HPE ProLiant DL Servers Reviews

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.

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.

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. 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.

There's never a problem with it. It's always running. The reliability factor's quite high.

It has definitely been stable.

On the 3PAR, you just add devices as needed.

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.

Initial setup was straightforward.

Before choosing this product, I also evaluated Dell and IBM rack servers.

Absolutely HPE. Absolutely happy with it.

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, which might be a good feature of the product, where you can manage it. Instead of the hardware technology, that is it.

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.

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.

We have not experienced any stability problems; 100% stable.

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.

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.

We have been buying HPE rack servers 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.

We also considered Dell rack servers, Lenovo, and Fujitsu. In the end, we chose HPE because of price.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I've been working on the HP server technology for almost three years now.

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.

I did not really encounter any scalability issues! I would say the product is quite stable as far as scalability is concerned.

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.

Server technologies nowadays are expensive. Be it HPE, Dell or EMC. In case of large network deployments, nothing can beat HPE Blade Server Technology (with/without VC technology). It provides simple and efficient configuration and administration.

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.

They've been stable and we have got good performance out of them.

We have standardized our network on this equipment, so it makes it easy for maintenance, repairs and just standardizing our images.

It works well for us, but they should bring the price down.

We haven't had any problems with the newer equipment. As this stuff ages, things happen.

We cluster them so they scale beautifully with the way we do it.

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.

We've used IBM. We got away from IBM just because of the sheer cost for maintenance.

It's very straightforward.

We're strictly HPE at the moment so we haven't looked at anyone else.

I'd encourage them to use it. For the price and the functionality you get out of it, they work out great.

I've been using HP 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.

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 environment, that adds in the uptime, as well.

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.

Reliability was the reason why we've had them for so many years - they've been reliable.

 The pricing has been good on them.

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.

For me, they key things are reliability, and ease of use. Then the pricing's good as well.

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 turnaround for support, and resolving issues.

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.

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.

If we need more, we buy more, and put more in. It's all the whether we have one or five thousand.

Technical support was good.

Primarily, my organization has been a ProLiant job since I've been there. Prior to that, I wasn't in this industry to have alternate experiences.

The Gen8's and previous were pretty easy going. We just received 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.

HPE seemingly always wins the cost-to-benefit ratio for performance.

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.

We like the reliability of the server. We also like the iLO abilities of the server ... that's what my guys like the most.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.