HPE BladeSystem Reviews

We use BladeSystem is something that we use simply as hardware that is very reliable.  

The most valuable thing about BladeSystem is just like the purpose of the product: it is reliable hardware.  

What we want to improve would be to add more management capability for BladeSystem to be integrated with a cloud platform in a hybrid model.  

Another point to improve. There are sometimes problems with laptops having issues in connecting with virtual connections to the database. The virtual connections can be improved.  

We have been using HPE BladeSystem for a long time. We have always worked with HP it has been between five to ten years working with their products.  

BladeSystem is a very stable solution.  

As it is the hardware that all the applications are running on, it is not like software. You know what you are using and the capacity, it is not like scaling the number of users. The capability of the hardware can be upgraded and more blades can be added. So it is scalable. We are definitely going to continue to use this product and we will scale it as needed.  

The technical support is very good. Generally, we use a subcontractor to do a lot of the things that we require. If they need to, they can contact HPE and work with them. There do not seem to be any issues working this way.  

I have used a lot of products so, I would have to make a long list of products here. It is probably good enough to know that from all of them, we have chosen to work with HPE. We feel it is the best fit and the most reliable product that we can use and it is a reasonable price.  

The installation is very straight forward. We set up the hardware and there is nothing unique or complicated.  

The amount of time the deployment takes depends on the number of servers that need to be deployed. For the typical deployment, we have an HPE engineer on site. For each server it is very quick, let's say one week. The complexity is not very high.  

Ordinarily, we work with a general contractor such as an integrator of a consultant, but that is assuming we have a new deployment.  

It is not expensive, really, in this class of server products, but as a customer, we always hope that the pricing could be lower.  

I would recommend this product for other users who wants to start using it. On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate HPE BladeSystem as an eight-out-of-ten.  

The product can be improved and earn a higher rating by improving virtual connection integration, maybe lowering the cost (without degrading the quality of the product), and having a dedicated contact with HP for some critical issues if they arise.  

The HPE BladeSystem c7000 is very convenient for virtualization. We have virtualized about forty Blade servers. It is easy to manage and has ideal server density.

HPE Blade system has the ideal server density that saves your data center space and reduces cable traffic in cabinets.

With just one cable, for redundancy it's around two, you can feed sixteen servers in a single c7000 chassis.

The only side that must be improved is the active-passive interconnect module architecture. This blocks interconnects so that they can be upgraded simultaneously.

The scalability is very flexible. You are not limited to any spec like server type, network, or fiber module differences.

HPE's customer service is almost perfect, they are number one, at least in this class.

The initial setup is not so complex, but regardless I strongly advise you to get vendor support.

For anybody planning to use the c7000 for virtualization, I strongly advise you to use half-height servers. This gives the advantage of using sixteen Blades in a single chassis.

The primary use case of the solution is specifically for application virtualization.

Before this, we were using rack mount servers. We utilized almost 30% of capacity on those servers. But, with HPE BladeSystem, because of it's small capacity, in comparison to rack mounted servers, it gave us the flexibility to utilize all the hardware that we have.

The virtual connect and network management port is a valuable feature. When assigning the bandwidth to servers and segregation between data storage and data connections, it is valuable. An additional benefit is the virtualization environment.

HPE has a new solution it's called Synergy. I believe it's the new generation of solutions. It has capability of sharing the storage. It has open blade servers within the same enclosure.

It is really reliable and stable. 

It is scalable and suitable for our organization. We have not reached the maximum that HPE Bladesystem can reach.

The tech support is very good, but we usually use our own staff, and revert back to HPE if we are in need of extra support.

We are constantly evaluating HPE BladeSystem vs Cisco UCS and  HPE Synergy vs HPE BladeSystem .

HPE BladeSystems is an old technology that cannot fit all of the dynamic organizational needs of our company.

My company is working in media and we offer a solution for TV channels. We use HPE for classic IT usage but also for broadcast systems, to transport and deliver the signals to the TV channel. We use a BladeSystem for TV channel transcoding.

The benefit is the density and the capability for global harmonization on the hardware, because all the hardware chassis are the same. We can also purchase the same network cards too, chassis by chassis, so it gives us a global solution.

The density. It's good to have a sixteen-server chassis.

I'm not thinking about what kind of new services we could have in the HPE C7000 because I have made the decision to go to HPE Synergy or Dynamic.

The stability is good. We have used it for more than ten years now, and it has been a very good product.

The scalability is limited because you only have a 16-server by chassis, so you have to add more chassis, and you can't have a domain fabric like HPE Synergy, for example. You would need to have a taskforce behind the chassis to make the network possible, between the chassis, rather than a solution which is fully integrated via a domain fabric network solution.

Behind a domain fabric, you can connect something like 20 chassis. With this technology, we will have a real scale-out possibility, rather than the C7000 chassis which does not scale out.

We have contract support with HPE.

It was not complex for us. We built our server installation.

I would recommend HPE BladeSystem.

I'm satisfied with HPE BladeSystem at the moment but we can imagine consuming Blade servers, metal-as-a-service. We have an entire environment refresh coming up at the moment. We need to make provisions for metal-as-a-service because we have a huge machine. We cannot re-authorize this machine, and we need to make the right provisioning for metal-as-a-service.

We're beginning to look at the Cisco UCS technology, with a domain fabric system. But at the moment we don't have an agreement with Cisco. My company is part of the Orange main group and we have an Orange agreement with HPE and Dell EMC. So we are looking at the HPE Synergy and the Dynamic systems.

Even if we are looking for HPE Synergy and Dynamic in the future, we're also looking for a hyperconverged solution like Nutanix or HPE Simplivity.

So in the future, we will have both technologies, hyperconverged and the classic chassis Blade technology. We have two different needs. We have needs for virtualization, so hyperconverged is enough at first, and Nutanix or HPE Synergy is okay. On the other hand, we need to continue to consume metal-as-a-service, so HPE Synergy or Dynamic as a work product. HPE C7000 is limited in terms of having a real metal-as-a-service. From my point of view, the best approach for metal-as-a-service is HPE Synergy or Dynamic.

The most criteria when selecting a vendor are reliability, and their capabilities for the future: the right research and development for the product to be able to come out with new features in the future. They should also have strong support, of course, and have the right functionality to be integrated into modern information systems.

I rate HPE BladeSystem at eight out of ten. It has strong reliability and, for a mid-range company, it's a very good product.

We use these chassis with Gen8 and Gen9 servers, Blade servers for virtualization, VMware servers.

They are reliable, and it's relatively easy to manage them. They also regularly provide patching for the servers. It's quite a good product.

HPE has told us that the c7000 will no longer be part of its portfolio, so I don't think so they will provide any new features. But if I had to say something it would be some features from the Synergy. They could go to a converged system with the c7000, so everything would be automatic in the system.

It's reliable. 

The problem is that when want to expand with a new chassis, you have to do everything manually. It's not automatic.

We have good support from HPE.

I don't know what the previous solution was, but in our company every four or five years we have a renewal process for the older systems. That was probably the reason for the switch.

For me, when selecting a vendor, the most important criteria are that the system must be reliable, and the support as well. The support is very important because we have a lot of business-critical servers and if something goes wrong with the hardware we need the support.

If you don't want to go to the new technologies, like hyperconverged systems or converged systems, if you want to use only the old-school technologies, I can recommend this solution.

I rate it at eight out of 10. It's a good product, it's reliable, the performance is good. You can expand with the new servers as well. It has been a leading product in the market until now.

I Use this solution for my main production server, we use this for VM-hosts, and connected to HP MSA Storage as VM Data-stores via iSCSI targeting.

This product saved the data center space (only use 10 U Spaces for max 16 servers) and has better performance for the VMware, vCenter, and vMotion.

I really appreciate the integrated Onboard Administrator, the iLO (Integrated Lights-Out) modular network, and the SAN Switches.

This product needs a wider range of firmware compatibility matrix from the oldest to the newest blade server. Because the blade chassis (C7000) has a 16 blade servers bay (slot), it will be better if we can mix the first generation (G1 Blade server) with the latest Gen (G9 Blade server). E.g.: G1 only can be mixed in same chassis with G8 (max), if we have a new G9 blade server, we need to eliminate the old blade server, or if you don’t want to get rid of the old server you should buy another chassis. The new chassis is so expensive.

So, it will be easier for scalability purposes, and a greater value for
a company with a limited budget, if HPE Blade System has a wider compatibility matrix range.

There were no stability issues.

There were scalability issues. If we want to upgrade, the oldest version of the blade server cannot be mixed with the newest one. This is a problem of the firmware compatibility matrix of the on-board administrator.

Customer Service:

The Customer service is great!!! As long you're covered by the warranty or maintenance aggreement. the response time is under 1 hour after you raise a ticket.

Technical Support:

It have great technical support with quick response, if you have maintenance contract with HPE (HP Enterprise)

We used Rackmount, but we switched to this solution because it is integrated and saves space.

The initial setup was straightforward. Just follow the steps in the manual and you’re ready to go.

It's quite expensive for the initial purchase. The chassis itself, with no blade server inside, so expensive. The C7000 model costs around $100,000.

If your company scale is small to mid-enterprise, you could consider the QNAP TDS Series. This can act both as a physical host and hypervisor. There is no need to buy additional VM licenses if you want to create a VM environment.

Or, 

If your company scale need below 16 servers, you should consider the siblings, the c3000 model, it has 8 bays rather than 16 bays, so it won't overkill your budget.

Prepare the budget and be ready to persuade the board of directors as to why you should buy this solution. Don't forget to prepare the data of TCO.

For an x86 infrastructure. 

• Databases
• Virtualized environment
• Application servers
• Exchange and analytical applications

Linux and Windows are the OSs.

• Ease of use
• Reliable
• Scalable
• Simple 

This has drastically reduced our datacenter space, has good cooling and power consumption. Cabling complexity and volume have been reduced.

• Reliable backplane
• Excellent throughput
• Virtual Fabric and interconnects are easy to configure and maintain. 
• Wide choice in mixing SAN and LAN.

• Storage capacity could be enhanced.
• Higher bandwidth interconnects could be introduced.
• OA updates and upgrades have to be made simpler.