HPE BladeSystem Reviews

We are actually a reseller and consultant for HPE BladeSystem. We work in various industries such as finance, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, education, and hospitality.

The management console for all servers and virtual machines is centralized on one dashboard, which enhances management efficiency.

The robustness and the connectivity between all servers and the storage aspect are the most beneficial features of HPE BladeSystem. Additionally, it offers low latency.

An alternative to VMware could be a significant improvement, especially since VMware licensing has become stringent. Creating an integrated solution could make HPE BladeSystem more appealing.

We have been dealing with HPE BladeSystem for more than eight years.

Our experience with the stability of HPE BladeSystem is generally good. It is quite robust. However, we faced issues in a heterogeneous environment where the majority of problems arose with HPE servers.

There aren’t many complaints about the scalability; the system is quite robust. However, a notable issue occurred in a large telco company where HPE servers were more affected by environmental issues compared to others.

Technical support is generally prompt and good. However, there was a very bad experience with technical support in a specific telco case where support was withdrawn due to corrupted products.

Positive

We have various brands in our portfolio, including Dell, Huawei, Cisco, and others, which we strategically choose based on client's budgets and pain points.

Customers see savings when comparing traditional systems versus BladeSystem. While the initial investment may be higher, the operational expenditure is lower, leading to a reduced total cost of ownership over time.

When HPE was competing with Cisco BladeSystem, it was competitive. However, recent years have seen Cisco winning more deals due to aggressive pricing.

Cisco blade servers are perceived as the best option currently, mainly due to their built-in network capabilities and beneficial licensing. HPE BladeSystem is still recommended for enterprises in various sectors.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Most of our things are low intensity on the compute side. It is just redundancy and backup. We have some legacy apps that are web applications on .NET. They're all Windows servers.

We also have some file servers. When it comes to the file servers, we are getting away from that and moving everything to the cloud. It is mainly going to be used to maintain our legacy infrastructure, and it is mostly going to be for .NET and low-intensity things.

Uptime and service are valuable for us. When we have an issue, uptime and being able to get an emergency replacement or actual service is the most important thing for us.

With iLO and other features, our experience has been really good especially when a lot of people are working remote or offsite. The iLO feature gives us the ability to get onto our server when we're remote. In the case of any issues, we can access it and reboot it if we need to.

I am not sure if iLO is included or if there is a separate license. If it is not included, it should be included in the license. It is such a valuable feature especially because people are working remotely. 

Our company has had HP rack servers for 20 years.

I've only been here for seven years, and it has been really good all these years. For servers, in general, the goal is to be stable. Most of them are redundancy-based, and I don't remember having any issues. We probably had a switch fail once, but we had dual. We just got a replacement and swapped it out. There was just hard drive failure, but that's just the nature of the beast kind of thing.

We haven't done a ton of scalability. So, I don't have any thoughts on that.

In terms of its usage, we're a regulator. We are representing five industries right now. We probably have a couple of thousand people using it on their external site accessing it, but internally, we're a small organization. We only have about 300 employees. Our infrastructure team has three people right now, and we are hiring two more infrastructure people. We're not huge. In theory, one person does pretty much all the maintenance.

I personally haven't interacted with them, but my team's experience has been pretty good. They haven't had any complaints. We've always had one of the top-tier, low-downtime support packages. When things fail, usually, we get a response right away, and if it is a part-related issue, it is handled right away. I have never heard them say anything that would imply that they're not happy with the support. 

We just did a merger, and the organization we merged with has two Lenovo blades that we use. Our boss's boss is a big Lenovo fan, but we don't have a ton of experience. It has been six months of usage.

It is very straightforward. The application configuration is somewhat complex, but we'll be migrating. So, it'll be very straightforward.

We're in the early stages of replacing some of our legacy hardware. Currently, we're primarily HPE, and we do have some Lenovo racks, and they're pretty old. Some of them are approaching six years.

I haven't directly dealt with HPE, but I've heard that HPE has been really good. People didn't have any complaints, but my boss's boss likes Lenovo for some reason. We're doing a general cost analysis and shopping around to see what it is like out there and what other people have experienced. We are looking at solid state because we are currently on mechanical hard drives. 

Ideally, we'd like to keep everything in the same family just to limit complexity and have the same manufacturer. Having two or three manufacturers means extra things to have to look after. We are moving to the cloud as well. We're just trying to make our server room less complex.

We like it for the most part. Support is always key for us personally. Don't lose sight of it, but ideally, it is a set-up-and-forget solution.

I would rate it a nine out of ten because it is always good to have something to strive for.

The solution is quite stable.

It's very scalable. 

The solution is easy to manage and update. 

As long as they keep getting the new Compute generations, it would be ideal. Generation 10 was the last that they wanted to support on Blade Enclosure. That's unfortunate though. It may be coming to its end of life. Other than that, I don't have anything else to improve upon.

It's a stable product. There are no bugs or glitches. It cannot crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The solution can scale well. 

We've used the BladeSystem and Synergy. The Blade is simpler. The Blade Enclosure C7000 does the same job. It has the same robust fault tolerance and redundancy. Yet at the same time, it's simpler to deal with, to work with.

They have to either simplify Synergy Frame as they will not likely keep going with the Blade Enclosure for a long time. They were still working on it two years ago when I spoke to them. They said, "for at least 10 more years, Blade Enclosure will keep going." That's what they told us. However, for some reason, we wanted to go to the Synergy Frame. It was the wrong decision.

For the very long term, they either have to modify the Synergy to make it more like a C7000 or they might have to rethink keeping and further developing C7000. That's my simple experience. 

With HPE Synergy, I had a very painful experience with updating by just really shutting down and rebooting the environment. We had a power outage, and a few things didn't come up properly. Also, when we did the firmware upgrade, there were a lot of problems. It's not as easy as the Blade Enclosure. Usually, I need to open a support ticket with HPE to get around the problems when it comes to Synergy. However, with the Blade Enclosure, it is easier to deal with things.

It's very easy to maintain and to keep updating.

I can't speak to the licensing. I don't get involved in the cost.

I'd rate the product nine out of ten. I've been quite pleased with it.

I Use this solution for my main production server, we use this for VM-hosts, and connected to HP MSA Storage as VM Data-stores via iSCSI targeting.

This product saved the data center space (only use 10 U Spaces for max 16 servers) and has better performance for the VMware, vCenter, and vMotion.

I really appreciate the integrated Onboard Administrator, the iLO (Integrated Lights-Out) modular network, and the SAN Switches.

This product needs a wider range of firmware compatibility matrix from the oldest to the newest blade server. Because the blade chassis (C7000) has a 16 blade servers bay (slot), it will be better if we can mix the first generation (G1 Blade server) with the latest Gen (G9 Blade server). E.g.: G1 only can be mixed in same chassis with G8 (max), if we have a new G9 blade server, we need to eliminate the old blade server, or if you don’t want to get rid of the old server you should buy another chassis. The new chassis is so expensive.

So, it will be easier for scalability purposes, and a greater value for
a company with a limited budget, if HPE Blade System has a wider compatibility matrix range.

There were no stability issues.

There were scalability issues. If we want to upgrade, the oldest version of the blade server cannot be mixed with the newest one. This is a problem of the firmware compatibility matrix of the on-board administrator.

Customer Service:

The Customer service is great!!! As long you're covered by the warranty or maintenance aggreement. the response time is under 1 hour after you raise a ticket.

Technical Support:

It have great technical support with quick response, if you have maintenance contract with HPE (HP Enterprise)

We used Rackmount, but we switched to this solution because it is integrated and saves space.

The initial setup was straightforward. Just follow the steps in the manual and you’re ready to go.

It's quite expensive for the initial purchase. The chassis itself, with no blade server inside, so expensive. The C7000 model costs around $100,000.

If your company scale is small to mid-enterprise, you could consider the QNAP TDS Series. This can act both as a physical host and hypervisor. There is no need to buy additional VM licenses if you want to create a VM environment.

Or, 

If your company scale need below 16 servers, you should consider the siblings, the c3000 model, it has 8 bays rather than 16 bays, so it won't overkill your budget.

Prepare the budget and be ready to persuade the board of directors as to why you should buy this solution. Don't forget to prepare the data of TCO.

We use HPE BladeSystem to develop some applications in Apigee, PHP, .NET, etc. We also use it for PDM i.e. project data management for applications like SolidWorks. Along with that, we use it for file sharing, and like a SaaS application for Webex, SAP, etc.

The product has a lot of options for checking servers and IoT ports using artificial intelligence. They can provide a report on network activities.

The learning material available to understand the functionality of GreenLake is limited. They should provide open learning materials and seminars for detailed knowledge of the product.

We have been using HPE BladeSystem for more than six years.

I rate the product’s scalability a ten out of ten. It is suitable for small and medium businesses.

I rate the product’s scalability a ten out of ten. It is suitable for small and medium businesses.

The technical support services are good.

Positive

The initial setup process is a ten out of ten. It takes an hour to complete.

The product’s price is high compared to Dell.

They should provide enough information on the functionality to the users. I rate HPE BladeSystem a ten out of ten.

We are using HPE BladeSystem for commercial usage.

The most valuable feature of HPE BladeSystem is its upgradability and centralized configuration.

I have been using HPE BladeSystem for several years.

The solution is stable.

I rate the stability of HPE BladeSystem a nine out of ten.

I rate the scalability of HPE BladeSystem a nine out of ten.

I have previously used Dell and Cisco UCS.

The initial setup of HPE BladeSystem is not complex. The deployment is typically dome done within one day, a maximum of two days if it includes the OS or virtualization.

I rate the initial setup of HPE BladeSystem a nine out of ten.

We have a team that does the implementation of the solution.

The price of HPE BladeSystem could improve. They need to reduce the price to be able to compete better with other vendors, such as Dell.

Cisco UCS is the worst for pricing, then Dell, and HPE.

I rate the price of HPE BladeSystem a seven out of ten.

The maintenance of the solution can be done by one person.

I rate HPE BladeSystem a nine out of ten.

This solution is for medium to enterprise-size organizations. I'm the IT manager of our company and we are customers and users of HPE BladeSystem.

Modularity is key to this solution. It's the main feature and it provides energy savings because you have one enclosure, and one system for the energy and power supply. In terms of connectivity, Blade is more versatile than other solutions because of its three-tier architecture. I know the new trend is HCI technology, but that requires changing the whole node which increases the cost. On the SAN storage, I don't have to change anything on Blade. If I need to change the memory, I can do it blade by blade, and don't have to upgrade the whole node of the plate.

The connectivity speed could be improved. It's the major thing everyone looks for. When you upgrade your system, you want connectivity at the highest speed possible. 

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

Stability is great and it's a reliable solution. We haven't had a single serious incident and only a couple of minor issues. It's one of the reasons it's an expensive solution. Competitors would not be able to compete. 

I believe BladeSystem is more scalable than HCI. If I want to add more storage or more memory on HCI, I have to add additional notes. With Blade, if I need extra storage, it's just a matter of additional discs. 

HP are the best on tech support. I really appreciate that they never leave you in the dark. They always track your case and can be very proactive, sometimes telling me if I have a storage problem. If there's a power shortage or power fluctuation, they let me know. 

Positive

I previously worked with Dell and with IBM. Both are now good companies, especially when they merge their technology with EMC. I don't have recent experience with either of them. I think they've improved a lot over recent years and are probably at the same level as HPE.

When we initially deployed BladeSystem, it was a little complicated but once you're set up you don't need to think about it. The main difference between the HCI and Blade is that HCI is easier when it comes to setup.

HPE is not the cheapest solution but if you want to buy a Rolls Royce, it costs. They are the most expensive product on the market. It's been 10 years since we implemented it, so I don't remember the licensing cost. 

My advice is to grow slowly, but plan for your growth. Don't get an enclosure that won't have expandability and don't go to a cheaper all-in-one model because you might get stuck with it for four or five years. You have to make sure that your system is expandable and that you can grow with it.

Overall, I rate this solution nine out of 10.

HPE BladeSystem can improve by providing the latest generation processor engine, such as the I-Flex processor.

I have been using HPE BladeSystem for approximately 20 to 25 years.

I have found the HPE BladeSystem can be stable most of the time. 

I can see the BladeSystem is having some hardware failure issues. I can see this happening frequently in one of the customers. If they can increase all the bandwidth on the internal network backbone, they should increase it to 100 GPPS. Additionally, The HPE BladeSystem has internal storage, but we cannot populate it as shared storage across the load. If we can provide the local storage as shared storage across the load, that would help the customers.

HPE BladeSystem is a scalable solution. It is a composable infrastructure which we can manage our external services. This is the one factor which I can see the server is much more suitable for the OneView console.

HPE BladeSystem provides excellent technical support from their team.

The initial setup of the HPE BladeSystem is complex with the OneView console.  You can see a lot of tabs and a lot of settings. The configuration could be more user-friendly in OneView, which will be helpful for the customer to manage all the testing.

HPE BladeSystem does not require a lot of maintenance, because all the components are specific and the costs are less.

The licenses for HPE BladeSystem are perpetual.

My advice is if a customer is looking for a less-density server, HPE BladeSystem is a highly suitable solution. If you install or if you require the 12 servers in the rack, it will take the 12 to 15 space in the rack. Additionally, we have to think about the cabling.

I rate HPE BladeSystem a nine out of ten.