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HPE ProLiant DL580 Gen9 High Performance - rack-mountable - Xeon E7-8890V3 2.5 GHz - 256 GB - no HDD

Mfg # 793312-B21 CDW # 3710875

Quick tech specs

  • Server
  • 4U
  • 4 x Xeon E7-8890V3 / 2.5 GHz
  • SAS
  • no HDD
  • 10 GigE
  • rack-mountable
  • 4-way
  • RAM 256 GB
  • hot-swap 2.5" bay(s)
  • Matrox G200
  • monitor: none
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Know your gear

Does your business demand fast insights, support for increased number of users and uncompromised availability? The HPE ProLiant DL580 Gen9 Server is the 4S enterprise standard x86 server offering commanding performance, rock-solid reliability and availability, and compelling consolidation and virtualization efficiencies. Supporting Intel Xeon E7-4800/8800 v4/v3 processors, the HPE ProLiant DL580 Gen9 offers enhanced processor performance, up to 6 TB of memory, greater I/O bandwidth (9 PCIe 3.0 slots), and 12 Gb/s of SAS speeds. The HPE ProLiant DL580 Gen9 Server has security and data protection features for system resiliency that your business can depend on, making it ideal for mission-critical enterprise, business intelligence, and database applications. Whether needed for highly virtualized or cloud based deployments, with intelligence and simplicity of automated management with HPE OneView and HPE iLO4 your business can achieve agile and lower cost infrastructure management.

This item was discontinued on October 06, 2022

Enhance your purchase

HPE ProLiant DL580 Gen9 High Performance - rack-mountable - Xeon E7-8890V3 is rated 4.60 out of 5 by 110.
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Reliable servers which provide good scale and performance for our environment. What is most valuable? We value the reliability of these servers. How has it helped my organization? These servers have provided good scale and performance for our environment. What needs improvement? * Remote management – the iLO 3 (and 4) are still lagging behind DELL in terms of features and value for money and they still do not have a HTML5 remote console. * Firmware reporting is inconsistent – iLO provides no way of loading new firmware for devices other than the iLO itself. iLO has a very basic disk and RAID reporting with no configuration options at all. * Out of our many HPE Proliant servers we have had very few failures outside of the common disk failures. We’ve had a few motherboards die but only a very low percentage. For how long have I used the solution? We have used this solution for over three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We have not encountered any stability issues. These servers have been pretty stable over the years with only one or two minor firmware issues. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? One issue is the way HPE do their drive cage expansion. With two 8-bay cages you need to use an SAS expander which adds cost and requires a PCI-e slot. Only the factory-ordered 25-bay model has this built-in. Other vendors such as DELL typically have the SAS expander built into the backplane which is better in my opinion. How is customer service and technical support? Technical support is good. Most support tickets are handled quickly and replacement parts are generally quick to arrive. Sometimes dealing with language difficulties in their helpdesk can be problematic and often there is downtime with “please send me your logs” back and forth. Hopefully this will improve with the new iLO remote support functionality. Which solutions did we use previously? We have used previous HPE/HP generations since G1 as far as I can remember. We typically switch at the time of an asset refresh. How was the initial setup? Setup was mostly straightforward, although as I mentioned, the iLO could do with providing more control, e.g. RAID/disk configuration like DELL have. Their intelligent provisioning does help a lot, particularly on their Gen9 range. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The worst part about HPE hardware is their pricing and licensing model. Prices are typically 20% higher than other vendors such as DELL and many of their advanced features are licensed separately, such as iLO advanced and Oneview, adding further cost. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We evaluated some other options. While we were purchasing a lot of HPE hardware we did consider other vendors but it isn’t always easy when you have invested in HPE tools to manage your server hardware. We have considered DELL and Lenovo. What other advice do I have? Get multiple quotes, shop around. Keep your management/monitoring tools as vendor agnostic as possible to allow you to be more flexible in your hardware vendors. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-02-23T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We can isolate the customer's various stuff onto machines that have everything dedicated. What is most valuable? They are good because we can isolate the customer's various stuff onto machines that have everything dedicated, rather than being a blade, where I share stuff with others and they do something dumb. What needs improvement? What would make it better from my point of view is if HPE spent more time on testing with the actual built-in Red Hat Linux drivers, as opposed to always trying to say, "Use our driver." What do I think about the stability of the solution? The stability is pretty good. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's scaling where we need to go. The issues we have are more the application not scaling; application design issues, not hardware issues. The hardware will go further than our application will. How is customer service and technical support? The technical support sucks, would be understating it, because the first line and the second line support tend to give out stupid suggestions that are completely useless, and they aren't listening to anything. It takes a lot of time to get through them, and that is every call I've been on with them. Oftentimes, I've got a very low expectation of HPE, and they go below my expectation a few times. How was the initial setup? Initial setup was relatively straightforward. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We have some IBM machines, but we're mostly an HPE shop. I believe the only reason we bought the IBM was because at the time, HPE didn't have the feature we needed. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-05-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from When we have issues that require more technical support, the support from HPE has been pretty top notch. Valuable Features The nice thing that we have with the whole ProLiant platform is there's a lot of commonality among the platform. We buy enough servers such that we always have spare parts on hand. When we do need spare parts, HPE is quick to provide them to us. Likewise, when we have issues that require more technical support, the support from HPE has been pretty top notch. Improvements to My Organization The way that we have used the ProLiant platform within our business, being that it's such a widespread usage, it gives us the capability to develop in-house expertise with those systems, provide assistance to our 300+ divisions when they have issues with either their system or they need some sort of help internally. We have the capability and the knowledge to reach out to them from a global IT team. Room for Improvement I would say that it would be nice if there was a more streamlined approach to getting drivers or looking up system information from HPE's website. That's the one thing that I did appreciate on the Dell side, you put in a serial number, you see the exact build, you see all the drivers associated with that machine. That is probably the only thing that I see missing from the HPE side is a very easy to use method to get this. It does exist, there is a method to get the information, but it's not as streamlined. Stability Issues I want to say if we've had any issues with stability, there's always going to be issues that servers encounter. The nice thing with the ProLiant series is that you also get alerting as to the health of the system. That has helped us to stave off any issues with those servers or services because we are able to get a transition to another host or we're able to repair it within a timely window before it goes bad. Scalability Issues Everything is scaled out exactly how we always anticipated it to. Customer Service and Technical Support We have used it a couple of times over the last year. We had an issue with some disk platform extensions on a number of ProLiant servers. HPE was able to quickly diagnose the issue and get us back up and running. Previous Solutions Within our IT group, we do have some older HP UX Blade infrastructure. We do have some other platforms such as Cisco's Unified System. Not much else besides that. Initial Setup Initially within my company's IT space, I was not involved with the initial decision to go with ProLiant. I'll be honest, I came from a Dell background. The division that I had worked for prior to our globalization in our IT group was primarily Dell. There have been a number of elements to using HP's that have been more beneficial from my point of view. Other Advice I always have colleagues who are looking to implement new servers within their divisions. As part of my responsibility, I am the conduit by which divisions can seek out additional assistance for getting servers. I am in that space a lot. I typically go over the benefits that we see within our global IT group and explain to them the efficiencies that can be seen by going to the ProLiant platform. Showing how the system can provide good alerting, good stability, and explaining that within the global IT group, if they have additional concerns or needs, that we can support them because we use the platform. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-07-01T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We have standardized our network on this equipment, so it makes it easy for maintenance and repairs. Valuable Features They've been stable and we have got good performance out of them. Improvements to My Organization We have standardized our network on this equipment, so it makes it easy for maintenance, repairs and just standardizing our images. Room for Improvement It works well for us, but they should bring the price down. Stability Issues We haven't had any problems with the newer equipment. As this stuff ages, things happen. Scalability Issues We cluster them so they scale beautifully with the way we do it. Customer Service and Technical Support I'm not impressed as you always go to the first-level support first, and it just takes forever to get to somebody that really can help you. We've already read the manual before we called support, but they read the manual to you again. They are responsive when you actually do get through to someone. Previous Solutions We've used IBM ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/ibm-rack-servers ). We got away from IBM just because of the sheer cost for maintenance. Initial Setup It's very straightforward. Other Solutions Considered We're strictly HPE ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/hpe-proliant-dl ) at the moment so we haven't looked at anyone else. Other Advice I'd encourage them to use it. For the price and the functionality you get out of it, they work out great. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-08-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from With the DL380 on local discs, we get lots of performance where other systems will connect to a traditional SAN-based storage. Valuable Features: The flexibility of using storage options would be one valuable feature. Another would be competitive pricing. And yet another would the quite high top speeds on the processor. It's also the simplicity and user friendliness that's important to us. The only issues we've had were software related from our own side, but not from HP. The provisioning is something you want to do regardless of the actual types of hardware that you use as you want it as wide as possible. Improvements to My Organization: We use the DL380 mainly for our workloads, so it's a combination of having to use local storage but also having high demands in terms of top speed on processors. We're using the highest top speed possible in a DL380. With that on the local discs, we get lots of performance where other systems will connect to a traditional SAN-based storage. You would lose speed there, so we use the product for these high workloads, but we also use products like the 380 or the 360 for workloads that are actually offsite. These are like our smaller data centers where we don't have virtualization. These are branch offices or could be used as a domain controller for Windows, those sorts of workloads. Room for Improvement: We'd like to have a management platform that's not limited and that would give us a single view of all our systems. This full range of options is limited only to certain types of hardware. Also, if you look at compatible infrastructure that was introduced recently, it will be like an image streamer in a compatible system. An image streamer won't be able to provision older types of servers. Implementation Team: It's my job to design the infrastructure of the RAM. If there's any operational issue, I would be the one calling HP for that. Other Solutions Considered: We've looked at a lot of IBM systems as well as Lenovo and Dell. We also looked at converged systems like Nutanix. Other Advice: Look for performance specs. There's a lot of high-end servers being sold in the market with quite low specs. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2015-12-31T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Some of the valuable features are Standardization and low-cost of ownership. What is most valuable? * Manageability * Ease of maintenance * Convenience * Standardization How has it helped my organization? Ease of management and the low-cost ownership. What needs improvement? Since the management went from HPE SIM into OneView, the problem is that the older generations are not supported by OneView. The new ones are supported by OneView. We have two management platforms to manage these DL servers and it's kind of a pain in the neck. We like integration. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It's very stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It is scalable. The blade systems are very scalable. We just add blades as close as we need them. How is customer service and technical support? I have used technical support, and they are good. Sometimes the telephone technicians go through the manual instead of with us. We already told them that we changed the stuff and we just need the part. It takes a little long sometimes. Which solutions did we use previously? The solution was already there when I joined, but it was the much older generation. We've been using DL380 since the first generation and we are now at Generation 9. How was the initial setup? I was involved in the setup and it was straightforward. What other advice do I have? HPE DLs are very easy to implement. There is a lot more manageability now than there used to be. The IDOL 4S is great at managing. When selecting a vendor, we like to have an all-in-one solution, i.e., one company behind all the different products. We like to be able to have support when needed and a partner who can give us stuff as we need it. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-14T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We run many apps on it, such as MS Exchange, test development systems, and SQL servers. What is most valuable? * They're incredibly reliable and we have no issues running them. * We rely on the central management because we have a lot of remote locations where we have only limited IT staff. * We only need to upgrade every five to six years. * We can buy hardware from any vendor that will work with these servers. How has it helped my organization? Not only are they reliable, but the management interface is also great for us. Also, HP's support team knows the drivers of our system, so we can rely on them. We're confident that HP will deliver the latest drivers for the DL series to allow us to run the latest Microsoft applications. We run many apps on it, such as MS Exchange, test development systems, and SQL servers. For development, we run RHEL. What needs improvement? There's always room for improvement somewhere. For how long have I used the solution? I personally used HP servers since I entered the IT game back in '97, and then still continue to use HP servers in different companies. What was my experience with deployment of the solution? We've had no issues with deployment. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We're very satisfied with the stability. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We have about 1,600 users worldwide. We have 2 ProLiant servers running all our EMEA and Asia mailboxes. How is customer service and technical support? The technical support from HP is one of the reasons why we're still running HP ProLiant. Anytime we have a technical issue such as a hardware exchange, we just call HP and they take care of it. What other advice do I have? The DL series it's quite easy to use. It's a commodity product and you can buy it at any reseller. If you have any technical reliability issues with other vendors, switch to the DL series. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-25T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We've got some that have been out of warranty for four, five years and they're still running. Valuable Features We've got a whole lot of DL380's which are the standard 2U server. We've been switching more over to the blades using the BL460's. But, the ProLiant line all along just works, they're tanks. About the only thing we've ever had to fix is drives that go bad after a while, but usually that mostly happened after a heat incident. They just run. We've got some that have been out of warranty for four - five years and they're still running. G4s we go back to and love we have no reason to change. Improvements to My Organization For certain applications that we have to have for external connectivity it runs great. Our main security system has one of these little USB dongles that starts off the back end, I could make it on the blade, but then it'd block up one blade, so having a DL380 is great for us. It does everything we ever need. Stability Issues I think we started buying HP servers ten years ago, and we've got a couple that may have been from that time that are still working. They're running great. Now we're not running it really heavy, but it's solid. I still like the 3.5 inch drives better than the 2.5 inch drives. They seem to last longer. Other than that, we've been very stable, very solid. You don't have to worry about, "Hey, is my server down today?" Scalability Issues ProLiant's a little tough. We realized that the other day, that we were running out of space on our C: drive. It's like, I can't just add to a physical drive. We ended up having to move that thing, making it a physical to virtual conversion. As far as other parts, if we need more storage on it, you can always add RAM. For the most part with the ProLiants, we generally buy it for a certain purpose and that's what it does so we don't have to do as much. On the SANs, we can always add an extra node, they'll allow you to connect that way. If we need to get larger, we can. Customer Service and Technical Support Most of them, we don't really have any issues there, but if you lose a drive and it's still on warranty, we get one. It works. Previous Solutions We were using Dell. Dell was the state recommended choice. Everybody said, "Oh, you got to buy Dell because we've got a relationship with them." They got my boss really mad over some stupid stuff. It was like two-hundred dollar set of rails, and so we said, "Okay, let's try HP's." We loved the first one, and we've been buying them, and Dell has been trying to get back in the door ever since and we just tell them to go away. It's like, "No, I'm not fixing what isn't broken. This works great, so we don't care what you've got." Initial Setup We've been doing the ProLiants forever. It's getting a little tougher now. It used to be, you had everything on a CD or DVD, you pop that in, you run. Or you had the SmartStart disk. Now, you got their onboard administrator. They got the intelligent deployment guide or whatever the heck it's called. Sometimes it's a little less intuitive. Sometimes it's where technology can bite you, and it might be helpful to have a guy go on and say "Do this." Otherwise you pull it out of the box and go, "Okay, now what do I do?" We work through it, but some of my techs have had a little bit of trouble. I gave them a new server and said,"Deploy it.", and they're like "Well, how do I put an OS on it?" It took us a little while to figure that out. I know that somebody's thinking, "Hey, this is really great. It's all here, it's all inside." Great, some of us need a little more direction sometimes. Other Solutions Considered I think we looked around, but really it was Dell servers or HPs were about all that we had considered. Since we weren't going to buy Dell anymore, we said, "Well, we want to go with HP." We were never going to be one of those, "I'm going to go buy parts and make something." And, I know some guys do that and it's great, but we like to have at least the ability to go call somebody to get somebody to come and help. That's been probably chief on why we did that. Other Advice We've been extremely happy all along. I don't see a reason to go anywhere else. I don't see a reason to even try different things. For us right now getting adventurous is we bought a DL360 instead of a 380 and it's like, wow, that's a little small. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-07-01T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from ?HPE servers always deliver stunning stability and performance to our customers, and support from HPE is always nice and fast.? What is most valuable? HPE iLO remote console, Its hot-plug design is in almost every part of its servers. How has it helped my organization? HPE servers always deliver stunning stability and performance to our customers, and support from HPE is always nice and fast. What needs improvement? More cloud and mobile features for monitoring. For how long have I used the solution? 2.5 years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? No. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? No. How is customer service and technical support? Excellent. How was the initial setup? It's straightforward and clear if we read the manual. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? There’s Dell PowerEdge R series, but I prefer HPE for more agile and great management tools. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-29T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from You turn them on and you can forget about them. I find the software for the servers can sometimes be a bit flaky. Valuable Features They are very easy to build and very reliable. On a server, that's the most important thing: reliability. Everything is locked together. They're just nice and quick and easy. Improvements to My Organization Servers are all about reliability and the HP ProLiant is well priced. You can get other reliable servers, but you're going to pay much more. These are very well priced for what they are. Room for Improvement I find the software for the servers can sometimes be a bit flaky. Upgrades can be flaky, too. For example, you get the HP easy set-up when you want to set up one from scratch. It's not uncommon that when you have to phone HP, they say, "Well you can't use the latest version, go back two versions," or that kind of thing. I would say where they control the servers, that's where they let themselves down. They let themselves down on their software. Stability Issues They're very stable. With HP servers, you turn them on and you can forget about them. That's why we use them; that's why we like them. Very rarely will HP servers actually go down and give you a hassle. Scalability Issues Scalability depends which ones you buy. They are scalable and you can add to them the whole time. You can add drives and processors. You just have to make sure that the server you buy is scalable because there's no point buying a single processor server if you think one day you might need four processors. You've got to allow for scalability when you buy the server. You've got to be thinking forward. Customer Service and Technical Support On the whole, I would say their tech support is quite good. They always come back to you. The only people I can really compare them to in that price range would be Dell. You can't compare as the HP tech support is much, much better than Dell. It's easier to get through and they're more helpful when you actually get them on the phone. Other Solutions Considered At this price range we've bought Dell and we've bought IBM. We wouldn't go back to either of them. We would, however, go back to HP with no problem. If someone really wants a cheap server, they should go with Fujitsu because it's good value for money. But you can't compare their build quality to HP. HP build quality is much better. Dell servers are very nice although sales service is diabolical. IBM -- just didn't like the build. Very fiddly, not easy to put together, wasn't intuitive. HP servers -- you get the parts and it's intuitive. You know exactly what you're doing; it's easy. Also, the IBM servers were very, very noisy. With Fujitsu, it just comes down to price. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-01-07T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It has easy manageability, and with iLO we are able to do everything remotely. Valuable Features: It has easy manageability, and with iLO we are able to do everything remotely. Improvements to My Organization: It's just a computer server, so we just use them for whatever things we can't virtualize so it's nothing very special in that regard as far as what sets HPEs apart from somebody else's there. Room for Improvement: We're looking forward to OneView management, stuff like that to keep it all in check. But there's not really anything specific. It will provide a single pane of glass for management instead of going out to 50 different servers and configuring things so you get, set up a template, or do the different things through OneView. Just kick it off and replicate and automate what you're doing. Stability Issues: I haven't had any issues with that at all. Scalability Issues: I haven't had any issues with that at all. Previous Solutions: I've used other platforms in the past, but nothing specific. We wanted to have a single pane of glass for management and have consistency as much as we can so we stick with one vendor overall between blades, between rack mounts, between everything. Other Advice: Proliant, they're fine. I mean it's compute, it's pretty hard to mess it up these days. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-07-01T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It's dependable, and they keep maturing the product. Valuable Features: I've been a ProLiant customer for years, since the late '90s. The ProLiant series has been very innovative over the years, compared to some of the competition that are not so innovative. It's very dependable, and they keep maturing the product more and more. Especially now, I'm looking at the Hyper Converged 380, so they're re-inventing new ways to use that technology. That's a great thing right there, with the Hyper Converged space as well. The management of them is valuable. I specifically don't use them on a daily basis, I have my engineers that do since they can easily manage the servers. Improvements to My Organization: It's more of a rack server, it's more of a commodity kind of device. I know what I'm buying when I buy from HPE. I get that reliable server, good service, good support, and it works. Room for Improvement: This server is separate from the next one and I'd like it to be integrated so it becomes all-in-one. Stability Issues: It's very stable. Previous Solutions: Over the years that I've been involved with a lot of different server manufacturers as far as rack managed servers, Cisco C-Series, IBM X-Series, and a lot of HPE. They're comparable in many ways but we choose a lot of HPE because we know we're getting a good, reliable product and at a good price point. Initial Setup: It was very easy. Implementation Team: I had HPE do it. Other Advice: Look at the Hyper Converged as everything's going to virtual, so look at the ProLiant in a Hyper Converged space. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-06-29T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A stable solution that saves us money. What is most valuable? Stability. That's about it. How has it helped my organization? It saves us money. What needs improvement? Lower price. You have to pay for some of the features after the fact. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It stays up. Which solutions did we use previously? When looking for a vendor, I look for cost and support. How was the initial setup? The setup was straightforward. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We have very specific standards, and only HPE met them. What other advice do I have? Look at the product and look at the support. In the long term, the support of the hardware is crucial. It is not just about the price point. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We don’t need to do a lot of maintenance on the servers, so we need less people needed to manage them. Valuable Features We've used HP servers for a while now, and the most valuable features of them all, the DL series included, are the price and the quality. HP provides the best quality for the price. Improvements to My Organization We were using Dell before and we switched because HP has a range of products that, from our point of view, is exactly what we need. It supports a special power converter that's essential to us that Dell just doesn't have. We don’t need to do a lot of maintenance on the servers, so we need less people needed to manage them. HP provides us with great service as well, which helps us save on costs and other resources. Room for Improvement Although I compare them often to the Dell servers we used to have, these HP servers could be improved with faster memory. They perform well enough, but I might pay more for faster performance. Deployment Issues We've had no problems deploying these servers. Stability Issues The stability is very good, 8/10. Scalability Issues Scalability is also very good, 8/10. Customer Service and Technical Support Technical service is outstanding, 9/10. Initial Setup The initial setup was very easy and straightforward. Other Solutions Considered We evaluated Dell and Lenovo. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-01-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Scalable solution that can be customized to match service needs. What is most valuable? Scalability and being able to customize the service in just the way that we really want it. How has it helped my organization? The benefits are that we can customize what we want. We're able to tailor the actual service itself to our specific requirements. This is opposed to trying to get something off-the shelf which doesn't quite fit and then we have to make compromises. What needs improvement? I’d like to see a lower price. That's not the whole 20% difference of why I gave it an 8. One of the negative things that we find is that the configuration tools are sometimes not easy to use. That contributes to the detriment of the score. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I would rank scalability at about 80%. How is customer service and technical support? I have used support. There are certain proprietary information elements which are clearly owned by HPE which are always nice to look at when troubleshooting. There are some items that we understand that they can't share. From a technical point of view, it would be nice to have more visibility and scale. How was the initial setup? I was involved in the setup. I think our first installation was okay. When we are buying new models, sometimes the support doesn't feel like it's quite there. That might not necessarily be on the HPE side of things. This lack of support might be from some of the products that we use with it. What other advice do I have? We go through software purchasing cycles and we know roughly when, in the lifetime, we need to purchase certain key infrastructure components. We also have the ad hoc requests where we need to get a certain per-line, server-specific, full requirements, and then we buy as we need it. When selecting a vendor, trust is the main issue. I'd suggest others seriously consider HPE as a service solution. Our experience has been pretty positive. Based upon that I, would recommend HPE products. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-12-24T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Its fault tolerance is high, providing the capability of a reaction against a “disaster”, and the failure rate is low. When there are hardware failures, however, it's not easily fixable. Valuable Features * It helps with work-load management * It's a reliable solution * It's easy to fix * It's easy to work with and manage Improvements to My Organization I have never implemented them as part of an organization, but I worked with these rack servers while providing support for customers. During the period of time I was providing tech support for this product line, I was able to see that its fault tolerance is really high, providing the capability of a reaction against a “disaster” and the failure rate is really low. Room for Improvement Obviously, you will still have hardware failures, but it is not something you can easily fix. This is more about the regular hardware failures that you may get on daily basis such as a bad HDD, NIC failure or regular hardware failures that may be present due to the normal workload of the server, meaning that they have or exceeded the lifetime or they are presenting a huge workload. Regarding the normal functionality of the server as is, the only improvement I would say is to continue with the research and the development of higher workload capacities as the customer needs are constantly growing, therefore the demand for what the product requires to do will also grow, to avoid the demand to elapse behind the improving of the technology needs to be continued. It's tied to the needs of the end users and any new features that they would require in order to better manage their organizations. Use of Solution I’ve worked with these products for over three years providing technical support for the HP ISS industry customers. I did not need to use them in a production environment. Customer Service and Technical Support I was part of the technical support team. Initial Setup I used to guide customers with the installation, and the initial setup was always straightforward. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2015-09-24T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Good for applications that you use really heavy disk IO. I'm not a fan of their rails. Valuable Features: I like their scalability. The fact that where I have 24 drives in one of my servers, I can basically turn it into its own little storage tray if I want to, and then attach a server to it. It's really good for applications that you use really heavy disk IO. Improvements to My Organization: For us, we use the DLs ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/hpe-proliant-dl ) more on a piece by piece basis, so when our clients come to us with a very specific demand that really doesn't fit well with our blades, which is our preference, then we go to the DLs, and then we scale it out for whatever they need. Room for Improvement: I'm not a fan of their rails. I hate how those things rack, as they're just not nice. Initial Setup: The server itself is quite good, easy to use. Configuration of it is a little bit tedious, you've got to be willing to spend a couple of hours just to get it set up before you can even start using it, because the reboots are ten - fifteen minutes long, and that'll kill you. Cost and Licensing Advice: The cost per compute. I pay as much for a ProLiant DL as I do for a Blade ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/hpe-bladesystem ). It requires more power, more cooling, more space for essentially the same function, if I wanted to, with the exception of additional storage. So for me it really does come down to cost. Other Solutions Considered: We haven't looked at competitors in a very long time for those. We basically have stuck with HPE ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/vendors/hewlett-packard-enterprise ). It's a known name, so I don't want to give my customers something that might work, I want something that will work. Other Advice: Get on it with OneView, because it's that single pane of glass, you can manage your blades, your DLs, and your 3PAR, all using that one tool. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-07-31T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Allows us to equalize the direct servers of the VDI. What is most valuable? It allows us to utilize the servers for VDI. The system supports two GPU's. How has it helped my organization? It was part of a bigger solution, which is VDI. We are able to publish desktops for design engineers whose requirements are continuously changing on a weekly basis. What needs improvement? I would like to look at Synergy for the new servers. It will be out in June or July. The Synergy Streamer Composer is one of the powerful features that Synergy has. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is pretty stable. We had a pretty good experience with HPE so far. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability shouldn't be an issue. We can have 20 servers in one rack. How is customer service and technical support? I've had good experience with HPE support. the support engineers are knowledgeable and customer service oriented. Which solutions did we use previously? We knew we needed a new solution because of the latest requirements. Nowadays, IT is very involved with the business. We try our best to enable them to do their job in an efficient way. We had a different hardware platform before, and support was not at the level we've expected. The most important thing when selecting a vendor is service, regardless of price. We look more for partnership and service in that sense. How was the initial setup? The installation was straightforward. What about the implementation team? Our vendor implemented the solution. We were involved in the design and planning. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Pricing is not bad. They have competitive pricing, and the licensing model is simple to understand. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We evaluated few other technologies. We chose HPE because we've had good experience with them. I worked with them in the past and so far, HPE has proven to be reliable. What other advice do I have? Be careful when selecting the vendor. It has to be a partnership. If the vendor can't deliver what is expected, it's going to be a nightmare. It's going to affect your operations. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-16T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Easy to use and reliable, consistently stable How has it helped my organization? It's easy to set up for the whole firm. Nobody has trouble with it. What is most valuable? * Easy to configure * Reliable What needs improvement? It's perfect. It could go faster all the time, but the next generation is always faster. For how long have I used the solution? More than five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Consistently stable. It is 99.9999. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We only use it on single machines, and for VMware we use another product from Cisco. How is customer service and technical support? I am not responsible for the tech cases, so I can't comment. How was the initial setup? It's straightforward. We use Red Hat, it's straightforward. We go from five to six or seven. It's no problem. What other advice do I have? When our company looks to work with vendors, we look for * first the price * then the support * then the ease of use. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-12-19T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It allows us to provide continuity to the business. What is most valuable? Performance and longevity. How has it helped my organization? It allows us to provide continuity to the business. What needs improvement? I would like to see a single pane of glass, relayed management, and fewer tours. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We try to transfer platforms. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The scalability is very good. How is customer service and technical support? We have used technical support for this solution. Which solutions did we use previously? We knew we needed to invest in a new solution through our acquisitions. We used Dell before. We switched because of the HPE platform. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We looked at HPE and EMC. We chose HPE because they were a more innovative solution for us, as far as operating servers. When selecting a vendor, I look for onsite engagement and the hands-on invitation for out-of-hours support. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-15T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from ?It is very stable. I can rate it as a 99.99% stable server. What is our primary use case? ML380 ProLiant servers are really excellent servers on the ISMP side. Their performance is very highly satisfying, and it is a good product from HPE. How has it helped my organization? On the SMP side, applying 380 servers, it can handle multiple applications and supports a virtual missions environment. It has a good memory, good power storage facility, a redundant power supply, drives, etc. It is a good product on the SMP side. What is most valuable? Performance is the main feature of this product. For customers, the performance is excellent. It has been performing very well in the DL380 series interaction, and so far now, it is G10, and it is doing well. What needs improvement? We use, the service comes with three year warranty with next business day support. We would like to enhance it with basic service and a better level of support. It is not required in the 380 series, but it is still widely used. So, a better option would be same day support. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is very stable. I can rate it as a 99.99% stable server from HPE. There is zero downtime, especially in the ProLiant 380 series. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It is highly scalable, not like the other servers. This server has a virtual capacity. We can virtualize up to 8 servers, which we have done, and it has been good. The scalability is very high in 380, so instead of using the high-end servers, you can use multiple servers and segregate the applications between the servers. The performance is excellent in that area. How is customer service and technical support? We have used their pre-sales, HPE's pre-support services for installation and services, and even our in-house engineers can work with their tech support as well. HPE support works well within our region. They do their job within the next business day. How was the initial setup? Initial setup was straightforward. What was our ROI? An investment in DL380 is worth it. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? If you have to include the warranty, enhance the warranty support. Which other solutions did I evaluate? No, we were just looking at HPE. What other advice do I have? Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: * The vendor guys should know the product well. * They can recommend the right solution. HPE has a wide range of products in its portfolio. So, the vendor team must know HPE products and provide the right product to the customers. Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Date published: 2017-12-25T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Its scalability and clustering features are valuable. What is most valuable? * Scalability * Availability * It’s robust * Clustering * Virtualization I can do with it almost everything within minutes. How has it helped my organization? It reduced costs and time. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I would say it's not the top of the line, but it's near the top. We had some cracks in the past but stability is high. It's not outstanding, but it's high. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? For these kinds of features themselves, scalability is OK, but I expect much better performance from the scalability. There are some features that are quite slow and we have faced some issues with them in the past. How is customer service and technical support? We have used technical support twice and it was slow. I would give it a rank of 2/5. They are a big organization, but the support teams are very, very slow. Which solutions did we use previously? Management decided to move to this solution. I inherited this from them. We were using a solution from IBM. We negotiated a better price with HPE. What other advice do I have? Make sure you negotiate yourself a very good service contract. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-01-24T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Gives us the ability to manage centrally. What is most valuable? The blades are very compact. They are easy to query. If you need information from them, you have one central location where you can go with OneView to understand where everything is located if you have any problems with them. In that respect, it is better than just standalone servers that you find in the field. How has it helped my organization? It gives us the ability to manage centrally. If you have a problem with any of the servers, it will send alerts and you can easily find out where they are located. You can then pull the server if you have to and change the hardware. The servers are all identical, so if we do have issues, we can just pull one from our reserved stash and just replace it. The benefit is that they are all identical, so they are pretty reliable. What needs improvement? What is missing for me is more of the administration site. If you have a cluster of four servers, there's no way to identify if they are all a member of the same cluster. If there were a way to tag them, then you could specify where they are located within the data center. It would make it easier, because then we could spread them out. We would not have to keep them in the same cabinet in case of a power failure. I would like to see more ease-of-use, be able to identify everything, and group them together so that we know where they are located. What do I think about the stability of the solution? So far it has been very stable and reliable. We rarely have issues. When we do have issues, it is usually firmware related. Hardware-wise, they are pretty solid. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? With blades, you can just add more cabinets and you are good to go. How is customer service and technical support? Occasionally, we have to use technical support when there are issues. The support is really good. They always find a solution. Sometimes it takes a little longer than other times, but they always find a solution. Which solutions did we use previously? We knew we needed a solution because we didn't have anything prior to this solution. I had to come up with a solution and say, "These four servers are in the same cluster. We need to write codes that indicate that these servers are in this frame or in this enclosure." That way, we could map out our status. When selecting a vendor, I look at price, if they are technologically inclined, i.e., that they know what they're doing. We look for a personal relationship, just to make sure that they are friendly and that they know their stuff. How was the initial setup? I was not present for the initial setup. I was present for the setup of the Synergy frames. It was straightforward, but we also had HPE's help setting them up and they gave us guidance. Which other solutions did I evaluate? They evaluated solutions before I came on board. I believe they looked at Dell. We have a few Dell machines in our environment. What other advice do I have? It is a good investment and they should go for it. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-16T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It's a line that I'm comfortable with. I think it's something that HPE has put the investment into for the long-term. Valuable Features I think the high availability features that are built into the server as our systems require a certain amount of uptime. Having to buy less servers because of built-in redundancy, means I have to buy less pieces of iron. It's a line that I'm comfortable with. I think it's something that HPE has put the investment into for the long-term. Improvements to My Organization I think it's just the generations that are built on the ProLiant line of servers. Room for Improvement The biggest thing I don't like about ProLiant, and this will be very trivial, is the rails. Every generation, even within the same family generation, the rails are different. It's a pet peeve. It’s not a technical thing. We do rack-mounted servers. Having to deal with different rack - or rail kits - is a real pain. It's not a huge technical thing, but that's the biggest thing for me. Use of Solution For us it’s been a success year after year, generation after generation. I've used ProLiant for 15 -16 years. Stability Issues Really none. Again, that may be just familiar with the tools from its initial iterations. Scalability Issues Really none. Again, that may be just familiar with the tools from its initial iterations. Customer Service and Technical Support I've never had a problem with support, and dealing with HP is always seamless. Initial Setup The setup is so easy. It used to be SmartStart, but now they've changed that whole functionality. It's seamless to us. I don't really have any complaints from a "stand-it-up-and-support-it" perspective. Other Solutions Considered We looked at Dell versus HP. Proliant versus the R-series on the Dell side. When you look at product to product, servers are fairly closely matched. The supportability, or the management of the HP, versus bringing in Dell into my shop was a cost, from an educational perspective for my staff. Understanding the product inside and out was more important than bringing in a new partner. Other Advice I rate the ProLiant line very highly because you see the commitment of them building on it, and to me that's important. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-07-01T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We have used these servers for several years throughout our data centers and they've proven to be very reliable. What is most valuable? Reliability is a valuable feature for us. We use the DL380s throughout our data centers and they've proven to be very reliable. How has it helped my organization? We've been using them for several years, and because we've been using them throughout our data centers, they've been uniform. All of our techs are familiar with them, and I think it's just familiarity with the servers which has benefited us a lot. What needs improvement? We're going to the hyper converged area. I've seen OneView. I'm very pleased with how that interface looks. We saw SimplyView in a demonstration and Synergy. So until I get my hands on it, I don't know that I can say I'm looking for more improvements. For how long have I used the solution? We've been using them for several years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We are very impressed with the stability. The only time they've really failed on us is when the cooling in the area failed one time. Literally, the temperatures got so hot that they physically melted. That's probably the only time they failed. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Right now, we're looking into some of the newer hybrid architectures, hyper converged. So we're looking at keeping our older servers but trying to scale them out. So that's what we're looking at now. How is customer service and technical support? The technical support has been very valuable. We had a storage array go bad, and they worked with us to get that storage array up and running again. So, yes, very valuable. Which solutions did we use previously? Prior to what we were using, I think we were just using all of the firmware-based solutions for setting up our arrays. If you use a different supplier or a different company for your firmware or your hardware, then it has a different interface. It was just complicated. If you're using HPE for everything, it just made it so much simpler. How was the initial setup? I was not involved in the initial setup, although my predecessor was. I've stood up servers and storage arrays from scratch, and I think it's not that complex. I think the user interface that HPE provides is straightforward. It takes away the complexity. That's my feeling, anyway. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We've looked at moving away from HPE in the past, and we were lured away. But HPE, for the requirements of our customers, for our own requirements, especially security, was key. I think security is one of the first things we look at, and HPE has that covered. We evaluated Dell. We chose to stay with HPE but we almost switched to Dell. What other advice do I have? I mean, look at what other solutions are out there, and look up what your requirements are. For us, it's met all of our requirements. I don't think that the others could do that. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The P830 controller card with the SAS expander gives us performance on 10K SAS discs. Valuable Features It has 26 internal disc slots and will take 12 gig SAS discs. We needed to run a SQL server availability groups on a pair of these, and we needed to be able build a high-speed, high-performance disc array to hold our data. The DL380 Gen-9, along with the P830 controller card with the SAS expander, gives us phenomenal performance on 10K SAS discs. They outperformed our existing SAN by a factor of 8 to 10 times. Improvements to My Organization These replaced old Dell servers and have half the footprint, being as they're a 2U server. They also used half the power. They saved us considerable amounts of money and hosting costs with our data center. Deploying these servers actually saves us money. Room for Improvement I can't see how you can fit much more into a small server, to be quite honest. If I was to be really picky, it needs to not drop the memory speed when you fill all the memory slots, which is a real niggle, but other than that, they've worked so well. They've done so much for us in cutting our hosting costs over the original four way boxes that these replaced. Their performance is absolutely phenomenal. Deployment Issues They've deployed for us without any issues. Stability Issues Absolutely stunning. We also use the Gen8 on some of our other systems and the key systems that I support -- our ARP CRM and ticket and billing system. Our billing systems handles roughly two-and-a-half billion pounds a year. It's very critical. Scalability Issues They seem to scale brilliantly, but it's difficult to tell. Our company is a constantly growing business. Our expansion is vast -- twenty percent or more last year. The systems are still holding up really well. In fairness, we specked them up and we benchmark these servers, so the particular way we had these servers built was specific to our use, but they do really well. Customer Service and Technical Support We did with the original install, the Gen9's that we had. We had some of the first Gen9's that were released. We did have a slight pickup with a BIOS setting, but HP support sorted that one for us. Previous Solutions I inherited the Dell servers from a legacy. I just replaced them with the HP servers. Those are my preferred choice, always. Without being detrimental to Dell, we don't like their servers very much, and the HP ones have always been far better. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-01-17T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It allowed us to consolidate our workloads. It allowed us to process the data more efficiently. To provide real time data for our end user applications. What is most valuable? I would say it's well documented and you can find exactly what the configuration is easily as well as the drivers and other documentation that they require to get a junior staff member up and running on the platform. How has it helped my organization? It allowed us to consolidate our workloads. It allowed us to process the data more efficiently. To provide real time data for our end user applications. What needs improvement? I would say that for us, as we're moving to more of a cloud based solution, we're looking for ways that you can take machines that you can't put in a private cloud instance and how those can be managed from a single user interface. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability is excellent. It doesn't break. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? This is something that we're going into right now with HP as we've built out a stack of these machines. In the future we're planning on moving to more of a cloud based architecture. They want to add more sites and it's just not good for us to add in another rack of equipment for every site. How is customer service and technical support? Technical support gets to the parts where we need it. Like any product, it fails occasionally, right? But we built the system to survive and HP is still there to support us. How was the initial setup? I was not involved in the initial setup. Which other solutions did I evaluate? I don't know why they chose HP in the end. I think it's just experience and it was the right company at the time. We look for experience, stability and the ability to support our customers' requirements from a security perspective. Also the availability of documentation. Documentation that can be supported by even new staff members that have never touched the system. What other advice do I have? Work with HP to pilot before you go buy it. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A reliable solution to run standard and proprietary applications. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature is reliability. We virtually have no problems with it. We run most of our applications on ProLiant DLs. We also run Exchange, and proprietary applications such as Attorney Information Manager and an accounting package called ProVantage. How has it helped my organization? It has improved our organization in terms of providing more speed and reliability while being low maintenance. We're totally dependent upon it as we move forward. What needs improvement? There's nothing that I would add to it, except maybe on the dashboard. There could be a little more analytics. I would like to see some proactive warnings about maintenance issues. If we were to have an issue, I'd like some more advanced warning. I’d like to see some alerting features. We’ve only a few issues, but I would like to see some alerting improvements. What do I think about the stability of the solution? In terms of stability, It's a perfect fit. We have had no stability issues whatsoever. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's been very scalable. Maintenance wise it's a non-issue. How is customer service and technical support? We have used their 24-hour tech support. They've been very good and responsive. They meet the deadline. Which other solutions did I evaluate? Before choosing HPE, we looked at Dell. Between Dell and HPE, I think you get a lot of similar bells and whistles but I think in the end HPE is the king. What other advice do I have? HPE has excellent maintenance agreements. They provide on-site, 24-hour response times. They deliver agreements. We're not ones to readily replace equipment so they have good extended warranties, which we rely on pretty regularly. This was one of the more important criteria because I work for a law firm and they're not big on shelling out money, unless they absolutely have to. We get the biggest bang for the buck with HPE. Again, I think it's the warranty service that you receive from the HPE that makes the difference. It's reliable. You should always shop around for price. Vendors are always willing to compete in the marketplace. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-12-08T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from When we need to, we can get through to technical support and get the right person What is our primary use case? There are two sets of servers that we use. We have several sites where we have VMware clusters using the servers, and also we have standalone servers that we use for physical security applications. They are both performing very well. How has it helped my organization? We are on a journey with that. iLO, in particular, helps us manage the servers better, especially as a lot of them are remote from where the IT staff are. We have some locations where we just have not got IT presence at those locations, so iLO really helps with that. We are starting to use HPE OneView to manage them further, so that is where we are going with it. Hopefully, to go and be able to manage them. What is most valuable? * Obviously, they perform what we want them to do. * The added extras, I particularly like iLO. * Just to be able to manage them and get information about the servers. That is really good. What needs improvement? At the moment, I feel that there is more there that we could be using rather than things that are missing. For how long have I used the solution? More than five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The servers are very stable. They have been in place for about six to seven years. We are refreshing stuff. We are about to refresh a lot of the vSphere servers because they have come to their end of life. They are about five years old, so we are gonna put in some hyper-converged servers instead. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? In theory, they are expandable. So yeah, they fit our needs and I am sure if things changed, when we needed more capacity, we could get it. I am confident of that. How is customer service and technical support? Technical support is very good. I can't complain. We have had very few incidents, but when we have needed to, we can get through to them and get the right support. How was the initial setup? I was not involved in the initial setup. Though, we are going through a new setup and I will be involved in that. What other advice do I have? With the DL380, you can't go wrong. There is no risk to go and take them. Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Trusting that you will always have the right level of service. Support is key for that, and obviously knowing that the servers are used by thousands and thousands of other people. That they will be tried and tested. It is reassuring. Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Date published: 2017-12-26T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from They improve our ability to perform everyday tasks crucial to our business, as well as allow for easy administration from an IT perspective. Valuable Features * Reliability * Scalability * Performance Improvements to My Organization These products are used as corporate infrastructure servers and improve our ability to perform everyday tasks crucial to our business as well as allow for easy administration from an IT perspective. Room for Improvement As these servers are constantly evolving with better technology and performance, I would have nothing to offer in the way of a wish list feature additions. Use of Solution I've used it for five years. Deployment Issues No issues encountered. Stability Issues No issues encountered. Scalability Issues No issues encountered. Customer Service and Technical Support Customer Service: It's excellent. Technical Support: It's excellent. Previous Solutions This product was installed prior to my employment, but I have used servers from HP in the past and have always been satisfied with them. Initial Setup The initial setup was very straightforward with a step-by-step wizard to help me get the servers configured quickly. I’m especially impressed with the RAID setup wizard which makes setup of complex disk pools a breeze. Implementation Team I implemented one of the servers myself all the way through. The others in our environment were setup by Microsoft prior to my employment ROI The ROI with these servers if fairly quick. Their reliability and uptime provide a quick return. Other Advice I would highly recommend purchasing an HP server product Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2015-10-26T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The most valuable features for us are the stability and scalability of these servers. Valuable Features The most valuable features for us are the stability and scalability of these servers. However, what's truly key is the support we get. Room for Improvement They're very slow to boot up. And we can have issues with the driver sets for all operating systems as well. The blade enclosures themselves, though, are leading-edge technology. I think the problem is that we're not geared up for automating the build process. We're still manually deploying servers. Use of Solution We're still using the Gen 8 blades, though we've bought many of the new ones and we're going to install them soon. Deployment Issues We've had quite a few issues doing the initial builds and getting the operating system up and running. Stability Issues It is very stable. HP products generally are. Scalability Issues It's scalable because you're not using actual discs within storage. You scale by adding additional services. The new Synergy product is going to be much better. Customer Service and Technical Support This is the key for us. The support from OCSL is excellent. We don't use them often. Initial Setup They take a long time to set up and they're quite complicated to build as well. Other Solutions Considered We're pretty much an HP shop. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-01-07T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Scalable, high quality, and good technical support What is our primary use case? We have several HPE ProLiant DL Server models in use, DL360, 380, and 580. We use the servers for multiple business services. What is most valuable? The quality and the technical support are the most valuable features. What needs improvement? The cost of the solution has room for improvement. For how long have I used the solution? I am currently using HPE ProLiant DL Servers. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The solution is scalable. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The solution is expensive. What other advice do I have? I give the solution a ten out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Date published: 2023-03-25T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The scalability and the form factor plays well into our data center infrastructure. Valuable Features: The scalability. We use it for our infrastructure because we keep up with the latest generation of technology and so the scalability, the form factor, everything plays well into our data center infrastructure. Improvements to My Organization: It's helpful to have standardized platforms, and so from that standpoint it works very well for our environment at our company because we have a vast distributed data center infrastructure across multiple locations so it helps to have standardized platforms to reduce operating expense and extend the lifecycle of the product. It would just be ease of maintainability and standardization to minimize. Room for Improvement: The number of CPUs and maybe administrative interfaces. Nothing that I would site as a concern now. It's the continued maturing of the platform. There's always room for growth but I can't point to more specifics. Scalability Issues: It's scalable just based on the physical placements of the hardware and the white space involved on the floor. Initial Setup: We have others that handle any deployment issues. Cost and Licensing Advice: The more we're able to standardize on a single platform, it lowers our long term cost and it lowers support cost. I think it can be expensive, but in our particular function, we don't get involved in that aspect. The funding aspects are a totally different group, so as long as the technical parameters are met, we don't address that. Other Solutions Considered: They give us the storage requirements and then we coordinate with the teams to do it. As far as competition, I don't get involved. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-06-29T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Provides redundancy and insight to our actual data usage on our disk arrays. What is most valuable? It's just a solid server. You put it up and it just kind of runs. It's not a whole bunch of jumping through hoops or anything to configure it. It's pretty straightforward. It's really all you can say about the ProLiant servers. How has it helped my organization? It gave me more insight to our actual data usage on our disk arrays. Before that, we were using the P2000 G3 disk array from HPE MSA series; just not a whole lot of insights in that. What needs improvement? Providing areas with room for improvement is a tough one. We're running AMD right now, so we're not running the latest gen. We're running a gen 8, something DL series. I honestly can't provide areas with room for improvement until I see the next version of what that's going to be. I mean, it’d be nice if AMD got off their butts and provided a new chip for us to use, but right now it's all Intel. I wish there was a clearer-cut way to back up the BIOS and restore other machines. That'd be really the biggest thing I could see an improvement on, which I think they did fix in gen 9 and 10. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I rack them and throw them in there. Once you put them on a rack, as long as you don't mess with it, they just run. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? With the DL series redundancy line, just keep throwing them in the rack and plug it into your cluster and it goes. You're not stuck on a blade mid-planner waiting for all your blades to go out of the mid-plane on the enclosure with half of the access; that's why we moved to the DL series. They give us that reliability and we can do redundancy with it; unlike the blade enclosures, where you have to purchase two separate blade enclosures to get genuine redundancy, which is a very steep purchase. How is customer service and technical support? The technical support leaves a lot to be desired. I find it amazing that I paid for extra for support for the 3PAR and I wait on the phone for 30 minutes. For that extra support, when I'm paying for the premium support; so it's US-side support, US-based support, I should mention. If I call the regular number without the extra support, I talk to someone instantly. It's, "What care plan are you on? What care plan are you on?" That's the question of HPE, "Are you on the SA plan?" "Are you on this plan?" You got to dig through this matrix of plans to figure out which phone are we going to call. It's absurd. How was the initial setup? The initial setup was pretty straightforward. What about the implementation team? I do all of the implementation myself. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-05-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The iLO is the biggest reason to buy ProLiant What is most valuable? The iLO. To me, its the differentiating factor of the ProLiant server and the biggest reason I'd choose to run them versus competitors. The iLO provides all the management features needed and is a consistent experience across all form factors, sizes and lines of ProLiant. How has it helped my organization? The Gen8 and Gen9 hardware provides agentless monitoring and management using the iLO, so we don't have to run agents and rely on software to get hardware alerts. These all come across directly from the iLO. OS level alerts still require agents, but all the basic hardware monitoring does not. For how long have I used the solution? These predate my time with the company. I've been with the company for 10 years and the ProLiant were several generations older, so I would say we had original generation one DL 380s, so it probably goes back at least 15 years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Very few in recent models. Most any issues are resolved with firmware and driver updates from the HPE Service Pack for ProLiant, their cross-tested bundles. On top of this, HPE has done a lot of address issues for administrators. A couple of generations ago, with the Gen8 ProLiant debut, they hit twenty different improvements that I care about as an administrator. Predictive memory enables us to know when memory is going to fail. Instead of having a hard failure or a crash in the middle of the night, it's got predictive memory so it lets us know when not to pull a drive. So if we're wanting to pull a drive for a fail-back point or something, it's got a little indicator that says "Don't pull me right now". It's got an "X" mark on it, so I don't crash a system just trying to do something preventative, but there was a wealth of different things that they added into the systems that I can appreciate as an operations guy.All of that stuff came directly from feedback of customers like me and got integrated into the next product cycle, so I'm a huge ProLiant fan. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? No. You can scale-out with ProLiant, but each generation increases the memory and CPU capabilities exponentially, so from that perspective it's usually just a refresh cycle from scale discussion. But that is kind of how we approach it, is we need to increase capacity within inside of our VMware farms, we replace the hardware with a new generation, generally increase the amount of RAM and CPU configuration. How is customer service and technical support? 7/10 - it can be hit or miss. We get better luck with our premium support levels. We have a named TAM for some of our systems, that works out well. Escalation managers are always good. There is good technical talent, it's just sometimes hidden by first level support. That can be difficult and frustrating at times, but over ten years working with them, I would say today it's probably a little better than when I first started. Actually, I would say it's probably improved a good bit since I first started working with them, but it's still got some room to go. How was the initial setup? They were dead simple. You rack them, power them on, then you can use Intelligent Provisioning to install and configure the system. They just make a lot of sense. It's easy. What other advice do I have? I think it's the best server you can possibly buy. I have recently had more exposure to Dell and Cisco products to compare with and I stand by the DL line as the best server and it is primarily because of iLO. Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Date published: 2016-06-29T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Easy to deploy, scalable, and stable What is our primary use case? We have one SQL server, one repository called Solidworks Designs, and one called Karmatic. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature of the solution is scalability. What needs improvement? The licensing fees are expensive and have room for improvement. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using the solution for three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The solution is scalable. We purchased enough resources to ensure we could meet our requirements. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is straightforward and took a few minutes. The deployment was simple. We only needed to install a Windows server. What about the implementation team? The implementation was completed in-house. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? We have to pay for an annual license which is expensive. What other advice do I have? I give the solution a nine out of ten. We have twenty people using the solution in our organization and plan to increase that number to 30. We require five people to maintain the solution consisting of managers and automation engineers. I recommend the solution to others. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-02-26T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Good availability and management console with good reliability What is our primary use case? We primarily use the solution as a server. We use it for hosting Oracle databases. What is most valuable? The management console is very good. It allows for a wide variety of management capabilities. It's very easy to use. I can get analytics as well. I can see the performance and look up bottlenecks. The availability is very good. It offers the best performance for my workloads. It offers very nice flash arrays. The configuration is pretty good. It is stable. What needs improvement? I do not have any notes for improvement. I don't have a lot of visibility on every aspect at the moment. The setup could be a bit easier. The initial configuration process could be simpler. For how long have I used the solution? I've used the solution for about six months. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution is stable, and we are happy with it. I'd rate the solution nine out of ten in terms of reliability. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We haven't looked into scalability. We don't have a growing workload. In terms of increasing capacity, such as CPU, it's fine. Scaling out, for example, adding multiple nodes, I haven't tested as that wasn't in the scope of our use case. How are customer service and support? Technical support is hard to gauge. I haven't dealt with them just yet. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? I've worked with IBM servers in the past as well. These servers are easier to deal with and set up. In this current organization, this is the first solution we are using. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is not easy yet not over difficult either. It's easier than, for example, IBM servers. It's more out of the box. There isn't so much configuration needed. I'd rate the ease of the process seven out of ten. The deployment took around six months for us to deploy everything. It took a while to get the hardware. We had a team involved in the implementation. What about the implementation team? We had some assistance from HP with the configuration. What was our ROI? We're investing in the hardware, and we're not really seeing any ROI at this time. The nodes aren't doing much. We're only using it for a couple of databases. We're not using it to full capacity just yet. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The pricing is not something I deal with. I don't have an idea of the exact cost. What other advice do I have? We are end-users. I would definitely recommend the solution to others based on how well it has worked for me in the past. I'd happy with its capabilities. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-02-26T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It's a robust, scalable solution What is our primary use case? We use ProLiant servers to host our solution. We have around 150 users. What needs improvement? We have had issues with ProLiant's intelligent provisioning. Sometimes, the drivers do not come up, so we have to install them manually. For how long have I used the solution? We started using ProLiant a few months ago. What do I think about the stability of the solution? HPE ProLiant is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? HPE ProLiant is scalable. How was the initial setup? The setup can be complex or straightforward, depending on the server model. One person can complete the deployment in about four days. What other advice do I have? I rate HP ProLiant DL servers eight out of 10. I recommend HP ProLiant. It's a robust and scalable product. If you're having problems with the drivers, you can go to the HP forums and get some help. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-03-23T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It has a fast IO, which we need for the database supporting our monitoring tools What is our primary use case? The ProLiant server is where we install our monitoring tools. We are only utilizing about half of its total capacity. We need to install more memory and other hardware to maximize our usage. We're close to the minimum. We have around 20 users for this project across two departments. What is most valuable? Our monitoring tool has a database, so we need a server with a fast IO. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using ProLiant servers for three years What do I think about the stability of the solution? The server hasn't failed in three years. Typically, it takes about five years before the power supply or hardware fails. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We configure the server as a standalone. It's not clustered to scale out. We are only just scaling up by installing additional RAM and other hardware as necessary. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? At my old company, we used HPE's Blade server. How was the initial setup? It's straightforward but requires a little more configuration than Dell because this HPE has an ILO where you can run an independent operating system. A system integrator deployed the server, which took less than a day. Our deployment and maintenance team consists of four engineers and one manager. We followed the installation guide and the standard steps for installing a Windows operating system. Configuring the ILO operating system added some additional steps that weren't required with Dell. It's running Windows 7 ILO, a step higher than Dell's operating system. What was our ROI? I believe we have seen a return. However, the software accounts for the large cost, so ROI is difficult to calculate from a hardware perspective. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? HPE ProLiant servers are priced about the same as Dell's, maybe a little more. What other advice do I have? I rate HPE ProLiant servers nine out of 10. I would recommend them if you live in an area where HPE has a strong support presence. In Qatar, HPE doesn't have as much support as Dell. I would recommend Dell if given the option because it has a solid local presence. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-01-13T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It's a cost-effective solution that's easy to configure What is our primary use case? We use ProLiant servers for Enterprise Asset Management services. What is most valuable? HPE service in Taiwan is quick and professional, and ProLiant is cost-effective compared to Dell. Dell is good for one or two servers, but HPE is cheaper than Dell for a large deployment. Cost is the most important thing in the market. What needs improvement? ProLiant servers could be more scalable. For example, some models can only contain four hard drives, but many of our customers expect six. If they were to add another extendable hard drive slot, it would be easier to sell the servers to our customers. For how long have I used the solution? I have used ProLiant servers for two years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I rate HPE ProLiant servers nine out of 10 for stability. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I rate HPE ProLiant eight out of 10 for scalability. How are customer service and support? I rate HPE support nine out of 10. I'm happy with them. They are knowledgeable and professional. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We also use Dell, but we mostly choose HPE servers because of price and stability. I'm currently only selling one Dell server model. It's hard for me to compare the two because I'm not as familiar with Dell. I sell HPE most of the time, so I'm more comfortable with HPE's stability. I'm not as familiar with Dell's model in the same price range. I tend to sell HPE unless the customer prefers Dell for some reason. I can't make a fair comparison. How was the initial setup? I rate ProLiant servers nine out of 10 for ease of setup. The installation is straightforward. Most clients only need to give me a server name and IP address. After that, you need to configure virtualization if the customer wants that. They need to do the configuration training. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? HPE is more popular with my clients because of the price. They will generally go with HPE unless another brand in the market can offer the same specs cheaper with the same stability and service quality. Our customers are generally happy with HPE's price. What other advice do I have? I rate HPE ProLiant DL servers nine out of 10. I'm satisfied with the product. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Integrator / Reseller
Date published: 2023-01-13T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The solution offers redundant networking interfaces, helping you to avoid disruptions What is our primary use case? Previously, I was working as an IT contractor for several companies, so the model depended on the size of the business. They were using the smaller, cheaper series of HP ProLiant servers. My current company is relatively large, so they use rack-mounted DL servers that are designed for bigger companies. HP servers are deployed physically in your office, and you need to maintain them. You are responsible for keeping them online and servicing the end-users at all times. We have about 1,000 users. It's a hybrid environment. We have the same services on the cloud and on-premises, so they are redundant and faster. What is most valuable? HP ProLiant servers provide redundant solutions for almost everything. You can set up multiple power supplies, with a primary power source and a secondary power supply connected on UPS. If the power goes out in the building, the UPS will supply power to the host at all times. The solution can run on batteries for many hours, depending on your battery and UPS capacity. ProLiant servers also offer multiple networking interfaces, so they can be connected to various network equipment concurrently, allowing you to avoid disruptions from the network or internet connections. They are redundant in every area. What needs improvement? I would like to replace a hard drive that might be saved on the fly, on the server that I'm using currently, but I can't do that. I'm forced to power off my virtual machine, turn off the server, disconnect it from the power, replace the drive, rebuild the storage, and power it on again. That's a lot of downtime, and it affects the services. I know that HP provides this kind of solution to another series for a bigger budget of course. For how long have I used the solution? I've used HP ProLiant servers for at least six years, but I worked with a different series in the past. What do I think about the stability of the solution? ProLiant servers are highly stable. They're redundant in every area. We have counted on them for years, and we are satisfied with them. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I would say ProLiant servers scale well. Servers come with multiple storage loads that you probably won't ever use, but they are available to extend your storage if necessary. They have removable power supply interfaces that let you extend your redundancy. This applies to CPUs. You can add CPUs, memory, etc. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? They have been using ProLiant since before I joined the company. I don't know why they decided to use HP. However, I've used Dell servers as well. Personally, I think HP servers are easier to implement and maintain. Maybe that's why. How was the initial setup? Setting up ProLiant servers is straightforward. In the past, you needed deep knowledge to configure a server from scratch, but now they have a temporary web interface that allows you to connect to the server and configure everything on a wizard-like installer. If you know what you want to achieve, the implementation is easy. Once you get the HP part from the vendor, it takes a couple of hours to put it on the rack, install the hard drive and CPU, install the operating system, and connect it to your network. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? You only need to pay for the hardware, but you can also purchase a license for Integrated Lights-Out technology, which gives you the option to connect to the server like you are physically on site connected with the mouse, keyboard and screen directly on the server. It's an extra feature that you need to pay for, but we are not using it. It's an amazing feature, but I have no idea how much the license costs. What other advice do I have? I rate HP ProLiant DL Servers 10 out of 10 because I never had a breakdown in six years, and the price is decent. ProLiant gives you something that's stable, reliable, and powerful for an excellent price. The only thing that we might need is an extra interface to connect the server to the network with the fiber instead of a copper connector. It's something that we never did. And I would advise someone to implement this from the beginning because it might be a bit hard to configure. It will be fantastic if you do it before it goes into production. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-06-15T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Intuitive GUI, useful included software, and unified management What is our primary use case? We are using HPE ProLiant DL Servers for all the databases and services in the bank I work at. We use HPE ProLiant DL Servers for service and for core banking and other computing systems, we use the HPE BladeSystems. What is most valuable? HPE ProLiant DL Servers are easy to use and the GUI is rather simple and intuitive. The Americans know how to make things beautiful. Their Japanese counterpart has outdated GUIs. There is a lot of other services and software that HPE provides for the server. The software can connect all the infrastructure to form a unified management or monitoring system. What needs improvement? In the HPE ProLiant DL Servers generation nine, there was a problem when the expansion cards were installed on the server. There was only a small amount of room for the top expansion cards that hand could insert or remove the cables inside. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using HPE ProLiant DL Servers for approximately 10 years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The stability of the HPE ProLiant DL Servers is very good. I worked with HPE ProLiant DL Servers in different places and in different situations, I remember that there was a time we were having a disaster with high humidity in the room but we did not have any problems with the operations of the solution. How are customer service and support? I have not used the technical support from HPE. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? I have previously used the HPE BladeSystem. When comparing the HPE ProLiant DL Servers to the HPE BladeSystem, the HPE BladeSystems are compact and need less space for installation. They can provide the same computing as the HPE ProLiant DL Servers in the same unit and are a lot easier to manage. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? HPE ProLiant DL Servers have a higher price than Dell servers. However, the Japanese counterpart has the lowerest priced servers. The price of the HPE ProLiant DL Servers could improve, it could be less expensive. What other advice do I have? I rate HPE ProLiant DL Servers an eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-02-06T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Allows you to easily expand on the capacity, especially when more memory is needed What is our primary use case? We use the servers to run our student information system. It's an accounting package within the bursary of the university. We are currently on generation 8 or 9. The solution is hardware, so it's deployed on-prem. Apart from users, there are five people that interact with the hardware directly. There are others who interact with the services that run from these servers. It's a school environment, so there are about 30,000 or more students and staff. Previously, when we were using Zimbra for email services, it was run locally. We have stopped using that because we subscribe to Microsoft Office 360 email services, which run from the cloud. That has been taken off the servers. Now that other applications are being developed, we hope to eventually be able to cater for the different administrative and academic departments in the university. We are hoping that some of this hardware will definitely have to be replaced. Of course, that will depend on the budget and the availability of funds that the university management is willing to make available. But it's going to be a step-by-step thing. There has to be planning and then budgetary provisions to be able to take care of these items. We are just customers. We don't have a direct link with HPE, but through the HPE product suppliers. We have a new direct now, and in one of the meetings we had, he came up with the idea of finding a way to having that direct contact with HPE or Synergy and how perhaps we could patronize each other in terms of the servers, in terms of PCs for staff and students, and the kind of technical support that we can equally enjoy from HPE. What is most valuable? Where there is a need to actually expand on the capacity, it's easily done, especially when more memory is needed. What needs improvement? We have been experiencing a problem with the power pack. It gets fried and then we have to do a replacement. There is a challenge sometimes with having quick access to some of these components when you need them. It takes a lot of time to get spare parts from genuine sellers. You need the memories for servers. They're delivered. You put them in, and the system doesn't come up, so you have to return them. For me, that has been the major challenge. In the day-to-day running, there's always room for improvement. If you need assistance in real time, it would be helpful if there was such a room where someone could be there and help you solve the problem in real time. The number of people you are serving is increasing by the day, and they need immediate solutions to their issues. Sometimes you have limitations as to getting solutions to some of these issues that come up, but you are dependent on the information available to you. Being the product manufacturers also, I'm sure they have a lot of solutions to the different issues depending on the feedback they've been able to get from the field all across the world, especially those using their products. I think that would go a long way in helping. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using this solution for more than 10 years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The main challenge we actually have is the issue of having a good, steady power supply. Whenever there's a power outage, it forces the server to go down. That in itself increases the rate of failure of the hardware. By implication, the services that have been provided are truncated at one point or the other. Management has promised to see how they can intervene in that respect, but that is left to be seen. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The scalability is fine for the limited number of services and the need to actually scale. Because of this same power issue, I had to virtualize where we have to run different services on the same hardware server. That is where the issue of expanding the memory capacity came in. In terms of the processor, we have not been able to do that. The reason is because you send for a part, it is brought in, you plug it in, and then there's a mismatch. Then the system doesn't run well. You have to return it. But I think it will expand our memory and expand the storage. We haven't been able to expand or increase the processing and the processor capacity. But we would be glad to have any other information we need to know or other skills that we need to learn to allow us to manage this equipment better and to maximize or to optimize their usage, that would be good enough. How are customer service and support? Technical support has been okay regarding looking for solutions on the internet. When you have certain challenges and make a post in the forum seeking an immediate solution, it all depends on who gets those queries and is able to respond. In most cases, we have been able to get the solutions from the past experience of others who have had similar issues that have been put in the repository. On the whole, I think it's good enough even though we haven't been able to directly chat one-on-one or about issues. How was the initial setup? It can only get difficult depending on what application or operating system you want to install. Then it all depends on how good or how skillful one is with the particular application. But the installation and configuration is never a problem. There has never been a problem with the hardware that I can say, apart from the issues I have already mentioned. We have different people for different specific assignments. For each team, we have a good number of people. We are thinking of expanding because the university is a multi-campus university, and it has about four campuses, even though the whole thing is being centrally run. We are thinking of having these services run 24/7, and then we would need to have more hands so no one is overwhelmed with the work on ground. Currently, for those manning the server, we have about five people. What about the implementation team? Implementation was completed by our own technical team from within the ICT directorate. What other advice do I have? I would rate this solution 8 out of 10. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-02-06T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Simple to manage, quick hardware replacements, and knowledgeable support What is most valuable? HPE ProLiant DL Servers are easy to maintain. When we need to update the firmware or we need to log on remotely via the IO management interface. It's very convenient, easy. The supply chain is fast when we need to replace some failed hardware, such as hard drives or power supplies. Most of the time, it only takes a few days. The HPE ProLiant DL Servers services are officially certified for Red Hat usage which is a big advantage. What needs improvement? The solution could improve by providing more best practices from an architectural point of view. What are some recommended configurations for use, such as in a VM environment? HP provides some best practices but they are based on VMware, not on Red Hat. It would benefit for others to see the different use cases. How the HPE ProLiant DL Servers were used in the context of Red hat virtualization, and some configurations as an example to allow us to identify some points that we can improve in our platform. We could make our system more reliable and scalable. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using HPE ProLiant DL Servers for approximately three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The stability of the solution is good. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The scalability is good, but it depends on the virtualization software that is used. It does not only depend on the hardware. All of our employees use this solution because all of our infrastructures are on HPE ProLiant DL Servers. How are customer service and support? We open support tickets when needed with HP. They answer pretty fast and the HP engineers are knowledgeable. The agents answer specifically to our needs and we don't have any issue with them. How was the initial setup? The solution is web-based making the installation straightforward. The time it takes for the full implementation depends on the project. The time can vary if it is a small, medium, or large project. This time could also vary between the specific platform that we need to build. The time it takes is typically between three to four weeks. What about the implementation team? We did the implementation ourselves. What other advice do I have? I would recommend this solution to others. I rate HPE ProLiant DL Servers an eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-01-18T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Fast support, easy to set up, and works well for virtualization applications What is our primary use case? We have a three-tier infrastructure and our primary use case for this product is virtualization. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature is the tech support. They have a high level of expertise and they are fast. What needs improvement? We would like to see remote monitoring capabilities added. We are currently improving our automated monitoring for HPE servers using InfoSight. For how long have I used the solution? We have been using HPE ProLiant DL Servers for more than five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The ProLiant DL Servers are stable and reliable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? This is a scalable product. We are using HPE Nimble Storage with it. How are customer service and support? The technical support is very good. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is easy. What about the implementation team? We collaborated with HPE for our deployment. We purchased the initial support service, so it's a coordinated setup. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The pricing of these servers is fair. It is in the mid-range. What other advice do I have? My advice for anybody who is implementing this product is to purchase spare parts. The reason for this is that there is currently an electronic parts shortage. Any replacement components, such as a new hard disk, is very difficult to order and will have a long lead time. For this reason, I suggest ordering spare parts to have them in stock. In summary, this is a good product, I'm content with it, and I recommend it for others. I would rate this solution a ten out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partner
Date published: 2022-05-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It's more reliable than competing solutions What is our primary use case? We do work for defense and government clients. What is most valuable? ProLiant servers are more reliable than other platforms. What needs improvement? My customers are tilted toward GPU users, and the mixed version of the enabled hard drives require — flash drives, SSD, NNL, and PLAS — all mixed and matched in a single box. These are requirements I've already shared with the HPE account manager. Customers want the tiering concept inside a box, which is currently part of the storage system, but customers require it in a server. They want the operating system over PLAS and the IO-related things on SSD. The rest of their data is on NLSF. For how long have I used the solution? I've worked with ProLiant servers for 10 years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability is where HPE dominates competitors like Dell and Cisco. The servers are highly reliable, and we are impressed with the technology HPE offers. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability in terms of GPUs and storage is a concern. How are customer service and support? I have a direct connection with the HPE account manager responsible for the government and defense verticals. I am happy with the person. We rely on our own in-house support for servers. However, we use a professional service for storage and three-power or CI systems. How was the initial setup? HPE servers are highly user-friendly. It takes two or three hours from start to finish for bare-metal installation. With virtualization, it'll take four to six hours. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We are working with the customers in government and defense, where HPE already has a foothold. The requirements come from the customer, and they use HPE, so we do, too. We have to consider the customer's stability and comfort level. What other advice do I have? I rate HPE ProLiant Servers nine out of 10. In my country, it's better for customers to rely on the vendor who delivers the solution. We think the HPE server is better than others for that. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partner
Date published: 2022-05-25T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Due to the fact that our software is web-enabled for both internal and external users, we needed a powerful and simple to use solution. Valuable Features It’s very powerful, so we can offer good services for our network. It offers a very reliable framework for our judicial needs. Hyper-V software gave us more capacity to consistently meet our judges' needs. I think the most valuable feature, from my end, is that HP is a strong platform on which to host our services. It has good life-cycle performance and it will work continuously. In general, it’s a very good machine. Improvements to My Organization We’ve got 30,000 lawyers connecting every day, and we needed to serve them in an efficient manner. This is done by managing their dockets well and automating the process in a streamlined manner. By allowing our lawyers to automate the process, we are able to better serve their needs. Room for Improvement We honestly don’t have any problems. It’s a well-built machine, and there are no problems with the servers. Stability Issues It’s pretty stable. We are using the DL-380 line, and we have 14 servers that go into three racks for two data centers. Scalability Issues It’s scalable, and it doesn’t take that much effort to do so. When you prioritize simplicity, it’s much easier to scale quickly and you don’t need to buy much more. Customer Service and Technical Support It was never a big problem for us. When a part breaks, it doesn’t take long for us to replace the part. It was easy for us to switch in third-party servers temporarily while waiting for the spare part to arrive from HP, and it would work just fine. Previous Solutions We were using Compac. In the public sector, when you buy, you do it through a public process. You can’t choose, you write the specifications of your needs, and then vendors offer their products. We do our buying through our RFP process. Initial Setup Very easy. It’s always an easy thing for us to install, as our staff has good knowledge. Other Solutions Considered We also looked at Dell and Lenovo. We always look at multiple vendors to compare pricing, which, for the public sector, is extremely important. With HP, the prices weren’t too different from other vendors, but for us it was the right choice when considering the total cost. Other Advice We have a private-cloud data center, but we also host publicly for some customers. The software that we’re offering to our buyers is web-enabled for both internal and external users. So the servers needed to be powerful and simple to use. For me, in the public sector, it was never that concerning for us to get the latest release of servers. Our users were satisfied with using older servers that served their needs just fine, and it saved us a lot of money as we didn’t have to pay the premium for the newest servers. HP has been very good for us. I would recommend buying exactly what you need and the same line of the hardware to be consistent. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2015-06-29T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It's low maintenance in that we don't have to spend a ton of time configuring it. Valuable Features They're reliable and they never break. They're very manageable. The management tools that are available are excellent. We've looked at other solutions in the past, and we always conclude that we don't want to move away from ProLiant and the BladeSystem. They just work, which is basically what our requirement is. Particularly in the pre-HP days, with Compaq, we used to buy bigger servers, but we've got to a point now where we basically only buy two types of servers, either the ProLiant DL380 or the BL460 Blades. We don't buy any other hardware. Improvements to My Organization We're a very small IT group within the enterprise and we haven't got the money or the time to be spending tons of time configuring stuff out and messing around with it, fixing it when it breaks, and that kind of thing. It's a low-maintenance solution. Essentially, we don't have to do much of that with ProLiant, so it's absolutely a good fit for us. Room for Improvement The only improvement would be cost. If they keep driving the costs down -- and I don't think they're expensive for what you're getting -- they'd keep everybody happy. Use of Solution We've been using HP ever since they were available as Compaq. Deployment Issues We've never had any deployment issues. Stability Issues We've used them for many, many years and we get very few hardware issues. Scalability Issues It scales just fine. Customer Service and Technical Support They're really good. I've never had any issues. The few times that we do have to call HP, they always help us out. Other Solutions Considered It's quite hard comparing other solutions because I've been solely on ProLiant for so long now I don't have too much to compare to. Although, I looked at Fuji Systems a couple of years ago and it's just massively complex for no apparent reason. I don't see a better fit for our company. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-01-04T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We rarely have a failure and it just keeps working. Valuable Features It's reliability, really. It just works. It's one of those we've been using for 10 plus years and I've been in the company for 10 years. We rarely have a failure; and it just keeps working. It kind of base builds, ready to go, whereas before you needed to add bits and pieces. We don't need to do that anymore. Just out of the box, plug it in and it goes. Improvements to My Organization It's been in for so long, it just works. Room for Improvement I think the big thing for us, which is unique, is a dedicated HPE Cloud offering in New Zealand. It would be quite cool. I don't know if that's actually feasible or viable for HPE. Cloud is something we're interested in, but the solutions in New Zealand aren't really up to it. So you have to go to Australia. You get latency issues. Stability Issues Through 10 years of various iterations and a lot of cycles of a product every three years. We used to swap out but we're virtualization now, we're taking that in to account, so no issues. We have the odd drive failure, and that's about it. Scalability Issues On the ProLiant, we've opted not to go down the blade enclosure. We went the dedicated service of the DL380s and pretty much the scalability of that is around the network. We've got to look at some virtualization technologies there. Customer Service and Technical Support We've logged a few calls. They're amazing, really good. Over the years we've had a few hard-drive failures, yet it's all pretty seamless. We just put in a HPE Networking as well. Previous Solutions When I first started the company was looking at Dell, and I was a Compaq engineer in my day. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-06-27T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Their modularity offers good local storage and connectivity options. What is most valuable? They are simple, modular and great machines to work with. They offer the best management interface. How has it helped my organization? Their modularity offers good local storage and connectivity options. We can expand the disk capacity, processor and memory based on our needs. The solution is easy to maintain. What needs improvement? Boot times are relatively slow. Legacy BIOS options are tricky, but discoverable and manageable with experience. For how long have I used the solution? We have been using this solution for around seven years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? There haven’t really been any stability issues, but we have faced server rebooting during high CPU usage periods. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? There have not been any scalability issues. The solution is extremely scalable. Most of the software and peripheral devices on the market are tested and certified on these platforms. They are reliable. How is customer service and technical support? The technical support level is good. The support engineers have the skills needed to troubleshoot the issues. Which solutions did we use previously? I have used UCS. They are bit messy with their fiber interconnect and have too many configuration and maintenance activities involved. They are expensive compared to HPE ProLiant servers. How was the initial setup? IMHO, you cannot get a more straightforward initial setup. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? ILO licensing is bought separately, but it is worth it. It gives you that extra power to manage the entire server remotely and do the following: * Re-image the server * Change BIOS and storage options * Control devices * Monitor resource usage You can basically do all day-to-day activities remotely that you can do with physical access to the server. Which other solutions did I evaluate? There is very stiff competition from Dell in recent times. One could go the other way based on the purpose and ROI you are seeking. What other advice do I have? You wouldn’t regret purchasing this solution. However, do your homework on your needs and talk to relevant guys for any info you are missing. HPE offers three rack mount server categories and several models in each variant. Carefully choose the one that suits you the best. There are those that occupy 2U and others that occupy 1U. This could bring down the space and rack usage drastically. Take the following steps: * Find out the compatible processors from the server specifications. * Visit Intel‘s web site and carefully compare all the details of the supported processors. * Base your decision on the number of cores, speed, cache size, your usage, and the processor that you would like to combine with the server. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:We are customers ourselves and we do services.
Date published: 2017-02-26T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We looked at IBM, Lenovo and Dell. We chose HP because they had the right combination of factors for us. Valuable Features With x86 hardware, a lot of it is the same. The value goes back to HP's willingness to partner and HP having a roadmap for the x86 platform. Improvements to My Organization No issues with stability or other major issues. Stability Issues No issues with stability or other major issues. Scalability Issues HP is a market leader for scalability and additions. Customer Service and Technical Support Support has been helpful. Both customer and technical support have been very responsive to help make things right. Previous Solutions It was a market shift into x86 hardware and more commodity-based hardware. Initial Setup Initial setup was straightforward. Other Solutions Considered * IBM * Lenovo * Dell We chose HP because they had the right combination of factors and willingness to partner. Other Advice Reliability, support, and performance. A roadmap for where they are going in the future is important. We have that with HP. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2015-06-29T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It is flexible and stable. Technical support is efficient. What is most valuable? The most valuable features are its flexibility and stability. How has it helped my organization? The main benefit was the low price, so it saved us a lot of money. What needs improvement? We are not looking for new features in the DL260. Instead, we are looking at Synergy. Compared to blade servers, it could use more flexibility to expand with new features, and to connect new storage systems and so on. It’s not so easy and not always possible. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We have had no downtime. It is generally up. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We haven’t really had to scale the product. How is customer service and technical support? Most of the time, technical support was efficient and very fast. Usually, it required a hardware replacement, so it worked every time. Which solutions did we use previously? We generally switched from Novell to Microsoft; and then we used HPE. We also previously used Compaq, which I think was part of HPE. We never looked at Dell or IBM. How was the initial setup? The initial setup was very simple. What other advice do I have? Buy Synergy. :) Look for the flexibility of the system; and get everything from one partner. The most important criteria when we choose a vendor is the range of products available. HPE has a huge range of products: switches, servers, storage systems, and so on. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-01-10T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from There are several valuable features of these servers, including their reliability, the general standardization of components, expandability, and support. Valuable Features 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. Room for Improvement 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. Deployment Issues We experienced no issues with the deployments. Stability Issues 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. Scalability Issues They're very scalable. Customer Service and Technical Support 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. Previous Solutions 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. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-01-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It builds very well, is easy to install, is easy to maintain, is easy to administer remotely. What is most valuable? It builds very well, is easy to install, is easy to maintain, is easy to administer remotely. How has it helped my organization? It allows me to run a lot of virtual machines at the same time. It helps me do a lot of testing, so I can build a virtual machine and try things out on it. If it doesn't work, I can just recreate it. What needs improvement? I guess more regular automatic updates would be nice. Sometimes when you call support they'll say, "Well, what version of frameware are you on?" And you'll say, "Version X, Y, Z," and they'll say, "You need to be on A, B, C." What do I think about the stability of the solution? The stability is rock solid. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I have not tried scaling it. How is customer service and technical support? Regarding the technical support - it depends on the day, sometimes it's good, sometimes bad, but I always know how to elevate or escalate to get to the next level if I need to. How was the initial setup? The setup was straightforward. It's easy to mount the rack, it's got great rails. Power it right up, launch and then you can start configuring it. Which other solutions did I evaluate? The most important aspect when selecting a vendor is ease of use. Probably the most important. We evaluated HP, IBM, Lenovo. We have a better relationship with HP. What other advice do I have? Get it because it will work very well for you. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It's like a RAID 6 set-up so that I don't have to worry about just one broken hard drive. I'd like to see faster memory chips. Valuable Features The DL380 generation 8 has slots for hard drives in the front. This really separates it from competitors such as Dell. I need that kind of local storage space for each server, which I can make from eight drives. This is like a RAID 6 set-up so that I don't have to worry about just one broken hard drive. We'll automatically get an SNMP problem error from the broken drive. Improvements to My Organization Very simply, we needed a stable server, and this is a stable server. Room for Improvement I'm worried that with the new model, HP will get rid of the processor ILO port that enables us to have a separated management network. I don't think it'll be feasible to have some models with the ILO port and some without. I'd also like to see faster memory chips. I also think that there's an issue with the Smart Array firmware, which is the RAID controller. It corrupts RAID 6 so that if you have an entire setup that's based on RAID 6, the whole RAID will also be corrupted. Deployment Issues We haven't had any deployment issues. Stability Issues It's quite stable. Scalability Issues I don’t need to scale. Their cage is stand-alone boxes. Customer Service and Technical Support I haven't used them for these servers, but I've found them slow for other things. Previous Solutions We were using Dell, which were almost the same as the DL380. Initial Setup It's straightforward. Putting that kind of server into the rack now is something like 50 minutes. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-01-07T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A stable, reliant platform we chose because of price. iLO license management must be better. What is most valuable? This kind of product is mainly a cost product. You need to have a good price. It is not a question of big features because there are no main differences between products. I think the main feature is that it works. We have good management for the product, HPE OneView ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/hpe-oneview ), which might be a good feature of the product, where you can manage it. Instead of the hardware technology, that is it. How has it helped my organization? What we are doing with the product is, we are building services on top of the HPE products, so the main advantage for us is that we have a stable, reliable platform. What needs improvement? I would like to see better license management with the iLO. It is very difficult to manage the licenses for the hardware, as they can easily be lost. Then it is very hard to get it back. That must be better. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We have not experienced any stability problems; 100% stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It is a physical thing, so the main scalability issues are money and delivery time, and not the technology itself. It is difficult to evaluate scalability for a simple server. Scalability is determined by the software and we are not talking about Superdome, just a low-level ProLiant server. If we scale, we buy more machines. No issues so far. How is customer service and technical support? The standard technical support is fine. We also have support with Proactive Support and contact and sometimes you need it, especially for SAP HANA systems where it was average. The HP ProLiant support was OK. Which solutions did we use previously? We have been buying HPE rack servers ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/hpe-proliant-dl ) for years. We are talking every year about switching to another technology, and it depends on the performance and the price at that moment, for one year normally. When we are looking at a vendor like HPE, the most important criteria are innovation, reliability, and good support. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We also considered Dell rack servers ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/dell-poweredge-r ), Lenovo, and Fujitsu. In the end, we chose HPE because of price. What other advice do I have? Have a deep look at the HPE products. They are a market leader, by the numbers. Have a look at them; make a thorough comparison. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-12-08T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Reliable hardware that is easy to set up. What is most valuable? The reliability of the hardware is a valuable feature. The way it looks is valuable as well, because when we have to set it up at a worker's terminal space, we can just see a nice face on the server and that’s important. It's easy to set up and you can get parts very easily. How has it helped my organization? The benefit is that it goes well with our customers. Customers are happy with that. We sell them, and that's how we make money. What needs improvement? I would like to see better support of monitoring protocols. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The stability is very good. We haven't had any crashes in over two years of deployment, so that's good. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability is really only an issue for software. ProLiant is only hardware, so scalability doesn't matter at all. How was the initial setup? I was involved in the setup and it was straightforward. I can just plug in a server. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We were considering Dell and some other vendors. What other advice do I have? When selecting a vendor, the ratio between the price and quality is the main thing. I don't want to be spending too much, but I still want to get good quality. It just depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking for a very inexpensive, bare bones server, then you should go for a cheaper solution. If you are looking to buy a bunch of servers, then go to Dell, for example, because they're very aggressive with their prices. HPE is just in between. It's very good. It is a bit more expensive than the others, but the quality is where you expect it to be. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-12-11T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We only have support staff in North America and in Europe, so it enables us to offer support globally in our other offices. What is most valuable? 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. How has it helped my organization? 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. What needs improvement? 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. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We get the odd hard drive or power supply or general failure issues, but there aren't major stability issues we've noticed. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? 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. How is customer service and technical support? 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. Which solutions did we use previously? 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. How was the initial setup? I've only been with the company about 18 months. The majority of the setup was done prior to me joining. What other advice do I have? 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. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-25T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Some of the valuable feature are straightforward installation and less downtime. What is most valuable? I believe it is much easier when you are trying to install something or trying to figure out any issues with it. Even though the booting up process itself is a little bit slower, it is easier to work with the HPE 360s and 380s. I like the way the installation process goes. It's much easier to understand what you're doing. It's easy to troubleshoot and if you are stuck with any of the hardware issues, HPE comes on site. They don't come with just one part which is affecting it, but they come with other parts as well. This makes it easy, because they don't have to make multiple visits and the solution will be repaired in just one visit. How has it helped my organization? The downtime on the systems is less frequent. If one machine is out of the cluster, we call HPE and tell them about any of the hardware defects that we have. They come up with the parts pretty quickly. The engineer who comes is really knowledgeable and knows what he or she is doing. The process is much faster. What needs improvement? I would like to see the booting process be a little bit faster. Instead of going through the circle loading image, it would be more interesting if it would show what it is doing during each stage of the loading process. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The HPE servers are really stable. There are hardly any issues with them. There are rarely any hardware related issues, such disk failures or a need to replace the memory on the server. They are much more stable than other servers that we have used. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We do scale and the scalability is good. We have thousands of servers. How is customer service and technical support? I would give technical support a rating of 8/10. Which solutions did we use previously? We have multiple servers, such as from Dell, in addition to the HPE servers. We deal with both of them. My personal preference is HPE, because they are hassle free. The selection of tools is done by solution architects. I don’t take part in that process. How was the initial setup? I was not involved in the initial setup, but from what I heard, it was pretty straightforward. It was not that complicated. If it would have been, they would have called an engineer from HPE to help us. What other advice do I have? The solution is worth it. You should invest in it, go for it, and have fun with it. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-19T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We understand what we're going to get in terms of the cost. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature is consistency to the cost. We understand what we're going to get, and we also understand the price-point that we're entering into. What needs improvement? Some of the features I'm already seeing over there, i.e., really moving more towards a software layer that helps us to manage the infrastructure that we're purchasing from HPE. To use a competitor's term, as to what Nutanix is doing, HPE should be moving in a similar direction, which they are now, both in regards to a free product and a paid product; I'm actually very happy about that. For how long have I used the solution? We've been using the HPE Proliant DL380s for seven years or more, and the DL580s only during the last year. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The product has been consistently stable. We have had no issues. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability with the hardware alone requires a bit more than just hardware, but we are using it in a scalable architecture. If you look at what we do with our EBS system, we use the DL580s with Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) to allow it to scale. How is customer service and technical support? The technical support is very good. We recently just had to use it and the items were resolved in a timely manner, so I've been happy with the support. How was the initial setup? With some of the new software changes, the setup is getting easier and more consistent for us to apply across the globe; it's improving for sure. Which other solutions did I evaluate? The most important criteria while selecting a vendor are the costs and then, the other long-term factors such as reliability and quality. We do actually evaluate solutions every year. We still buy other servers but not as many as we buy from HPE. Still, we do buy some stuff from Dell, just because we're in three regions of the world, but most of our stuff goes through HPE. What other advice do I have? We're a bit of an HPE shop. We've used Dell in other places, too, but generally, in terms of the price-point and quality of service it has always led us to HPE, so these are the main driving points for us. For companies like us, we want more than a server. When we buy servers then we want some level of software orchestration on top of it to help us deploy OS or hypervisor plus some form of high-level capacity/environment review. This is sort of happening with Generation nine and ten hardware but not as refined as what you get with Nutanix. Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Date published: 2017-06-21T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The quality and backup support are reliable. What is most valuable? We've just found them so reliable and used them for so many years. We have found the quality and backup support reliable. They just tend to do what we want to do with them. So, they are very flexible, upgradable and versatile. Sometimes, you do have some issues but they tend to get repaired/replaced/fixed within a good time. How has it helped my organization? For us, it is more of reliability even though we have hardware maintenance. Generally, we'll do 10 calls a month globally. With our offices all over the globe, 10 calls in a month are very minimal since we have 600 pieces of DL hardware. It's quite small. What needs improvement? A lot of where they can improve the product would be related to hot flexibility. If you want to change a DIMM, you have downtime to upgrade. It would be good if you could have hot DIMMs and hot CPUs, also for hard disk power supplies and bits. Hopefully, then there shall be no downtime. The biggest problem with our user base is downtime. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability is very good. Once the product is in, it seems to work. We do general maintenance. It's good. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability can be a little bit difficult sometimes due to changing of CPUs which we try to over-spec. We don't need to scale up; we tend to replace after three years. It gives us more because with passing time as technology increases, things get faster and better for us. There is more improvement. Which solutions did we use previously? We have looked at Dell ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/dell-poweredge-r ) and just recently looked at Dell FX2. We will probably stick with HPE because of the long-time factor that we've had with them and other factors such as reliability and knowing the product. We know we're looking at HPE ConvergedSystem for our offices and that will be the next stage. How was the initial setup? I've been in my company for 14 years. Initially we were using Compaq and now moved over to HPE. Thus, the setup took place a long time ago. What other advice do I have? Have no doubts you'll be getting a product that will work. It will do what you want, as long as you follow the guidelines and best practices. You should speak to other people. The product will just tick along for its lifecycle. You will get the odd issue but it's fixable. We've been more than happy with the DL product that we've used. We never buy them when they first come out; we always wait 6-12 months to buy them. Let somebody else do the testing during the first six months, even though they should be tested. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-12-28T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It provides redundancy, flexibility, and compatibility with operating systems. What is most valuable? The most valuable features are redundancy, flexibility, and compatibility with operating systems. How has it helped my organization? The cost and the user experience are two of the main benefits. What needs improvement? In the next release, I would like to see more redundancy of the CPU. That would be great. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The solution is very stable. We have had it for more than ten years, for several generations of the product. It's a very stable solution. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The first version was not so scalable. Today’s versions are very scalable. We are very, very happy with this new version. How is customer service and technical support? We have a maintenance contract for support from the HPE ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/hpe-alm ) team around the world. We don't use it so much because the solution is very stable. When we do use it, the quality depends on the country. For example, in France, it works very well. However, when we try it in China, it can be a little bit tricky. Which solutions did we use previously? We used another solution from another company. However, the cost vs. benefit was not so good. For that reason, we switched to HPE services. How was the initial setup? I was involved with the setup. It was very easy to apply. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We worked with Dell ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/dell-poweredge-r ) and IBM ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/ibm-rack-servers ), but we chose HPE. What other advice do I have? When selecting a vendor, it's good to have a real relationship in order to get a reliable, ascertainable, and a flexible solution. With this solution, you can close your eyes and you can use it because it's a very stable and personable tool. There is a real relationship between HPE and the customer, and they support you during all the steps you take. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-12-27T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The server hardware is valuable and it works. Some of the drivers cause crashes. What is most valuable? The server hardware is valuable and it works. It's a server platform. It's comparable to everything else on the market. It works in a pretty reliable fashion. How has it helped my organization? As a cloud service provider, we have to provide compute to customers with reliable hardware support. What needs improvement? I can't think of any new features I would like to see. I'm really happy with it. I know that they're moving towards OneView. It's a server. You plug it in and it does what it is supposed to do. It’s compliant with the HPE server line because they assemble all of the drivers that they install. The drivers have typically been extremely buggy, but we removed them from our builds. I would be nice if those drivers weren't causing critical system failures every other version, but it doesn't affect us anymore. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The platform stability is good. There are some drivers that are extremely unstable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's a server platform, so it's not getting more or less scalable than anything else. It's not like Flexpod or other architectures. How is customer service and technical support? We've called technical support for broken programs and things like that. It really depends on who you get. There are some HPE support staff who are really, really good and there are some who are atrocious. It is really hit or miss, depending on which product you call in for. For the 360s, the support has typically been pretty good and the engineers will come on site are helpful for us. Which solutions did we use previously? We do a lot of server cycling, every two years or so, and we evaluate it. Our work platform allows us to standardize. It's been HPE during the time when I've been here. How was the initial setup? They used the DL client before I started. I've been with this company for four years. As a service provider, we install the product for our customers. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We are doing another evaluation cycle right now. We will be evaluating Dell, Super Micro, and UCS. When choosing a vendor, honestly, it’s the support that I’m looking for. Everyone gets their hardware from the same couple of places in Taiwan or wherever. What really matters is being able to get the hardware delivered on time. We've actually built relationships with the manufacturers and vendors for support. If we can't get things replaced in a timely fashion, then we have to get our heads around it and say, "I know we're a five grade data center, but we may be down for another 12 hours, or whatever, because we can't get the part in". They chose HPE before I got to the company. We've continued to work with HPE because we've had a good relationship with them. Maybe 80% of our servers, our server hardware, our storage hardware, and switches, etc. are HPE. What other advice do I have? It is solid hardware. I'd give them a list of the drivers to rip out before the builds. I've done that before, actually, because most of the drivers that I'm talking about cause hard crashes. The will cause a blue screen, and that impacts customers. Some versions are safe, and some versions are not safe. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Scalability, rapidness, and computing are valuable features. What is most valuable? The scalability, rapidness, and computing are actually very good. It's a Gen9 server that we've been working with, so it is pretty good. How has it helped my organization? The benefit is that they're pretty reliable. Reliability is pretty much what we need. What needs improvement? There is need to improve the iLO support. There's a management part of the server that they've improved and that was a big deal. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The product is very stable and the support is very good. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability is very good. We were able to move from the servers and upgrade them very easily. It has worked very nicely and is serving generation to generation over the years, so it is pretty good. How is customer service and technical support? The technical support was very good. We have a pretty decent relationship; we have a four-hour onsite repair. Which solutions did we use previously? We've tried other products and have had some issues in the past. However, HPE has been the most reliable solution. How was the initial setup? We have different locations; in my location, I was involved in the setup. It was pretty straightforward. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We have used IBM and Compaq back in the day. For us, an important factor while selecting a vendor is that the actual company backing the product. We know that we're a company that has been around a long time in the industry. What other advice do I have? You would be foolish not to be looking into HPE. A lot of their products seem very interesting and they are very useful in our field. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-19T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We decided to switch because this solution provides more memory density What is our primary use case? I am using it to virtualize VMware. It is performing well. How has it helped my organization? * Performance * Costs What needs improvement? I am impressed with the SimpliVity solution. I need to look a bit about this. For how long have I used the solution? Less than one year. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is very stable; no downtime. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? This solution is very scalable. When we bought the DL580, we bought it with full capacity. It is great for our business, and if we need to scale more, we can buy a new one. How is customer service and technical support? We use HPE Datacenter support, and it is good support. It is automatic support. When I have a problem, the question is written automatically. Which solutions did we use previously? We were previously using another blade solution. We decided to switch because this solution provides more memory density. How was the initial setup? The initial setup was easy. Which other solutions did I evaluate? Dell, IBM, etc. They fell short on the product baseline. What other advice do I have? It is a good product. Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: innovation. Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Date published: 2017-12-26T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Easy to implement and maintain, consistently stable What is most valuable? * It works * It's easy to implement * It's really good in terms of maintenance What needs improvement? The new function, which is coming at the moment, with the online firmware updates - that's one of the problems we're struggling with, with our customers, to have downtime - these live online updates are really, really a benefit we're waiting for. For how long have I used the solution? More than five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It has been consistently stable over the years. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? At the moment, all the migration from the rack mount to the enclosure systems, the implementation of storage - all of this is growing. With HPE, we have no problems in this area. How is customer service and technical support? Tech support is perfect. We have HPE engineers on-site, and also the delivery of parts, it works really well. How was the initial setup? The problem with the updates is sometimes our internal customer with the validation and qualification of the system. But the tools which HPE offers are working. It's really a question of change management. What other advice do I have? We have a good relationship with HPE, they offer the products we need. They come back with solutions. It's uncomplicated to deal with HPE. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-12-20T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It fits well with our architecture in terms of hardware, software, and VMware implementations. Valuable Features These are very reliable servers with a great warranty. Also, the price was very attractive. We required a complex solution for our organization in terms of hardware, software, and VMware implementations. These servers fit in quite well with our architecture. Improvements to My Organization A few years ago, we had a project for virtualizing all our servers. We chose HP products, services, and storage, including ProLiant servers, for this project. It worked out very well. Room for Improvement The software doesn't allow you to view isolated hardware issues. This needs to be improved. Use of Solution We've been using them for more than 10 years. Deployment Issues We have no problems with deployment. Stability Issues I don't think we've had any issues with stability. Scalability Issues It scales for our needs. Customer Service and Technical Support Technical support is very knowledgable. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2015-12-31T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Stability is better than the other alternatives that we have tried. What is most valuable? It provides support for the organization in terms of the commodity hardware as compared to the other HPE competitors. It provides stability for the servers. What needs improvement? There is need to always keep trying for improving this product. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability is better than the other alternatives that we have tried. There are always issues but typically, they are resolved very quickly. How is customer service and technical support? Technical support is excellent. Which solutions did we use previously? Experience, knowing which vendor, which division and getting the best results are factors that affected our decision to switch solutions. Previously, we were using Dell; we had a different vendor, i.e., a lower cost vendor at that time. The reason we switched from Dell was because we felt that the HPE solution was far superior. The overall value, cost of keeping things running and knowing the product are important criteria while selecting a vendor. What other advice do I have? Probably, you should evaluate the total cost of operation before you try and take orders. Check a cheaper solution. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-21T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We need its flexibility in adding new components and blades to our existing infrastructure. Improvements to My Organization These servers provide us with very good performance, and the blade technology allows us to do high-performance computing. It's also a really useful product for us because we need its flexibility in adding new components and blades to our existing infrastructure. That's very important for us. Room for Improvement The Generation 9 servers have the new UEFI firmware version instead of the traditional firmware, but we don't have that on our servers. It would be great if they could run UEFI because they have longer boot times, so there's room for improvement there. Deployment Issues They deploy without any issues. Stability Issues We've had issues where some components fail, but overall the system runs well. Scalability Issues We've had no issues with scalability. Customer Service and Technical Support They're very, very responsive, calling us back within 10 minutes when we open a case. Normally, they'll have the problem fixed the next. We also have a service contract where the HP guys will take care of things like firmware updates. This helps us a lot in our daily work because we don't have to worry about those particular tasks. Initial Setup With blade technology, there are the blades and then the whole chassis surrounding the blades. This type of technology is more complex than the normal standalone servers. Other Advice If you're looking for high-performance computing, then blade technology is the best you can get. Also, if you're looking for GPU power, then these are the servers for you. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-01-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We've virtualized and consolidated our servers, reducing our carbon footprint, although boot-up time should be reduced. What is our primary use case? Virtualized servers, failover production and dev/test environments of Linux and Windows guests. How has it helped my organization? 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. What is most valuable? * iLO gives hardware information, preempting imminent failures. * Redundancy features provide hot-swap ability for drives and power supplies and automatic rebuilding of RAIDs. What needs improvement? 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. For how long have I used the solution? More than five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? 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. How is customer service and technical support? 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. Which solutions did we use previously? I've used HP servers predominantly so do not have much else to compare them with. How was the initial setup? It's simple. Use the included SmartStart media, and it seamlessly integrates with the OS of choice. What about the implementation team? 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. What was our ROI? 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. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? 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. What other advice do I have? 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. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2015-09-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Good stability, easy management, and meets our needs What is our primary use case? We use it for all of our needs. We use it for our servers, appliances, and virtualization. We have Gen8 and Gen10 models. What is most valuable? Its management, IOs, and stability are the most valuable features. It works fine. It has all the features of a typical server. All that can be done has already been done. What needs improvement? The scalability of Gen8 models should be improved. They can also improve its price. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using this solution for five or six years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is very stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Gen8 models are not as scalable as Gen10. You can't get parts for Gen8, but you can get parts for Gen10. We have about 2,000 users, and they all use these servers. How was the initial setup? It is fairly decent. It is straightforward most of the time. It takes less than a day for a server. What about the implementation team? We installed them ourselves. The number of people required depends on how many servers you are deploying. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The hardware should be cheaper. What other advice do I have? HPE servers are pretty decent. We will definitely keep using them until their end of life. I am quite satisfied with this solution. I would rate HPE ProLiant DL Servers an eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-03-16T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Built-in software management and redundancy for solid stability What is our primary use case? With HPE ProLiant, you can run a Windows operating system or a Linux OS based on Intel architecture. We also use several applications like iLO to manage the servers within the architecture of our serverless AMD processors. Alternatively, you can use another monitoring solution like HP OneView to manage ProLiant Servers. It's a product for monitoring and managing the servers. In addition to monitoring software, ProLiant can be managed with a cloud-based solution. For example, HP's cloud-based InfoSight solution lets you monitor your server and storage, including ProLiant and Intel. ProLiant can be mounted in different types of server racks, like a CD or tower. The tower solution of ProLiant is for a small site or office. With this type of tower server, you can add a kit as well. ProLiant has several servers: 150, 350, 380. And there is another ProLiant architecture that you can install in a Synergy and BladeSystem enclosure. What is most valuable? HPE's iLO server management software is a handy tool to install and deploy. OneView is also suitable for management, but you need a license for it. You can use OneView's monitoring features for free, but you need to pay for management capabilities. In the latest generation, Gen10, you have to add a license for iLO. In addition, generation 10 requires an ISO license to use iLO for management. And if you're working with Synergy, there is another new product like SimpliVity. SimpliVity has a helpful product that is based on ProLiant and another type of architecture similar to Apollo. What needs improvement? It would be great if HP could use a ProLiant Server to run HP-UX, the Unix build from HPE. Right now, HP-UX cannot run on the ProLiant architecture. So if HP made HP-UX compatible with ProLiant Servers, it would be pretty helpful. On the other hand, Linux is also replacing HP-UX, so maybe HP doesn't need to integrate this architecture into ProLiant. If you look at ProLiant's trajectory, I think the next generation will be focused on adding memory. Currently, there is a gap in the memory technology, so I'm predicting that the internal disk for the next generation of ProLiant will be RAM only. I believe this high-speed disk will be available in the next generation. I think the disk will be integrated into the RAM architecture. With the improved RAM architecture, the disk will be faster than the first-class disk because there are other protocols between memory and disk. If you have your disk, you look at the disk in terms of the motherboard. If you add to the processor, it would be faster. All disks in this architecture will be in the solution's memory. For how long have I used the solution? I've been working with ProLiant for almost 10 years. And two or three months ago, I implemented several ProLiant Servers running Windows. It was a very short project — a small solution for a small customer. The majority of my experience has been with HPE servers like ProLiant and Integrity. I've been working with HPE products for about 18 years, including HPE infrastructure, storage, and servers products. So I've been working with HPE since my first job after I graduated. What do I think about the stability of the solution? ProLiant Servers are stable because they have redundant elements built in. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I would say ProLiant Servers are scalable, but it also depends on the architecture. You can scale up with Synergy. For example, you can add two servers into one node. So if it's part of the cluster, it also depends on the operating system that's running. How are customer service and support? When our customers deploy a ProLiant server, we're usually the ones providing support. We have a three-year contract for hardware and software support. The procedure for escalating to HP is pretty straightforward. You contact an HP call center then they verify your system handle or serial. If the server has an active contract, the response from the engineer depends on the conditions of the contract. Some contracts are six hours. That means they're going to solve your problem in six hours. How was the initial setup? Installing ProLiant is straightforward. There are different ways you can deploy. You can deploy it locally using the graphical user interface, or you also have the option to set it up using a shell. You only need some basic knowledge to install ProLiant. The procedure is pretty similar to setting up a PC or a laptop. ProLiant has an array of tools, so you can easily install the servers without any experience. The installer has a simple Windows-based GUI, so you just click through the wizard and provide some information to the servers. You don't need a deep understanding of the architecture. If you have a fundamental knowledge of operating systems like Windows, you can handle this with no problem. Also, HP has a lot of information available online, including video tutorials on installing your ProLiant Servers. HP has several channels to provide information for customers and engineers. The time needed to deploy depends on the scale and your environment. If you want to deploy just one ProLiant server, it takes maybe 30 minutes. If you're going to deploy a Synergy of BladeSystem with different modules inside, you might need to spend an entire workday on it. Maybe it takes a day to install all your servers or maybe less. But installing a single ProLiant rack-based server can be done in 30 minutes, including installing the operating system. Installing the operating system, updating your system, etc., will take maybe 30 or 40 minutes. What other advice do I have? 10 out of 10. The latest generation is the best, but Generation 6 was very stable. It was a good one. Now Generation 10 is the best. I don't know why they took so long to upgrade this generation. Still, Generation 10 has improved a lot in memory and processing, so you can operate in an environment that supports ProLiant. That's why I think HP-UX will disappear because Linux can run this environment on the ProLiant architecture very well. For example, the range of velocity and processor speed is four or five times greater than before. You can run every Linux environment, which can replace the Unix environment. You can run this Linux environment inside the ProLiant and get the same service as a Unix environment. That's why Linux and ProLiant run very well. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-10-17T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Good support for desktop video conferencing, good performance, and fantastic support What is our primary use case? We are using it for serving the VMware environment and creating all of our virtual servers and desktops. What is most valuable? The GPU units, processor speed, and capabilities are most valuable. Desktop video conferencing is also valuable. It supports desktop video conferencing much better for graphics. What needs improvement? They should work with Microsoft to make licensing costs better. That's because the physical servers have processors with all these cores, and Microsoft now licenses Windows virtual server desktops based on the number of cores and the serving servers. So, if you got to build 10 or 20 servers on that desktop, you got to license them all with Microsoft. They should have a partnership with Microsoft to decrease the virtual licensing of servers in partnerships so that when you purchase the servers, you also get licensing for Microsoft on top of them. That's because it gets very expensive to license virtual operating systems to run on physical servers. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using this solution for 10 years, but these are refreshed. So, they're new. We have hardly used them. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is solid. We didn't face any issues. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Its scalability is great. We have 150 users, and it is being used heavily. We are taking every bit of life out of it we can. We don't have any plans to increase its usage. How are customer service and support? Their technical support is great. It is fantastic. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We have only used HPE. How was the initial setup? It is easy. Getting them up and running is a piece of cake, but getting the VMware environment operation on them is very complicated. It has been a couple of months so far, and we're still working on it. What about the implementation team? We are implementing it in-house. We are growing that skill internally. I got a rockstar guy doing all that. I don't do it on my own. For its maintenance, we have one network administrator. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? They need to work with Microsoft to make the licensing costs better and more efficient. What other advice do I have? It is a good product. I would rate it a nine out of 10 because it has good support and good performance. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-10-02T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Scalable with good technical support, an easy setup and reliable performance What is our primary use case? At present, we are using Gen 7, 8. We have used Gen 10 for some of our customers. We use the solution for providing hotel support. We're into the hotels of mostly Windows operating system, Oracle and SQL database. What is most valuable? Performance and reliability are the most valuable features. What needs improvement? We have encountered problems. The most pressing issue is that downloads depend at present on the current period. Secondly, in respect of the iLO access license page, iLO features should be included with the server. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using HPE ProLiant DL Servers for more than 10 years. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The scalability is fine. How are customer service and support? HPE technical support is sufficiently good. Support as a side of the business can be purchased. How was the initial setup? The initial setup was easy. The deployment time varies with the configuration, something which does not take more than two hours. While installing the operating system is a discussion of its own, the actual configuration is easy to do. What about the implementation team? We did not make use of consultants or resellers for the deployment. The size of the staff required for the deployment varies with the configuration. It takes just a day to install a single server, but nearly two or three days if making use of visualization and multiple operations. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The solution comes with a one time perpetual license which is included with the server. It entails costs beyond that of the standard fee. What other advice do I have? The solution is mostly deployed on private cloud. I can safely state that we have more than 100 users making use of the solution, since we have installed more than 10 or 20 servers to different locations. The basic package can include iLO features. I rate HPE ProLiant DL Servers as a nine out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-11-30T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Smooth sailing, stable, and solid service with these servers What is our primary use case? We use VMware for the authorization and 3D rendering for AutoCAD for architecture projects. We run several databases on websites and so on - so normal activity. What is most valuable? We get good performance with HPE ProLiant DL Servers. They are really stable. We run all our applications smoothly. We have no problem at all. What needs improvement? In terms of what could be improved, if I could have faster processors with less cores, that would be good. I know that they have a new series with AMD processors, but I have currently no access to them. This would be nice, because we need faster processors for rendering. It is more interesting than having a lot of cores. Overall, I do not see any particular improvement needed, because I think that they are already at the edge and ahead of the competition. In the next release, I would like to see to more power, because the next generation will always require more computing power, but I'm sure that they are already doing their best for this. They have a management solution, HPE OneView, but I didn't implement it because at the beginning it can be a bit difficult and we only have a small set of servers. So it was too much work for not enough return. So it could be simplified with better results to have a better return with this. For how long have I used the solution? We are using ProLiant DL380 Gen10 and Gen9 servers. Because I belong to a small service and we are obliged to use big contracts directly from the European Commission, these were the servers that were in that contract. At the beginning it was not my choice to use HPE, because we were working with IBM, and I was really happy with those servers. But I see that HPE servers are really nice also, and we have had a really good experience with them, so I'm happy with them, too. What do I think about the stability of the solution? HPE ProLiant DL Servers is terribly stable. We have no down-time. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Thanks to VMware, we can always add more virtual machines and then a new server if we need to have more. Because we have big processors and a lot of memory, we have a SAN also, so it's really scalable in that way, but it's not related to HPE. Any server could be scalable in that kind of structural combination with VMware and so on. So it's not related to HPE by itself. How are customer service and support? We have not had any issues with HPE technical support. I had a problem with a tape backup, and they reacted immediately, and the next day it all was up and running normally. So I'm really happy with the after-sale service. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We previously used IBM. But I have not touched IBM in years, so I don't know how they compete, and they sold their servers to Lenovo, so I don't know how it evolved. But I'm really happy with HPE now. How was the initial setup? At the beginning, the initial setup was a bit difficult because there was a learning curve, but now it's easy and with HPE it is really easy to update the servers. We don't have a lot of servers. We are a small service and we have only five to six servers, but a lot of virtual machines, and it is really easy to upgrade the servers. In combination with VMware you can move your machine, so you have no interruption in the service. It's really easy to do. It can all be done remotely thanks to iLO, so you have a good management. iLO processor is a bit slow. though, it could be faster. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? The street price is probably really expensive, but at the Commission, we benefit from a good rebate, so we have a good price. I don't know the price of the competition because it is in a contract. I didn't compare. When I look for some parts, I see that it could be really expensive to have the same servers that we have. What other advice do I have? On a scale of one to ten, I would give HPE ProLiant DL Servers an eight. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partner
Date published: 2021-12-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Flexible with good energy efficiency and management What is our primary use case? Our primary use case is as our domain controller and file services, our local CR applications, and our ERP, local ERP. The main service we're using is the local ERP with Oracle DB. What is most valuable? Technical support is helpful. It's very easy to set up. The product has a more flexible infrastructure and management consultation in comparison to Dell. It's energy-efficient. It's consumed less energy than the previous solution and the performance is great. What needs improvement? We'd like the solution to be more energy efficient so that we need less cooling or less dependence on a cooling system. Its management console could be better. There should be some tools and tips added so that, if a beginner's level goes for management, you can easily find tools and tips, and help them manage everything in case of emergency before going to technical support from HP. For how long have I used the solution? We've used the solution for a year. We started using it last March. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The on-premises version is quite stable. The performance is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. In the time we've used it, it has been issue-free. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's easily scalable and you can expand it pretty well. We are 48 in-house users, and our remote users are more than 200. How are customer service and support? Technical support is very cooperative and helpful. We have a contract where they can give us support. Within the next 30 minutes, they will respond, for HP and for VMware as well. With VMware, we can get support online and from a remote desktop or remote services. They will always provide us support for hardware and technical support from HP, which we have contracted. The largest delay we deal with is the next business day, however, typically, they come to us within 30 minutes to one hour time. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We replaced Dell with this solution as Dell is no longer present in our country. While we were satisfied with Dell, we had to replace it. There are only a few Dell vendors left however they aren't so good in terms of support anymore now that they aren't in the country. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is straightforward. It's not overly complex or difficult. Our deployment took less than 15 days. What about the implementation team? Setup assistance was provided by HP as well as VMware. They moved our VM from the old infrastructure to the new one. What was our ROI? In terms of ROI, for what we have invested in it, we are getting the same amount out. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? We purchased the license for HP with technical support included. We have a three-year license that we pay for yearly. It is affordable. After three years, we are going to have SLA with them, like the way we previously had with Dell. What other advice do I have? I'm just a customer and an end-user. We are using the on-prem version of the solution as the connectivity is not very stable. We cannot afford a cloud solution. We have a service contract with VMware and HP as well for support. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-05-27T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from iLO feature and technical support are very good What is our primary use case? Our primary use case of HPE ProLiant DL Servers is virtualization. We also host three servers on it: our active directory, file server, and web server. What is most valuable? One of the most valuable features is iLO, which is very good. Another thing is the HPE support is very good. For how long have I used the solution? We have been using this solution for two and a half years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? This solution is stable, and we use it daily. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? HPE ProLiant is scalable. In our organization, we have 100 users of this solution. We are using it for our entire data center. How are customer service and support? The technical support is very good. For the initial level, they provided me very good support for the installation of the servers and all the things after that. Somehow one hard disk crashed, so we logged a call at HPE and an engineer came the next day to replace the hard drive and explain how to prevent this type of issue. So, we have been a customer of HPE for more than 10 years. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is a little bit complicated, but after that, it's very easy to deploy the server. What about the implementation team? We had a third-party vendor help us with deployment. What was our ROI? We have seen a ROI. We have improved because there is an entire platform moved on virtualization. Also, there is good support of HPE, so we have minimized our data center downtime 0.1%. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? This was a one-time purchase for us because it's hardware that we purchased from HPE. There aren't any licensing costs. What other advice do I have? I rate this product a nine out of ten. To those considering implementation, I would advise them to calculate their commercial as well as their data load and user load. After that, you can choose a solution from HPE. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-01-13T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It's not difficult to put all the elements together and configure it for our customers For how long have I used the solution? We've been using ProLiant for six years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? ProLiant is highly stable. We've had very few problems with the servers. We only once had an issue with the hard disk in an HPE server. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The scalability is good. We have about 500 users now, but the business is growing strongly in licenses and post-sales service contracts. How are customer service and support? HPE support is very good. How was the initial setup? ProLiant servers are easy to deploy. It's not difficult to put all the elements together and configure it for our customers. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Some of the licenses are for one year, and others are for three years. It's a standard fee with no additional charges. What other advice do I have? I rate ProLiant10 out of 10. My advice to new users is to be sure all the elements are compatible between systems. Also, you need to ensure the customers' needs match the size of the server that will be implemented. I'm talking about computer power. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-01-16T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Multiple application support, reliable, and good performance What is our primary use case? We use HPE ProLiant DL Servers as part of our management solution and for some specific applications. How has it helped my organization? This solution has improved how our organization functions because it enhances the service delivery, as part of the managed solution. What is most valuable? HPE ProLiant DL Servers have good performance and they support different types of applications. What needs improvement? The support lifecycle for the product for the Telco application should be better. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using HPE ProLiant DL Servers for approximately one year. What do I think about the stability of the solution? HPE ProLiant DL Servers have been stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? In my experience, HPE ProLiant DL Servers are scalable. We have approximately 45 users using the solution in my organization. We plan to increase usage. What about the implementation team? We use a system integrator for support. What other advice do I have? I would recommend this solution to others. I rate HPE ProLiant DL Servers a nine out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-01-16T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It's provided our customers a cost efficient solution that performs well. Valuable Features It's highly competitive in terms of cost and performance. There were other players, but one after another, they disappeared. If you ask your customers what's most important to them, it's always cost efficiency. They always complain about paying way too much. With HP, they're getting the best product for the money. Room for Improvement The most improvements that could be made would not be in the hardware commodity itself, but in the firmware. There's synergy between hardware and software, so you can't view hardware in an isolated way. So the improvements I'd suggest would be in the software that runs the servers. Use of Solution I've been using it for 15 years or so. Stability Issues We've had stability issues, but they weren't anything that other vendors don't have. In particular, we had problems with the DL585 generation 7. It has what we call a "Monday product", which is not hard to fix, but we've had much more trouble than others. These problems seem to be recurring for us. Scalability Issues For our scenarios, it's scalable. Customer Service and Technical Support We don't get direct technical support from HP, but rather from our partners. Other Advice Overall, we have a good partnership with HP and we are heavily invested in them. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-01-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Lower failure rate and great stability but could use a better hard drive base What is our primary use case? My primary use of this solution is for mathematical models that we develop and buy. The mathematical models are being bought from companies like Siemens, General Electric, SMS, and DMAC Group. Primarily these companies give us this software, we buy it from them, they make mathematical models for steel plants and we also make our own models. I also have around 40 portals that I'm running on that I had developed and maintained. I use the DL servers to host the databases and the portal. How has it helped my organization? We make steel and the manufacturing also requires software. These servers are the ones that we prefer. Since the beginning, we were tied with HPE and I have an annual maintenance contract for all of my servers. I have around 3,000 computers, 800 are servers including Alphas, from HPE. I have very few Dell EMC servers. I don't prefer Dell EMC primarily because the availability of the service engineer is not like HPE. It's not weird that Dell or IBM servers are not as good as HPE. Because I have the facility, the advantage of HPE is that they have been here since the beginning and so I prefer HPE. Since it's distributed across India, a very large area of almost 30 other square kilometers, I cannot house every one of them in one common platform. All of my Oracle lower databases or HPE server databases and all of the software I've accepted all the Alphas and even I use Windows platform operating systems. These particular servers have served very well. What is most valuable? Stability and a lower failure rate are the most valuable features. What needs improvement? I would like to see more of a hard drive base. IT keeps on changing the versions of their products. There have historically been great differences in time than when the G server, the Gen8, nine, and now 10 generations of DL ProLiant server have been available, the time differences are much less. Specifically for G9, G10 even less than one year, now there is no way people like us will keep on upgrading servers without having proper ROI. HPE needs to allow us to replace the CTUs of a higher generation. For how long have I used the solution? More than five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is quite stable. They do not fail easy. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? DL3 is not scalable. You cannot scale them versus replace scalable hardware, like going to Itanium servers. How is customer service and technical support? I have not needed to contact their technical support. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We also looked at Dell EMC and IBM. The most important criteria when selecting a vendor, apart from costs, is service. Service will ensure stability. What other advice do I have? I would rate them eight, primarily because of the service that they provide and stability that the hardware gives. For any other person who wants to buy any hardware, the first thing that he should look for is who is going to support him locally. He should then evaluate cases of the availability of that particular vendor's hardware. Buying any such systems is not a big task. He should see if he can maintain these servers in the long run. By long run, think ten years. He should be comfortable with the people that are going to help maintain and comfortable with the equipment that he's going to buy. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2019-02-07T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We've used SmartArray to take care of RAID rebuilding and increased our shelves-per-server count without issue. Valuable Features The HP SmartArray, as this takes care of RAID rebuilding. Improvements to My Organization I've used 350 disks, had eight disk replacements, and two controllers over three years. Room for Improvement Better power usage monitoring would be nice. Use of Solution I used it for three years. Deployment Issues When replacing RAID card in the server one must re-install the license for ADG/RAID6. Stability Issues No issues encountered. Scalability Issues We increased the amount of shelves per server to six, and we have had no issues. Customer Service and Technical Support Customer Service: Great, it's just an e-mail. Technical Support: It's good, but their on-site is not familiar with this setup. Previous Solutions We had a mixture of Sun Thor and HP C-class with AMS FC storage from Hitachi. Initial Setup It went fine, and it even came pre-installed with RHEL, however, we reinstalled it with SL. Implementation Team We did it in-house. Other Advice It works fine, it gave quite a lot of storage per rack unit. There are better options for storage density these days. Also, there are better options for more storage per rack unit, and more CPU power. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2015-08-09T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The most valuable features are flexibility and scalability. It just works. What is most valuable? Flexibility, scalability, and being a standard. I've used during my career. It's useful to know exactly where to go for information and where to go for support. It just works. How has it helped my organization? Just that support is really easy to get a hold of and when things are not functioning, they are able to get the right parts within the right SLAs and it just happens. What needs improvement? I would like to see an on-demand model. I think they are already going there. I would like to see something in which you can move your workloads to a cloud kind of offering. That would be something that would be ideal in the future. From a pricing perspective, a consumption based model would be optimal. There are times when a complete purchase isn’t required and a short term burst of compute is needed. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The stability is really good. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The level of scalability depending on the product you choose. With the DL specifically, you can have as many hosts as you want or as much storage as you want. It is very modular. You can just keep bolting things on, essentially like LEGO. How is customer service and technical support? I have used technical support, but not recently. In the past, they were really good when I used them. Which solutions did we use previously? I've only been with the organization a short time. The decision to go with this product was made before I started. The vendor, who did our infrastructure as a service offering, is an HPE partner. So we didn't really choose the solution, but rather, it came to us. And I wouldn't have chosen anything else anyway. When selecting a vendor, I look for flexibility and support. Everyone has a good sales pitch. However, when it comes to actually executing on it and supporting it long-term, those are the really important parts that not a lot of people consider up front. How was the initial setup? I was not involved in the setup at this organization. What other advice do I have? Just make sure you look at the total cost of ownership and the long-term use case of what you're actually doing, versus the problem that you're trying to solve right now. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-20T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Compatible and flexible with the scaling feature a big advantage What is our primary use case? We use the server as our hyperconversion infrastructure. When I have an HPE server and network like Aruba, we can manage all the infrastructures as software defined by the OneView dashboard to simplify day-to-day tasks. 360 and 380 are used in small to medium-size businesses. Power Server uses a high processing environment that has heavy workloads. We are partners with HPE and I'm an IT infrastructure engineer. What is most valuable? The product is compatible and flexible for small and medium businesses. Scaling is a big advantage of this solution. It simplifies our processes. I think HPE will have an advantage in the next phase because of their new GreenLake technology that will simplify things for small and medium businesses. What needs improvement? I think the speed could be improved with OneView. At the moment, OpenManage is faster and has a better interface than HPE. For how long have I used the solution? I've been using this solution for three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We have no real stability problems with the solution. For small and medium size businesses, ProLiant is a stable product. How are customer service and support? We haven't had any problems with support. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is relatively straightforward. The configuration is very smooth and can be done in about half an hour. Maintenance depends on the infrastructure of the client and how the solution is configured. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? Compared to some of the competitors, HPE ProLiant is slightly more expensive. We have customers who have decided to take a cheaper solution. What other advice do I have? I rate this solution eight out of 10. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Hybrid Cloud Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2022-03-27T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Reliable and affordable servers with many add-on components available What is our primary use case? I am a technical manager and have technicians who go out to schools and look at their network. We have two servers that are linked to a SAN and run virtual servers to form a cluster. This is done so that the servers will always stay on even if one of them goes off. What is most valuable? In regards to the components that you can put into the servers, I feel that HP provides a wider variety of parts in comparison to Dell. For example, there is the ILO which is a network cable that goes into the server and reports back with an abundance of information about the server, even when it is off. What needs improvement? I do not believe that improvements need to be made on the hardware side. On the software side, I would like for the management of the server overall (including reviewing its health) to be a bit easier. Right now, we have something that sits on the server to make sure all hardware drivers and other thing are up to date. This is a pain to set up. For how long have I used the solution? We have been using this solution for a couple of years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I like the stability. There are rarely any issues with the servers. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? This is a scalable solution and I am able to put as much RAM in as I want. How are customer service and support? We have not needed to contact support as most issues are able to be resolved by our in-house team and have yet to be severe enough to need to contact support. How was the initial setup? The initial setup was not complex and took about half a day for one technician to set up. We have one technician who looks after the servers, but there is not much that needs to be done to them in regards to maintenance. Over holiday breaks we perform maintenance checks to ensure that everything is working properly. What about the implementation team? We bought the server and desired bits and then had an in-house hardware technician come and put in the bits and install the service software on it through the ILO. What was our ROI? We are able to get a few years out of the servers. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I like the price of this product and the add-on components. It is cheaper than Dell and is a one-time hardware purchase with minimal ongoing costs. What other advice do I have? It is important to note that on some of the servers, you can only insert 2.5 inch drives, so, maximizing the SSDs may be a bit expensive. Other than that, I would advise working with HP because they have reliable products that rarely have any issues and, when there are issues, they are easily resolvable by us. In the rare event that we cannot fix it, we are able to make returns at no additional costs. Overall, I would rate the DL Servers a nine out of ten. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-02-16T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from I just like their reliability. What is most valuable? I just like the reliability of them. I've never had an issue with them. How has it helped my organization? We only have about 400 employees citywide but if they go down for a day, that angers our citizens so they have to be up all the time and I can't have down time. This gives me the ability to do that. What needs improvement? Being in Canada, and with exchange-rate fluctuation, it would be good if I could get a better price point. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Since I have been in this position, for the last seven years, I have yet to have - knock on wood - any failure at all. I don't know if they use better parts or whatever, but they just don't fail. It's one less headache for me, so that's what I like. We refresh our hardware every four years, even if we don't have to. I have ProLiant servers that are still running, and they're eight years old. Obviously disks and stuff like that have been replaced just for my peace of mind. Like I said, I've yet to have one fail. How is customer service and technical support? I like their customer service better than Dell's. When I do have to have a call or if I have a small little bug or something like that, it's easier to find support for it. Which solutions did we use previously? I had an issue with Dell before so that's why I went away from Dell and went to HPE. I briefly used HPE at former positions, so I knew what they're pretty much about; they were my next step, to put it that way. What other advice do I have? Just make sure you size it right off the bat. Make sure you know what you want. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-05-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Implementation and setup is all wizard-driven. What is most valuable? The most valuable features are reliability, the ease of implementation and setup. It's all wizard-driven. Also, maintenance on the devices, spare parts availability, and, as I’ve mentioned, reliability. How has it helped my organization? We've reduced the number of physical servers, currently. So, we've brought it down from 38 servers down to about 15. Seeing that we are standardizing, it's easier to support the devices, as we don't have that many different devices on-site that need to be supported. What needs improvement? I looked at the technologies offered at a recent HPE conference. There are a lot of technologies that are only offered on the high-end servers ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/categories/rack-servers ). As an example, the SSD module that's embedded on the memory; that's only available on the HP DL380. We've invested quite heavily in the HP DL360 G9s, which means that I won't have access to that technology. I would like it if there's a possibility, even if you have to pay an additional license, to enable that technology on the DL360s. What do I think about the stability of the solution? There's never a problem with it. It's always running. The reliability factor's quite high. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It has definitely been stable. On the 3PAR, you just add devices as needed. Which solutions did we use previously? My previous employer, we were an HP house. Then when I started at the new company, I’ve noticed that they’ve got a mixed breed of technologies. It's not all industry or first-year suppliers or brands. I started the standardization strategy and obviously, HPE was the first choice. The most important criteria when selecting HP were performance and reliability. I've got an existing relationship with a current supplier and, like I've mentioned before, I'm familiar with the brand and the technologies. How was the initial setup? Initial setup was straightforward. Which other solutions did I evaluate? Before choosing this product, I also evaluated Dell and IBM rack servers ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/ibm-rack-servers ). What other advice do I have? Absolutely HPE. Absolutely happy with it. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-12-08T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The iLO feature is essential because it provides us with server management capabilities and we have a distributed-base installation. Valuable Features For us, the iLO feature is essential because it provides us with server management capabilities and we have a distributed-base installation. Improvements to My Organization We're able to provide greater support services outside of normal business hours, as well as at sites where we don't have service groups. Room for Improvement The big challenge for us is our deliveries for certain countries, such as Australia and some areas of Asia. Deployment Issues We've deployed these servers without any issues. Stability Issues I haven't noticed any increase or decrease in the performance and stability of the servers. I'd say it's very stable and we don't generally have any problems. Scalability Issues The range of available services from these servers is quite varies, so it's easy to find the right machine for the job. Whenever we've needed to scale, we're able to find the right model for us. Customer Service and Technical Support The technical support is very good, especially for onsite support for hardware problems. They're always reliable. Previous Solutions We previously used Dell, but we switched because of pricing and availability. Initial Setup The initial setup was pretty straightforward. Implementation Team We don't have an offsite team that helps, so we managed implementation internally with our own in-house team. Other Advice I'd recommend them, but make sure you've planned the right management options, power supplies, and other technical specifications. Make sure, also, that you get the extended warranty. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-01-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Commonality between systems makes it easy to manage. What is most valuable? The commonality between the systems is very valuable, and it is very easy to manage. How has it helped my organization? It helped us a lot because it's a very stable solution. It's not changing very much in terms of handling from generation to generation. So every time they introduce a new ProLiant generation, it's very easy for our operations team to adopt it; and it's very easy for us to adapt to the new features. Because of the commonality between systems, we also have a very lean and optimized process for replacing people when resources need to be moved around. I think that's the main benefit of the ProLiant platform. What needs improvement? My personal opinion is that the rack-mount kits in generation four were the best. The current ones are kind of overcomplicated to mount, so I would really like to go back to how the rack mount worked when we had the G4. This would really be an improvement. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It's rock solid. I have never seen a ProLiant server breaking down for no reason. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I think for us the scalability is definitely sufficient. We have the two-socket series and the four-socket series. We did not look beyond that because it's just not in our requirements; but we are fine with what we have. How is customer service and technical support? They are very efficient, fast and friendly. They know their products. It was a good experience. Which solutions did we use previously? When I joined the company, we were on Compaq ProLiant and we stayed with it. For HP, the ProLiant series is still a strategic product. If you look at other vendors, say IBM, they even sold the X86 server business. So there are not too many vendors in the business who have a very strategic X86 server series, and HP is obviously one of them. How was the initial setup? It's a data center. Things go in and out. I was a system administrator myself many years ago, so I set up a lot of HPE ProLiant systems. They were very easy to set up in the past. They have become even easier. I would say that half of the strength of the ProLiant servers is the software and the additional tools that HPE provides. Which other solutions did I evaluate? IBM fell off our short list of vendors because they just gave up the business. Dell didn’t have the same level of stability, maintainability, and range of products that we have with the ProLiant series. What other advice do I have? Investigate some use case scenarios relevant for your daily business perspective, for example: * What do you need to do to change defective hardware in your system? * What do you need to do to upgrade your systems? Check the workflows: * How easy is it to change the parts? * How easy is it to access the server? Do you have the right documentation already in the server, like it is for HPE; or do you need external sources to know what you are doing? Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-12-26T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Performs well and has scalability potential with relaibelity and customized performance What is our primary use case? I used it for building an application, database middleware servers. It performed very well for my needs. How has it helped my organization? IT is easily manageable and expandable as well as usability for anything. especially for clustering using VMware vCenter server solution. What is most valuable? There is a lot of processors, I am only using half of what I need. In addition, they update the ILO to V. 5 so maintenance remains very easy. You can easily monitor everything from office needs, storage, performance, power supply, and temperature. What needs improvement? If they could put more disk array in one node or rebuild it in the same server, it would be very helpful and more powerful. For how long have I used the solution? More than five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The stability is better with the added microSD instead of LD, so you can still install your operation into the microSD and give the other storage back. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Easy, fast and strong to scale in a different performance like disks, memory, and power. How is customer service and technical support? During our first year of using tech support, it was very good. But recently there has been a lack of help from their support team. Unless it is a special case, they are not very helpful. Which solutions did we use previously? Used OLD IBM, Dell, Sun and Huawei they are good but not like HPE, give you deferent feels. How was the initial setup? Actually, there are no comlexity in the setup everything is straightforward and clear. What about the implementation team? All my implementation are done in house one, as it is very symbol and easy to learn. What was our ROI? Four months approximately according to the solution that using. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? My advice is to start getting the training by themselves for how to manage HP Dl servers as the setup is easy to learn then make pricing according to model number and performance last ask the cost from Gold partner of HP as partners give a good discount. Which other solutions did I evaluate? Actually, every company that worked with have preferred vendor according to what systems integrators gave to them, in Thishknet I did the evaluation and select HP again according to performance, usability and price. What other advice do I have? Start to use Nutanix Solution with HPE Dl Servers that recommend by Nutanix. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2019-01-21T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It is stable and easier to maintain than other servers that we had before. What is most valuable? It's pretty quick. It's much easier to maintain than other servers we had before. We believe that the 380s are more stable than the other HPE servers that we had before. How has it helped my organization? It benefits our organization, operation-wise, because of its stability. Operation-wise, we don't have to put out as much and there's less maintenance. What needs improvement? I would like more advice about drivers and servers, depending on the application we are using. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability is probably the most important feature, especially if you are running a production service. The stability of the solution is really good. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability is pretty good. It depends on the model. The 380 only has a couple of slots you can use. You can put some other enclosures in there as well. Which solutions did we use previously? We didn’t use other solutions before. We pretty much use servers from generation 3 and now we are up to generation 8. How was the initial setup? I was involved in the setup and it was straightforward. It gives you all the options that you want. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We select a vendor based on their statistics. We check if they work with other companies or other industries similar to ours. We see if they work with applications that we use, as well as the price. Right now, we have HPE from the service perspective. We do have HPE on our shortlist. We currently have IBM as well. We are looking into other service management companies. We have HPE at the moment, but we are looking at other service management options. What other advice do I have? Depending on the applications they use, they should study the technical requirements, such as storage and processing power. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-15T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Its Virtual Connect technology simplifies networking configuration. The product must support high-speed network adapters to meet customer expectations. Valuable Features: I found HP Virtual Connect (VC) technology to be the most valuable. VC technology simplifies networking configuration for the server administrator using an HP BladeSystem c-Class environment. VC adds a hardware abstraction layer that removes the direct coupling between the LAN and SAN. Hence, it reduces the number of cables required for an enclosure, the number of edge switches, enables direct server-to-server connectivity within the BladeSystem enclosure and more. This feature can significantly reduce the time required to complete a service event. Improvements to My Organization: Without VC, changes to server hardware (for example, replacing the system board during a service event) typically implies changes to the MAC addresses and WWNs. The server administrator must then contact the LAN/SAN administrators, give them the updated addresses, and wait for them to make the appropriate updates to their infrastructure. With VC, a server profile keeps the MAC addresses and WWNs constant, so the server administrator can apply the same networking profile to new hardware. Additionally, VC Flex-10 and VC Flex-20 technology further simplifies network interconnects. Flex-10/Flex-20 technology allows you to split a 10 Gb or 20 Gb Ethernet port into four physical function NICs (called FlexNICs). This feature lets you replace multiple lower-bandwidth NICs with a single 10 Gb or 20 Gb adapter. Prior to Flex-10, a typical server blade enclosure required up to 40 pieces of hardware (32 mezzanine adapters and eight modules) for a full enclosure of 16 virtualized servers. Using HP FlexNICs with Virtual Connect interconnect modules reduces the required hardware by up to 50 percent by consolidating all NIC connections onto two 10 Gb or 20 Gb ports. Room for Improvement: As server technology moves forward, I expect HPE server solutions to be compatible with the advancements such as supporting 40+ GbE network adapter and further reducing the complexities in a network topology such as fewer cables, edge switches and simple administration. This seems to be important to me because in today's competitive environment, the end users expect to have a high-speed SAN network, which majorly depends on the network adapter's speed and performance. In my opinion, the product must support high-speed network adapters in order to meet the customer's expectations. Use of Solution: I've been working on the HP server technology for almost three years now. Stability Issues: I encountered stability issues, particularly with HPE DL-580G8 and DL-360G9 servers. With a network topology similar to be used by an end-user, I encountered server failures such as server freeze, slow booting, and difficulties scanning the LUNs when performing a boot from SAN. Scalability Issues: I did not really encounter any scalability issues! I would say the product is quite stable as far as scalability is concerned. Initial Setup: The initial setup (such as network connections) is quite straightforward. The configuration part too is simple, considering that one must know what he/she is doing. Cost and Licensing Advice: Server technologies nowadays are expensive. Be it HPE, Dell or EMC ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/vendors/dell-emc ). In case of large network deployments, nothing can beat HPE Blade Server ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/categories/blade-servers ) Technology (with/without VC technology). It provides simple and efficient configuration and administration. Other Advice: One must be aware of the objectives he/she is expecting. Thorough research about the product and the reviews is always advisable from my end. If it fits in, the user can very well carry on. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-08-31T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The hardware is very toolless to work with, so when you have to do a part replacement it's very hands-on friendly. What is most valuable? We value the ease of management in terms of the firmware. The hardware is very toolless to work with, so when you have to do a part replacement it's very hands-on friendly. You don't have to grab any quick tools nearby to swap out modules and such. How has it helped my organization? The layout is quite nice as, for the most part, you don't have to tear the machine half apart to get to a piece. So, sometimes when they have on-site technicians to replace a part, we don't have to send a senior technician out there to do it. They can pretty much easily find it and get the parts swapped. Parts fail, that's part of the IT business, but the ability to be able to get in there quickly and get parts swapped is a very big benefit. What needs improvement? I've already seen quite a bit here at the conference that looks good. Well, one of the areas that I really am excited about is the iLo 5 (integrated lights out technology) on the HP blade technology where they're allowing a lot of the firmware flashing to take place through the iLo, which means I don't have to go through the OS, so that beats a lot of our servers. Run Unix in a form that we can't reboot them more than twice or maybe less in a 30-minute maintenance window. The fact that I can flash a lot of the hardware from the iLo and not have to go through the OS means a far reduced outage time maintenance window, so that really helps take the pressure off us. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We have machines that go back quite a long time in terms of almost back to the mid-nineties on some of the servers. So stability-wise, yes we've had some pretty good results even in the old, old hardware from HP specifically. So yes, we've been happy with them so far. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability has been pretty good. We just buy more. We just buy a lot of everything. So scalability hasn't really been an issue for us because we have pretty sizable data centers, but yes, certainly it has been a good product overall. How is customer service and technical support? I have used technical support quite a few times. It has been quite useful. HP has been very helpful in terms of getting a technician on-site, and parts available if we need them. They have always offered us a technician to actually do the repair, so that takes a lot of the workload off us. Sometimes on some of the higher-end systems where there is a lot more money involved in the hardware, it just helps to take the pressure off to where we don't have to really put our hands on that equipment, especially when you're talking about a server that costs over $20,000. I'd rather have the HP guy work with it just for liability reasons. How was the initial setup? We have a different team that does all the initial setup. Which other solutions did I evaluate? So the two biggest competitors are primarily, obviously Dell and HP. If I had to compare the two - I was at the Dell conference not too long ago just for investigation purposes - I would say that HP, in the long run, from my experience as I've worked with companies that have both, HP is just more stable, in the long term. Like I said before, you want to avoid hardware fails, right? That's just a part of IT, but how the customer is being handled is important in terms of if we have a bad blade or we have a bad motherboard, because every now and then we get a blade that's just bad out of the box, right? The fact that the customer or the vendor, whoever that is, if they come out and do the right thing, just swap the part out with very little hassle, that's all right. I don't have to go through a purchasing program where I have to do a repurchase or return process, and that's really helpful in terms of just doing the right thing, getting the parts swapped out, reducing our downtime, and that's our biggest paying point with the customer. Because we have customers too that scream when our stuff goes down, right? What other advice do I have? If they're not using HP today, I would highly suggest them to take a deep look at it, in the long run, even just as a starter. I'm not saying that Dell or others are bad, it's just, in the long run, I like the hardware layouts better in HP. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Advanced and expanded CPUs enable us to upgrade our customers every few months What is most valuable? I think the most valuable features are the CPU version which is very advanced, and the machine itself is very reliable in terms of how long we can use the hardware. Some of our customers are using it for five years, six years without the need to even replace a single part or use the service from HPE. HPE is expanding the CPU very quickly, like every few months you get a new CPU and new technology in the field. That's very good for us because we can give our customers a very advanced server. Every three to six months we can upgrade their server if they like; or if we need to upgrade it in terms of using a stronger server such as more cores, etc. How has it helped my organization? We are using, in Israel, a company called Arrow to distribute, and they are very very good for shipping, packaging, in replacing the front panel. They work on HPE a lot. They are doing it very quickly, they distribute it very quickly. What needs improvement? I think that for us, we have is what we need. I'm not sure that we would like to see any new advanced features because we're not using such advanced features. I'm sure there's always places to improve but we are not using all of the advanced features that are in HPE. Perhaps the one thing is support globally, or distribution globally. Today we distribute in the United States and, over there, we have a center that can distribute for us, but I don't think they have such in the Eastern part of the world. So that could be an area for improvement. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability is very high. We have not needed to refer to the warranty, during the three years that we got. Sometimes customers hold their products for five, six years without the need to use any of the warranty or services, so that's very reliable for use. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I can tell you that through the years we definitely wanted to upgrade the servers, scale them up in terms of replacing CPU or even adding CPU for some of the servers that use one CPU, or RAM, or disks. We haven't had any trouble with that. That has been very easy. How is customer service and technical support? I use technical support from time to time. It's very easy to open a case, very quick response and, most of the time, the first response that we are receiving solves the problem. We aren't getting into long discussions or things like that. We have Hebrew customer support, actually. Which solutions did we use previously? We used Dell and it wasn't as fast and accurate. How was the initial setup? Very straightforward. Today, you have built-in the option to use SmartStart so it's very easy to set up the first time. It's very intuitive. For us, once again, that's very important. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We always look at other vendors, Dell, IBM. Right now we are checking into the option to buy storage so we are looking to, of course, 3PAR versus NetApp and EMC. What other advice do I have? I think that the most important thing that you need to look at is a company that will give them end to end support. HPE does that. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-11-22T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We like the reliability and supportability. When we upgrade our drivers and other software, we can smoothly roll it out to the enterprise. What is most valuable? 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. How has it helped my organization? 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. What needs improvement? 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. What do I think about the stability of the solution? These servers are very stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? 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. How is customer service and technical support? 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. Which solutions did we use previously? 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. How was the initial setup? I was not involved in the initial setup. That's done by our engineering team. Which other solutions did I evaluate? 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. What other advice do I have? 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. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-12-13T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from You have a consistent way of managing them across all of the lines. Support for hardware is more challenging than for other sides. What is most valuable? What is good about HPE servers is that you have a consistent way and how to manage them across all the lines. You don't have to learn something for one type of server and then have to learn something else for a different type of server. If you have different types of servers, you can always build on the knowledge you have and you have a unified way to approach things in configuration, in setting up, maintaining, and so on and so forth. How has it helped my organization? The organization is always hamstrung by the staff people they have available to run these systems. If you have a trained staff, you don't want to throw all this training overboard just to get a new server. You have an evolving but steadily moving ecosystem of how you get these things set up, connected, maintained and so on, so forth. That's probably even more valuable than just, "Hey, competitor A or B has 2% more efficiency or 2% more power to deliver". What needs improvement? It's always the next generation of hardware, of course: Who does the better job? You also can look at things and say, "Hey, we were going all blades. We were going with virtual connect.”, and do specific things in that way. We learned certain lessons doing that, of course. For the next generation, we probably won't have that many blades. We will probably revert to rack-mounted servers, but have bigger servers instead of the smaller servers. That also evolves with the workloads you have. Over the period of time we typically run these systems, such as five years, there's a lot of change in what the users request from us. Of course, there are new developments. For example, before we started VDI, we said, “OK, if we want to do VDI going forward, we probably want to incorporate some GPU into that.” That would probably lead to new architecture and then we want to do other stuff like high-performance computing, as well, on that. The next generation probably would look completely different from what we have now. For how long have I used the solution? We have been using HPE servers for a very long time. The current implementation was done in 2013 and 2014, but we have been using HPE servers for 20 years or more. It was not necessarily called HPE at that time but one of the companies they acquired over the decades. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability is a non-issue. As long as you don't touch anything, nothing will really happen. If you update everything here and there, you have to really pay attention. We have a complex setup with storage and servers and networking, storage networking and so on and so forth. Once you change one component, all the others might blow up in your face if you don't do it correctly. Especially in the storage space, we rely heavily on HPE to mix and match, make sure that the matrix is correct to do all of the maintenance on that level. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scaling is fairly easy. With the blades, I think the only barrier here is, once you fill up the enclosure, you need a new enclosure. That's the primary barrier. As long as you can grow inside the enclosure, that's a non-issue. Otherwise, you have a steeper investment, but then again, it scales up from a single server to the full enclosure, to the full rack. We never had to go that way, though. Everything we did always fit into one enclosure in one rack. We had two of them, spread across sites. Even in a situation where one of our data centers fails, we can still have all of the workload running out of the other data center. By the means of the software stack we have around it, that works without a mishap. You don't really even notice it with the storage and the virtualization layer. That all happens in the blink of an eye, automatically, which is very important for us. It’s also reproducible, of course. And, you can do it backwards, unlike some solutions, where you can failover but if you want to failback, you would need a myriad of highly skilled IT professionals to do that move back with data synchronization, but this solution really does it all. How is customer service and technical support? Support on the hardware side is a little bit more challenging than on other sides because there are so many components involved, if you look at servers. There are many vendors who provide components to HPE. You have to mix and match everything. You really need a professional support organization with that to help you. If you do the wrong thing, do the wrong update, that might hamstring you with the whole operation because you don't get anywhere, anymore. How was the initial setup? The setup is quite straightforward. It's really a bunch of servers but, of course, that involves getting all of the components together, having everything configured to order and then having it configured to the software stack. We incorporated HPE partners to do that for us and then we took over and said, "Okay, from now on, we involve this system until its end of lifetime." We went from the one version of the hypervisor to the current version of the hypervisor, and we're going to the next, and the next, and the next. Setting up is the first step but from that point on, you can take it yourself and drive it yourself. Which other solutions did I evaluate? For the blade offerings, most of the competitors have similar capabilities. However, they probably have evolved them only within the last five years, whereas I would say HPE has a much longer runway into that. They have a much more established, esteemed platform there. The C class of BladeSystems is something that's there for years now. I think we have the second procurement of those. At the end of its lifetime, we're running it for 10 years, whereas others have changed their blade strategies two or three times. I think that's the worst thing you can do, if you have to change it on there. The C7000 and C3000 have been around for 10 years, maybe 15 years, already. Everything that came afterwards, such as Synergy or the Superdome X, they all build on top of that. The C9000 and whatever they call the Synergy enclosure, it really takes the best from the established path and then just adds the latest technology to that. If you have that knowledge and ability, and you can leverage that, you have a big advantage over all the others who come to the market with a new solution and try to find customers. What other advice do I have? For the server technology, most of the features you can nowadays find with most of the vendors, so they're probably at the stage where HPE was five years ago. The ecosystem is so mature and still evolving. There's nothing like, "Hey we have this feature, we don't change it." The management, the procurement, the provisioning, all of that is really kicking off going forward. Probably with the next generation, I’d gave it a higher rating. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-12-13T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It is easy to configure and deploy. What is most valuable? It is easy to configure and deploy. It is the same hardware. Whenever you buy the particular generation, it is the same. The parts inside don't change, which is nice. How has it helped my organization? The deployment software. What needs improvement? I would like some of the software products that they offer to be integrated. In other words, you buy the server and you get the software, instead of having to pay extra for the licenses. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is very stable. We have run it for years. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's pretty easy to scale. How is customer service and technical support? We have used technical support a few times. It's pretty good. Which solutions did we use previously? We just evaluated it and other solutions, and we just chose this one. How was the initial setup? The setup was pretty straightforward. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We evaluated Dell and Cisco. We liked the cost of this solution. We liked the software, even though you had to buy it separately. When selecting a vendor, the reliability is the most important factor, followed by cost. What other advice do I have? Definitely look at their solution. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-16T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It is advanced at low cost, with good service and a guarantee. What is most valuable? It is very advanced at low cost, with good service and a guarantee. How has it helped my organization? It gives you what you need with peace of mind because the system works. Service usually is provided within four hours. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is very stable. I see that it works. I don’t find many problems that require calling a technician to solve. It gives you peace of mind. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? What we usually do is evaluate our customers’ needs and find a solution that suits them. We don’t sell the same product to everybody, but we consider the size of the company and other factors. It is scalable for small businesses and large. How is customer service and technical support? Technical support is fine, but sometimes they don’t answer that quickly. Sometimes you need to make one phone call after another and wait until they get back to you. Once they do, everything works. How was the initial setup? As far as I know, the deployment is smooth and easy. If not, it goes to another department. Usually our technician can help us from far away. We don't even have to come physically. The software and the hardware work fine. Once it's working, it's working. Which other solutions did I evaluate? Often our customers consider Dell as an alternative solution because of the price. Customers say that HPE is much more advanced technically, mainly in terms of storage. It also has much more storage compared to Dell. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Date published: 2017-01-24T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from I really like the way we can do the storage in cells. I would like serial number tracking to be improved. Valuable Features: I've been using HP ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/vendors/hewlett-packard-enterprise ) for quite a few years, so my knowledge base of HP products is good. We like to standardize on them. We also have good relationships with HP vendors. That's the reason why we've been going with the HP ProLiants. I really like the way we can do the storage in cells, for putting operating systems on them. The redundancy, as far as power supplies, hard drives, etc. Ease of use is key. Improvements to My Organization: The business benefits - if we stick to one brand, you don't have to have as much people, as far as knowing different brands and stuff like that. Reliability - so we don't have to keep repairing them, we don't have downtime, which is key. Most of our plants are 24/7, so we've got to make sure that we don't have downtime. We used them in a Hyper-V ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/microsoft-hyper-v ) environment, that adds in the uptime, as well. Room for Improvement: Serial number tracking and trying to get that tied to my account. I have a terrible time with that with HP. I've got hundreds of servers around the country, and when I try to call in and keep the serial numbers straight and things like that. When I try to download drivers for them, the serial number doesn't come up, even though it's under extended coverage. I've not been happy with that part. Stability Issues: Reliability was the reason why we've had them for so many years - they've been reliable. Cost and Licensing Advice: The pricing has been good on them. Other Solutions Considered: Dell ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/vendors/dell ) was the primary competitor. We do have some plants that have Dell systems, but we probably are 90 - 95% HP, as far as company-wide. We've just been happy with the product, and there's not been a business reason to switch. Other Advice: For me, they key things are reliability, and ease of use. Then the pricing's good as well. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-08-21T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It has the scalability of the processors, high core counts, and additional memory capacity. What is most valuable? It has the scalability of the processors, high core counts, and additional memory capacity. How has it helped my organization? Obviously, more performance from having the higher core counts and the additional memory. What needs improvement? I would like to see additional work on making the intelligent provisioning work with VMware. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The stability has been very good. It is very reliable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability has been good as well. There's actually a scale from really low core counts up to the higher-end Intel processors. How is customer service and technical support? I have used tech support for warranty claims. They are good and respond quickly. Which solutions did we use previously? We knew we needed to invest in a new solution because our customers asked for this series of servers. HPE is our primary go-to solution for servers, unless somebody asks for some other brand in particular. When looking for a vendor, the main differentiation between most of them is good back-end support. We've had good luck with HPE support. How was the initial setup? The setup was straightforward. What other advice do I have? Go for it and call HPE support if you get stuck. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-16T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It reduces the amount of work that we have to do. What is most valuable? Most valuable for us are ease of use, the ability to quickly view the system for health and how to get into the consols. How has it helped my organization? It reduces the amount of work that we have to do. In the old days we used to have to go downstairs and basically plug into a computer and do stuff like that. Now, we're at our desk and we just walk right up to a computer and if you know something is going on you can easily open the case with HP and have them come out and take a look at it. What needs improvement? I can't think of anything right now regarding improvements except perhaps the price. I think more involvement with us, the customer would be good too. They are doing better with that now though. We've had meetings with them and we really discussed the problems that we've come across. I'd say we're going in the right direction, that's for sure. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability is definitely encouraging. The other system was weak. We had a lot of problems with the memory. The memory would go out every time we did a patch. We'd have to reboot the server and as it came back up, 10 percent of the time, we'd have a memory issue but over the last year or two, it's been much improved. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability is pretty good. I'd say it's a lot better than it used to be, definitely. How is customer service and technical support? The technical support is very good. There's always somebody available. We have an on-call number. How was the initial setup? I wasn't involved in the initial setup. Which other solutions did I evaluate? Mostly we look at reliability, maintenance and support. Those are the big ones to consider when choosing a vendor. Since we have a relationship with HP, that's it regarding any alternative vendors. What other advice do I have? As I said earlier, look at their maintenance support. The number of companies that they actually support. Those are big factors. And disaster recovery. That's what I would say. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The iLO has been a solid out-of-band management tool for us. Valuable Features They're reliable. They work and I'm familiar with them. The iLO has been a solid out-of-band management tool for us, in comparison to some other out-of-bands that I've had to deal with. The performance out of the box, the stability of the servers, HPE's ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/vendors/hewlett-packard-enterprise ) turnaround for support, and resolving issues. Room for Improvement The new rail kits are terrible. The older rail kits were great and simple. It took one person to do it. Now the new rail kits for the DL line, since the Gen-8s, are terrible. It takes more than one person to be there present in order to rack one of those systems without endangering yourself or the server by letting it fall to the ground. The older rail kits were great, the new ones are horrible. Stability Issues Very seldom do we have problems with the hardware. If we do, it's a grand module that went bad or something that went bad, or a hard drive that failed, but otherwise the system boards themselves rarely give us a hard time and it's good for production. Scalability Issues If we need more, we buy more, and put more in. It's all the whether we have one or five thousand. Customer Service and Technical Support Technical support was good. Previous Solutions Primarily, my organization has been a ProLiant ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/hpe-proliant-dl ) job since I've been there. Prior to that, I wasn't in this industry to have alternate experiences. Initial Setup The Gen8's and previous were pretty easy going. We just received Apollo ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/hpe-apollo ) 2000s that we're trying to deploy to now, and getting over the humps of learning the new UEFI deployment which is kind of mandatory. It pushed us over the edge from legacy bios mode to UEFI, so we've got some lessons to learn in our organization to deal with that change with the new Gen9's. Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing HPE seemingly always wins the cost-to-benefit ratio for performance. Other Advice If we were to move away from using Proliants and HP, I think I'd be disappointed. I've had nothing but good experiences really, racking stacking and deploying to ProLiants. Based on my track record I would say that's probably a pretty good path to go down. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-07-31T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Our biggest problem is spontaneous growth. We sign new customers and our processing requirement levels spike, and we needed to meet that demand. Valuable Features I like the centralized systems, and I like the fact that they’re rugged. When they get delivered to you, there are no failures and they’ve already been tested and ready to go. For us it was important because we had to install about 20 of them in one week. Improvements to My Organization It’s more an Intel advantage. The fact that the Gen9 relies on the latest CPUs from Intel, it’s a very high density of processing power that serves our needs greatly. Room for Improvement By default on the Gen9 server, they remove the screenports and USB ports in front of the servers, and you have to purchase them. I didn’t know that beforehand. Now, when I troubleshoot things I have to connect things in the back. The new design should fix that. Stability Issues Out of the 40 servers we’ve added, there’s only been one incident of a hardware issue in almost three years. It was resolved very quickly. Scalability Issues Very good. Our business model relies on high scaling of code and adding servers to support that. For us, we need that sufficient processing power, which has been very good. Customer Service and Technical Support If anything, they’re over-caring – they’ll chase you down if they see any problem. We had an issue opened and they really made sure it was resolved. Previous Solutions Growth – our biggest problem is spontaneous growth. We sign new customers and our processing requirement levels spike, and we needed to meet that demand. Initial Setup Very straightforward – we got them out of the box, racked them and they were good to go. Other Solutions Considered Oracle Sun Servers and IBM. Based on past experiences (we’ve used both, and were previously a mixed environment), they weren’t quite as stable as HP. Other Advice It’s good, but the display ports are ill-designed. We look for stability when choosing a new vendor. It’s extremely important to us. But, find a local partner to make sure that you make the right choice. I’m from Montreal, so I use ACCII, so build your order to fit your needs. Understand all the options available to you to fit your workload, not the other way around. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2015-06-29T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We like the reliability and the iLO abilities of the server. Valuable Features We like the reliability of the server. We also like the iLO abilities of the server ... that's what my guys like the most. Improvements to My Organization The hardware is very dependable. We don't have a lot of downtime. Whenever we do need to call support, support is always very fast and able to jump on things. That's what we like about it. Room for Improvement I think maybe just improving the manageability since we would like a single pane of glass. I think there may be a few features that my team might want to see added. We use it a lot for VMware so anymore things that they can tightly integrate with VMware would be great. Stability Issues We've had other vendors trying to pitch similar hardware to us but it's something we don't even consider just because of the stability and the reliability of the HPE hardware. Scalability Issues That's a non-issue for us. They're easy to scale especially with the blade chassis. We stack several of them into a rack, stick in more blades whenever we need to. Customer Service and Technical Support We don't use them very often. Usually we have a minor issue, a hard drive or something like that so we really don't use it very often but when we need to, it's always very good. Previous Solutions The Dell servers were four to five years old. They were already getting close to end of life and end of support, so it was time to upgrade. Initial Setup It was straightforward. At the time, we were a very small shop. I think we replaced six Dell servers that were there at the time with six ProLiants. Since then, our company has grown tenfold. Now we still have a few of the rack mount ProLiant’s but we have six blade chassis that we're now using. Other Solutions Considered I left my position as a system engineer at HPE into this company, and I knew the ProLiants inside and out. That was the selling point right there, and we didn't look at anything else. Other Advice I would tell them to strongly take a look at the HPE. Go ahead and do a bake off if you want to. If they want to prove a concepts with the Dells, Dells will give them a way to you to try them out. If you rack them up side-by-side, I think all the features set and just the reliability of HPE makes them come out ahead. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-07-31T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It is consistent and stable. I would like to load the system without having to make an external connection. What is most valuable? The fact that they are consistent. I don't have to relearn for the 80 sites I support. How has it helped my organization? Stability and reliability. It's rare that it fails and, when it does, we have HPE support, with a four hour turnaround. It gets fixed. What needs improvement? I would like to see the simplicity of having the option of loading with something like SmartStart instead of having to make the external connection. There are issues with the startup that make it a little cumbersome. It takes us more time. Even though hardware and support might be rated higher, considering how much time we spend setting things up, that impacts us a lot. That's where the points get taken off my rating. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability is about the number of drives and the number slots for memory and storage. We put in what we want. If it's not right, we put in more. How is customer service and technical support? We have used technical support, and it can always be better. But everyone can. Sometimes I feel like I'm dealing with someone who is reading from a script, rather than with someone who understands the technology. Which solutions did we use previously? We knew we needed to invest in a new solution, because of lack of driver support. In the new Windows version, some drivers don't work with old MSAs and you have to get new ones. We used a previous generation of HPE servers before this. When choosing a vendor, we look for support, reliability, durability, and not something that is end-of-life in a year. How was the initial setup? I was involved in the installation. We ran it from the SmartStart CD to the online connection. (I don't know what they call it now.) It came with a supply kit and we could install it without an external connection. That's where we support it. In gaming, there is no connection to the outside world. What other advice do I have? I would recommend HPE, but you have to be careful. Check if everything is compatible with what you currently have. You might upgrade part of a server, but not all of it. There can simply be incompatibility issues. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-15T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Stable solution for infrastructure as a service. What is most valuable? Stability is the most important feature. We use it for the infrastructure as a service. We need stable service. What needs improvement? I would like to see more standardized management. In the past, there was a lot of mixture between the software and the hardware features. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is stable and has been for many years. We have used HPE for three or four years and we don't have a lot of complaints. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We buy the biggest one each time and we multiply it by two every year. We need a lot of them. We set them up in clusters close to us, so there are no scalability issues. How is customer service and technical support? I have used technical support, but primarily with warranty questions. We have no issues with technical support at all. How was the initial setup? I was involved in the installation. It was straightforward and not complex. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We looked at Dell, Lenovo, and IBM. What other advice do I have? We do a mini competition a few times a year and we buy a lot of servers. This is needed in the Netherlands. We started to use HPE. We are looking for basic functionality and see if the solution conforms with open standards. When choosing a product, price is an issue. If two products have the same specifications, then we have to choose the one with the lowest price. My advice is to decide if you want a cheap and bad server, or if you want a stable and good server. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-12-26T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We can download all the firmware, drivers, agents, utilities, and any other software as a single download. Valuable Features The most valuable features of these servers are their stability and efficiency. We can download all the firmware, drivers, agents, utilities, and any other software as a single download. Improvements to My Organization We've been with these servers for a long time. We know the book on them and we know the partners who work with us. We have confidence in them, which means we don't need to spend money and waste time on maintenance and other issues unnecessarily. Room for Improvement It could use less power. We want to go green and so want to use as little energy as possible. Use of Solution We got this a long time ago. Deployment Issues They deploy without any issues. Stability Issues They're very stable. Scalability Issues We as an organization haven't been growing, so scalability is not relevant for us. Customer Service and Technical Support We get technical support through our own partner, not through HP. Initial Setup My colleagues who set it up said the initial setup was OK. It wasn't simple but it also wasn't complex. ROI We're not going to see an ROI in 2016, but hopefully in 2017. Other Advice I would recommend you use them, especially if you have other HP products. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-01-17T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We use it to host software development environments. What is most valuable? The reliability and the support are probably the most reliable features for us. We enjoy the fact that support is quite good and the products do what they're supposed to do. We use it to host a lot of software development environments, so up-time is important to us. HP's products are very reliable. How has it helped my organization? The benefits are that it allows us deliver solutions to our software developers faster and the up-time is maintained. What needs improvement? * More adoption of Intel's new processors * More SSD technology * More NVMe technology * Keeping the price down. (It's always the price, right?) What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability is very good with HPE products. There is a lot of development going into their products and you can see that when the products go into our production data center. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability is very good as well. There are always options to buy bigger products, to add on disc storage, and to increase compute power. How is customer service and technical support? We use technical support all the time. They are very good. I would give them a rating of 8/10. No technical support organization is perfect. Which solutions did we use previously? We knew we needed to invest in this solution because our customers told us. They needed more compute. We develop software, so they needed processing and compute power, so that they can get products to market faster. How was the initial setup? I was more or less involved in the initial setup. It was complex. We host different types of environments, so some of them are simple, but some of them are complex. We deal with a lot of: * Servers * Storage * Customers * Software configurations * Operating systems * Relationships between all of those components Which other solutions did I evaluate? We always look at other vendors, such as Dell and Supermicro. When looking for a vendor, usually price is important, obviously, as well as the stability of the products. What other advice do I have? I would say that they can't go wrong. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-06-15T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The most valuable feature we saw is that the performance is better and it's easier to manage. Valuable Features When compared to other servers and even other HP products, the most valuable feature we saw is that the performance is definitely better and it's easier to manage. I can't say that we've faced any problems after standing up these servers. Improvements to My Organization It's very important for our business that we have a server that's stable and reliable. These servers have been very, very stable and are performing well for us. Room for Improvement The biggest area of improvement I can think of is with more fiber connections. Adding more fiber connections would make them even better. Use of Solution We've used it for more than six years. Deployment Issues They deploy very well without any problems. Stability Issues It's stable, the most important factor for us. Scalability Issues They are supposed to be highly scalable servers, but we're using them in a utilization environment. In a utilization environment, I can't say that they're scalable. Customer Service and Technical Support Technical support is fantastic. Other Solutions Considered We evaluated other vendors and compared them with the same configurations, same amount of memory, same CPUs, and HP servers performed the best. Other Advice Perform a comparison between the same level of quality, same level of service, and same level of performance, and choose the product. I think you will find it the most suitable one for you. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-01-11T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Training people to use them is easy. They are reliable and stable. What is most valuable? We find it very easy to train people to use them and their reliability is very high. It’s usually cheaper than the competitor. We don't have any one vendor that we always use, so we tend to go out there and look at the best solution based on metrics such as price, quality, reliability, and HPE usually comes out on top. How has it helped my organization? Our organization itself is in bit of a transition at the moment. So we're moving towards more up-to-date solutions for our infrastructure. Anything that we do to improve reliability and availability of our services is always good from an IT point of view. What needs improvement? We're looking at things like UCS just now and we are looking for what would blend with our UCS deployment. I know that HPE are heavily involved in that, so it's been a lot of consultation and a lot of fun to get all of that to work together. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability is excellent. I've used HPE for best part of 15 years now, including all their data center solutions, and never had any problems. Any problems that do exist are quickly rectified; that's all you need. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability depends on what you buy into. We are scaling out our sales, so it's a bit of legwork to get it done. There are other options to buy into more of a hyper-converged kit, but we haven't yet done that. We're looking at that kind of stuff. How is customer service and technical support? We get our technical support through a third-party. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We are willing to look at anything. Just now, we do have some Dell and some Cisco kit. We tend to go with major suppliers, rather than any bespoke vendors. We certainly don't have any of the kind of model hyper-converged kit, like SimpliVity, or Nutanix. So across the board, it's either HPE or Dell. We went with HPE because their technical support is of a higher grade. You would get more reliability and better support through HPE. I've used them for over 15 years now and all data-server solutions and there have been issues, but they have always been solved quickly. Dealing with HPE as a company is always nice to do. What other advice do I have? In a vendor, good technical support and product reliability are key. If you ask my head of finance, it will be money. Availability, support, reliance, and reliability are absolute. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-01-08T00:00:00-05:00

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