HPE Synergy Reviews

It's a fully integrated solution with OneView. With the new servers and technology, we can have more resources, RAM, and CPU. We are using it primarily for VMware.

Now that we have the new generation, the G10, we have the security. That was one part that was missing. That is going to be important, because we will be running on Generation 9.

The stability so far is good. We did the PoC in February and we are going to get into production in June. We have been running tests and it has been stable. We had some issues in the initial setup, but basically it's what we expect from HPE. We had an issue during the initial setup with the 40 Gigabyte cards. They weren’t working, so we had to work really closely with HPE support to get them to work. It took about two weeks to fix the issue.

Scalability is one of the benefits of using Synergy. We are able to add and grow without any problems.

Technical support went really well. They were excellent in helping us find the solution to the issue. They were eager to get this done and they fixed it correctly. That was good.

The lifespan for the C-class are going to be over in a few years. We are moving all of our production systems for a cycle. We have about 3-4 year cycles of use, and then we are going to the new platform, which is the correct option. We will not to go to the C-class, which is the old option.

The setup was a little bit complex, because it was the first one. It is a new product, so nobody knows it too well. We are kind of learning on the way, but it is OK. It's a new technology, so I think it's normal. It still needs a little bit of ironing out to be completely integrated with OneView. There are still some issues.

It's a new solution, but you are in good hands with HPE support. Use HPE support. They will give you a hand to go through the user experience, setup, and implementation.

Ease of use, manageability, the time given back to the operations staff for managing and applying Synergy are the most valuable features.

It gives more time back to our operations team. It helps us track and report automatically to HPE for any issues.

The composable Synergy infrastructure makes our life easier by having a single-pane-of-glass to go to. There is one place to get alerts, monitor the performance and troubleshoot.

The Synergy API is new for us, but it is something that was common to us. We were familiar with the APIs and working with them, in the past. It is easy for us to use.

IT automation gives back time to the operations staff, making it easier for implementation and deployment.

HPE Synergy software-defined infrastructure simplifies our operations by quickening deployment, quickening roll-out and services to our clinicians and physicians.

Although it is modular, the shared infrastructure is highly available. We know that there are power availability, redundancy network and availability in the redundancy throughout the stack. We're very comfortable with it.

In the future for Synergy, we would like to see SaaS connectivity and sharing of storage between frames.

Stability is great. The system functions in a high-availability mode, so we've done updates and stayed online. It's great for us.

Scalability is good, we've got full frames so we've scaled all of our frames all the way up.

The technical support has been awesome. They have worked with us, we were the first installation in America. They've been great with their support.

Although the platform was new, we made the decision to invest in it because we believe in our partner HPE; they have come through in the past for us, and we have a long, standing relationship with them. We thought that this was just something else, even though it was bleeding edge for us, we decided to do the implementation and partner up with them.

The initial setup was somewhat new, not just to us, i.e., the customer, but also to the implementation team.

Get hands-on experience with HPE OneView. You need to understand Synergy and what your host will need from the connectivity and I/O perspective.

Go for it.

The most valuable features about Synergy is the composability of it. Instead of always having to buying new resources and new pieces of infrastructure to support say, new applications or new projects, you can use Synergy's composability to create the workload that you need to support it. Then, you don't have to keep it forever. Once that project is over, you can reuse those resources, so I think that's probably the biggest, and I think, the most important feature of Synergy is its composability.

The whole point of Synergy is, you're going to have this central management. You're going to have the composer where you can build stuff, and a lot of it's built on OneView. I think they're using the same code, but they've done something different to it to make it easier to use. That means you're managing and you're monitoring your networking, your compute, your storage from it, but not everything works. If you have got Virtual Connect, that can be managed and monitored. You put in a Brocade switch; you can't as there's a limitation. 

Also, the storage, the JBODs. Unless you're using VSA, I think it's tied to the frame that you're in.

Try it and buy it.