HPE OneView Reviews

It's an awesome replacement for Insight Manager and Virtual Connect Manager.

OneView is a large platform, so asking me, "What are the benefits of OneView," Well, how much time do you have?

I think one of them has to be a single place to login to configure everything at a particular site, instead of logging into Virtual Connect and iLO and Onboard Administrator multiple times a day, you login once to OneView and single-sign on to all your work for the rest of the day.

The inventory report needs improving. I think it's ridiculous that on the inventory report for a DL380, they have the iLO host name.

For blades, which is a majority of my infrastructure, they have, "enclosure name, bay number." That just does not help me understand what that server is. As an IT guy, I already have to take the server name and match it up with the application that's running on it and the business owner and I have a way to do that.

Some Excel tricks make that pretty easy. When I can't even start with a server name or an iLO name, that makes it really hard to start with, so that's my first request. I've been asking for that for some time.

The V3.1 feature that adds the OS name isn't a good replacement for that, because it requires Agentless Management Service running in the host OS to get the OS name into OneView and they're getting that OS name out of iLO anyway, so why not get the iLO host name instead of, "enclosure name, bay number?"

Except for version 3.00.04, stability is very good. That version was only out for about five or six days before they pulled it and I was unfortunately one of those that downloaded it and installed it and rebooted it. It has a tendency to take down your fiber channel connectivity in C7000 with Virtual Connect.

I'm well under the limit, so I don't really understand the scalability.

I have noticed that my test environment with 50, 60 servers and runs a lot snappier than the 500 servers. It's so close in performance that you really have to be watching to notice any performance difference, but as far as scalability is concerned, it handles everything that I do.

I'm pretty sure I'm way under the limits.

Technical support on a scale from one to ten, I'd have to rate at 8/10.

Sometimes you get people who know OneView backwards and forwards, sometimes you get people that seems like it's their first phone call on OneView, so it depends on who you get connected to.

I was tired of Insight Manager and Virtual Connect Manager and their limitations.

Version 1.0 was ridiculous. The setup was way too complex compared to iLO, Onboard Administrator, Virtual Connect Manager.

The LDAP configuration that HP has been doing for decades on those types of remote management appliances, apparently none of that was used in V1.0 and even V2.0 OneView. In the later versions of V2.0, the setup was less complex. V3.0 was I think finally, well V3.1 was a really good product, I think.

We didn't consider alternative solutions. We are strictly HP.

When I'm looking for a vendor of management tools, specifically management tools as opposed to just looking for a vendor - when I'm looking for a management tool vendor, I want to use the software or hardware manufacturer first, because they usually do the best job and have the best insight into how their equipment works.

I would say that I'm focusing on very small minutiae that bug me in my negative feedback. Overall, OneView is a fantastic replacement for Virtual Connect Manager and it's a fantastic replacement for Insight Manager.

There are just some things that I hope are enhancements that'll be resolved soon that I'd advise people to watch out for, especially if they're important to them.

We can configure the HPE server with OneView. We can add VLAN and update it.

The product does not work well. The logs are not proper.

I have been using the solution for two years.

We did not face any problems with the tool’s stability. We upgraded the product twice in the last two years.

The tool is scalable. We have ten users. The product is used twice a week.

The initial setup was not difficult. The deployment took one day.

We did the deployment in-house.

We use Ansible for automation.

The product is good. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

The automation capabilities are the most valuable. I don't have to use CD-ROMs or anything like that to provision the servers. Plug in a server and give it a profile. The whole thing is automated.

It saves us a lot of time. Time is money. We mess around with servers all day. So, it's a huge time saver. It also helps us track our inventory better in terms of where things are. With one of these you can actually plan out your whole data center. Build out where the server physically is, and historically we've had trouble with that sometimes. People would ask, "Oh, where is server XYZ?" We had to look it up on a spreadsheet or some data base. Sometimes that's not always accurate. We were sort of roaming around the data center trying to find the server. So, this is just pretty cool.

I would like to see support for things that aren't in the current generation. We have a lot of 7th and 8th generation hardware.

In the 9th generation, we are looking at virtual connect. Virtual connect profiles, things like that. So, we have a bunch of old hardware that's not in virtual connect, there's no virtual connect profiles, and you can't really do anything with that stuff. You can see it but that's about it. It would be nice if they supported some of the older generation hardware.

Stability is pretty solid. I couldn't say I've really had any problems with it, aside from the upgrade to 3.0. There was a pretty nasty bug with the first release that they fixed within a week, fortunately. But that caught us and caused some problems. But, aside from that, it's been pretty stable.

We just installed one last year (2016), so we couldn't say we have a million servers in there. But I haven't had any performance issues with the amount of servers we have in it. And it seems to scale okay.

Technical support is pretty good. We haven't had many problems with it. The one time I did call support was for a known issue. There was a bug fix and they just pointed me to it.

I want to use the management platform for the entire infrastructure. I don't think you could really do anything without one unless you're into manual labor and you have a team of cheap people to do the work. But that doesn't really scale well. Automation is really where it's at.

OneView is an absolute requirement. Synergy has the appliance built into the box now. It's a critical component, so there's no getting around it. You need OneView.

We used HPE Systems Insight Manager previously, but nothing that could provision the way OneView works. There was Virtual Connect before OneView if you wanted to manage each individually as its own domain and get profiles that way. But, again, that doesn't scale. You can't have hundreds of closures and manage each one individually. You need something that can do it all in one place.

The number one question when looking for a vendor is, “does it meet the requirements?" If you go beyond meeting your requirements, then it's about service. It's about price. Issues like that.

I was involved in the setup. It was pretty straightforward. It's just an appliance. Just three clicks and you're done.

I didn't actually look for alternatives. I've been pretty happy with HPE and their solutions for a long time. But our prior leadership was looking at Cisco UCS, Dell, and Nutanix.

We have been an HPE shop for a very long time and we've been very satisfied with their solutions. So we didn't really have a problem we needed solving with HPE. Prior leadership wanted to look at other vendors, just for the sake of competition. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. But, if you have the best upgrade solution, why would you look at an alternative?

If you're talking about a similar solution like a UCS, like Cisco, I would highly advise against Cisco UCS. Go HPE. Go OneView, for sure. The interface is a lot cleaner. It’s much better. I have colleagues that support both HPE and UCS and they would love to get rid of all their UCS and just go HPE. HPE is pretty much best upgrade.

The automation that we get within OneView and the visibility across all of our different products are the most valuable features.

As they continue to add into the product, it makes the provisioning process that much easier and more seamless.

So for us, as we continue to scale on multiple locations, we wanted to have a one view into all of that infrastructure, i.e., not having to go into all the individual products for all the different types of storage, compute, etc. It's that flexibility across all the different infrastructure platforms that we wanted this solution.

If I remember correctly, our CTO was saying that he wants to see a little bit more of integration into the HPE StoreVirtual VSA product. I know that it's either supposed to be or was recently added, but it's coming soon or is already there. I'm just not one hundred percent sure where it's as of now and that is one piece.

We now have a new HPE 3PAR added as well. I'm pretty sure that we can do what we need to do with that, but there might have been something my CTO was saying that he wanted to see integrated. I don't know what that is from the top of my head but, I'm pretty sure it's on the roadmap to actually get that implemented soon anyway.

We've been using HPE OneView for a couple of years and for a couple of our nodes. Then, we were waiting for the most recent release to come out so that we could backfill all of our blade nodes, i.e., just to help with the overall operations. So, we have been using this solution for really about a couple of years, but predominantly, within the last six months.

It's definitely very stable. Also, being able to import in all of our existing blade nodes, VMs and the storage was a seamless process. We had no problems with that, i.e., from what I understand and I haven't heard anything that has trickled up to my desk, anyway.

I foresee it meeting my future needs. We've got around twenty blade chassis and there are from, anywhere about, 12 to 16 hosts in each one of those. We still have a few more sets of infrastructure and some of our other geographies that we haven't licensed yet, but we'll definitely look to add that on here soon.

Technical support is fantastic. The support that we get, and actually, we just recently got a bunch of credits with this new program that has come out, they always meet our needs. The local guys are very good. I haven't seen any concerns probably in the last decade. We've been a long-standing HPE partner and the support has been very well.

The setup is very straightforward. You can even do it just by following the step-by-step instructions, i.e., if you're more adventurous and want to get into that. We, actually, had an engagement and had someone to help us on a webinar, i.e., a little bit of taking over control and helping us get it taken care of. However, it was a very straightforward process. There was definitely nothing that was out of the norm.

Choosing a vendor really starts with R&D, i.e., an organization that puts a lot of their money back in investing into new products and trying to make sure that the research is funded and moving forward is pretty important to us. Of course, that speaks to their brand. Outside of that, certainly support and then, really at the end, after all of those features cost is going to be the next factor that we look at. As long as they're competitive in the market and I am not looking for the least cost option, but definitely, having that runway to know that the roadmap is going to continue where we want to go and it's not just going to get dropped off/acquired. These are the factors that sum up as to how we look at a vendor when we're going to buy something.

There's always room for an improvement, but, definitely, it meets all of our needs. We're very happy with our OneView purchase and how it provides all that visibility into our entire infrastructure.

From a single pane of glass, one product is used to:

• Manage all of our systems
• Do boots from SANs
• Build profiles
• Add the firmware and drivers

It makes things quicker because you only have to go into one application instead of into multiple applications. It makes it easier for new users that are in our group to learn it.

I would like to see them improve the firmware and BIOS settings. I would like to make those a little easier to use and make it fit across more of our environments. Besides that, I don't really think it's missing anything.

I think it is very stable. We are running version 2 or 3. Version 3 has been really good. We haven't had any issues with it. We had some issues with version 2, but that's just because it was new.

It is very scalable. We run 1400 environments and we haven't had any issues with the 500 physical environments.

Technical support is pretty good. We haven't had any issues with them and they get back to us. They don't do the common things, such as asking us to upgrade the firmware. They just actually help you out with the question or problem that you're having.

We used the older versions of HPE IC and SIM. Those required two interfaces and you also had to go through your OA. There were a lot of different steps to it. Teaching somebody new was always a little more difficult. Now you teach them with HP OneView, and they can automatically click on the server or the profile and go right down to the actual physical blades, and see what chassis it is in and where it is located.

When selecting a vendor, we like that we use HPE for everything except for storage. We've used them from large systems, to blades, to racks, and to clusters. We've used them for a lot of things. I think just the fact that they have such a broad portfolio of products was part of our decision.

With 3.1 coming out, it will have all of the features I was looking for. When that comes out in July, then I think we will have everything that we're looking for. I think they are ahead of the curve on what works.

It is a pretty good product. I like the fact that it's a single pane of glass. I don't like having the old environment, which had HP IC and SIM and all those other components. It always took a long time to get to the OA. Now you have one view of everything: your applications and your servers. You an easily pull reports, so there is definitely an advantage in using it.

I was not involved in the initial set up. The upgrade was very straightforward. I was involved in that part. It takes a little while but, no it was no big deal.

A long time ago, we put HPE in the blade environment against other vendors: Dell, Cisco, and IBM. Cisco had just brought out their new blade at the time. By far, HPE was easier to use and simple as far as adding memory. We can boot from SAN. It seemed like a very good product all around for doing everything that we wanted it to do.

I would think that any company would want to use it. It makes it easier for the user, the administrator, and makes it simpler from a reporting standpoint. You can see your entire environment.

The single pane-of-glass and unified API allows you to handle everything from one single interface. The best thing about OneView is that you can manage rack mount servers, blades, and blade chassis, all from one single pane of glass.

It's helped in terms of monitoring, deployments, and being able to know what we have out there. We can actually integrate some of those features to manage things from afar, even from outside the data centers, as long as we have our onboard administrators configured correctly.

It works really well for basic day-to-day administrator functions without having to go into every single iLO, or every single detail for configuration.

It's really neat to be able to just slide in a new blade server, throw a blade profile on it through OneView, and that is all of the configuration that you need.

I can't think of anything off the top of my head for the next release. I think some of the stuff that's coming with Synergy is already going to be included there, like a lot of the OS integrations.

You can do some of that with Image Streamer and a Synergy chassis. A lot of those things go through OneView, which acts as its own Synergy composer, that takes you to the Image Streamer appliance. Those are their own OneView instances, so to speak.

The coming features I heard about at a recent conference are probably what I would have suggested anyway.

It's been stable so far. Once we got it up and running, we haven't had really any problems with it. We have a single-sign-on implementation for it. Once we got it hooked into our active directory, it has been very stable.

We actually have four, separate, isolated OneView instances with one master OneView on top of it. It's scaled very well so far, even from our initial smaller implementation. We have since scaled that, have experienced the scale, and it has worked really well.

I have not used technical support. I believe one of my cohorts has.

We knew that we needed to go to OneView when we started investing in the BladeSystem infrastructure. That's the best way to go when you're doing anything BladeSystem related.

I was not involved in the setup. My cohort was.

We did not look at other vendors.

When looking at vendors, I look at ease-of-use. Cost is always an important factor, as well as how it integrates with our environment and meets our regulatory requirements.

It is definitely worth it. You can have a single, unified instance to manage everything. It's great from a system admin's perspective. It's worth it.

The automation is the big winner for people who use OneView. It allows several tasks to be rolled up into one very simple task.

It obviously saves me resource time, resource units. Not as many people are needed to do mundane tasks. That's where the automation comes in.

From our perspective, we don’t know of any needed improvements. Everything that was advertised to us has been available, was available and does work.

We find it quite stable. Most HPE solutions are stable.

Scalability is probably the biggest influence for choosing OneView. It doesn't matter if you're trying to manage 10 servers or 10,000 servers.

We have an account manager who is very good in this regard and any sort of technical support that we do need, we have engineers that are assigned to our account. They are always very, very helpful. Very efficient.

We didn’t have any previous solutions. It was just a correct step for us to take at the time. It was the next viable solution that we wanted in that space.

People on my team were involved in it and it was probably as smooth as we anticipated.

We spoke to several different vendors, including Dell and Hitachi. It came down to the whole idea of the partnership that we'd built up with HPE over the last 15 or 20 years.

I think you need to talk to as many vendors in the marketplace as you can. Listen to what they say and make an informed decision.

When looking for a vendor, we’re probably the same as everybody else. Cost is very important. I think the local relationship that we have with our HPE account manager and engineers within the island of Ireland makes a big difference.

OneView is a monitoring as well as a centralized management solution. We are using it for the virtual data center. We are using it for VMware hypervisors on top of the blades and HPE Synergy.

The best part is that you can integrate a two-way network. Earlier we could not manage the storage and ToR switch. Now we can create a LAN with our storage without any interface. 

In terms of switch management, it is now easy to understand the current configuration. It provides centralized management. It provides a single pane, and you can easily do all updates in one shot. It is a great product.

They can improve reporting and provide more customized reports. Currently, reporting is a bit limited. 

It can be complex to learn and manage for beginners. Because of my experience, I find it comfortable to manage, which might not be the case with beginners. It would be good if they can make it a little bit easier to understand. They can provide a more graphical view of connectivity and other things.

Their technical support can also be improved.

I have been using this solution for almost two years. We started working with OneView in 2019.

It is certainly a reliable solution. We switched to this solution almost two years ago, and I have not faced any kind of issues.

We have not tried to expand it. We are a big organization, and in my team, there are almost 200 to 300 people.

Their technical support can be improved. Dell's technical support is better than HPE.

We are also using Dell and Cisco UCS. Dell's technical support is better than HPE. In terms of hardware, stability, and other things, there are no issues.

Its initial setup was not much difficult. I was not much familiar with it at that time, so their technical team guided us. Its documentation is available on the HPE portal.

We took help from HPE.

It was a management decision. They prefer only HPE Synergy. We didn't evaluate any other solution. We are using it in a lot of data centers. We are using something else only in a couple of data centers.

I would recommend this solution to others. It is very stable. There are very few hardware faults with HPE solutions.

I would rate HPE OneView a ten out of ten.