HPE BladeSystem Reviews

This solution is for medium to enterprise-size organizations. I'm the IT manager of our company and we are customers and users of HPE BladeSystem.

Modularity is key to this solution. It's the main feature and it provides energy savings because you have one enclosure, and one system for the energy and power supply. In terms of connectivity, Blade is more versatile than other solutions because of its three-tier architecture. I know the new trend is HCI technology, but that requires changing the whole node which increases the cost. On the SAN storage, I don't have to change anything on Blade. If I need to change the memory, I can do it blade by blade, and don't have to upgrade the whole node of the plate.

The connectivity speed could be improved. It's the major thing everyone looks for. When you upgrade your system, you want connectivity at the highest speed possible. 

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

Stability is great and it's a reliable solution. We haven't had a single serious incident and only a couple of minor issues. It's one of the reasons it's an expensive solution. Competitors would not be able to compete. 

I believe BladeSystem is more scalable than HCI. If I want to add more storage or more memory on HCI, I have to add additional notes. With Blade, if I need extra storage, it's just a matter of additional discs. 

HP are the best on tech support. I really appreciate that they never leave you in the dark. They always track your case and can be very proactive, sometimes telling me if I have a storage problem. If there's a power shortage or power fluctuation, they let me know. 

Positive

I previously worked with Dell and with IBM. Both are now good companies, especially when they merge their technology with EMC. I don't have recent experience with either of them. I think they've improved a lot over recent years and are probably at the same level as HPE.

When we initially deployed BladeSystem, it was a little complicated but once you're set up you don't need to think about it. The main difference between the HCI and Blade is that HCI is easier when it comes to setup.

HPE is not the cheapest solution but if you want to buy a Rolls Royce, it costs. They are the most expensive product on the market. It's been 10 years since we implemented it, so I don't remember the licensing cost. 

My advice is to grow slowly, but plan for your growth. Don't get an enclosure that won't have expandability and don't go to a cheaper all-in-one model because you might get stuck with it for four or five years. You have to make sure that your system is expandable and that you can grow with it.

Overall, I rate this solution nine out of 10.

HPE BladeSystem can improve by providing the latest generation processor engine, such as the I-Flex processor.

I have been using HPE BladeSystem for approximately 20 to 25 years.

I have found the HPE BladeSystem can be stable most of the time. 

I can see the BladeSystem is having some hardware failure issues. I can see this happening frequently in one of the customers. If they can increase all the bandwidth on the internal network backbone, they should increase it to 100 GPPS. Additionally, The HPE BladeSystem has internal storage, but we cannot populate it as shared storage across the load. If we can provide the local storage as shared storage across the load, that would help the customers.

HPE BladeSystem is a scalable solution. It is a composable infrastructure which we can manage our external services. This is the one factor which I can see the server is much more suitable for the OneView console.

HPE BladeSystem provides excellent technical support from their team.

The initial setup of the HPE BladeSystem is complex with the OneView console.  You can see a lot of tabs and a lot of settings. The configuration could be more user-friendly in OneView, which will be helpful for the customer to manage all the testing.

HPE BladeSystem does not require a lot of maintenance, because all the components are specific and the costs are less.

The licenses for HPE BladeSystem are perpetual.

My advice is if a customer is looking for a less-density server, HPE BladeSystem is a highly suitable solution. If you install or if you require the 12 servers in the rack, it will take the 12 to 15 space in the rack. Additionally, we have to think about the cabling.

I rate HPE BladeSystem a nine out of ten.

The interface and dashboard are excellent and user-friendly. Configuration is also straightforward and similar to installing Windows.

There are limitations in writing exploiter features because of the sanctions.

Because we use this solution in Iran, I am unsure about the rules in Iran. Because Iran is a sanctioned country, we don't access any features and must use a program for our routine. We don't have access to add to anything in the HPE.

We would like to see OneView software features as an additional feature. It would be great for IT technicians, IT specialists and IT assistants.

We have been using HPE BladeSystem for two years. Is it a software system, we have many servers, and we use them daily for our banking, infrastructure, and government customers. It is deployed on cloud. Last month we switched our cloud, and we route the solution to connect Synergy Server and cloud services.

It is a stable solution.

The solution is scalable.

There are limitations to the technical support due to the sanctions in Iran. The HPE services have very good documentation, but we can't use it. We can't use this documentation without a VPN or proxy. In government organizations, we don't have any VPN or proxy, and support is very important.

The setup and installation were easy.

I rate this solution a ten out of ten.

The solution is quite stable.

It's very scalable. 

The solution is easy to manage and update. 

As long as they keep getting the new Compute generations, it would be ideal. Generation 10 was the last that they wanted to support on Blade Enclosure. That's unfortunate though. It may be coming to its end of life. Other than that, I don't have anything else to improve upon.

It's a stable product. There are no bugs or glitches. It cannot crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The solution can scale well. 

We've used the BladeSystem and Synergy. The Blade is simpler. The Blade Enclosure C7000 does the same job. It has the same robust fault tolerance and redundancy. Yet at the same time, it's simpler to deal with, to work with.

They have to either simplify Synergy Frame as they will not likely keep going with the Blade Enclosure for a long time. They were still working on it two years ago when I spoke to them. They said, "for at least 10 more years, Blade Enclosure will keep going." That's what they told us. However, for some reason, we wanted to go to the Synergy Frame. It was the wrong decision.

For the very long term, they either have to modify the Synergy to make it more like a C7000 or they might have to rethink keeping and further developing C7000. That's my simple experience. 

With HPE Synergy, I had a very painful experience with updating by just really shutting down and rebooting the environment. We had a power outage, and a few things didn't come up properly. Also, when we did the firmware upgrade, there were a lot of problems. It's not as easy as the Blade Enclosure. Usually, I need to open a support ticket with HPE to get around the problems when it comes to Synergy. However, with the Blade Enclosure, it is easier to deal with things.

It's very easy to maintain and to keep updating.

I can't speak to the licensing. I don't get involved in the cost.

I'd rate the product nine out of ten. I've been quite pleased with it.

We are using HPE for the virtualization. All machines are virtualized, and we are using them in the clusters. They are highly available and set up on the default ones as well. For the DMZ, we use regular rack servers. Those are separate clusters.

The solution is very easy to use.

We find the product to be very stable.

The scalability is great.

Technical support is okay.

These particular blades are no longer being produced. If they produced more or offered support for them I would be interested in getting more.

It would be ideal if they had been offered at a lower price point. If they bring them back, I'd buy them at a lower price point. 

The support you get is dependant on the region. Some regions are better than others.

I have been here, in this company, for more than four years. We have been using the product since I have been here, so it's likely been more than five years that the company itself has used the product.

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

The solution can scale well. It's not a problem if a company wants to expand it.

We have thousands of people that use it.

I've been in touch with technical support in the past. The level of service you receive depends on the region. We have two data centers, one in Frankfurt and one in Paris. When we were assigned to the Frankfurt team, they are okay, however, the local French team left us a bit unsatisfied.

Mainly we are using blade servers from different vendors. We have Cisco UCS, HPE blade servers, and Lenovo blade servers on the global team.

In previous companies, I used HPE and the Cisco blade servers as well - the Cisco UCS servers. In one other company, I used Dell servers as well.

It's my understanding that the initial setup is very straightforward and simple. However, I was not directly involved with the initial setup. It was two or three years ago.

I'm not sure exactly how long the deployment process takes.

We have five or six people on staff that can handle deployment and maintenance tasks. They are all engineers and one is a team leader.

The price of the product was a bit on the high side. 

You do have to pay for the hardware and a yearly licensing fee.

I'm a customer and an end-user.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We've been very happy with its capabilities.

I would recommend it to others.

We have a mix of generation eight and ten Blades in our HPE BladeSystem and we mostly use the system for virtualization.

One of the most valuable features I have found to be the enclosure. It is really easy to manage and everything is integrated. You are able to upgrade the software quite easily.

We sometimes have compatibility issues depending on the browser that you are using. For example, sometimes you have to switch between Edge, Mozilla, Internet Explorer, or Chrome to have things operating correctly.

We have a few Blades from previous generations that cannot have the updated firmware upload to them unless you have a maintenance contract with HP. This is a frustrating problem we have experienced with the support.

I have been using this solution for approximately eight years.

The solution has had a few bugs and glitches.

The solution is scalable, we have approximately 3,000 people that use this solution.

When we received technical support from HPE and it has been very good.

I would rate the technical support for HPE BladeSystem a ten out of ten.

The installation was very easy.

We have been satisfied with the price. However, there are additional costs for support.

We are currently evaluating and researching other options because we are looking for simplicity. We plan to replace our HPE BladeSystem with converged or hyper-converged infrastructure.

I would advise others this is a good system overall with great hardware.

I rate HPE BladeSystem an eight out of ten.

We use HPE BladeSystem for many purposes, such as enterprise applications and Oracle transfers.

The most valuable feature of HPE BladeSystem is simplified management.

There is always room for improvement everywhere with the HPE BladeSystem.

I have been using HPE BladeSystem since they were released, approximately 25 years.

HPE BladeSystem is a stable solution.

The HPE BladeSystem is extremely scalable.

We have some clients that have thousands and hundreds of people using the solution.

The initial setup of HPE BladeSystem is straightforward.

The price for HPE BladeSystem can vary between $100,000 to $1 million or above. The price can be high.

The solution is simple and easy to manage.

I rate HPE BladeSystem a ten out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for our SQL Server VMware virtualization. We put this on our on SQL Servers and VMware virtualization systems on this product. 

The solution uses a smaller space in our data centers. It uses less feeder and network cable, which reduces costs. Troubleshooting is also easier than other options.

The solution saves us space and resources (like cables).

It's very easy to troubleshoot if we have issues.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

The response time in terms of getting technical support assistance could be improved.

It's a bit expensive. They should work on bringing down the pricing if they can.

We have one older model, we've used for maybe six or seven years. We also have a new one, which is Synergy, we've used for two years.

The solution is stable. There aren't bugs or glitches. It's free of quirks and it doesn't crash or freeze.

The scalability is good. If a company needs to expand it out, they should be able to do so.

Our company has over 5,000 users on this solution.

We will continue to use the solution into the future.

The technical support is okay, I'd rate it seven out of ten overall. Their response times could be faster.

We didn't switch from a different solution. We had older models which we updated. We've always used HPE.

The initial implementation is not complex. It's a pretty straightforward process.

We deployed the solution over 100 servers, and it didn't take too long to deploy.

We have about ten to 20 people managing the solution.

We had a vendor assist us with the implementation.

I don't know the exact cost of licensing, however, it's my understanding that the solution is relatively expensive.

We're simply a customer. We don't have a business relationship with HPE.

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using or if it's the latest.

I'd recommend the solution to other companies.

On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate it at an eight. If the pricing was better and they offered better support, I would rate the solution higher.