HPE ProLiant DL Servers Reviews

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.

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.

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.

Stability is excellent. It doesn't break.

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.

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.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

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.

Work with HP to pilot before you go buy it.

We value the reliability of these servers.

These servers have provided good scale and performance for our environment.

• 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.

We have used this solution for over three years.

We have not encountered any stability issues. These servers have been pretty stable over the years with only one or two minor firmware issues.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We are system integrators in a fiber optics company. We use this solution mainly as high computational devices, but also we use it as a storage device.

The deployment is data center-based.

This solution is perfect. From the time of purchase, it was state-of-the-art, and still, after five, 10 years, they still meet our demands extremely well.

It is easy to use and it also has good performance.

The latest generation has made good improvements in power consumption. G6, and G7, which is approximately 10-year-old technology, have some issues with power consumption.

The installation could be simplified.

I would also like to pay less for the out-of-the-box product, but everything else is okay.

I have been working with HPE ProLiant DL Servers for ten years.

We are using generations six to nine. G6, G7, G8, and G9.

The stability of this product is very good.

We deployed it in our network, and our network is the backbone of the company. Through our backbone, we serve millions of end users, but indirect users are internet service providers that use our services, which is approximately 50.

I have never contacted technical support because everything worked perfectly.

The installation is reasonably complex.

The length of time it takes to deploy depends on the software that we are installing, but it can take a couple of days, approximately.

We have two engineers and one technician to maintain it.

We had the help of a system integrator.

The iLO (integrated lights out) license is very expensive, but the functionality you receive is worth it.

We are fully satisfied with this solution and I recommend it for others who are interested in using it.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate HPE ProLiant DL Servers a 10 out of 10.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For us, we use the DLs 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.

I'm not a fan of their rails. I hate how those things rack, as they're just not nice.

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.

The cost per compute. I pay as much for a ProLiant DL as I do for a Blade. 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.

We haven't looked at competitors in a very long time for those. We basically have stuck with HPE. It's a known name, so I don't want to give my customers something that might work, I want something that will work.

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.

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.

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.

This server is separate from the next one and I'd like it to be integrated so it becomes all-in-one.

It's very stable.

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.

It was very easy.

I had HPE do it.

Look at the Hyper Converged as everything's going to virtual, so look at the ProLiant in a Hyper Converged space.

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.

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.

We honestly don’t have any problems. It’s a well-built machine, and there are no problems with the servers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Very easy. It’s always an easy thing for us to install, as our staff has good knowledge.

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.

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.