HPE ProLiant DL Servers Reviews

Performance and longevity.

It allows us to provide continuity to the business.

I would like to see a single pane of glass, relayed management, and fewer tours.

We try to transfer platforms.

The scalability is very good.

We have used technical support for this solution.

We knew we needed to invest in a new solution through our acquisitions. We used Dell before. We switched because of the HPE platform.

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.

The fact that they are consistent. I don't have to relearn for the 80 sites I support.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I would like more advice about drivers and servers, depending on the application we are using.

Stability is probably the most important feature, especially if you are running a production service. The stability of the solution is really good.

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.

We didn’t use other solutions before. We pretty much use servers from generation 3 and now we are up to generation 8.

I was involved in the setup and it was straightforward. It gives you all the options that you want.

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.

Depending on the applications they use, they should study the technical requirements, such as storage and processing power.

• Manageability
• Ease of maintenance
• Convenience
• Standardization

Ease of management and the low-cost ownership.

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.

It's very stable.

It is scalable. The blade systems are very scalable. We just add blades as close as we need them.

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.

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.

I was involved in the setup and it was straightforward.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward.

I do all of the implementation myself.

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 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."

The stability is pretty good.

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.

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.

Initial setup was relatively straightforward.

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.

I just like the reliability of them. I've never had an issue with them.

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.

Being in Canada, and with exchange-rate fluctuation, it would be good if I could get a better price point.

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.

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.

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.

Just make sure you size it right off the bat. Make sure you know what you want.

They are simple, modular and great machines to work with. They offer the best management interface.

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.

Boot times are relatively slow. Legacy BIOS options are tricky, but discoverable and manageable with experience.

We have been using this solution for around seven years.

There haven’t really been any stability issues, but we have faced server rebooting during high CPU usage periods.

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.

The technical support level is good. The support engineers have the skills needed to troubleshoot the issues.

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.

IMHO, you cannot get a more straightforward initial setup.

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.

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.

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:

1. Find out the compatible processors from the server specifications.
2. Visit Intel‘s web site and carefully compare all the details of the supported processors.
3. 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.