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.

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.

I'm a system integrator and service delivery manager dealing with strategy. We are an HPE partner company. 

The interfusion and administration are great features that all HPE products have. I also like the flexibility including configuring the interconnects on the use of the chassis.

I find the product documentation to be disorganized; it's not intuitive and the info required for checking a specific step-by-step configuration is buried under too much literature. This could be a more robust solution with an effective internal storage portfolio for the servers. If they were to provide an end-to-end NDM product, that would be much better.

I've been using this solution for over a year. 

The solution is quite stable. 

The solution is scalable for our customers' requirements. 

In general, the technical support is pretty good but it's not the best here in India. There is a lack of knowledge, especially in the storage area. We had implementations that required some workarounds and support wasn't able to help because they were working with a specific scripted plan and didn't have enough information to deal with all aspects of the deployment. 

The initial setup is very easy and straightforward. 

Our customers are generally medium to enterprise size clients and mainly in the banking sector. HPE is currently running neck and neck with Dell but if I had to make a choice, I'd recommend HPE. If all your requirements are well-defined, pre-deployment and implementation is easy.

I rate it nine 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.

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 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.

We primarily use the solution in order to deploy an on-prem client.

The most valuable feature within the solution is the main management offering. They call it the GreenLake offering. It's the OPEX model. They manage that for the client.

The stability is very good so far. The performance has been reliable.

The solution is easily scalable. You can expand it if you want to.

If you have the right team in place, the initial setup is pretty straightforward.

Technical support is excellent. They are very helpful.

They're way ahead of the game. The software-defined fabric they have is very good.

They actually have a different offering with Nutanix. That's more generic. The Synergy platform is HPE-specific and more for on-premises. You're kind of locked in with VMware and the HPE with the VMs. The Nutanix offering is a bit more flexible.

I've been using the solution for about a year and a half. That was when it was installed by a client. It hasn't been too long.

We have the stability to be reliable. The performance is good. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is extremely scalable. It's one of the highlights of the product for us. If a company needs to expand, it can do so with ease.

It's a data center offering. Whatever applications are installed on there, and, in our case, there are hundreds of applications installed, services all the users.

We have been in touch with their technical support and they assisted us in the implementation process. Their assistance is top-of-the-line. The team is helpful and responsive. We're quite satisfied with the level of support provided.

I have experience with Nutanix. I would say with Nutanix, the sky's the limit there. It's very comprehensive and it integrates with all the clouds - and you have the on-prem as well if you need it.

The initial setup isn't too complex. It's straightforward. With the team we had, it was fairly easy. We also had assistance from HPE throughout the process, and having their insights were helpful.

In general, the maintenance is handled by HPE. We don't have to worry about it.

HPE was there all along the way. It was very good. They're very good to work with.

I can't discuss the exact amount of money we pay for licensing. The amount is confidential.

It's my understanding that the deal we arrived at was very competitive.

We are consultants. HPE is simply a service provider for us.

I don't recall which version of the solution we are using.

I would advise others considering the solution to consider the Nutanix HPE with the GreenLake as an alternate. There is just a little bit more flexibility in a product like Nutanix, although they are all good.

I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.