HPE BladeSystem Reviews

The two most valuable features are:

1) Centralized Management

2) Compatibility with VMware.

We created a VMware Cluster with HA, assigned host profiles, and managed the network.

I have used this solution for more than 6 years.

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

I would rate the level of technical support 7/10.

I previously used the Supermicro Twin server.

The initial setup is easy.

While there is a high cost, there is no required license.

I evaluated Supermicro twins.

It is a good solution, with easy management and setup.

The most valuable features are that it:

• Is compact
• Integrates the infrastructure
• Is easy to configure
• Is easy to manage

It saves us a lot of space, supplies, and amenities. That is important for us. The performance of the system is very good.

We would like to see a more compact and more powerful solution.

We have not had any problems with stability so far.

The scalability is great.

We have only used technical support for the initial installation. They were very professional.

We were using a similar solution from other vendors, but we found that HPE is much better.

It was a straightforward installation.

What's most important is to have really good, reliable professionals. You want really good support. We were looking at a couple of vendors, but HPE at that time had a good local presence. They were very good at representing their solutions. They had really good experts, so everything was perfect. They are a good vendor.

Being modular and being able to replace parts as needed, is easy without taking systems down.

Less real estate - that's pretty much it. Manpower and time, and even resources, electricity. Bills go down because of BladeSystems.

Better pricing is always a plus.

It does its job, I haven't had any major problems with it.

It's scalable.

I haven't used it but my colleagues who have haven't had any issues with them.

It's pretty scalable, but then again, it's pretty old. It's not as scalable as the Cisco Blades that we currently have, but I'm not going to knock it because of that, it's just because it's old it doesn't have all the technology that Cisco has right now.

Do your homework. Shop around and look at other vendors. Don't just look at one specific blade system.

We got the C7000s because of connectivity and the rack space we save. You don't need one hundred cables. We're also able to have mobility for bring-your-own-device enabled by Microsoft.

It's a space saver and easier to manage, as we've gone from hundreds of cables to 13 racks. Previously, there were so many wires with 180 servers that we could trip up or fall over them.

The technical support itself is good, but you pay a lot of money for active services.

We've had no problems with deployment.

It's been stable for us.

It's just about connecting more, so it's scalable in that way.

We have a service contract, but we don't need it as we're small enough that we can deal with our own issues.

We're also using HP Brocade SAN switches.

It's good and functional and there's a firewall on each.

My advice would be to go for it, but never mix vendors. We got HP servers and then added Dell servers and had to deal with double management of all the servers.

The most valuable feature is that we're also using HP software, so the BladeSystem fits together nicely with that.

We use a lot of HP products, in fact, and so HP is a big partner of ours. It makes things in our organization run more efficiently and with less interruption when we run the BladeSystem with our other HP solutions.

There could be some improvements that have to do with CPU architecture, but that's not really an HP part. There's some virtualization we'd like to do that would need better CPU design. It is, however, a little bit difficult to move reams above BladeSystem.

We're using the HP Blade C7000 and BL460 plates. As connectivity modules, we're using FlexFabric.

It's deployed fine for us.

The only thing that would be defective or would need to be replaced is just the discs. The plates just keep running and running. They're pretty stable.

We have lot of space to go with new blades and the whole environment is organized, so it's really easy to put in the new hosts, or new Blades in this case, into the new regular machines.

We switched because HP is stable and reliable.

The initial setup is always straightforward.

Our primary use case of this solution is for VMware. It performs well.

Consolidation.

Virtual Connect.

We are looking for a new product more inline with our goal. We are looking to switch because of the size formatting and the datacenter. 

It is really stable, however the motherboard sometimes crashes.

No issues with scalability. We can scale by adding another enclosure.

The technical support is helpful. They changed the PCs when the motherboards crashed. I feel like I reach the right person whenever I call them.

The initial setup was straightforward.

HPE provided support during the implementation.

The price could be cheaper.

SimpliVity and Dell.

Buy it. I recommend it.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: scalability and durability.

I get the same level of service and perspective for everything. It is a generic experience with respect to what it's used for.

I would like to see all-around fulfillment availability from top to bottom in terms of features. I guess the answer is higher availability.

The stability is pretty good. I'd say it's on par with other vendors in the same category.

It scales fine for tens of thousands of things.

I can’t comment on things that I'm not supposed to.

We were using a multitude of vendors with comparable differences.

We considered the typical ones, the big three: IBM, HPE, and Dell.

I needed a solution because of my economies of scale. I had the demand and a business need.

I would advise colleagues not to rush into settling on a solution. When we were choosing a vendor, we considered price, performance, availability, and engagement.

We are very happy with flexible NIC configuration features which are possible if you combine the BladeServers with HPE flex switches in the enclosures. You can mix and match the speed of your servers' NIC ports. Its also very easy and fast to deploy new servers.

It hasn't really made a big impact on our organization. We are not that big, only three people in the server operations group. The use of blade servers has had no impact on organization.

Non-disruptive firmware upgrades in all areas of blade technology.

No issues. They have been running very stable through all these years. Of course we have seen memory module, disk, and power supply failures, but not more than we would expect.

No issues.

Tech support is very effective and fast but it depends on the level of your support agreement. We had the P24 level and HPE are very responsive.

We did not have a previous solution.

It was quite straightforward. You have to decide the right power supply option for your enclosure. The best solution is to have PDU in the racks and let the enclosures get power from them. We made the wrong decision with our first enclosures, which were delivered with 3Ph power supplies built in, which made the initial preparation and later relocation more expensive for each enclosure. Today, you can’t buy the 3Ph power supplies.

None.

• It’s advisable to maintain and operate an updated HPE management solution along with the BladeSystem, which will assist in failure alerting, operations, automation, etc. 
• Remember that blades are most cost effective if you can fill all the bays in the enclosures. 
• It's advisable to use HPE networking switches, if your networking department can accept this.