HPE BladeSystem Reviews

I'm very happy with the product in general.  

I'm an engineer in different environments, I have seen HPE frequently; HPE support packs, et cetera. In terms of the hardware versions update, it's giving me very good support compared to other products. 

It is a stable product.

The scalability has been good.

Technical support is helpful.

I'd like to see an all-in-one packet in the future. Some solutions don't come with storage.

During deployment, they're providing different places for the .EXE files and whatever it is downloading. It would sometimes mess up. This could be adjusted so that it's easier to deploy without issue.

I've used the solution for the past 15 years. It's been well over a decade now. I've used it for quite a while. 

We are satisfied with the stability. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution can scale. It is a bit limited, however.

The support has been very good and we are extremely satisfied with them. 

Aside from some issues around .EXE files not downloading properly, the initial setup is pretty straightforward. 

In terms of deployment times, each blade hardly takes one or two hours to set up. It might take one or two days in total based on the already gathered requirements and whatever the company made already.

You only need about two people to deploy and maintain the solution. Once it's deployed completely, likely you only need one person to maintain everything. 

Vendors will come and they configure mostly hardware side. The remaining part, networking, et cetera, we configure, and everything is fine. Our clients mostly deployed it in-house. We come in to configure the WLANs and remaining stuff.

The licensing is paid on a yearly basis. 

I have recommended my clients to HPE. Rather than other companies, HPE would give good support, and I'm very happy with that. It is a good, high-end product.

I'm not completely an end-user. I'm like an administrator, in the server administration department.

The solution is more suited to the cloud in terms of deployment options. 

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

BladeSystem was done really well.

I like the stability.

I would like to see the upgrade path a little bit smoother. We can't pull the servers from the current Blade, over to the NonStop system because of the different connectors.

I feel that it is a waste of money. I invested in it and I can't port it over.

The back of the blade system from their older generations will not connect to the new chassis. You will need buy new servers to the NonStop chassis.

HPE BladeSystem is a stable product.

We are a small-sized company.

We use only HP products. 

Every generation of NonStop is just an upgrade from their BladeSystem. They could have let be known that it was BladeSystem two, but they just gave it a different name.

The initial setup is complex. You need the help of a consultant.

We have two people to deploy and maintain this solution.

BladeSystem is a little bit cheaper.

I would rate HPE BladeSystem a nine out of ten.

We use HPE BladeSystem as an internal cloud.

HPE BladeSystem makes it much easier since it's been there. We can set up the hardware once and just provision what we need from that.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the ease of management with the hardware.

We are very pleased with using this solution.

We are very happy with what we have, but HPE is not going to continue with BladeSystem. It will be discontinued so we will have to change to another product shortly.

I have been using HPE BladeSystem for approximately seven years.

We use the BL460 series and the version is C7000. We have a mix of Gen9 and Gen10 servers.

Stability-wise, it's been very good for us. 

We have had very few issues with it, hardware-wise, and even very few software issues with it. 

Overall, the HPE BladeSystem has been very stable for us.

For our purposes, it has worked exactly the way we expected it to. 

It has been very scalable for us. We have been able to add additional servers, add additional C7000 chassis, and it just continues to work. It has been very scalable and worked very well.

We have two C7000s, and a total of 17 blade servers. Most of the servers have the attached storage blade for increased storage, besides what's in the blade itself. 

Our initial implementation included a couple of NAS units, but they were very slow, which is why we went with the storage blade units. That gave us better performance.

We have upgraded to some newer NAS units from HPE, and they've worked very well for us, which is why we are starting to slowly shift in that direction. That may change now since we're going to have to go with a new platform the next time we do an upgrade.

I have contacted technical support once or twice, and it was very good. 

We were very pleased with the support that we received.

We went from individual servers, or individual racking at servers, to the blade system.

The initial setup was different than anything we had done before. It was a little bit complex to get initially set up. But, once it was set up, the ongoing management has been fairly easy.

If I had to do it again, it would be very easy to do, now that we're familiar with it.

We rolled it out over time. We modified our implementation a little bit as we went along, as we discovered different features and different capabilities.

I maintain the solution. It only requires one person.

I am not familiar with the pricing.

We will be evaluating other solutions since we discovered that they are not going to be making the BladeSystem anymore.

We have had good luck with them, and good success with them. 

We haven't had any issues that are major issues. We have been very pleased with it.

I would rate HPE BladeSystem a nine out of ten.

We use it for direct authentication of the network storage of our files. We also use it for running some application systems, such as the student information management system and the accounting system.

We have DL360 and DL380. For storage, we have HP 2000.

They are very fast and very reliable. They are working under very tough conditions.

We had a few hard drives that crashed, and we couldn't find them locally. We've tried internationally, but we are still struggling to get its spare parts. This is the main challenge that we have faced with this solution. Fortunately, the other drives are still working. There should be easy availability of spare parts. I should be able to request a quotation online from HPE for things that I am not able to get locally. Currently, I can order online, but when I type the serial number, most of the time, it is rejected. I don't know why it is happening. It could be because the company that sold us the system didn't buy it through the normal HPE channel. HPE should assist us as users to get the spare parts.

Its security needs to be beefed up. I would like some security features. It was also challenging for us to set it up because we didn't get enough training from them.

I have been using this solution since 2013.

It is a very reliable solution. I've worked with other servers, and I find HPE BladeSystem very reliable.

We haven't tried to expand the solution. We have around 3,000 students and 255 staff members who use this solution.

Normally, we just look for some technicians around Botswana, and they come and assist us.

The setup was a little bit challenging because we didn't get enough training from HPE for setting up the cluster servers.

Its pricing was good. We selected this solution because it was within our budget. We paid just once when we bought it. We never bought any license. 

I would recommend this solution based on the robustness of the machines. It is the best system in terms of the value for your money.

I would rate HPE BladeSystem an eight out of ten.

We are primarily using the solution for a hypervisor.

The solution is very easy to use. It's user-friendly and simple to navigate.

The space conservation it provides is excellent. It helps compact the server.

The product is quite stable. Its performance is reliable.

The solution can scale. A company can expand it if it wants to.

The solution could use better management capabilities. The interface in terms of management could be much more intuitive.

I've been using the solution for two years at this point.

The solution is very stable. It's reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution can definitely scale. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so with ease.

We have about 2,000 end-users currently.

We do plan to continue to use the solution.

While HPE Synergy has quite good technical support, on other HPE products, it's not quite as good.

That said, on Blades, we've never really used the technical support.

We previously just used normal HPE servers. Other than that, we've never used another solution. We've never used a Blade system.

We did not handle the installation ourselves. I can't speak to how easy or difficult it was to execute.

We have about 20 people that can handle any maintenance.

We hired a contractor that implemented the solution for us. We did not handle the process ourselves.

We paid for the hardware itself. I can't speak to the actual costs. It's not an aspect I directly deal with.

We're a customer, however, indirectly with HPE. We purchased the solution through a reseller. We don't deal with HPE directly.

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using. I don't have the version number on hand.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten overall. It's been largely quite capable.

We are running a biometric solution. This is the main solution for which we use HPE BladeSystem.

HPE keeps on releasing new BladeSystems. We started with G4 and have used G5, G6, G7, G8, servers. We find these upgrades very useful. As our business volume grows, we're able to find an appropriate HPE server to use.

They are reliable, and they hardly break down. They are fast, and they serve us very well.

For me, the product is okay, but I would probably suggest improvement in their services or technical support. They need to work harder in the preventative maintenance of the system. They need to improve in terms of how quickly can we get attention and how quickly problems are resolved. 

Its price could also be lower.

I have been using this solution for seven years.

It is very stable.

It is very scalable. The entire banking industry in Nigeria is connected to this solution. Everybody in the industry uses this solution. We intend to grow and increase its usage.

Technical support is my main concern. They need to improve in terms of how quickly can we get attention and how quickly problems are resolved.

Its initial setup is very easy.

We used resellers.

It is expensive. There are no additional costs. We are able to get good discounts anyway from HPE, but if the price can come down, we'll be happy.

We considered IBM. We made a choice for HPE, and it has been working well for us.

My main advice would be to ensure that your technical staff is well trained by HPE and the technical staff receives HPE technical training because the support that you want may not come from HPE. If you have your in-house team properly trained, it should be fine.

I would rate HPE BladeSystem an eight out of ten.

Years ago, before BladeSystem, we had an EDM platform. We were working with IBM. We had IBM platforms. They consume much more energy. They are so big, so they take up a lot of space in the data center. At the time, when we migrated to BladeSystem, we reduced the amount of energy, amount of space, and we got more capacity. It's been very useful to us in that sense.

The solution has good scalability.

We can consolidate our learning infrastructure into just one chassis. You can have infrastructure scalability and capacity with memory. It is a great way to pull up together everything inside multiple platforms and in just one chassis.

Overall, its a very good product.

They are not selling BladeSystem anymore. The end of the sale of this platform was this year, 2020. Right now, if you try to buy a BladeSystem, you have to buy Synergy. I did try to buy some BladeSystem Generation 10 solutions in the USA. HP told me that they can sell this for the regular channel of HP still.

Right now, the Synergy platform has a management console that has a lot of options or features that help the administration of the platform. IN addition to that, this console cooling could integrate with the monitoring platform, so we could monitor integrity.

That said, this solution is discontinued, so any new features would only be useful on Synergy.

I've been using the solution over the last year.

The solution is very, very stable. We haven't had any issues with it. It's quite reliable.

The scalability is excellent, and it even takes up less space than, for example, IBM, and uses less energy.

I'm not sure, overall, how many users actually use the product in our organization.

The technical support is pretty good. I would rate it eight out of ten.

I'm using the technical support from Synergy. At the end of the day, it's the same tech support. They're great. That said, sometimes it takes so long, as they often need to recheck many things. Still, they solve the problem if there is one.

We used to use IBM. It was pretty bulky and took up a lot of space. It's hard to compare IBM to HP as IBM doesn't really show any good options.

The initial setup is not complex. It is straightforward.

I set up the solution myself. I didn't need the assistance of a consultant or integrator.

We're just a customer.

We use the solution on Citrix platforms.

The BladeSystem compared with older solutions about energy and processor, offers more capacity and you can gain or minimize the amount of energy that you consume, which is super-helpful.

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

One of the big problems that BladeSystem could look at is that systems like Microsoft Windows 2019, Linux, or Red Hat 8 demand a lot of RAM memory. There's no adaptable support. The more gigabytes or more processors that the actual operating system has, the better. With Synergy, and the power of Dell, hopefully, there will be support and adaption to the new necessities.

We use this solution like a hypervisor to host our applications. We have secondary areas for our accounting and manufacturing. That is a separate legacy system. We also use it as a SQL server.  

It is very stable. Also, their support is amazing. If there is any issue, within a couple of hours, they will ship the box from another country and within a couple of hours, it will be here.  

  - Ability to connect storage bay to all servers inside the enclosure not only Adjacent server.

  - simplified High Availability Configuration to connect the enclosure to different external switches.

We have been using HPE BladeSystem for around 4-5 years.  

It is easy to scale. You can connect as many servers as you need depending on your account type.  

The support is amazing.  

I used to use a different solution but it was too different to compare. It was a very old system and it did not operate in the same way.  

Regarding the setup, it is easy for the blade itself, but the integration with the network devices needs to be done by someone who knows the product.   

The training takes something like five days and it is worth the effort to be able to do implementation and management by yourself. 

My recommendation to people considering this solution is to just make sure that the blade will be supported by the existing system. This is the only issue that we faced. It will be hard to integrate with some older switches. Usually, you will not be able to configure this solution with high availability if you are using older solutions. You cannot add it to a regular storage server. It is one of the limitations that you can not just add a storage unit for the blades.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate this product as a nine.