HPE Synergy Reviews

It is flexible. You can build, construct, and deconstruct your workload via software and through programming.

It increases efficiency and gives more time for IT personnel to do their work. You build it once and use it forever, or modify it slightly.

It saves time to design, install, and manage workloads.

The interface seems pretty wide and flexible.

You can use any programming language or enterprise interface like Puppet or Chef. It is really agnostic in terms of the virtualization, so it is very flexible.

Our IT department will be more efficient in terms of faster time to market, and being able to respond to businesses faster than before.

The software design infrastructure makes it open to the API to enterprise products such as Chef, Puppet, Ansible, and Docker. As I mentioned before, the ability to support other hardware other than HPE will make it a more universal product.

The modular infrastructure is part of the converge system for scalability. If all of us are sharing the infrastructure, then discovery happens automatically. It increases the efficiency of the IT department. The dream of any IT staff member is to no longer worry about firmware. That's one of the high level high points, in that it is all embedded in the templates. You don't need to worry about firmware, as it is part of the workload.

I would like to see support for other vendors’ hardware.

It is still too early to tell, but so far, stability has been good.

Scalability seems very promising, due to the architecture. We only have one frame, but from what I understand having gone through a lot of training, it seems like it's going be a good, scalable product.

We haven’t used technical support yet

We knew that we needed to invest in this solution, because of way the industry is going. You need to transform development in your IT departments. They need fast solutions. They need new development. They need a way where they can get their code and their workload to work fast.

Previous to this, our customers put in the OS and middle-ware to get the application running. With this solution, all of this can be imaged once, streamed to the hardware, and it's done in minutes instead of spending days or weeks on it.

When choosing a vendor, I look for the reliability of the technology. I look for openness of the solution and finding out who has worked with the vendor in the past, to bring in new recommendations from customers.

The initial setup was straightforward.

I have not evaluated other vendors. For me, HPE is in my DNA.

I would highly recommend learning and reading about it. They should ask for the vendor to come and explain it, or I can explain it, as I am certified to do that. In today's world, there isn't a better solution to create a private cloud for them. Getting this solution is a no brainer.

It's useful for virtualization, and we run all our applications in HPE Synergy.

I like that it's suitable for virtualization. It's also stable and scalable. The newer version has a lot of memory, and you don't have to worry about updates.

The performance could be better. The converged network cards initially didn't work. However, later on in the newer version, they came up with 50 GB network cards to replace the 20 GB ones, and it's perfectly fine now. At times, it could also be more stable.

I have been using HPE Synergy since 2018.

HPE Synergy is stable.

HPE Synergy is a scalable composable infrastructure. We have 12 networks and about 1,500 users on the networks.

I have contacted technical support whenever it was required.

The initial setup was very easy. I installed and deployed this solution within a day. We have one engineer managing and maintaining this solution.

I implemented this solution by myself.

We don't have to pay for Synergy because it's part of our plan.

I evaluated a lot of options like Dell, Nutanix, and more before choosing HPE Synergy.

I would recommend this solution to potential users.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give HPE Synergy a ten.

We are primarily using this product to build a private cloud infrastructure.

While it is difficult for me to state how the product has improved my organization without making use of a comparative frame of reference, I can state that it has enabled us to centralize all administrative tasks. 

What I find most valuable about this product are the number of interface combinations made possible with a single computer node. Secondly, I would rate the ease of configuration.

As concerns room for improvement, the number of levers in the system should be addressed. Technical solutions should be made easier. The advice I would give is that HPE Synergy increase the availability of the deployment. 

We have been using the product for one year.

I have not been using high speed for long enough to give an adequate rating of the product's stability. 

I consider this product extremely scalable. A single view allows for tremendous management capabilities. 

I have had to make use of technical support for one or two problems concerning product deployment. I had to instruct them to use their headphones. Only at this point did they give me results and they were not good. I had to request to be escalated and this was time consuming. The last issue for which I had to turn to technical support involved the apparent loss of a compute node on one of the computers. 

Previously, we used an IBM Blade Server and, subsequently, the IBM system. 

The initial setup was complex and this can take around three weeks to a month. 

I do integration on behalf of the customer. 

I cannot properly advise on setup, pricing or licensing costs. 

We did not evaluate other options before settling on HPE Synergy and, besides, this decision was not in my purview to make. 

The entire company and all its customers are utilizing this product. Plans are in place for future upgrades. 

I would rate HPE Synergy an eight out of ten. 

Right now, we are mostly using it for building out data center services. The biggest things that we are using it for are large scale virtual farms. We have recently even started using it to have large shared database resources for shared platforms, like Informatica.

We are just using it as a server.

It is helping us sort of bridge a gap that we are having moving off of old legacy systems, like HP-UX systems and trying to move over to x86. So, it is helping fill a hardware gap that a lot of our platforms have needed in the past.

It is filling a gap in server size that we don't really have right now in previous generations.

I would like them to work more on the templates, targeting it to a larger scale organization which has to run 24/7. Maybe they can try to get that workload to target certain parts of an application that has to be on 24/7. The common example that we keep getting is with our animators. They have one template which is dedicated to their resources, and in the night, it does rendering. However, when we have stuff which is running 24/7, it's not really something that applies. So, maybe they can try finding more applicable use cases.

The solution has affected the productivity our deployment a little, but it has just been the normal getting used to the new system. I think once they get used to it, it will be fine.

It seems pretty stable. We haven't had any issues that I'm aware of. We have not had any outages.

Just considering how we're using it, we are really using it for the bare bones infrastructure. I think if we were using Synergy in probably the way that most teams or organizations were expected to use it, it probably scales a lot better for us because we are looking at it the bare bones CPU memory and how it works. 

Scaling is difficult, but that's always going to be the case.

I don't work with the technical support.

We started moving data centers, so we had to invest in a new solution.

The initial setup was complex. From what I was told, there were issues initially with getting the SFPs on the floor for our data center and something with the image, but I think that was on our service provider' side. They couldn't get the image to deploy with the right drivers and stuff.

We worked directly with HPE.

We have not yet seen ROI.

It has not yet reduced our cost of operations.

It has not yet reduced our IT infrastructure cost.

I would recommend that anybody who does look at Simplicity to look into Synergy. Look into it before they deploy. They should look and make sure it is compatible for their environment.

At the scale that we are at, we don't really have too many use cases right now where we can leverage all the technologies behind it. So, it's unfortunate but we are looking forward to getting to that point. We just have to slowly bridge that gap.

It is fulfilling our needs. It is not doing anything that has been too different than how we're already using it. Because of how we are using it as a bare bones servers, we just see it as a server.

We just haven't really integrated it into the public cloud or hybrid cloud. We are testing out Simplicity and Nimble now, so that might already be a feature.

In the data center, you see customers with a lot of blade enclosures and a lot of servers, and this solution works fine.

I have one customer in Belgium that I know that is testing it, and they're quite happy about it. There are some challenges, but it is software. For software, you have developers.

The hardware is there.

With the changing IT demands, they need to change more often and faster. We need applications to model tomorrow’s needs. We need more applications for changing users. There is a need for a more optimized infrastructure.

For instance, I have a customer with 20 blade enclosures. In those 20 blade enclosures, there are 40 management modules that you need to update and manage.

In troubleshooting, you have to determine if the issue is in one, two, or in all 20 modules. The diagnosis is harder.

With Synergy, we only have two management modules instead of 40. It's an efficiency thing that needs to be improved.

We'll see what will come next. We will probably see other types of enclosures, smaller or larger ones, and more options on the storage and networking side. This is the typical evolution of IT to go to more and faster.

Synergy is new, but the advantage is that technically, it's a ProLiant server, so it is stable. Proven technology with a lot of new features.

HPE has proven track records worldwide delivering superb support on hard- and software. This is the same for Synergy.

One of my things I do in my company is write technology blog which is quite technical for the type of audience that I have.

I don't have a Synergy enclosure yet in my home lab, a.k.a., data center in my garage, but I'm quite sure that it is simple enough that my nine-year old daughter could install it.

In my pre-sales role, I see other customers looking at competitive solutions, be it Intel, EMC, or Nutanix. They all have some strengths.

The Nutanix solution is cool, because it's simple. But it's software and I'm not convinced about any of the hardware underneath it. Some people say, "Yeah, the hardware's not important." However, I have some real-life scenarios, cases with customers, in which it was proven that they had the software, they had the hardware, but they had a hardware issue and the software screwed up.

I prefer to go for the HPE solution. This is not because Nutanix is bad, but they are just a software company, independent of the hardware. I feel more confident with HPE because I know they build the hardware and the software. If I have a problem, I can contact one person with one phone number and I can make contact. I know the hardware guy and I know the software guy.

With Nutanix, for instance, this is not the case. They also say, "we have one phone number," but if they have a problem with the rate controller in their server, they have to call Dell or Lenovo. They have to escalate the case. They are not going to be able to solve my problem. They are going to escalate it.

I'm with HPE. I know that HPE will solve my problem directly.

The density and the flexibility that it provides are the most valuable features. In the C7000, there was a memory density issue per-blade that was solved in Synergy's platform. On top of that, I value the composability of it. In other words, being able to create hyper-converged systems within the frame, rather than having to resort to rack mounts.

A great benefit is being able to create different solutions that aren't available in the traditional C7000 platform.

It's a lot more about some of the speeds and feeds, such as the 25, 50, 100 GB virtual connections. In addition, I would like to see improvement in the 32 GB fiber channel connection at the end of it.

We have no issues with stability.

I have not used technical support.

It's just one of those products that as a partner, we have always tried to stay on top of. Previously, we had the C7000, plus other competing products, in our lab.

When selecting a vendor, I look at how well things integrate together, as well as the ease of management.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

We didn’t look at any competitor’s solutions.

Look at the flexibility of the platform, as far as being able to have that storage drive to be able to do hyper-converge. It should not block your architecture. As you scale it out, you don’t have choke points on the network side, like you do in other platforms.

We work with the Synergy OneView 5.4 version.

We use the solution for hypervisor infrastructure.

We like that the solution can be arranged for an all-in-one single pane of glass, something our customers find important. 

It would be nice if the updates were not accompanied by downtime. We have encountered this issue at times over the years. 

The solution should come with external storage connectivity.

Owing to these minor issues, I choose to rate the solution as a nine out of ten. 

I have been using Synergy's newest product for the past three years. I have made use of it over the past 12 months. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

I have no specific advice to offer others who are contemplating implementing the solution. 

I rate HPE Synergy as a nine out of ten. 

Most of our use cases are under NDA. I can't speak to how specific clients use it.

Use cases can vary by quite a bit. Generally, companies can use it as a computing system, as a database, or for virtualization. There are very different use cases that can be covered by this product.

The product is mostly stable.

The solution is built very well. It's very robust and durable.

The installation is straightforward.

If a customer would like to, they have the opportunity to buy technical support licenses.

In the past, I have had issues with configurations.

I've been doing installations for a while at this point. Likely, it's been about a year.

The product is mostly stable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable. I haven't had any issues with the hardware. It's a well-built product and it's durable.

I wouldn't describe this solution as scalable as it is hardware. It's scalable inside the chassis. However, I have not tried to scale it yet. I don't really have experience in this aspect.

We have four clients that are currently using the solution.

I don't have any experience with technical support. That's handled on the customer side. If they have issues with the solution, they would contact HPE directly. I'm just an installer.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. An organization probably wouldn't have too many issues. I have struggled with the configuration aspect, however. That can be a bit difficult.

I cannot remember exactly how long the deployment takes in its entirety. It's maybe an hour or so, for the physical installation. After that, the deployment and configuration depend on the organization and its requirements. Sometimes it's a couple of hours. Sometimes it takes two days.

You only really need two people for deployment and maintenance.

I handle the installations for clients. I'm an integrator.

You can purchase support licenses for this product. Those would need to be paid on a yearly basis.

I'm an integrator and I mostly deal with solution hardware. I also use HPE Rack.

I install the latest versions of the solution.

I would recommend the solution as it is very well built. As a chassis, I would rate it at a nine out of ten.