etc. work together, especially with different firmware versions.

Ease of use.

Our requirement is 99.9999% uptime. That is what we have experienced from these servers.

With the technology advancements, both the OEMs improve their products for best performance. I would also prefer additional improvements in thermal design and management of servers.

HPE Servers for seven years (HP ProLiant SL6000) and HPE Blade for five years (BL460c & Rack). 

All in working condition

No issues.

No issues.

The technical support is the best.

We have used SGI, Sun, and IBM and now Fujitsu. The procurement is thru open or limited tender only.

The initial setup is mixed between being straightforward and complex.

We have well-defined process for the technical evaluation of pricing.

We evaluate all the responses to our requirements. After the selection is made for two to three products. Then commercials are checked and the best price solution is selected.

Check the literature and reviews available for the product. Ask and clarify all the queries before freezing on the requirements.

I especially value the higher consolidation ratio.

This server comes with up to 2TB of memory which allows us to run more virtual machine on single server. We can leverage it for a higher consolidation ratio.

It would be better if the boot time during POST would be reduced.

I have used it for eight years.

I did not encounter any stability issues. It’s a good product.

I did not encounter any scalability issues.

I would give them a rating of 9/10.

We used to deploy IBM Blade Servers. The switch was due to company policy, although IBM products are also good.

The setup is quite easy once you configure the Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) server.

It depends on the order size of other services we select during the procurement phase.

We evaluated Cisco UCS.

It’s advisable to use FlexFabric Interconnect for a converged network.

The integration with our existing environment, and it's ease of use are valuable.

We went from traditional rack servers, consolidated to blades, making management easier. However, we required better capacity planning due to "blade server" lock-in.

It needs to be easier to help build OpenStack solutions. It is also lacking container integration which would make adoption easier.

I've been using it for two years.

There were no issues with the deployment.

We have had no issues with the stability.

It's been able to scale for our needs.

Excellent pre-sales, working both with HP and a VAR, and after sales technical support was good after the first level.

We had used HP rack servers previously.

It was easy. We leveraged VAR resources to help get up to speed with some skills training after installation.

Vendor assistance is a good idea if you are transition from rack mount servers to blades. Some hand-holding is required, but not much.

There wasn't much of a change for our pricing/licensing costs. However, we did have an increase in CPU power meaning there was reduction in the number of CPUs which lowered the hypervisor/socket pricing.

Go big or go home, pick a solution, and go with it. There is no wrong way to go - whether you choose rack or blade servers depends on how you grow, and how you want to plan your future capacity.

I'd say it's the turn-to provision as a replacement server in our consolidated fiscal data center. It comports with our general rule of consolidation and flexibility quite nicely.

BladeSystem has allowed us to create our own service area or banking area. We're able to provide a platform where we can start offering services back to the various groups within our organization and our external customers as well.

I think some improvements could be made on the switching side. We just transitioned from the Cisco 3120 switches, which were at end-of-line, to the HP switches, but only because they were the only option for the HP blades. That gave us a bit of a minor challenge from a skills and networking team perspective.

We've used it for eight months.

Deployment has been issue-free for us.

It's a really good system. I've used it before with previous companies as well, and we've had no stability problems.

We're just about to purchase our second place in the primary site. I expect to be able to scale.

From previous experience, technical support is very good.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward.

We also considered Dell. We had a big conversation over what to do and ultimately decided to get something that could cover a huge service area. The best thing for us, we determined, was to go with HP servers. They fit our needs the best.

It will change your operations. It's a good option you should consider.

These are the servers I use to host my virtual desktops and virtual servers. They outperform the older Dell servers that only had one system on them. I have about 10 machines on each physical blade. The HP ilo Management Interface is very useful and user friendly.

Blade servers are fading away. I shouldn't have bought these. Overall value is less than traditional rackmount servers. Scalability is limited; restricted by the chassis.

These work great for what I'm using them for, but they are not future proof. XenServer has great features allowing me to have heterogeneous pools. Blades are a good solution for organizations that have limited space and don't want to virtualize.

In my company, they tried to convert to hyper-converter due to the fact that the on-premise server is still a low demand. Some workloads we have moved to public CoW. We tried to reduce our footprint, our data center, to use only hyper-converged. It's good for that purpose.

The solution is very easy to use. It's not overly complex. I'd describe it as a user-friendly product.

The solution is stable. The performance is good.

The solution can scale to a certain extent.

It's an old-fashioned technology now. 

I'm not sure precisely what should be improved. I can't recall any missing features.

If the hardware offered higher efficiency, that would be an ideal situation for our company.

I have ten years of experience with this solution. It's been about a decade. I've used it for quite a while.

The solution is very stable. We find it to be quite reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. Its performance is very good.

While the solution is pretty scalable, every company has its own context. Therefore, the scaling process might be different. In my future plans, for example, it's hard to reduce my footprint, as the workload has moved to CoW. Something that's based on-premise has limited parameters. That's why I'm trying to use the totally hyper-converged system. 

I don't really have any direct experience with support from HPE, however, when they had the reports about the system, I would say the review was that they were okay. There have been no complaints. We're satisfied with the level of service, from what I can tell. I have heard nothing negative about the level of service.

I'm not an operations person. I can't speak to how easy or difficult it is to implement the solution. It's not an aspect I worried about or specifically had to deal with.

As I wasn't a part of the implementation process, I cannot speak to if there was any assistance with the process. 

We are simply a customer and an end-user. We don't have a professional relationship with HPE.

I'd rate the solution, on a scale from one to ten, at a nine. We've mostly been quite pleased with the product and its capabilities. 

I would recommend the solution to other users, companies, and organizations.