HPE Integrity Reviews

The Integrity Platform has for a while been HP's high availability platform. We've used all of their servers in different models to run all our HP-UX customers. We've also used the ProLiant SS, industry de facto for customers not requesting high availability environments. The added value of Integrity has always been the reliability of the processors and all the parts in the servers. They've delivered us very trustable environments, in which most of our SAP customers, at least the largest ones, have been running. As I said before, the top of that Integrity line is the Superdome, which we've been using since it's been released for the first time 10 years ago.

When I talk about Integrity and Superdome, I would have to say we feel the same because Superdome is the top of the line of the Integrity server line, so basically we use the Integrity servers for the largest customers with requests of a high availability platform. All of them have been very happy. We have loyal customers that have been in a hosting business model with us for more than 10 years running on the Integrity line.

I don't know if Integrity will survive too much because if the Itanium processors are not going to be supportive anymore, I think in the midterm (4 or 5 years), Integrity's going to be replaced by another product line, or HP's going to be moving in more product lines, Plaza Polo and Moonstruck and all the initiatives, but according to what I know Integrity lined with the Itanium 2 processors and HP-UX is coming to an end. That's what I know.

We used to use HP-UX and Integrity for the high linear demand on Oracle. For multi-threaded stuff, we used Solaris. But where there was a single thread with high demand, the Solaris boxes were no good. We used to deploy Oracle on HP-UX for linear demand.

HP-UX was fast on linear demand. We used to look at applications coming through the front door. We'd analyse whether it was highly threaded or a strong linear demand, and make a choice of HP-UX or Solaris based on that demand.

The last problem we had with VSC VMs was no support for Cisco PVLAN. That was a bit of an issue for us 18 months ago. But I think it supports PVLAN now. But, we're moving to x86. We are still deploying OpenVMS on Integrity servers. We've got a big legacy service that was written in-house in OpenVMS and it's one of those things that everybody's scared to touch. We're currently migrating to new Integrity stuff for that legacy service. All the new stuff coming in is x86.

It just keeps on going. We don't have any problems with any HPE equipment, to be fair.

Scalability of HP-UX is fine. We never go Superdome, so we've always stayed on pizza boxes, BL870s, and BladeSystem chassis.

Technical support is fine. We have a multi-vendor contract with HPE. They look after all of our equipment irrespective of the manufacturer.

At the time, if you wanted something highly available, there was SPARC on Solaris and Integrity from HPE. x86 wasn't seen to be good enough to run crown-jewel systems for the organisation. That's why we invested in SPARC and Integrity in the first instance. But, there's nothing between them now, so we go x86 where we can.

We develop our own solutions. We don't use HPE as a managed service. We do use them for our Prepaid solution. We use IN Prepaid that runs on HP-UX, as well. That's a managed service from HPE, which we don't really have a lot to do with.

We didn’t try anything else. We had a twin vendor policy at the time, so we never fully invested in a single vendor. We chose SPARC and HPE. IBM would have been in the mix, but we didn't choose IBM for various reasons. A lot of it was about power consumption and weight on the data centre floor. The IBM stuff just seemed to be heavy.

Don't do it. Go x86.

We use it as a database server for SAP systems, and it is performing very well.

• High availability
• Speed of execution
• IO capabilities

It is an open system with an HP-UX. It is very close to the Linux operating system, but much more reliable. That is why we have chosen it.

More than five years.

The stability is much more than the industry standard servers because of the higher availability that has been designed into it.

It scales very well; much better than industry standard servers.

Most of the computing is going to be in Linux, so there is not much more engineering going into this system with HP-UX. So, probably not only us, but also other customers are going towards Linux systems, but probably on Superdome X instead of Superdome.

They are very good for their Superdome. They are excellent and specialized.

It is because of the special sales service contract with the Superdome that you get the right people to talk to.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

Yes, we looked at other options but this solution provided the best value for the money. Also, we chose this solution because it was the right solution for the operating system that we had at the time.

Migrating away from Unix is driven by SAP themselves, because they are moving towards HANA, and HANA only runs on Linux.

If you are looking for this type of solution, evaluate all options, including growth, then choose the right systems for your company.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

• The stability of the vendor 
• Their investment in future technologies
• Their reliability.

I work in financial services, and we use HPE Integrity for our financial data.

HPE Integrity is a pain. HPE hasn't put much work into developing the solution in the past few years because it will be discontinued soon.

My organization has been using HPE Integrity with HP-UX for years, but I've only used it for a year.

HPE Integrity is a reliable solution, but you'll need to refurbish the hardware because it's approaching the end of sale.

HPE Integrity is scalable.

HP support is good.

HPE Integrity was a top solution about three or four years ago. But if I'm rating it this year, I would give it a seven or eight out of 10. After 2022, it will be more or less obsolete.

On-premises

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

We're moving away from Integrity as it's more pricey than the Intels.

The stability is pretty good.

It's scaling where we need to go.

Initial setup was relatively straightforward.

The Integrity is the most reliable server that I have. I run production on this server, and I feel very comfortable with it.

It helps us to provide timely responses to our customers, and provide high availability in our products.

The quantity of the processor from Integrity, because at this moment there's a limit. We just provide 32 cores, and we are thinking of increasing the number of cores which is not possible in the current devices.

It's very stable. It is the best infrastructure that we have.

It's very scalable because we started with just one blade solution, and increased in order to have four blades in order to create one server. It's good, even the memory and processor. It is a good solution.

I've never had to contact tech support.

It is easy because all our production environment run on Integrity. When we need to increase, we buy Integrity solutions. We don't have to look at any other solutions.

It was quick and easy to install.

We are very comfortable with it and confident with the service that we provide with Integrity. You need to work with a partner that knows the solutions deeply, in order to implement the services and the solution.

• The RAS features at application, file, OS, hardware, and memory levels.
• High I/O throughput of both storage-layer and networking.

I assisted customers with deploying the solution since HP started selling Integrity systems.

No issues encountered.

It's a highly stable environment. The NPAR and VPAR technology combined with HP-UX is a solid solution.

It's got good scalability.

The Integrity series combined with the software layer presents an excellent Mission Critical landscape that brings simplicity in a complex landscape to the foreground.

We currently deployed HP Intergrity blade servers, They offer great versitility, redundancy, and a rapid method of deploying multible virtual guest within 10 minutes. The blade server packaging offers the ability to add addtional blades without downtime. The integrated networking, power, and san storage reduces the need to run new cabling just to add a new server when addtional blades are added.

I would like to see a GUI interface to mange resources and deploy new servers. The current method requires a lot of hands on with a lot of check and recheck. SAN storage lun assignment is lost on the guest side without running commands on the master server and the guest to extrapolate which physical luns are assigned to which file system.