HPE ProLiant DL Servers Reviews

We've been using ProLiant for six years.

ProLiant is highly stable. We've had very few problems with the servers. We only once had an issue with the hard disk in an HPE server.

The scalability is good. We have about 500 users now, but the business is growing strongly in licenses and post-sales service contracts.

HPE support is very good.

ProLiant servers are easy to deploy. It's not difficult to put all the elements together and configure it for our customers.

Some of the licenses are for one year, and others are for three years. It's a standard fee with no additional charges.

I rate ProLiant10 out of 10. My advice to new users is to be sure all the elements are compatible between systems. Also, you need to ensure the customers' needs match the size of the server that will be implemented. I'm talking about computer power.

I think the most valuable features are the CPU version which is very advanced, and the machine itself is very reliable in terms of how long we can use the hardware. Some of our customers are using it for five years, six years without the need to even replace a single part or use the service from HPE.

HPE is expanding the CPU very quickly, like every few months you get a new CPU and new technology in the field. That's very good for us because we can give our customers a very advanced server. Every three to six months we can upgrade their server if they like; or if we need to upgrade it in terms of using a stronger server such as more cores, etc.

We are using, in Israel, a company called Arrow to distribute, and they are very very good for shipping, packaging, in replacing the front panel. They work on HPE a lot. They are doing it very quickly, they distribute it very quickly.

I think that for us, we have is what we need. I'm not sure that we would like to see any new advanced features because we're not using such advanced features. I'm sure there's always places to improve but we are not using all of the advanced features that are in HPE.

Perhaps the one thing is support globally, or distribution globally. Today we distribute in the United States and, over there, we have a center that can distribute for us, but I don't think they have such in the Eastern part of the world. So that could be an area for improvement.

Stability is very high. We have not needed to refer to the warranty, during the three years that we got. Sometimes customers hold their products for five, six years without the need to use any of the warranty or services, so that's very reliable for use.

I can tell you that through the years we definitely wanted to upgrade the servers, scale them up in terms of replacing CPU or even adding CPU for some of the servers that use one CPU, or RAM, or disks. We haven't had any trouble with that. That has been very easy.

I use technical support from time to time. It's very easy to open a case, very quick response and, most of the time, the first response that we are receiving solves the problem. We aren't getting into long discussions or things like that.

We have Hebrew customer support, actually. 

We used Dell and it wasn't as fast and accurate. 

Very straightforward. Today, you have built-in the option to use SmartStart so it's very easy to set up the first time. It's very intuitive. For us, once again, that's very important.

We always look at other vendors, Dell, IBM. Right now we are checking into the option to buy storage so we are looking to, of course, 3PAR versus NetApp and EMC.

I think that the most important thing that you need to look at is a company that will give them end to end support. HPE does that.

Stability. That's about it.

It saves us money.

Lower price. You have to pay for some of the features after the fact.

It stays up.

When looking for a vendor, I look for cost and support.

The setup was straightforward.

We have very specific standards, and only HPE met them.

Look at the product and look at the support. In the long term, the support of the hardware is crucial. It is not just about the price point.

It builds very well, is easy to install, is easy to maintain, is easy to administer remotely.

It allows me to run a lot of virtual machines at the same time. It helps me do a lot of testing, so I can build a virtual machine and try things out on it. If it doesn't work, I can just recreate it.

I guess more regular automatic updates would be nice. Sometimes when you call support they'll say, "Well, what version of frameware are you on?" And you'll say, "Version X, Y, Z," and they'll say, "You need to be on A, B, C."

The stability is rock solid.

I have not tried scaling it.

Regarding the technical support - it depends on the day, sometimes it's good, sometimes bad, but I always know how to elevate or escalate to get to the next level if I need to.

The setup was straightforward. It's easy to mount the rack, it's got great rails. Power it right up, launch and then you can start configuring it.

The most important aspect when selecting a vendor is ease of use. Probably the most important. We evaluated HP, IBM, Lenovo. We have a better relationship with HP.

Get it because it will work very well for you.

The reliability and the support are probably the most reliable features for us. We enjoy the fact that support is quite good and the products do what they're supposed to do. We use it to host a lot of software development environments, so up-time is important to us. HP's products are very reliable.

The benefits are that it allows us deliver solutions to our software developers faster and the up-time is maintained.

• More adoption of Intel's new processors
• More SSD technology
• More NVMe technology
• Keeping the price down. (It's always the price, right?)

Stability is very good with HPE products. There is a lot of development going into their products and you can see that when the products go into our production data center.

Scalability is very good as well. There are always options to buy bigger products, to add on disc storage, and to increase compute power.

We use technical support all the time. They are very good. I would give them a rating of 8/10. No technical support organization is perfect.

We knew we needed to invest in this solution because our customers told us. They needed more compute. We develop software, so they needed processing and compute power, so that they can get products to market faster.

I was more or less involved in the initial setup. It was complex. We host different types of environments, so some of them are simple, but some of them are complex. We deal with a lot of:

• Servers
• Storage
• Customers
• Software configurations
• Operating systems
• Relationships between all of those components

We always look at other vendors, such as Dell and Supermicro. When looking for a vendor, usually price is important, obviously, as well as the stability of the products.

I would say that they can't go wrong.

• Scalability
• Availability
• It’s robust
• Clustering
• Virtualization

I can do with it almost everything within minutes.

It reduced costs and time.

I would say it's not the top of the line, but it's near the top. We had some cracks in the past but stability is high. It's not outstanding, but it's high.

For these kinds of features themselves, scalability is OK, but I expect much better performance from the scalability. There are some features that are quite slow and we have faced some issues with them in the past.

We have used technical support twice and it was slow. I would give it a rank of 2/5. They are a big organization, but the support teams are very, very slow.

Management decided to move to this solution. I inherited this from them. We were using a solution from IBM. We negotiated a better price with HPE.

Make sure you negotiate yourself a very good service contract.

We use this solution for everything. We use it for payment solutions and for the switch.

It is currently deployed on-premises, but we are moving to a private cloud because our requirements have really grown over the years.

Its reliability and after-sales support are very good.

It is too expensive. Its price should be improved.

The system admin interface should have better visibility while troubleshooting a problem, even when the problem is coming from the application.

I have been working with this solution for 20 years.

It is very stable. That's why we have so many of them.

It is very scalable. We are able to add memory and storage. My company supports all the banks in Nigeria, and they use this solution. 

We have very good local support in Nigeria. They're very good. We don't have any problems.

The initial setup is straightforward.

It is just too expensive.

I would advise others to get the technical training for this solution. They would then enjoy this solution very well.

I would rate HPE ProLiant DL Servers a nine out of ten.