HPE Synergy Reviews

We use it as a VMware host. We're a highly virtualized environment, so we run several VMs per blade.

With the new purchase, we've been able to upgrade our VMware from 5.5 to 6.7 to the newest version for hardware compatibility.

As we purchase and install more Synergy chassis, then we will be able to manage them together as one entity, as opposed to multiple separate cabinets.

The solution helps us to implement new business requirements quickly. We build customer in a box solutions that we ship out to casinos to manage their environments. This gives us added flexibility for building those out for customers.

The solution will affect the productivity of our development team shortly, as we have just purchased two of them for our development team to replace aging hardware. They will in production the next month and be on the same hardware. This will be a benefit for the development team to be able to develop in development on the same product, as we flip over to production.

The configurability of the cabinet is its most valuable feature.

Manageability is a lot less of a headache with OneView. The OneView profile pushing profiles out to hosts is pretty easy. It has decreased our deployment time by 50 percent.

I would like the ability to take the storage tray that is in a chassis and share it out to multiple chassis, not just the servers within the same chassis. This would be more efficient with resources.

It has been very stable. We have no issues with the ones that we have in production.

That is something that we'll be able to test more as we put more in. However, we are definitely looking forward to managing multiple chassis in one environment.

We've had very good support. The initial setup was probably where we engaged with the most with tech support, and not a whole lot since then.

Our previous solution is just an older HPE chassis. We have multiple brands in the data center, but mainly c7000.

We needed to upgrade our hardware to be compatible with newer versions of VMware. Since we are basically an HPE shop, it was either newer blades for the c7000 chassis or a Synergy chassis. The Synergy chassis is the move of the future, which is what mainly influenced the purchase decision.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. We did run into a little issue with the depth of the box, so we had to order a deeper rack. That just delayed it a bit. However, we could have avoided this ahead of time if we knew that it was a bigger than a standard chassis.

We used an integrator for the deployment. They were very good. They were able to get us in contact quickly with the right people when we had questions.

Our maintenance and production times have been cut in half over our previous solutions. We don't have a lot of bodies, so saving engineer time is a valuable resource.

We don't have to spend as much time managing it, so there is a savings of 50 percent over our older existing solutions.

The biggest cost is the VMware licensing. 

In our whole environment, the cost is in the millions. On this particular chassis, the annual cost is 12 blades times approximately $40,000.

It was pretty much between Dell EMC and HPE. We are an HPE shop, and the Synergy chassis and the Dell EMC offering were pretty similar, so there was no real reason to change.

It is worth a good hard look. I like the options which are available for the different slots, as opposed to just straight blades. It provides a lot of flexibility, and if that's what you're looking for, then you will definitely like it.

We really haven't had any issues, other than size. Everybody has been going that way anyhow, so that is nothing bad. It's been a powerful system and reliable, so far.

Account for the size and make sure that you have the proper space in the rack, then everything else will be fine.

The solution has affected our TCO by saving us in man-hours. As far as physical licensing, power, heat, and cooling, it is all pretty much the same.

The primary use case of HPE Synergy is for invoicing. Our Brazil office uses the solution as we do not have Oracle ERP there. It is a legacy system.

HPE Synergy has been dependable for the past 15 years. Our offices in Brazil do not want to change.

There really isn't any valuable feature. Our team in Brazil does not want to change, and that is why it's still running there. They have not improved their product since it was purchased. I would like to see the product be compatible with Oracle invoicing or Salesforce invoicing.

HPE Synergy should be easier to use and integrate with other databases like Tableau and with the cloud. It is difficult to integrate with cloud-based data sets. I also would like to see better customization ability.

I have been using HPE Synergy for 15 years.

The solution is stable. It has been running for 15 years.

HPE Synergy is not scalable. If you have a bigger workload or have more invoices, it is not scalable. You need to stay within a certain capacity. We have over 150 users from payroll and accounting using this product.

HPE Synergy supports the product, but not in terms of enhancing the product. I would rate customer service and support a four out of five.

Neutral

I worked with Oracle and Salesforce. Both of those solutions are easy to customize to the needs of each of our organization's structures. They each have some unique needs. Oracle and Salesforce are ready to provide those types of customizations quickly. HPE Synergy does not accommodate these types of customizations.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

For us, it is a server refresh. We moved away from c7000 Enclosures.

The Synergy environment provides us with one view. We're able to manage the entire stack, top to bottom, from that single view.

The solution helps to manage our IT landscape, especially in setting up servers quickly, and making sure that the server types are distributed in our various dealer centers. That way, it's not reinventing the wheel all the time. It also helps us reconfigure servers for specific tasks and allocate more servers during busy times.

We are able to implement new business requirements quickly. For example, we are able to make sure that we implement DR capabilities at the snap of a finger. That's something that otherwise would have taken a couple of weeks to set up. We have the requirements already documented so we just replicate to other DR centers.

As a result of the solution, our IT infrastructure is about 60 percent more efficient than it used to be. DR was a big issue for us. Also, server provisioning, especially with the approach of using server templates and profiles, speeds up the time to market for servers. That's something that otherwise would probably take a couple of days to get done. Now it's just a push of a button. We're talking about it taking seconds to a minute.

In addition, I would say Synergy has decreased our deployment time by about 80 percent and it has reduced our cost of operations

Composability.

Having a seamless DR implementation would help significantly.

There is room for improvement to OneView.

We are still in implementation.

The solution is highly scalable.

On a scale of one to five, five being excellent, technical support is a four.

It was just time for a hardware refresh. We had run to the end of our hardware refresh cycle. We are an HPE shop, so we came from a c7000 to Synergy.

The initial setup was complex. It's due to understanding the environment. My team had zero knowledge about the environment so we significantly leveraged resources from the reseller. Most importantly, we depended on them to bring all the technical expertise. We then got onboard to do what we could manage.

We used a reseller. On a scale of one to five, five being excellent, our experience with the reseller was a four.

We are not there yet. We are still in implementation. There are savings but we haven't measured them yet. We know we will see ROI. In terms of TCO, it's still too early to know because we're building all the processes and everything needed to manage the environment.

We looked at Cisco UCS.

Give it a chance. Go in head-first and, as you go through the process, you'll see that the benefits start showing themselves. But you have to make sure you have good governing processes implemented before you get in there.

The lessons we have learned from using this solution include the need to have an initial idea or knowledge of how the platform should work. We learned what kind of processes we needed to put in place to manage the environment before actually deploying. We depended on the reseller to do that. Those are some of the challenges that we have gone through.

We haven't gotten too much into the hybrid cloud environment. Everything is still on-prem. However, we run discreet workloads. I think the hybrid cloud environment is the next evolution for us. Similarly, HPE’s Pointnext services will be in our next phase of implementation.

I rate it at a nine out of ten. It completely changes the way we do business and there are a lot of opportunities. It especially decreases the time to market significantly.

I'm a system integrator and service delivery manager dealing with strategy. We are an HPE partner company. 

The interfusion and administration are great features that all HPE products have. I also like the flexibility including configuring the interconnects on the use of the chassis.

I find the product documentation to be disorganized; it's not intuitive and the info required for checking a specific step-by-step configuration is buried under too much literature. This could be a more robust solution with an effective internal storage portfolio for the servers. If they were to provide an end-to-end NDM product, that would be much better.

I've been using this solution for over a year. 

The solution is quite stable. 

The solution is scalable for our customers' requirements. 

In general, the technical support is pretty good but it's not the best here in India. There is a lack of knowledge, especially in the storage area. We had implementations that required some workarounds and support wasn't able to help because they were working with a specific scripted plan and didn't have enough information to deal with all aspects of the deployment. 

The initial setup is very easy and straightforward. 

Our customers are generally medium to enterprise size clients and mainly in the banking sector. HPE is currently running neck and neck with Dell but if I had to make a choice, I'd recommend HPE. If all your requirements are well-defined, pre-deployment and implementation is easy.

I rate it nine out of ten.

We are providing solutions to our end customers. So I work in a distributor company, so we are still using this product and providing solutions to the store.

It's Blade Service, and this is a very agile product. It is for enterprise customers, not SMBs. Our Hyperconverged and Nimble are more suitable for SMBs or mid-market customers. Synergy is mostly for an enterprise-level business that has big requirements.

This is cloud-enabled. For example, data can be migrated from the cloud to these products. Synergy data from the public cloud can be migrated to Synergy and from Synergy to the public cloud. 

The composability is great. This infrastructure is more composable. For example, programmers are not dependent on the infrastructure team to provide service. The infrastructure is more programmable in the Synergy system. Any programmer can just run a single line of code, and a virtual machine will be ready. 

It allows for easy management. It is very simple. With a single user interface, we can manage all of Synergy.

This is a product more suited to enterprises. It's not for small companies. 

The cost is quite high. 

I've been using the solution for the last five years. 

We have between 500 and 1,000 users. They are in different regions and different areas, and therefore it is hard to estimate how many people are on the product.

The implementation was pretty fast. It's easy to manage and integrates well with everything. Sometimes integrating storage with other vendors can be a bit tricky. However, it can be done. 

This is an expensive solution. While they offer lifetime licensing, subscription options are also available. 

This is an on-premises solution that is cloud-enabled. 

If the customer requirement is more than 100 virtual machines and they are looking for virtualization and bare metal servers, then they should go for Synergy virtualization plus bare metals.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

We have deployed HPE Synergy in a data center. Customers are using HPE Synergy for production running VMware Hypervisor, Microsoft Hyper-V, and standalone servers. However, the customers are mostly using it for the VR solution.

The most valuable features of HPE Synergy are the two composers.

Over the two years of using HPE Synergy, we have found some hardware failures that are frequent in the SOP models, CNA cards, and converged network adapters. These failures are frequently happening for a lot of the customers.

I have been using HPE Synergy for approximately five years.

HPE Synergy is stable.

The scalability of HPE Synergy is good.

The support from  HPE Synergy is very good.

The initial setup of HPE Synergy for us is straightforward. We provide the knowledge to our customers if they choose to deploy it themselves. However, when the customers do the process it takes time and is technically demanding.

HPE Synergy is not difficult to maintain.

We have worked with the HPE technical team for Synergy cases. For example, for firmware upgrades, security purposes, and vulnerabilities.

There is a perpetual license given when you purchase HPE Synergy.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate HPE Synergy a ten out of ten.

Our primary use case is primary compute. 

Everything is in one place. We have one place to with OneView. It provides one console with one place to get to everything. The one interface makes it easier. We have one guy who does almost everything in it.

The solution has decreased the deployment time for a new blade, saving us three hours. However, it has not decreased the deployment time for a VM.

It is very flexible.

The biggest problem that I have with it is the speed of setup.

It is very stable after the initial setup. We have flaky things, like a lot of bad fans.

We bought it half loaded with 18 blades, so we can still add 18 blades. That in itself makes it pretty scalable.

HPE doesn't have the expertise internally to set these things up.

Our previous solution was old. We were using HPE blade chassis.

We switched a year and a half ago, then again eight months ago.

The initial setup was complex. It was slow and just didn't work. Even HPE couldn't make it work for 45 days.

We use HPE Pointnext services to come out and change our bad drives.

As we move more workloads to the Synergy, then we will see more of a return on investment.

It has reduced our cost of operations by a headcount of 33 percent.

The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs by 5 percent due to headcount.

Since Synergies are expensive, our TCO may have gone up.

We always looked at HPE. It was really a choice between a blade chassis or Synergy.

Except for the setup, everything else is fantastic. It is a really good product, but make sure you have a lot of time to set it up.

We run VMware on it, and always have. So, it is either run it on the stack or run it on Synergy, which is the same thing for us.

VMware helps us implement our business requirements more so than Synergy.

We use it for ESXi installations. It is for private clouds with application servers.

It helps us manage our IT landscape because it is easy, standard, and very consolidated. You don't need to have the storage and communications apart, because it's all consolidated.

The solution help us to implement new business requirements quickly, since it is easy and quick to upgrade our capacity.

The solution has affected the efficiency of our IT infrastructure teams by being easy to install.

It is very standard and easy to install.

I am rating this solution an eight (out of ten) because it is really good. However, you can always improve some things.

It is very stable. We haven't had any problems with it.

The scalability is very good.

We haven't used the technical support, as we haven't had any problems.

We were using the c7000 blade system. We switched because we wanted to test something new. Also, it was announced that there would be other sales.

We have a capacity plan that we do every year. When we estimated what we needed for the current year, we decided that we wanted to invest in Synergy.

The initial setup was very easy.

We used an integrator for the deployment. Our experience with them was very good.

It has kept our cost of operations stable.

The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs because we have had to buy less services than we used to.

We evaluated HPE and Dell EMC.

It is a good solution. We are happy with it. You should try it out.

The development team is very happy with the performance.

Biggest lesson learnt: Try new things, even if it wasn't your first choice. Always look for new things, and if they're good, then you should change.