HPE Synergy Reviews

We use it for mission-critical applications and mission-critical databases. An example is that we host development servers on it.

In terms of managing our IT landscape, the solution helps us allocate more servers when needed, within the cluster.

Synergy also helps us implement new business requirements quickly. We needed a new VMware cluster for a particular application. We were able to throw those Synergy hosts in there and create it really quickly for QRadar, and attach a lot of storage to it.

It's something that is easy to implement and get moving on and I don't have to worry about anything else.

• Dependability
• Reliability
• The ease of managing the system

One of the features I want to see, which I will see with OneView 5.0, is to have all the OneView consoles in a single pane of glass. That will make it easy to see everything in one place and not have to log in to multiple consoles.

The stability is great.

The scalability is very good. It's easy to scale out: Throw a blade in there and apply a profile to it and move on.

Technical support is great. HPE has always had great technical support.

We were running out of resources and some of our hardware was getting old and needed to be replaced. We used Cisco UCS and we still use it. We purchased both of them to leverage out our resources with our different vendors.

The initial setup was a little complex because it was a new system for us; different than the c7000 enclosures that we used before.

We used a reseller and our experience with them was very good.

We can put a bigger workload on there because the systems can produce a lot more resources now. I would say it has reduced our cost of operations; I couldn't imagine it doesn't. It has also reduced our IT infrastructure costs, although I don't deal much with the cost side of things.

I can't say that I had a shortlist because I've only got two vendors that I use: Cisco and HPE.

Do your research but evaluate this system.

I rate it an eight out of ten because there's no perfect system. Ten is perfect but every system has its little glitches.

We mainly use it for virtualization. We are using Generation 10 model.

The software-defined hardware might sound counter-intuitive, but it helps speed up management

Its versatility, performance, and size are most valuable. It is very decent for its size. It has very good performance and very good specifications. 

Its management interface needs some work. It is not the best in terms of management. It has decent management. Its user interface can also be better.

I have been using this solution for around three years.

It is stable.

It is definitely scalable. We have about 2,000 users.

For Synergy, we haven't required support from HPE.

We were using DL ProLiant servers, and we still use them but not as our main servers. They are not blade servers. They are rack-mounted.

It was deployed by a contractor. We have a technical team of about 20 people for its maintenance.

We have already paid once. It is just the price for the permit and its use. It seems you don't have to keep paying for it, but I am not sure.

I would recommend this solution to others. We definitely plan to keep using it. It has just been around three years. We should be using it for at least six years.

I would rate HPE Synergy an eight out of ten.

It's a little bit more complex than Blade Enclosure. It's like any virtual environment, probably. If you have virtualization on the top of the Synergy Frame, it works well.

I didn't see a lot of valuable features with Synergy. The Blade Enclosure was easier to use. They have complicated things with Synergy. The only good thing is that they have some powerful machines that you can use, such as the latest generations of HPE Compute that you can use. That's the only advantage.

It's a pretty complex solution.

The continuous update of the firmware and the patch updates and security updates for the hardware make it continuously complex. It all comes back to complexity. I don't have any other concerns. It's all about how complex the component is.

I've been using the solution for a couple of years.

There is no problem with the scalability. We haven't had issues. It can scale as needed. 

The HPE tech support is okay. It's only that you need to push them a bit so that you can get the right person. Sometimes they just give you someone that really is learning with you, which is not good. However, if you push it a little bit, then you get the right person.

We're customers and end-users.

We are an HPE shop in terms of blade technology. In terms of the computer, we are an HPE shop. So, we are with the Blade Enclosure and with the Synergy Frame. We use both.

We're just using HPE OneView with the Blade Enclosure and with the Synergy Frame. We are a very small shop. We are moving mainly to the cloud. So, everything we do is more in the cloud. On-prem we are a very small shop.

If you are okay to keep going with the Blade Enclosure (as the Blade Enclosure is not going to expire for quite a while) I would advise a user to compare a few other things before going with Synergy. For me, it wasn't a good experience.

I'd rate the solution a six out of ten.

We use it for converged infrastructure (compute). We are using it for Hyper-V and our SQL environments right now. We are doing some DevOps on it, as well.

Spinning up an environment is much quicker, because I don't have to reconfigure networking and redesign everything from the ground up. I throw a new blade into the frame and configure it based off a template.

The solution has improved the efficiency of our IT infrastructure teams by taking less time to set stuff up, reducing our deployment time.

The solution has positively affected the productivity of the development team by creating environments quickly.

I was able to condense my compute into a more manageable rack space, reducing heat and power consumption.

It makes it simpler for me to manage my environment. It is one pane of glass, compared to multiple.

Stability when you upgrade needs improvement.

It is fairly stable.

It is scalable, but it is challenging to scale it. It's not as easy as just putting in another frame.

The technical support is great.

I was a HPE customer and knew I needed to condense the number of compute units that I could have in a rack space without increasing the size of the room.

The initial setup was straightforward. The expansion was complex, because adding a second frame onto the original frame caused an outage.

We used a reseller, PCM, for the deployment. Our experience with them was excellent.

We do CAPEX.

HPE was the only vendor considered.

I would recommend an HPE product because it is a good, stable product.

Biggest lesson learnt: You should set up two in parallel. In case one goes down, you can fail everything over to the other one.

The insert RAM feature is the most valuable. It is a simple software to integrate with others like service desk applications and engine management.

In terms of additional features, there is nothing that I would add. However, the pricing can be improved as it is a costly solution due to sanctions in Iran. When we buy an HP service or system, we need a company in China to purchase it and send it to Iran. This gets very expensive as it takes time to complete this, and by the time we receive the product, the HP or Cisco company says it's the end of the sale, and there is a new version. The limitations and sanctions are very harmful to Iranian IT specialists.

We have been using this solution for five years. It is deployed on a hybrid cloud.

There are limitations to the technical support due to the sanctions in Iran.

I rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We use it for our analytics platform.

We're able to support the placement of devices a lot more quickly.

It helps us manage our IT landscape because it's very scalable, so we can add nodes as we need to.

When it comes to implementing new business requirements quickly, the solution is helpful. We had to build out a topology to support new software that we're running. We were able to just drop it in and, within a week, we were up and running.

It has also had a positive effect on the efficiency of our IT infrastructure team. The manageability of it is so easy, we're able to install it quickly, and replacement parts are easy to get in and out quickly.

Synergy has decreased deployment time. We have gone from about a week down to two days.

The most valuable feature of the solution is its manageability.

I would like to see more nodes in a single chassis so we wouldn't have to purchase additional chassis.

The stability is great. We haven't had any issues with it so far.

The scalability of the solution is similar to the previous c7000.

We haven't had to open a case with technical support, which is great.

We used HPE's c7000 previously. The switch was a customer-driven decision.

The setup was straightforward.

We used a reseller. We've always worked with Comport and they're a great partner.

We were able to reduce our turnaround time on some of our projects, from upwards of three or four days down to a couple of hours.

The solution hasn't reduced our cost of operations or IT infrastructure cost. Our TCO is about the same.

We didn't look at any other vendors for this solution.

Definitely look into it. It's a great solution. Do your research to make sure that it's for you.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using this solution is that HPE builds great solutions in blade infrastructure.

I would rate Synergy an eight out of ten, mostly because of the reduction in the number of nodes.

• Composable infrastructure
• Ability to easily re-utilize parts of the hardware for different purposes
• Central management with HPE OneView
• Ability to see the health status of the entire infrastructure
• Ability to quickly and easily deploy changes and see that they are successful
• Simplify management of platforms

• Peace of mind.
• Knowing that our platforms are running well, simplifying day-to-day management, so that we can do more with less staff and increase performance.
• The increased scale of the back-end networking and the compute that we can deliver through it.
• A single, unified infrastructure that can be optimized and makes our life easier by allowing us to be more nimble in the way that we deploy our platforms. If people are looking for a particular type of hypervisor or a particular workload platform, we can very quickly and easily change the way that our platforms are configured to meet those requirements without delay or hassle.
• In terms of programmatic interface of the solution, I got to play around with it in one of the labs. It seems to be very feature rich and it is something that we'll certainly be looking into.
• This automation will make our IT more efficient. It will mean that we can be sure that configurations are deployed correctly. It will take out a lot of the risk of people typing in the wrong information, or setting things up incorrectly. From a quality control point of view, it certainly will help us.
• Software-defined infrastructure simplifies our operations, as it is nimble. We will be able to quickly and easily change how we use our infrastructure to meet our customers' changing demands.
• We value a modular infrastructure with shared power as our infrastructure is in data centers. Being able to just walk in there or see a piece of equipment and get it installed without having to go through the rigors of cabling and configuration makes it so much simpler as we grow. We're a growing business, and we are deploying new hardware regularly. Simplifying that whole process is good from a resource point of view. If it's simple, it means that we don't have to go through lengthy contracts to get engineers to do all the hard work.
• Automated life-cycle management of firmware drivers makes our IT operations simpler. It means that we can be sure that our firmware is up-to-date across our platform. It means we can very quickly and easily identify areas where we need to focus. It also means that we can report on a regular basis, rather than it being a special task that somebody does manually. Traditionally as the server pool grows, it becomes harder and harder to manage, but Synergy makes that easy.

We'd like to see faster networking in the back-end. I'm not saying it's slow at the moment, but we would just like more speed from a future-proofing point of view. We are seeing 25 Gig capability in our switch fabric so extending that to Synergy compute nodes makes sense. I guess it is a natural progression that is coming to the Synergy platform as well.

Our Synergy platform has been in place since April 2017.

The system operates well and allows changes to be made with confidence. We have been through a OneView version upgrade and the deployment of firmware into the Virtual Connect components and the Servers without any downtime. This is the way it should be!

Scalability is perfect. It has plenty of network capacity and plenty of space for adding more service as we grow.

We used HPE for the startup. During the initial deployment, we did have technical people on staff and we did a lot on our own. We were happy with the support that we received from HPE.

I was involved in the initial setup, from a guidance point of view. I worked with the HPE engineers who did the original deployment and then on a day-to-day basis, just setting up the final bits and pieces. We added things as we went along. It was lengthy and I think we had a reasonably unique deployment, which took a bit of “to and fro” to get the completed solution in place. There are enough differences between Synergy and the old c7000 platform that you do need to put effort into your design. HPE helped with that process and we have ended up with a well implemented solution because of that.

We have looked at other vendors from time to time, but we have been an HPE shop for the last six years.

The architecture was part of our decision to invest in a full venture.

We consider performance and reliability to be the two main factors in choosing a vendor. In Synergy, we saw both of those, performance and reliability, being delivered.

For us, it's all about up-time and a good performance experience for our customers and Synergy helps us do that.

We knew that we needed to invest in this solution, because it was just the next step. We started with DL servers and we moved to the c7000 Blade Infrastructure. Synergy just seems to be the next logical step up. We haven't seen anything else in the market that competes with this kind of product.

When looking for a vendor, we look for support. We want to know that we can call somebody and get support when we need it. We want to know that the parts are available if there is an issue. If there is a configuration problem, we know that HPE will fix it.

Make sure you get a good plan in place. Think about your networking and your storage, so you can get it all configured as one. Use HPE's technical resources to make sure that all of the components are certified to work together.

We use the solution for data centers. It supports hybrid cloud management tasks.

The pricing could be improved.

I have been using HPE Synergy for over 20 years. We have the gold status partner of the solution.

Synergy is more stable than HP. I rate the solution’s stability a six or seven out of ten.

The solution is scalable. It can fit small businesses.

Whenever we call, we've got an answer.

Neutral

We have opted for Cisco.

The initial setup is straightforward and takes a week to complete. When you work with technology, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Synergy is more expensive than Cisco.

We don't find it valuable, and we don't use it; we're not profiting.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.