HPE ProLiant DL Servers Reviews

The iLO. To me, its the differentiating factor of the ProLiant server and the biggest reason I'd choose to run them versus competitors. The iLO provides all the management features needed and is a consistent experience across all form factors, sizes and lines of ProLiant.

The Gen8 and Gen9 hardware provides agentless monitoring and management using the iLO, so we don't have to run agents and rely on software to get hardware alerts. These all come across directly from the iLO. OS level alerts still require agents, but all the basic hardware monitoring does not.

These predate my time with the company. I've been with the company for 10 years and the ProLiant were several generations older, so I would say we had original generation one DL 380s, so it probably goes back at least 15 years.

Very few in recent models. Most any issues are resolved with firmware and driver updates from the HPE Service Pack for ProLiant, their cross-tested bundles. On top of this, HPE has done a lot of address issues for administrators. A couple of generations ago, with the Gen8 ProLiant debut, they hit twenty different improvements that I care about as an administrator. Predictive memory enables us to know when memory is going to fail. Instead of having a hard failure or a crash in the middle of the night, it's got predictive memory so it lets us know when not to pull a drive. So if we're wanting to pull a drive for a fail-back point or something, it's got a little indicator that says "Don't pull me right now". It's got an "X" mark on it, so I don't crash a system just trying to do something preventative, but there was a wealth of different things that they added into the systems that I can appreciate as an operations guy.All of that stuff came directly from feedback of customers like me and got integrated into the next product cycle, so I'm a huge ProLiant fan.

No. You can scale-out with ProLiant, but each generation increases the memory and CPU capabilities exponentially, so from that perspective it's usually just a refresh cycle from scale discussion. But that is kind of how we approach it, is we need to increase capacity within inside of our VMware farms, we replace the hardware with a new generation, generally increase the amount of RAM and CPU configuration.

7/10 - it can be hit or miss. We get better luck with our premium support levels. We have a named TAM for some of our systems, that works out well. Escalation managers are always good. There is good technical talent, it's just sometimes hidden by first level support. That can be difficult and frustrating at times, but over ten years working with them, I would say today it's probably a little better than when I first started. Actually, I would say it's probably improved a good bit since I first started working with them, but it's still got some room to go.

They were dead simple. You rack them, power them on, then you can use Intelligent Provisioning to install and configure the system. They just make a lot of sense. It's easy.

I think it's the best server you can possibly buy. I have recently had more exposure to Dell and Cisco products to compare with and I stand by the DL line as the best server and it is primarily because of iLO.

We are using the solution for less critical services.

They should improve the speed of the solution's processor. A core banking service like ours needs faster processing for our central server. We have to run an extensive process half yearly. The solution takes more than 24 to 30 hours to complete it. Ideally, it should take six to seven hours. Our industry is growing daily with an increase in the number of customers. Thus, we plan to move to a solution with better processing speed.

They should build risc processors with high speed. Additionally, they should reduce the prices as it is a significant concern for developing countries such as us.

We have been using the solution since the year 2012 or 2013.

It is a stable solution.

We have around 15-20 users of the solution in our organization.

The solution's customer service is good.

The solution's ROI is worth it for mid-level services.

The solution is not highly-priced, but it is more expensive than Dell.

The solution has a good performance ratio. I rate the solution as a seven.

The most valuable features are reliability, the ease of implementation and setup. It's all wizard-driven. Also, maintenance on the devices, spare parts availability, and, as I’ve mentioned, reliability.

We've reduced the number of physical servers, currently. So, we've brought it down from 38 servers down to about 15. Seeing that we are standardizing, it's easier to support the devices, as we don't have that many different devices on-site that need to be supported.

I looked at the technologies offered at a recent HPE conference. There are a lot of technologies that are only offered on the high-end servers. As an example, the SSD module that's embedded on the memory; that's only available on the HP DL380. We've invested quite heavily in the HP DL360 G9s, which means that I won't have access to that technology. I would like it if there's a possibility, even if you have to pay an additional license, to enable that technology on the DL360s.

There's never a problem with it. It's always running. The reliability factor's quite high.

It has definitely been stable.

On the 3PAR, you just add devices as needed.

My previous employer, we were an HP house. Then when I started at the new company, I’ve noticed that they’ve got a mixed breed of technologies. It's not all industry or first-year suppliers or brands. I started the standardization strategy and obviously, HPE was the first choice.

The most important criteria when selecting HP were performance and reliability. I've got an existing relationship with a current supplier and, like I've mentioned before, I'm familiar with the brand and the technologies.

Initial setup was straightforward.

Before choosing this product, I also evaluated Dell and IBM rack servers.

Absolutely HPE. Absolutely happy with it.

There are concerns about the HPE team in the Southeast Asia region, suggesting a need for improvements in terms of responsiveness. There have been instances where the response time was slow, causing challenges during urgent situations. Its stability also needs to improve. 

I have been using the product for five years. 

We haven't received any complaints about the tool's stability. It works properly in a five-year lifetime. 

I rate the solution's scalability an eight out of ten. 

The product's competitor is Dell. 

The solution's deployment was easy. 

The solution's pricing is high. It needs to be more flexible. The flexibility would be beneficial for our clients, especially in a competitive market. Adding additional features and addressing complex requirements on top of the price can be challenging for us as a reseller.

In project tenders, system requirements are specified, including the number of cores, storage, and personnel needed. The information is shared with the HPE team to prepare a BQ specifying the server model to be used. The tool is a good physical server. 

The choice of server category or type is not specific and varies case by case. Customers may initially purchase higher servers than their immediate requirements, anticipating future use cases. It's a complex decision and depends on individual circumstances.

The product's roadmap seems to be good. Its deployments are mostly on-prem due to government regulations.

The product is purchased specifically for security solutions, not for the entire data center stack. It is recommended for medium to enterprise-level customers. 

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. 

We have several HPE ProLiant DL Server models in use, DL360, 380, and 580.

We use the servers for multiple business services.

The quality and the technical support are the most valuable features.

The cost of the solution has room for improvement.

I am currently using HPE ProLiant DL Servers.

The solution is scalable.

The solution is expensive.

I give the solution a ten out of ten.

We have one SQL server, one repository called Solidworks Designs, and one called Karmatic.

The most valuable feature of the solution is scalability.

The licensing fees are expensive and have room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for three years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. We purchased enough resources to ensure we could meet our requirements.

The initial setup is straightforward and took a few minutes. The deployment was simple. We only needed to install a Windows server.

The implementation was completed in-house.

We have to pay for an annual license which is expensive.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

We have twenty people using the solution in our organization and plan to increase that number to 30.

We require five people to maintain the solution consisting of managers and automation engineers.

I recommend the solution to others.

We are using it for serving the VMware environment and creating all of our virtual servers and desktops.

The GPU units, processor speed, and capabilities are most valuable. Desktop video conferencing is also valuable. It supports desktop video conferencing much better for graphics.

They should work with Microsoft to make licensing costs better. That's because the physical servers have processors with all these cores, and Microsoft now licenses Windows virtual server desktops based on the number of cores and the serving servers. So, if you got to build 10 or 20 servers on that desktop, you got to license them all with Microsoft. They should have a partnership with Microsoft to decrease the virtual licensing of servers in partnerships so that when you purchase the servers, you also get licensing for Microsoft on top of them. That's because it gets very expensive to license virtual operating systems to run on physical servers.

I have been using this solution for 10 years, but these are refreshed. So, they're new. We have hardly used them.

It is solid. We didn't face any issues.

Its scalability is great. We have 150 users, and it is being used heavily. We are taking every bit of life out of it we can. We don't have any plans to increase its usage.

Their technical support is great. It is fantastic.

We have only used HPE.

It is easy. Getting them up and running is a piece of cake, but getting the VMware environment operation on them is very complicated.

It has been a couple of months so far, and we're still working on it.

We are implementing it in-house. We are growing that skill internally. I got a rockstar guy doing all that. I don't do it on my own. 

For its maintenance, we have one network administrator.

They need to work with Microsoft to make the licensing costs better and more efficient.

It is a good product. I would rate it a nine out of 10 because it has good support and good performance.

The most valuable feature is consistency to the cost. We understand what we're going to get, and we also understand the price-point that we're entering into.

Some of the features I'm already seeing over there, i.e., really moving more towards a software layer that helps us to manage the infrastructure that we're purchasing from HPE. To use a competitor's term, as to what Nutanix is doing, HPE should be moving in a similar direction, which they are now, both in regards to a free product and a paid product; I'm actually very happy about that.

We've been using the HPE Proliant DL380s for seven years or more, and the DL580s only during the last year.

The product has been consistently stable. We have had no issues.

Scalability with the hardware alone requires a bit more than just hardware, but we are using it in a scalable architecture. If you look at what we do with our EBS system, we use the DL580s with Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) to allow it to scale.

The technical support is very good. We recently just had to use it and the items were resolved in a timely manner, so I've been happy with the support.

With some of the new software changes, the setup is getting easier and more consistent for us to apply across the globe; it's improving for sure.

The most important criteria while selecting a vendor are the costs and then, the other long-term factors such as reliability and quality.

We do actually evaluate solutions every year. We still buy other servers but not as many as we buy from HPE. Still, we do buy some stuff from Dell, just because we're in three regions of the world, but most of our stuff goes through HPE.

We're a bit of an HPE shop. We've used Dell in other places, too, but generally, in terms of the price-point and quality of service it has always led us to HPE, so these are the main driving points for us.

For companies like us, we want more than a server. When we buy servers then we want some level of software orchestration on top of it to help us deploy OS or hypervisor plus some form of high-level capacity/environment review. This is sort of happening with Generation nine and ten hardware but not as refined as what you get with Nutanix.