HPE BladeSystem Reviews

I Use this solution for my main production server, we use this for VM-hosts, and connected to HP MSA Storage as VM Data-stores via iSCSI targeting.

This product saved the data center space (only use 10 U Spaces for max 16 servers) and has better performance for the VMware, vCenter, and vMotion.

I really appreciate the integrated Onboard Administrator, the iLO (Integrated Lights-Out) modular network, and the SAN Switches.

This product needs a wider range of firmware compatibility matrix from the oldest to the newest blade server. Because the blade chassis (C7000) has a 16 blade servers bay (slot), it will be better if we can mix the first generation (G1 Blade server) with the latest Gen (G9 Blade server). E.g.: G1 only can be mixed in same chassis with G8 (max), if we have a new G9 blade server, we need to eliminate the old blade server, or if you don’t want to get rid of the old server you should buy another chassis. The new chassis is so expensive.

So, it will be easier for scalability purposes, and a greater value for
a company with a limited budget, if HPE Blade System has a wider compatibility matrix range.

There were no stability issues.

There were scalability issues. If we want to upgrade, the oldest version of the blade server cannot be mixed with the newest one. This is a problem of the firmware compatibility matrix of the on-board administrator.

Customer Service:

The Customer service is great!!! As long you're covered by the warranty or maintenance aggreement. the response time is under 1 hour after you raise a ticket.

Technical Support:

It have great technical support with quick response, if you have maintenance contract with HPE (HP Enterprise)

We used Rackmount, but we switched to this solution because it is integrated and saves space.

The initial setup was straightforward. Just follow the steps in the manual and you’re ready to go.

It's quite expensive for the initial purchase. The chassis itself, with no blade server inside, so expensive. The C7000 model costs around $100,000.

If your company scale is small to mid-enterprise, you could consider the QNAP TDS Series. This can act both as a physical host and hypervisor. There is no need to buy additional VM licenses if you want to create a VM environment.

Or, 

If your company scale need below 16 servers, you should consider the siblings, the c3000 model, it has 8 bays rather than 16 bays, so it won't overkill your budget.

Prepare the budget and be ready to persuade the board of directors as to why you should buy this solution. Don't forget to prepare the data of TCO.

I was using the solution for virtualization. I used it for all Microsoft products, Unix and Linux.

Basically, in a cluster, it works really nicely, especially within a cluster environment. Also, it's easily configurable.

HPE BladeSystem that we are using is currently very old. It's not too good. We haven't renewed it. I would like the solution to have more updates.

The stability can be improved. I have been using HPE technology since 2008. I don't know what the new technologies look like.

In short, I would like to improve the stability, support, and pricing of the solution.

I have been using HPE BladeSystem since 2016.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

The product's scalability is quite significant.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Around 20 users are using HPE in my company.

The solution is extensively used.

I do have plans to increase the usage of the solution.

The support team's knowledge is quite excellent. The response time of the support is not fast.

The setup was straightforward.

It took about a day to deploy the solution.

Speaking about the steps taken while deploying the solution. I would say we're using the normal HPE solutions if I put it like this.

For deployment and maintenance, I need two people who can manage the servers.

We did the implementation of the solution ourselves.

I need to pay for the license, and it is expensive. We make yearly payments.

I did evaluate other options like Dell. I chose HPE since I think it's much easier to use.

It is a reliable product. I would definitely recommend the solution to those planning to use it.

I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten.

Most of our things are low intensity on the compute side. It is just redundancy and backup. We have some legacy apps that are web applications on .NET. They're all Windows servers.

We also have some file servers. When it comes to the file servers, we are getting away from that and moving everything to the cloud. It is mainly going to be used to maintain our legacy infrastructure, and it is mostly going to be for .NET and low-intensity things.

Uptime and service are valuable for us. When we have an issue, uptime and being able to get an emergency replacement or actual service is the most important thing for us.

With iLO and other features, our experience has been really good especially when a lot of people are working remote or offsite. The iLO feature gives us the ability to get onto our server when we're remote. In the case of any issues, we can access it and reboot it if we need to.

I am not sure if iLO is included or if there is a separate license. If it is not included, it should be included in the license. It is such a valuable feature especially because people are working remotely. 

Our company has had HP rack servers for 20 years.

I've only been here for seven years, and it has been really good all these years. For servers, in general, the goal is to be stable. Most of them are redundancy-based, and I don't remember having any issues. We probably had a switch fail once, but we had dual. We just got a replacement and swapped it out. There was just hard drive failure, but that's just the nature of the beast kind of thing.

We haven't done a ton of scalability. So, I don't have any thoughts on that.

In terms of its usage, we're a regulator. We are representing five industries right now. We probably have a couple of thousand people using it on their external site accessing it, but internally, we're a small organization. We only have about 300 employees. Our infrastructure team has three people right now, and we are hiring two more infrastructure people. We're not huge. In theory, one person does pretty much all the maintenance.

I personally haven't interacted with them, but my team's experience has been pretty good. They haven't had any complaints. We've always had one of the top-tier, low-downtime support packages. When things fail, usually, we get a response right away, and if it is a part-related issue, it is handled right away. I have never heard them say anything that would imply that they're not happy with the support. 

We just did a merger, and the organization we merged with has two Lenovo blades that we use. Our boss's boss is a big Lenovo fan, but we don't have a ton of experience. It has been six months of usage.

It is very straightforward. The application configuration is somewhat complex, but we'll be migrating. So, it'll be very straightforward.

We're in the early stages of replacing some of our legacy hardware. Currently, we're primarily HPE, and we do have some Lenovo racks, and they're pretty old. Some of them are approaching six years.

I haven't directly dealt with HPE, but I've heard that HPE has been really good. People didn't have any complaints, but my boss's boss likes Lenovo for some reason. We're doing a general cost analysis and shopping around to see what it is like out there and what other people have experienced. We are looking at solid state because we are currently on mechanical hard drives. 

Ideally, we'd like to keep everything in the same family just to limit complexity and have the same manufacturer. Having two or three manufacturers means extra things to have to look after. We are moving to the cloud as well. We're just trying to make our server room less complex.

We like it for the most part. Support is always key for us personally. Don't lose sight of it, but ideally, it is a set-up-and-forget solution.

I would rate it a nine out of ten because it is always good to have something to strive for.

HPE BladeSystem is used to consolidate the server's footprint.

The most valuable feature of the HPE BladeSystem is the ease of management.

HPE BladeSystem can improve proactive monitoring.

I have been using HPE BladeSystem for approximately 15 years.

HPE BladeSystem is very reliable, it is 100 percent stable.

As our business grows the HPE BladeSystem is scalable.

We have approximately 400 people using the solution in my organization. We plan to increase the usage in the future.

I have contacted HPE several times the HPE BladeSystem, and I was satisfied with the speed and their response.

I have previously used IBM and I was not happy with the solution. However, they no longer have the solution, they sold their portfolio to Lenovo.

The initial setup of the HPE BladeSystem was easy. The time it took for the deployment was approximately two days.

We used support from the vendor for the deployment.

I have seen a return on investment from using the HPE BladeSystem.

When you purchase HPE BladeSystem you have to pay for the support service. The first three years are covered under the warranty, and for any further support, you have to pay annually. When comparing the cost of HPE BladeSystem to other vendors, the fees are less expensive.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate HPE BladeSystem an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for our SQL Server VMware virtualization. We put this on our on SQL Servers and VMware virtualization systems on this product. 

The solution uses a smaller space in our data centers. It uses less feeder and network cable, which reduces costs. Troubleshooting is also easier than other options.

The solution saves us space and resources (like cables).

It's very easy to troubleshoot if we have issues.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

The response time in terms of getting technical support assistance could be improved.

It's a bit expensive. They should work on bringing down the pricing if they can.

We have one older model, we've used for maybe six or seven years. We also have a new one, which is Synergy, we've used for two years.

The solution is stable. There aren't bugs or glitches. It's free of quirks and it doesn't crash or freeze.

The scalability is good. If a company needs to expand it out, they should be able to do so.

Our company has over 5,000 users on this solution.

We will continue to use the solution into the future.

The technical support is okay, I'd rate it seven out of ten overall. Their response times could be faster.

We didn't switch from a different solution. We had older models which we updated. We've always used HPE.

The initial implementation is not complex. It's a pretty straightforward process.

We deployed the solution over 100 servers, and it didn't take too long to deploy.

We have about ten to 20 people managing the solution.

We had a vendor assist us with the implementation.

I don't know the exact cost of licensing, however, it's my understanding that the solution is relatively expensive.

We're simply a customer. We don't have a business relationship with HPE.

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using or if it's the latest.

I'd recommend the solution to other companies.

On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate it at an eight. If the pricing was better and they offered better support, I would rate the solution higher.

Probably the biggest thing I like about it is how easy they are, how easy it is for me to use them as building blocks for whatever system I'm working on. Whether it's another node of VMware cluster or another Microsoft cluster, it's really easy for me to be able to do. I can move them real easy around my data center. They're heavy compute but really easy and functional to use.

For me the benefit is the expandability. I can basically fit 16-blade Chassis inside of a 10U location as opposed to 16 rack mounts would be 32U in my cabinet. It's a lot more power, so I can really shrink my data center down a lot and still provide the same level of complement.

There's a cost saving, as there's a smaller real estate. It's not necessarily less hardware, but it reduces the power and the cooling requirements within the data center and the space is what I need.

They're physically big, about 240 lbs, but it's a minimal issue. I just started to get a BladeSystem that works, and I'd like to to work a little bit more with the ConvergedSystem.

They're not cheap, and for me to buy one is about $75,000 before I put any sort of server inside of it. I'd like the costing to come down a little bit.

We did look at a few others in the past, we haven't in a long time. Obviously we are an HPE shop. We did look at the Dell blades, the IBM blades, even Cisco's UCS system as well for a while, so we did actually do the proper comparisons across everything.

We chose HPE as everyone already knew the systems, knew how they worked. Ultimately, going through the other systems, HPE was the easiest one to go in and just start setting up and configuring right away out of the gate.

Part of it is really going to depend on what your use case for it is. If it's just running general server pools, then you get in there really fast, get it set up, run it using OneView obviously, which makes life a lot easier, because then you've got a single pane of glass to manage all your environments. That's the big reason I would use it.

We use the solution for virtualizing databases and servers.

The solution uses less cabling and less space in the data center.

The price of the solution has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

I give the stability a ten out of ten.

I give the scalability a nine out of ten.

We have around ten administrators using the solution in our organization.

We previously used the base system of HPE BladeSystem 1C7.

The initial setup is easy and can be completed within two days.

The implementation was completed in-house with the help of an HPE partner.

The licensing is on an annual basis.

I give the solution an eight out of ten. There are better solutions available in the market.

We are using HPE BladeSystem for commercial usage.

The most valuable feature of HPE BladeSystem is its upgradability and centralized configuration.

I have been using HPE BladeSystem for several years.

The solution is stable.

I rate the stability of HPE BladeSystem a nine out of ten.

I rate the scalability of HPE BladeSystem a nine out of ten.

I have previously used Dell and Cisco UCS.

The initial setup of HPE BladeSystem is not complex. The deployment is typically dome done within one day, a maximum of two days if it includes the OS or virtualization.

I rate the initial setup of HPE BladeSystem a nine out of ten.

We have a team that does the implementation of the solution.

The price of HPE BladeSystem could improve. They need to reduce the price to be able to compete better with other vendors, such as Dell.

Cisco UCS is the worst for pricing, then Dell, and HPE.

I rate the price of HPE BladeSystem a seven out of ten.

The maintenance of the solution can be done by one person.

I rate HPE BladeSystem a nine out of ten.