HPE Synergy Reviews

We are resellers of HPE Synergy and I'm the CTO. 

Synergy has great data storage and it's a storage module. It's very good for software defined solutions. For example, customers needing a large data solution can use Synergy with blade and storage modules, but in a VMware environment for database solutions, Synergy is not useful. The important thing is the application - I think Synergy is a very good solution in some cases, but not for general purpose solutions or mixed environments, such as VM and physical environments that require larger storage.

I think the main issue with Synergy is a topology that HPE defines to connecting and creating a cluster. There are satellites and interconnecting modules which should interconnect with one special topology. If you want to change that and add another shelf in the cluster you have to change everything. I think it's very, very complex. But for example, in UCS, you have fabric interconnects, USC blades connect to fabric interconnects. It allows you to add more and more USC blades to the fabric interconnect. There is no connectivity between blades chassis. In Synergy, there are many connections between the blades chassis and I think that's the main issue. The other thing is that Synergy has a composer module that OneView runs on and which manages that cluster. I don't like HPE softwares. I think, for example, in comparison, the UCS manager is the better solution for managed blades than OneView. OneView is not as strong for that

It would be helpful if Synergy would add Cisco networking products, and network models in CSG, C 7000, maybe Blade models, software Cisco products, for example, b 22, CISCO B22 modules. I think the number of customers that use Cisco in their data centers is more than the customers that use HPE solutions. Because of that, I think HPE should add Cisco products and network modules to Synergy - I think that would be a good idea. 

I've been using this solution for two years. 

Although the setup is complex, once it's up and running, the product is stable. 

The scalability is very complex. In Cisco, you connect everything to fabric interconnect. You can attain the blades on their fabric interconnect so scalability is one of main issues in Synergy.

Because of the cabling between FLM modules and a composer, the initial setup is complex. We are more familiar with IPv4 than IPv6. I think the initial setup is more complex than for UCS or c7000.

This is a good solution but it has some issues. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

We use the Synergy Frame to host the main infrastructure for a big project. We have multiple Synergy Frames that are all managed by a single OneView interface.

The uptime and the performance meet our expectations, plus the integration with 3PAR is very good.

The OneView installed on the Composers has a very friendly user interface, which helps to manage the compute modules in the frame, compared to management used in legacy technologies.

The Online firmware update for the virtual connects has minimized our downtime windows.

The features we found most valuable are:

• Using only two virtual connect modules to support network for multiple frames
• Ease of management using the OneView Composer
• Online firmware update for the Virtual Connects, which are part of a single logical interconnect module

The OneView has improved a lot throughout the years with the release of the Synergy and OneView version 4, although it still has issues. The stability and smoothness of firmware upgrades for the compute modules can be improved by enabling full composability of the Synergy Frame.

We have been using this solution for two years.

This solution is very stable.

Our impression of the scalability is very good in terms of Composer and virtual connects, since you need only two of each for multiple frames.

Technical support for this solution has a very good initial response; however, escalation takes time, and most of the time the first level of support cannot solve your case.

We used a different solution previously, but we switched because of the ease of management, and in addition, this solution is future proof.

The initial setup is done by a partner and it is straightforward, but it takes time.

Our deployment was handled by a Vendor Team, and they are very experienced.

We did evaluate other options before choosing this solution, including Dell PowerEdge M1000e and Cisco UCS.

My suggestion is to go with HPE Synergy Composer v2 once it is released. 

Have HPE support with you while doing hardware upgrades.

As far as I know, the traditional blade system is not going to be supported from 2023. So we are trying to anticipate the need for this change towards Synergy, and perhaps moving a little bit early.

• They're easy to swap and move around the datacenter, for sure. 
• They don't occupy too much space for what they offer.

The structure is different yet similar because it resembles the traditional approach of blade systems. Perhaps it's more composable, you can use storage as well as compute blades. So maybe it's more versatile compared to the traditional blade systems.

From what I've seen, it's got pretty much what I think we need. Maybe after a little usage I can come up with new ideas, but right now it seems okay.

The possibility of using storage directly in the frame in order to have bigger storage directly there, and not having an attached storage like SAN or NAS. That would be helpful.

It will probably be with us for a lot of years to come. We are still in the process of buying the first one, so maybe we're not going to use the full ring architecture from the beginning, but in the future, since we're going to have just Synergy and not the old blade systems, it's definitely a possibility.

I don't know about the tech support. We have a consultant. There is a specific person that follows us and tries to help us in our needs.

My primary use case was to familiarize myself with this new HPE product because I know it is a replacement for the old C7000 chassis, so for me it was interesting to see the new features, to know the product as a whole.

Everything is combined in one chassis, you have storage, compute, networking. So you save a lot of space in the datacenter.

The most valuable is the OneView interface. You can do all the management steps you need to do to configure it, and you can see everything for management, for error reporting, monitoring, etc.

I don't know because this was the first time I've seen this product and I'm not very familiar with it. I need some time to work on it, to play with it.

I cannot say. I would need to test it in a proper environment.

From what I've tested, it looks scalable.

We are very pleased with the support of HPE.

We used other HPE products.

It was easy to follow the guides. It was straightforward.

The most important criteria for me, when selecting a vendor, is support.

I would tell others to give it a try.

Primary use case is for Oracle Servers to store a large database.

Right now the performance is good, but we have only had the solution installed in production for two months.

First of all, it's new hardware. So everybody noticed very large improvement in data processing. A lot of activity which took hours now takes, let's say, tens of minutes. So it's a very visible improvement in quality.

I think the ease of deployment is the most valuable feature.

When templates are created, there are some steps where you need to reboot the machines. Being in production, this is not a good idea. For example, if you reconfigure the network, you should not have to reboot the machine. You should just apply the new template and that's it.

Right now, it's stable. But we have only had it for five months, three months in proof of concept and two months in production. But we haven't have any issues up until now.

No issues.

We haven't had to call them. HPE installed it, that was about it. We have been able to manage it very easily since.

We had some old generation servers, we needed to replace them. This was the newest technology, so we went with the newest technology.

Also, we have been working with HPE for a long, long time. So we just stuck with what we know.

I think we needed HPE only for the hardware install. After that, I don't think we really needed them.

I give it an eight out of 10, because of the rebooting issue I mentioned above.

It's worth acquiring this if you have a larger datacenter, or if you have a lot of operations being done on a daily basis. These are the main reasons why you should take this approach.

This is the first time that we are using Synergy, so we don't yet have the experience to talk about this.

It provides the new computer node and connects 3PAR without SAN people to help me.

I think that they can improve the update because the update is problematic now. When you want to update the firmware, or when you want to update software on Composer, it takes a lot of time. A lot. For compute node, you need one hour for upgrading firmware. I think that is a big problem.

It became stable the second time. The first time, it wasn't. We had some problems but they're solved, and now it's stable.

We want to scale in three frames this year, we suppose, because they want to change everything in the datacenter. They want to put everything on Synergy. Synergy with integration with monitoring software, and Docker. So, we wanted to do this.

They are responsive. We don't have any problem at all when talking with them.

Overall we've had a good experience. We have had a little problem during startup because the OneView software is older than the last release. During the update, we had some problems, but HPE solved them quickly and perfectly.

We use HPE Synergy for digitization and containers. 

The price is reasonable, and the stability and scalability are okay. We bought the solution because it suits our needs.

The user interface could be more user-friendly. It's for admins, and you should have the knowledge to use it.

I think I have been using HPE Synergy for about two years.

The stability of HPE Synergy is okay.

The scalability of HPE Synergy is okay. All our departments with about 300 users are using this solution.

Technical support is okay. I really didn't need them until now.

I'm mainly using HP. So, that was the choice after blade servers.

It took about a day to implement this solution.

HP implemented this solution. 

The hardware licensing cost is reasonable.

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

Primary use is data storage.

Performance is about a seven out of 10.

It hasn't improved things.

We've been experimenting with shared storage.

We just started. Because we're using 2012, we're having issues making templates and such.

We're having issues with the install process, and integrating our installation with the new technology.

We haven't had issues with stability because we're using 2012.

We haven't had to scale yet.

They're okay, but they could improve. We have their technicians on site, and we think they need some more experience.

We were using standard C7000. It was working fine, but it doesn't have shared storage.

Straightforward.

Cisco. 

Our most important criteria when selecting a vendor are

• quick support
• reliability, of course.

I rate this solution a seven out of 10 because I think we were promised a little more than we were given. It's true, they are working very hard to try to help.

If you're planning on going with Windows 2016, go ahead, use it. But expect to have some difficulties.