HPE Synergy Reviews

It's a little bit more complex than Blade Enclosure. It's like any virtual environment, probably. If you have virtualization on the top of the Synergy Frame, it works well.

I didn't see a lot of valuable features with Synergy. The Blade Enclosure was easier to use. They have complicated things with Synergy. The only good thing is that they have some powerful machines that you can use, such as the latest generations of HPE Compute that you can use. That's the only advantage.

It's a pretty complex solution.

The continuous update of the firmware and the patch updates and security updates for the hardware make it continuously complex. It all comes back to complexity. I don't have any other concerns. It's all about how complex the component is.

I've been using the solution for a couple of years.

There is no problem with the scalability. We haven't had issues. It can scale as needed. 

The HPE tech support is okay. It's only that you need to push them a bit so that you can get the right person. Sometimes they just give you someone that really is learning with you, which is not good. However, if you push it a little bit, then you get the right person.

We're customers and end-users.

We are an HPE shop in terms of blade technology. In terms of the computer, we are an HPE shop. So, we are with the Blade Enclosure and with the Synergy Frame. We use both.

We're just using HPE OneView with the Blade Enclosure and with the Synergy Frame. We are a very small shop. We are moving mainly to the cloud. So, everything we do is more in the cloud. On-prem we are a very small shop.

If you are okay to keep going with the Blade Enclosure (as the Blade Enclosure is not going to expire for quite a while) I would advise a user to compare a few other things before going with Synergy. For me, it wasn't a good experience.

I'd rate the solution a six out of ten.

It's an HCI solution. I've also used it for on-prem and GreenLake solutions for consumption model requirements.

It's typically for enterprise solutions that are multi-data centers and multi-sites. There are several Synergy frames.

The hyper-converged infrastructure where everything is stateless is valuable. Basically, you have your compute storage and networking management.

Gen 11 is being released. That's going to have a lot of advantages over Gen 10 and previous generations in terms of the cooling modules in the servers to keep them cooler and run with more efficiency and better performance. There are more management features with iLO 6 and the latest OneView management.

In terms of additional features, I've been requesting SimpliVity to be running on a compute module versus a 1U and 2U.

I've been using it since the C7000 in 2019. 

We've seen an ROI.

It's easier to consolidate standard tier-three infrastructure into an HCI solution.

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten.

The insert RAM feature is the most valuable. It is a simple software to integrate with others like service desk applications and engine management.

In terms of additional features, there is nothing that I would add. However, the pricing can be improved as it is a costly solution due to sanctions in Iran. When we buy an HP service or system, we need a company in China to purchase it and send it to Iran. This gets very expensive as it takes time to complete this, and by the time we receive the product, the HP or Cisco company says it's the end of the sale, and there is a new version. The limitations and sanctions are very harmful to Iranian IT specialists.

We have been using this solution for five years. It is deployed on a hybrid cloud.

There are limitations to the technical support due to the sanctions in Iran.

I rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for VM virtualization and Oracle standardization.

The virtualization is very good.

We find it quite useful for the Oracle Database.

The solution is stable.

We've found the scalability to be reasonable if you are ready to invest in it.

Technical support is excellent.

The connectivity needs to be improved. The compatibility with old infrastructure and networking should be better than what it is now. The networking part is very complex. It should be simplified.

The setup was a bit complex.

They need to make it easier for firmware upgrades. The virtual connection is very complex and they need to make it easier. 

The storage configuration should be improved. When we are connecting the 3PAR storage to Synergy, I have to manually add the values again when what should be happening is, when I'm connecting, when I'm assigning, the storage should be automatically allocated.

I've been using the solution for three years. 

The product offers good stability. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very reliable and the performance is good.

I have had some issues regarding scalability. It's scalable, however, the thing is we need to purchase hardware. You need to be ready for an investment when scaling.

Technical support has been great. We're quite satisfied with the level of support we get. The assistance they offer is perfect.

We found the initial setup to be a bit complex. It wasn't exactly straightforward and simple. It would be ideal if they could simplify the process in the future to make it easier.

The deployment took about one business day.

We're just a customer and an end-user.

We are using the HPE Synergy Composable Solution.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

It's useful for virtualization, and we run all our applications in HPE Synergy.

I like that it's suitable for virtualization. It's also stable and scalable. The newer version has a lot of memory, and you don't have to worry about updates.

The performance could be better. The converged network cards initially didn't work. However, later on in the newer version, they came up with 50 GB network cards to replace the 20 GB ones, and it's perfectly fine now. At times, it could also be more stable.

I have been using HPE Synergy since 2018.

HPE Synergy is stable.

HPE Synergy is a scalable composable infrastructure. We have 12 networks and about 1,500 users on the networks.

I have contacted technical support whenever it was required.

The initial setup was very easy. I installed and deployed this solution within a day. We have one engineer managing and maintaining this solution.

I implemented this solution by myself.

We don't have to pay for Synergy because it's part of our plan.

I evaluated a lot of options like Dell, Nutanix, and more before choosing HPE Synergy.

I would recommend this solution to potential users.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give HPE Synergy a ten.

The stability of the solution is very reliable. 

The solution can scale up if a company needs it to.

The initial setup is very easy and quite straightforward.

I've found the user experience to not be that great. It's something that they could really improve on. They need to make it more user-friendly.

The profiles aren't so easy to work with.

We find the agility to be lacking.  

I've been using the solution for the past few years. I've used it for a while and have some time to get to know the product. 

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It does not crash or freeze. It's reliable. The performance is great.

The solution scales very well. If a company can expand it, it can do so. 

Few people are using it now. Previously, we had many more users. Right now, we may have a few hundred users. 

We've never used technical support. We've never really had a need to reach out to the technical team. Therefore, I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are.

I also have experience working on Cisco products. While HPE is a good solution, I do find Cisco to be a bit better.

The initial setup is very simple and straightforward. It's not complex or overly difficult. A company shouldn't have any issues.

I'm a customer and an end-user. I don't have a business relationship with HPE.

My understanding is that we are on the latest version of the solution at this time. I can't speak to the exact version number.

I would advise if you need to choose between this solution and Cisco, that Cisco might be a better option. 

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

We have built our on-premises private cloud on top of HPE Synergy connected to 3PAR SAN storage. Our cloud was built above Hyper-V hypervisor, and that's the computing node of it.

For me, this is the best frame server technology available in the market. We can compare it to Cisco UCS. 

It is robust and stable, and it is also easy to deploy and scale. Their support is the best.

ICMs could be better in this model. When you look at its competitors, the most critical point is the throughput. HPE is the best with the ICM module, which is an interconnect module that connects the servers of the frames to the LAN and SAN. 

HPE Synergy should also support the latest processors provided by Intel.

I have been using this solution for three to four years.

It is very stable.

We didn't run it on a massive scale. We have 60 computing nodes on an eight-blades enclosure. We didn't face any issue so far.

I am not sure about the number of users, but in terms of frames, it is 200K or 200,000. We are happy with this solution. When we need more computing nodes, we will add them as HPE Synergy.

Their support is one of the best ones currently available.

Its initial setup is very easy.

We are satisfied with its price. 

My experience with them is on-premises, and it has been an outstanding experience. We are happy with HPE Synergy, and we will keep on using it. 

I would rate HPE Synergy an eight out of ten.

Virtualization is our primary use case.

The deployment time has been decreased a lot. There are fewer things to configure and that increases productivity and provides time to work on different things. Fewer resources are required and it requires less of my time. 

In terms of the productivity of our deployment team, the amount of time has been decreased a lot. In the past, to deploy one c7000 chassis with 15 or 16 blades, we literally used to spend two to three weeks. But with a Synergy, it's very quick. Within three days we can do the deployment.

Because we are bringing in and deploying things very quickly, we can go to the business and give them solutions pretty quickly. It helps us to implement new business requirements quickly.

Moreover, the number of support issues with this particular Synergy environment is way less than with c7000 so I'm very happy with that. I'm not opening as many support tickets as with the c7000. That's where it's great for our whole team.

With the decrease in support issues, there has been a decrease in our cost of operations.

The ease of deployment is the first thing that comes to mind.

I would definitely like to see them fix the firmware updates on all the blades. No matter what operating system it is running on, make sure I can do the firmware as well as the software for those firmware components at the same time. I don't want to have to rely on an external product. Let's bring that product inside the menu so that I have a better experience with updates. Firmware is a very big thing.

I would also like them to bring management of all the Synergy equipment into a single management interface, no matter where they're located.

2 years

No major outages. We have had a few small issues here and there but that's about it.

We are hitting our third Synergy rack and we are buying the fourth. You can go well with it until seven. After seven, you probably need to put another management ring in there. Other than that, it can scale and work exceptionally well.

We have gotten some very good technical support from a few guys. I even have their names. Whenever we call them, we generally get support from those two or three guys and we are happy with them.

We knew we needed to invest in a new solution because of business requirements. When the business feels that we are a little bit late or declining, that's when we need to look into different solutions and price.

The initial setup is straightforward. I worked on it a lot for one year. Synergy is a little bit different, but I got enough training initially. In addition, HPE deployment guys were there for the initial setup. Later I did it myself.

We did it for ourselves.

ROI has been pretty good, although we're still investing a lot.

We also shortlisted Cisco and Dell. We went with HPE because we are pretty comfortable with it. The price was also competitive enough to beat them.

Look into Synergy. It's a pretty decent a product at the enterprise scale. It has all the capabilities. 

The biggest lesson we've learned from using this solution is that the product is really good. When we see the next iteration of the product, and that the company does a very good job of fixing issues, we really like it. That's what happened when we upgraded from c7000 to Synergy.

I would give the product about an eight out of ten. The product is pretty rock-solid. There are small issues here and there. But it has helped me to decrease my deployment time, and the number of support calls and time spent on support have been decreased a lot compared to c7000 and the issues that we were seeing with that. That's why I like it.