HPE Synergy Reviews

• Composable infrastructure
• Ability to easily re-utilize parts of the hardware for different purposes
• Central management with HPE OneView
• Ability to see the health status of the entire infrastructure
• Ability to quickly and easily deploy changes and see that they are successful
• Simplify management of platforms

• Peace of mind.
• Knowing that our platforms are running well, simplifying day-to-day management, so that we can do more with less staff and increase performance.
• The increased scale of the back-end networking and the compute that we can deliver through it.
• A single, unified infrastructure that can be optimized and makes our life easier by allowing us to be more nimble in the way that we deploy our platforms. If people are looking for a particular type of hypervisor or a particular workload platform, we can very quickly and easily change the way that our platforms are configured to meet those requirements without delay or hassle.
• In terms of programmatic interface of the solution, I got to play around with it in one of the labs. It seems to be very feature rich and it is something that we'll certainly be looking into.
• This automation will make our IT more efficient. It will mean that we can be sure that configurations are deployed correctly. It will take out a lot of the risk of people typing in the wrong information, or setting things up incorrectly. From a quality control point of view, it certainly will help us.
• Software-defined infrastructure simplifies our operations, as it is nimble. We will be able to quickly and easily change how we use our infrastructure to meet our customers' changing demands.
• We value a modular infrastructure with shared power as our infrastructure is in data centers. Being able to just walk in there or see a piece of equipment and get it installed without having to go through the rigors of cabling and configuration makes it so much simpler as we grow. We're a growing business, and we are deploying new hardware regularly. Simplifying that whole process is good from a resource point of view. If it's simple, it means that we don't have to go through lengthy contracts to get engineers to do all the hard work.
• Automated life-cycle management of firmware drivers makes our IT operations simpler. It means that we can be sure that our firmware is up-to-date across our platform. It means we can very quickly and easily identify areas where we need to focus. It also means that we can report on a regular basis, rather than it being a special task that somebody does manually. Traditionally as the server pool grows, it becomes harder and harder to manage, but Synergy makes that easy.

We'd like to see faster networking in the back-end. I'm not saying it's slow at the moment, but we would just like more speed from a future-proofing point of view. We are seeing 25 Gig capability in our switch fabric so extending that to Synergy compute nodes makes sense. I guess it is a natural progression that is coming to the Synergy platform as well.

Our Synergy platform has been in place since April 2017.

The system operates well and allows changes to be made with confidence. We have been through a OneView version upgrade and the deployment of firmware into the Virtual Connect components and the Servers without any downtime. This is the way it should be!

Scalability is perfect. It has plenty of network capacity and plenty of space for adding more service as we grow.

We used HPE for the startup. During the initial deployment, we did have technical people on staff and we did a lot on our own. We were happy with the support that we received from HPE.

I was involved in the initial setup, from a guidance point of view. I worked with the HPE engineers who did the original deployment and then on a day-to-day basis, just setting up the final bits and pieces. We added things as we went along. It was lengthy and I think we had a reasonably unique deployment, which took a bit of “to and fro” to get the completed solution in place. There are enough differences between Synergy and the old c7000 platform that you do need to put effort into your design. HPE helped with that process and we have ended up with a well implemented solution because of that.

We have looked at other vendors from time to time, but we have been an HPE shop for the last six years.

The architecture was part of our decision to invest in a full venture.

We consider performance and reliability to be the two main factors in choosing a vendor. In Synergy, we saw both of those, performance and reliability, being delivered.

For us, it's all about up-time and a good performance experience for our customers and Synergy helps us do that.

We knew that we needed to invest in this solution, because it was just the next step. We started with DL servers and we moved to the c7000 Blade Infrastructure. Synergy just seems to be the next logical step up. We haven't seen anything else in the market that competes with this kind of product.

When looking for a vendor, we look for support. We want to know that we can call somebody and get support when we need it. We want to know that the parts are available if there is an issue. If there is a configuration problem, we know that HPE will fix it.

Make sure you get a good plan in place. Think about your networking and your storage, so you can get it all configured as one. Use HPE's technical resources to make sure that all of the components are certified to work together.

In the data center, you see customers with a lot of blade enclosures and a lot of servers, and this solution works fine.

I have one customer in Belgium that I know that is testing it, and they're quite happy about it. There are some challenges, but it is software. For software, you have developers.

The hardware is there.

With the changing IT demands, they need to change more often and faster. We need applications to model tomorrow’s needs. We need more applications for changing users. There is a need for a more optimized infrastructure.

For instance, I have a customer with 20 blade enclosures. In those 20 blade enclosures, there are 40 management modules that you need to update and manage.

In troubleshooting, you have to determine if the issue is in one, two, or in all 20 modules. The diagnosis is harder.

With Synergy, we only have two management modules instead of 40. It's an efficiency thing that needs to be improved.

We'll see what will come next. We will probably see other types of enclosures, smaller or larger ones, and more options on the storage and networking side. This is the typical evolution of IT to go to more and faster.

Synergy is new, but the advantage is that technically, it's a ProLiant server, so it is stable. Proven technology with a lot of new features.

HPE has proven track records worldwide delivering superb support on hard- and software. This is the same for Synergy.

One of my things I do in my company is write technology blog which is quite technical for the type of audience that I have.

I don't have a Synergy enclosure yet in my home lab, a.k.a., data center in my garage, but I'm quite sure that it is simple enough that my nine-year old daughter could install it.

In my pre-sales role, I see other customers looking at competitive solutions, be it Intel, EMC, or Nutanix. They all have some strengths.

The Nutanix solution is cool, because it's simple. But it's software and I'm not convinced about any of the hardware underneath it. Some people say, "Yeah, the hardware's not important." However, I have some real-life scenarios, cases with customers, in which it was proven that they had the software, they had the hardware, but they had a hardware issue and the software screwed up.

I prefer to go for the HPE solution. This is not because Nutanix is bad, but they are just a software company, independent of the hardware. I feel more confident with HPE because I know they build the hardware and the software. If I have a problem, I can contact one person with one phone number and I can make contact. I know the hardware guy and I know the software guy.

With Nutanix, for instance, this is not the case. They also say, "we have one phone number," but if they have a problem with the rate controller in their server, they have to call Dell or Lenovo. They have to escalate the case. They are not going to be able to solve my problem. They are going to escalate it.

I'm with HPE. I know that HPE will solve my problem directly.

It increases the throughput. We had a problem with the C7000 with the down-link speed to the individual blades and what the up-link speeds were. Memory was kind of a constraint problem for us.

Changing the form factor in Synergy allows us to have more RAM, which is significantly helpful for us.

One of the bigger changes is in that larger form size, we can get more things in the individual blades. We can also deal with higher thermals on the CPUs, which are all kind of significant.

We're still testing the storage device to see exactly if that's going to be useful for us or not.

The idea of taking 3PAR and directly attaching it could be compelling for us. We just have a few more things that we need to test out to see if they got fixed from the beta process.

It's mainly the fact that it gives us the next generation of the C7000, which we've been using since 2009. That gets us in that same useful pattern. The concept of virtual connect, OneView, is compelling. It extends our existing operational knowledge and gives us a longer run life with that kind of pattern. It still solves my issue with cabling and power in the data centers. It is using newer technologies which solve the issues we had with the C7000s.

One of the things that I would like to see, and could be in their road map, is getting virtual connect to 100 Gig throughput.

What they're coming out with initially on the road map is a 40 Gig up-link on virtual connect. That would be one of the things that we'd like. Other things that would be useful for us would be adding an AMD CPU to their product line in the 2018 time-frame.

We are currently testing stability. The beta system had some issues. They were supposed to fix them as they came up in production and we'll confirm that when we get to it.

In terms of scalability, we're happy with it in general. We look forward to what we can do with it. We believe that it should be able to replace what we've been doing with the C7000s. It mechanically would reduce the number of C7000s that we'd be running. Because we're growing, we still need to add enclosures.

We have used HPE technical support for this solution in the beta process. We were heavily tied into that. They were great. Some of the bugs that they fixed led us to another bug. But when talking to the product manager, everything that we identified as a bug has now been fixed in the GA product. We'll just confirm this later.

Before Synergy, we were using C7000s. We knew that the road map of that new technology coming in the C7000 was coming to an end.

If you're going to buy that new capacity and you're not going to fully populate the enclosures, then you need to move off C7000 and go to Synergy.

When selecting a vendor, I look for operational stability. One of the things that drove us to stay on HPE, as opposed to Cisco UCS, was the fact that UCS basically stops at the hyper-visor. HPE actually goes all the way up to the OS and beyond. If you have an issue with SQL, you can get help from HPE. You can't really get help from Cisco.

The initial setup, because it was still in beta, was complex. We discovered several bugs in the networking and bugs in the way some of the iLO functions worked. We were one of the more prolific groups in the beta program. Those issues should be fixed and we'll confirm that later.

Think about where you want to be in five years and choose the products in the Synergy family that will help you get to that point. You have a lot of options and if you just buy what is cost effective today, you may find yourself in trouble five years from now.

It is flexible. You can build, construct, and deconstruct your workload via software and through programming.

It increases efficiency and gives more time for IT personnel to do their work. You build it once and use it forever, or modify it slightly.

It saves time to design, install, and manage workloads.

The interface seems pretty wide and flexible.

You can use any programming language or enterprise interface like Puppet or Chef. It is really agnostic in terms of the virtualization, so it is very flexible.

Our IT department will be more efficient in terms of faster time to market, and being able to respond to businesses faster than before.

The software design infrastructure makes it open to the API to enterprise products such as Chef, Puppet, Ansible, and Docker. As I mentioned before, the ability to support other hardware other than HPE will make it a more universal product.

The modular infrastructure is part of the converge system for scalability. If all of us are sharing the infrastructure, then discovery happens automatically. It increases the efficiency of the IT department. The dream of any IT staff member is to no longer worry about firmware. That's one of the high level high points, in that it is all embedded in the templates. You don't need to worry about firmware, as it is part of the workload.

I would like to see support for other vendors’ hardware.

It is still too early to tell, but so far, stability has been good.

Scalability seems very promising, due to the architecture. We only have one frame, but from what I understand having gone through a lot of training, it seems like it's going be a good, scalable product.

We haven’t used technical support yet

We knew that we needed to invest in this solution, because of way the industry is going. You need to transform development in your IT departments. They need fast solutions. They need new development. They need a way where they can get their code and their workload to work fast.

Previous to this, our customers put in the OS and middle-ware to get the application running. With this solution, all of this can be imaged once, streamed to the hardware, and it's done in minutes instead of spending days or weeks on it.

When choosing a vendor, I look for the reliability of the technology. I look for openness of the solution and finding out who has worked with the vendor in the past, to bring in new recommendations from customers.

The initial setup was straightforward.

I have not evaluated other vendors. For me, HPE is in my DNA.

I would highly recommend learning and reading about it. They should ask for the vendor to come and explain it, or I can explain it, as I am certified to do that. In today's world, there isn't a better solution to create a private cloud for them. Getting this solution is a no brainer.

It is flexible and composable hardware. You can really buy the stuff you need. If you want more storage, you can put in more storage. If you want more server capacity, then you can add more CPUs of memory.

It is kind of a new solution. We are using it now during our testing and development environment, so we can make it ready for production later. The idea is to buy them when we purchase new servers for the production environment in Q2 or Q3.

• The newer and faster Intel line of CPUs that are coming in GEN 10
• The software

OneView software is quite new and that will cause some improvements. Once we have it completely set up with the automation part, it will certainly help us in getting towards our vision.

At this moment, stability is still good. HPE support helped us with the implementations, because we were the first customer in Europe who bought one of these. They were really helpful in getting us running.

Scalability is one of the main advantages. You can scale the different areas, like storage, compute, and memory, to your needs.

Technical support is very good. For HPE, this is also a new product. Not every field engineer has been certified, so sometimes they came with three people to look at it on our site.

I already knew for a couple of years that we needed to invest in this solution. We've been using the blade systems, the C7000s, for 10 years already. We knew at certain point that this model was going to be replaced eventually.

The initial setup was quite complex and it is being done by the HPE support department. It is not yet ready for customers to do themselves. In the end, it will be more straightforward. You will be able, at a later time, to automate and script it, so that eventually when you connect a new device, you will be able to have it automatically installed.

We evaluated Huawei, the Chinese company. When we select a vendor, we want one who can support and also deliver in all countries in the world where we do business. We don't want to have a vendor that can only deliver in Germany, for example. HPE can deliver in the USA, in Europe, and in Asia. That's important to us. We define standards in our headquarters. These are standard building blocks. We want to buy those in all of our data centers, all over the world: in Asia, in India, in China, and in the USA. That's important for us.

I would advise getting in touch with a HPE account manager. I think doing direct business with a vendor is the best way of getting the right information. From what we've seen, it is better than working via re-sellers or partners, who are often smaller and only work in one country. It's better to deal directly with the vendor, which is usually the case with large companies. If you are a small company, you may have to go via a re-seller or partner. It depends on the size of your company.

The density and the flexibility that it provides are the most valuable features. In the C7000, there was a memory density issue per-blade that was solved in Synergy's platform. On top of that, I value the composability of it. In other words, being able to create hyper-converged systems within the frame, rather than having to resort to rack mounts.

A great benefit is being able to create different solutions that aren't available in the traditional C7000 platform.

It's a lot more about some of the speeds and feeds, such as the 25, 50, 100 GB virtual connections. In addition, I would like to see improvement in the 32 GB fiber channel connection at the end of it.

We have no issues with stability.

I have not used technical support.

It's just one of those products that as a partner, we have always tried to stay on top of. Previously, we had the C7000, plus other competing products, in our lab.

When selecting a vendor, I look at how well things integrate together, as well as the ease of management.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

We didn’t look at any competitor’s solutions.

Look at the flexibility of the platform, as far as being able to have that storage drive to be able to do hyper-converge. It should not block your architecture. As you scale it out, you don’t have choke points on the network side, like you do in other platforms.

It provides VMs quickly and gives me the facility to create backups.

The rapid provisioning of VMs is the best improvement.

I would like to see better integration with other products.

It is stable. It protects against crashes.

We did not try to scale the solution.

Technical support is good.

We did not use a product previous to this one. When selecting a vendor, I look for innovation and support.

I was involved in the setup and it was easy.

We evaluated Dell and Lenovo. We chose HPE because Synergy is innovate in the way that it delivers its services and I think that is very interesting.

Check all the best practices about the configuration and the connection to the network. I would give that special attention.

Improved storage, scalability, and ease-of-use. It is a lot packed into a small chassis/frame.

• It has reduced a lot of our infrastructure down to a few systems. This is opposed to larger, two and four use systems. It's knocked us down to a few frames and made it a lot easier to use.
• A single unified infrastructure that can be optimized for all workloads via software makes our life easier. It reduced man hours, because we only have four people running the shop. The less time I have to spend on it, the more time I can spend in other areas.
• The programmatic interface of the synergy API was clean, simple, and intuitive. This automation will make IT more efficient, as I will spend less time in front of the wheel.
• The software defined infrastructure simplifies our operations, in that I can get more things done and pushed out to customers faster.
• The automated life cycle management affirms where our drivers make their IT operations simpler. It's all in one place. You've got the firmware and the software that all comes down in one spot. You just apply it from there.
• The architecture eco-system system was part of our decision to invest in it for the future. It took some doing. It took a buy-in from everyone through management. Given its price point, it took a lot more than that. It was an infrastructure change for us. We value a modular infrastructure with shared power and Googling with an integrated search engine. We end up with one single system to do everything. It's just easier to manage, as opposed to 20 servers where you've got to change out supplies, memory, and everything else. You've got to maintain all that. Now, it is just one unit.

Firmware. I'd get the firmware to be a little more secure and a little more streamlined.

So far, the stability is good and it's running fine. I can't complain.

Scalability is good. I can take it and move it between two data centers, have one in each data center, and move things back and forth. That's mostly a function of the OS, but the hardware, being as robust as it is, works well.

When I get to a human being, technical support is great. Up until then, it's a big challenge. They want to try to do a little bit by email, which drives me out of my mind, honestly.

We didn’t use a previous solution. We are an HPE shop. We knew that we needed to invest in this solution because it was cool. The scalability is what did it for us. The next level progression was to go from the C7000 chassis. It just linked itself to the infrastructure that we're going to.

When selecting a vendor, we look at support and cost point.

The installation was very straightforward.

Take the time to go through it. Put your hands on it, at somebody else's lab if you can. See if you can get a demo unit. Plug it in and try it.