HPE ProLiant DL Servers Reviews

There are several valuable features of these servers, including their reliability, the general standardization of components, expandability, price, and support. I think they're miles ahead of the competition in these areas.

I think that the main area of improvement would be in the price. The price only came down for us when we went to a dual vendor solution. We resorted to negotiating prices between HP and its competitors, and would have been nice to not have gone through that trouble to get a more competitive price.

We experienced no issues with the deployments.

The stability is great. They're always bugs with IT and the computers are there to test those. I wouldn't have a job otherwise. I'd say HP servers are generally more stable than the competitors.

They're very scalable.

We do most technical support in-house. If we do go to HP, the level of tech support will depend on the type of bug, who you're speaking to, how good the answer is, and how good the result is. Often you have to skip three layers of support before you can even get any assistance.

We have a multi-vendor network, but 99% of our kit is HP. We also use Dell and IBM equipment, but we chose HP for servers because it's just easier to support the platform. Multiple vendors need multiple hardware, and for multiple hardware, there are more update methods. They don't all work the same way and they're not all as reliable.

• Scalability
• Performance
• Out-of-band management
• Support

Java version dependence for its out-of-band management. This is also an issue for other vendors, as well.

HP Proliant Servers have been used on this project for over six years. I’ve managed them since I came on the project, so for almost five years. We used the BladeSystem alongside the DL servers.

There won't be any issues as long as you have followed the guidelines to ensure that the firmware was up to date prior to deployment.

There was an issue before I came on the project, where a firmware update was not applied, and that had caused a few systems to become unstable under certain conditions, but HP support was able to identify the cause and provide a solution.

The systems scale well for our environment.

Mostly very positive. The only issue I’ve encountered has been with presales support (i.e. getting accurate quotes to purchase systems).

Excellent.

Before coming on this project, I had used Dell servers. The performance of the HP server has an edge over the Dell systems I had used.

Overall the HP Proliant servers have been dependable and fit nicely into the price vs performance that is required for custom application stack.

HP Proliant servers are rock solid and when you need technical support HP’s team is there to support you with answers, no matter how long it takes to properly identify the root cause and then propose a solution.

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.

We use the solution as a second node backup.

Compatibility is the best feature of the solution.

The technical support response time has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for 13 years.

I give the stability a nine out of ten.

I give the scalability an eight out of ten.

We have 8,000 users.

Technical support sometimes takes time to resolve the issue.

Positive

We used IBM servers and switched to HPE ProLiant DL Servers because of the better price.

The initial setup is easy. I give the initial setup a ten out of ten. The deployment took between one and two days.

Three people were used for the deployment.

The implementation was completed in-house with the help of an external consultant.

I give the cost a ten out of ten. We pay an annual licensing fee.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

We require two people for the maintenance.

I recommend the solution to others.

We use it for the 12 VMs we have on it. We are using VMware.

It's very useful.

It's easy to upgrade, and it is very easy to take care of the firmware upgrades.

With a complete bootable CD, we can do the upgrades quite remotely and pretty easily.

A black mark that we felt with HPE is that it failed within four to six months of use, even after it was addressed with HPE. 

The implementation should be simplified, it is not straightforward.

The product should be better tested before they send it to the end-user.

The stability needs improvement.

Support could be improved to be faster in responding.

We just purchased HPE ProLiant DL Servers six months ago.

We are using the latest version.

At this point in time, I would not say that it is a very stable product, because of the bad experience that we had.

It is scalable to a certain extent. Not very much, but at least 20% scalable.

We have 300 users in our organization.

We contacted technical support for the issues that we were facing. 

I found them to be quite slow in their response.

We could put up with the delay because it had just been brought in, and the applications were being transferred.

In fairness, it could have been because of the COVID issue. But I found them to be pretty slow.

Previously we were using Dell, and we switched from Dell to HPE.

We have been very dedicated users of Dell and never had any issues with them. Unfortunately, we had to switch to HPE for a specific reason.

We switched from Dell because of some specific requirements that could not be met with Dell. Also, we switched because of some financial issues. Dell was more expensive and we couldn't afford it at that time.

It wasn't straightforward.

We had some issues with some failures initially. Though it was taken care of by HPE, we still had some failures, which was surprising.

We have a team of ten admins, engineers, managers, and data entry guys to maintain and deploy this solution.

We had the help of the HPE service providers.

We have purchased this solution and it is under warranty. It is more economical than some other products.

We will continue to use this solution, as we have purchased it and can't afford to just throw it away. If we continue to have further issues, we will consider changing it over.

With my current experience, I could not recommend this product to others.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

Virtualized servers, failover production and dev/test environments of Linux and Windows guests.

We have been able to virtualize many physical servers into virtual servers running on a smaller number of physical hosts. This has allowed us to consolidate and reduce our carbon footprint in the data center and have a higher ROI on Capex purchases. Also becomes easier to introduce new hardware as part of replacement cycles as VMs are hardware independent.

• iLO gives hardware information, preempting imminent failures.
• Redundancy features provide hot-swap ability for drives and power supplies and automatic rebuilding of RAIDs.

Boot-up time should be reduced. Restarting a server at any time is a stress-filled occasion, and waiting around for the server to come back on is agonizing. 10GB and 40GB ethernet connections are essential for virtualization workloads and consolidation.

Stability can be adversely affected if non-HP certified RAM is used, e.g. Kingston value RAM has failed a few times, bringing an entire server down.

Excellent, the support is one area where I can have no complaints. Whenever a hardware failure has been detected, HP have responded in good time and the part was delivered within the agreed SLA. Having said that, the original parts availability outside the established channels also makes it easy (cheaper) to maintain, especially in non-critical environments i.e. dev and test.

I've used HP servers predominantly so do not have much else to compare them with.

It's simple. Use the included SmartStart media, and it seamlessly integrates with the OS of choice.

In-house. I have found the rack mounting kits more of a challenge then the installation of the OS/hypervisor, that is how simple implementation is. Also, keep an eye on which version of the SmartStart media you use i.e. x86 vs. x64 as that limits what kind of OS media can be utilized.

ROI is difficult to say because it depends on the type of implementation e.g. is it a new deployment or consolidating an existing an existing one or simply replacing like for like. What I would say, is that the platforms are very stable and once setup, will most likely outlast any hardware replacement cycle in place.

Ensure that you get the hardware support with 24x7 four hour response if this is a high availability production environment, and purchase appropriate iLO licenses if needed.

The only thing I don't like about them is that if/when you have to restart it, it takes a long time to come back on. As the sea of sensors have increased in recent generations, the time has become longer.

Define your storage needs in advance and then plan the disks accordingly. Suggest that if flash storage is financially feasible, then invest in that as the performance benefits are worth it.

The most valuable features for us are remote management, high load, and resilience. We're a small team but we have servers in Moscow, Milan, and other places. This is a solution that allows us to be in those different places.

We only have support staff in North America and in Europe, so it enables us to offer support globally in our other offices. If there's an issue in the Sydney office, we can log on remotely, needing very little work. The main benefit is less manpower, which means that if there's an issue at 3:00 in the morning in the US, I can do the work rather than having to get somebody else to do the work.

I'd like to see more features in the iLO as it currently only provides a basic overview. Sometimes the part or serial numbers are missing, for example. We've had issues where power supplies or hard drives have become defective and the information gets pulled back into the error logs. We then have to physically look into the server. This is highly inconvenient and an annoyance which could be solved with more iLO features.

We get the odd hard drive or power supply or general failure issues, but there aren't major stability issues we've noticed.

If we've got clusters with a specific chip set, we can't easily introduce more once the chip becomes end-of-line. We have to build an entirely new cluster and migrate things over with the way we've implemented it.

We have technical support through a third party and through HP. It seems relatively straightforward -- just go online, fill in the details, and you normally get contacted in 30-60 minutes.

I've primarily been with HP throughout my career. I've used IBMs and Dells in the past, very briefly, but I've never really got on with them. I find that the support and the tools that come with HP servers are far better.

I've only been with the company about 18 months. The majority of the setup was done prior to me joining.

Make sure you get what you actually need rather than overpaying for something. Consider the different chips and memory that you can buy off the shelf. Make sure you're not over-spec or under-spec. Take your time.

Reliability and supportability are the most valuable features. We can upgrade our drivers and other software and smoothly to roll it out to the enterprise.

From my point of view, most of what we do with our servers is fairly common. So we could get the same solution elsewhere. It's about the manageability and the way that we are able to do it in the scope of the resources we have.

The ProLiant does what it needs to do. It's not entirely perfect. It could run at lower power, for instance, and it could run cooler. I guess all of that comes at a price.

These servers are very stable.

It scales in a kind of linear fashion so it's not amazing. We expected it to scale, and it does. But it's not like it scales very high. Each server is managed individually anyway so it's, maybe, not a fair question about ProLiant.

I think technical support is fair to good. Not outstanding, but fair to good. Although, having said that, we don't very often call them. So that is a good thing itself.

We've always had HPE servers, but as a proportion of our environment we have fewer HPE ProLiant servers now. We have fewer HPE hub servers than we did previously, because we're now a dual vendor. We started that about five years ago, but it's a double-edged sword. Now, we are in two environments and we have another vendor to manage. You drive down price, but it's two lots to manage. Learning how to handle this internally is quite difficult as well.

I was not involved in the initial setup. That's done by our engineering team.

We've got two vendors that have comparable products. We have essentially the same as the ProLiant with our alternative vendor. They have the same processor, the same type of memory, and the same memory speed. In terms of performance, we wouldn't really see that there's much difference between the two. The main differentiator is the manageability and getting it to and onto the floor.

My main advice is to standardize your internal offering. So, if you are buying something you're going to sell internally, which is effectively what I am doing, I'm selling a service, try to standardize it to a degree rather than having custom fixes for every internal customer. Then you've got some uniformity across your offering internally.

When choosing a vendor, there are two main requirements. One is for a solid, stable product. That's number one. The second thing is the ability to be able to make the deal. With our vendors, we have kind of a mixed bag. One of them doesn't really deliver on the stability and the manageability, but is excellent on service and cutting a deal. The other one is not too good at cutting the deal, but actually we know that that's the kit we want because it is very stable and very manageable.