HPE ConvergedSystem Reviews

One of the biggest things is, the fact that it can be a turn-key solution. With the ConvergedSystem system, you've got a small 2U platform that supports your storage, networking, and also has your compute in it. The other nice thing about it is, because it's a small form factor, you reduce footprint in your IT data center. It helps with power and cooling issues. The simplicity of it helps people who aren't necessarily IT specialists to use it. You can have it in your ROBO environments. We support Microsoft and VMware with this software.

My biggest pet peeve with the HC250 are the descriptions that they put on our parts list. For example, multiple times now someone asked me, they said, "Hey, they want to take this option off the quote," and I said, "No, it's required." Then they came back to me and they said, "You know the customer, they don't believe you," and I said, "Okay." Basically, with ConvergedSystem, if you're doing a VMware solution, you don't have to buy the software from us. If the customer has the correct licenses, the correct type of licenses, it's an option for them. The description for the software that's required, which includes the VSA, which includes our OneView integration, which includes all this other stuff, they call it the VMware software license. People think they can remove that and so, they come back to me and I say, "No. This is what this part number includes, but it's the description." There's my biggest pet peeve with ConvergedSystem.

You can scale out by adding additional nodes, which will increase performance capacity for you. 

It would depend, but my advice would be that, if you're interested in a converged system, then go and buy it. However, it just depends on what the customer wants. You need to know what you want, because there are different solutions that support different workloads and things.

The excellent service that we receive from the HPE team is very good with their hardware. The best value was in the service because we receive the solution as a managed service from HPE, so it's a box somewhere in the data center that we don't care about. It's always running and so far, no problems.

Right now, all of our BI initiatives are running on HANA so we use that daily to create a new promotion for the marketing team that is in the field. So they can use it once and based on the behaviour of each customer, we can provide new promotions every day. That's the basis for our sales team.

Something that we think should be better in the HANA converged solutions is all of the monitoring of the solutions. I think there is improvement space there, to have more data available for the final customer. And from the service point of view, the HPE team that is supporting the solution, could do a little more and have more data to show to the final user, in our case, about the performance and trans with the box.

We have been running HANA for one and a half years.

So far, it's been a very stable solution. We had a problem six months ago, but support reacted very quickly and we were up and running again in one hour. It was a problem with one of the memory SIMs that was creating some problems. They changed in one hour.

This is the first implementation of it, and at this point, we don't have the need to scale. However, we do see a problem down the road because the exact model we have right now seems to be out of production. But we are remaining with the HPE team and they have said they will provide a new one and take the old one as part of the payment, so that's OK for us.

Initial setup seems complex for the technician who was doing the work, but for us as a customer, it was very straightforward.

We have an onsite team for setting up both applications.

We compared the HANA solution with Microsoft and Oracle, performed a cost-benefit analysis, and we decided to go with HPE.

You should consider the service, the stability of the solution and the cost for any solution that may benefit you.

One thing that we find peculiar is, when you buy ConvergedSystem, it seems to be behind in the versions it supports. For example, vSphere 6 is just now being supported. OneView 2 is just now being supported, even though they have announced OneView 3. We're already a version behind. I know they're probably working and testing as quickly as they can, but we always seem like we're behind the curve with these new features that we know are out that we can't take advantage of and that are supported on the blades individually. They're supported on the blade system individually, but once you get the ConvergedSystem, all of a sudden, they're not supported. I understand that we want a rock solid infrastructure that's well-tested, but I'm hoping they can speed up compatibility with newer versions of software and drivers and so on.

We still have some of the growing pains just getting the system in. There's a lot of miscommunication between us and HPE of what we actually wanted, what they delivered. It was sold as being more of a plug-and-play solution. It really wasn't that way for us, maybe because we did want to make modifications. I can't say it's all HPE's fault, because we did make modifications and made some of those modifications at the last minute. It was just growing pains with that relationship and getting to understand each other and what each other needed. We're fresh off of that; we we're just using it. I still feel like it's been a pain because it took so long to get us here. But I think going forward, it will be smooth. Our next system will probably be plug-in. We'll plug it in the way they advertised it. It's hard for me to say for sure, but I think we're at the point where it would be plug and play from now on and it would be easy.

I think it has been stable. We did have issues with the Dell blades, had some instability there. Again, it's brand new. Everything has been stable, though we've had an issue with the NICs reporting errors, but we think those are false reports. There's supposedly a patch, but the ConvergedSystem - as it was given to use and shipped to us - had errors.

I wouldn't expect that a well-tested, purpose-built appliance from HPE would report network errors. We're still trying to figure that out. I will say it seems to be false positives, possibly because the system is stable. But again, we don't have a big load on it because we're just now testing it, so I can't really speak to, when we scale it up, will it perform? Will it stay stable? But, for now, it's been stable.

I can't really speak to scalability yet because we have just a small test environment now. We're looking to move it to production later on, I think, the end of this year. We haven't really had to scale it that far. We've only done a little primary testing, not a large load of servers or storage or anything like that, but it's performed very well so far. There's so little data actually on it. I can't really speak to the scalability of it. I know it scales to 128 servers. We might need to scale past that. We'll probably need several ConvergedSystems, which is, maybe, not ideal. If it could scale past 128 servers, that'd probably be beneficial. For our needs right now, we haven't hit that yet. We probably will in the future but it's too soon.

Technical support hasn't seemed to be that simple or that easy. I still feel like our calls get redirected to a specific team, which is fine. It is one number to call. What I've found frustrating is that sometimes when we call in, I don't think they know how a ConvergedSystem works. The whole point is you have one number to call and that person should know what that is and about what you have. It's not just some blades and some servers and some storage. You actually have a purpose-built system that they're supporting. There's been a lot of confusion with that. I don't understand why it's not known when we call that number what we have and what kind of support we expect.

We used to use Dell blades and we didn't have Virtual Connect, so configuring the networks and all of that for our servers took a lot longer. It's easier to provision the server now that we've moved to HPE and Virtual Connect, and how the ConvergedSystem is architected makes it easier. Just ease of configuring networks and configuring your server.

We wanted a converged solution. We wanted something that came as an appliance, with basically everything configured and Dell didn't have an offering that met our needs. We looked at different vendors and we narrowed it down to HPE. We went with the HPE solution.

We were looking at FlexPod, the NetApp solution; Hitachi had a solution; and EMC's solution. None of those did as well as HP's. Some vendors were too strict. EMC was too strict. You couldn't touch their hardware. "This is how you're going to get it. You can't change anything. Take it or leave it." HPE was a little bit more flexible. "This is our ConvergedSystem. This is how it is, but you can make a couple of modifications if needed to fit your business." That's why we went with them. They were a little bit more flexible.

I think it's too soon to accurately rate the product. Based on experience so far and what I expect out of it, I'll give it an 8 (four stars). That's based on what I expect in the future and what I know it's capable of, not really our experience so far because I know we've had some bumps in the road. Again, I think some of them are our fault. I don't want to blame HPE for that. I think it's a solid product. I've used HPE blades in the past at a previous employer. They've always been rock solid. I believe in the hardware. We've been using HPE storage at my current company for three years. I used it for six years before that, rock solid. No issues. I believe in the hardware.

It's tough. One because there's now the Composable Infrastructure, the Synergy platform, which is newer. Again, this is the problem: you go with a converged solution because you want it rock solid, stable. The problem is you're always behind the technology curve when you do that because now there's a new product out that offers new features. I would have a hard time telling someone to go out and get a converged solution. One, because, well, just because it's behind technology-wise. But if they work for a company that doesn't care about the latest and greatest features, and they just want stability, sure, go with a converged solution. But if you need the latest features, and you need to stay on the bleeding edge, I couldn't recommend the converged. I could recommend the blades probably. They probably want to look at Synergy and the newer product line but it's kind of funny that the converged system already seems to be legacy hardware even though it's still new.

Upon implementation, we found that its stability, performance, and speed, plus HP's on-demand support, were really important to us. Our organization is relatively new in this space, and we needed a process that involved hand-holding.

We also found a scalability in the product of increasing economy, such that as our footprint increases, our cost goes down significantly.

These were all important factors in our decision making.

For example, in healthcare data, there’s a large volume of data variety and velocity which requires processing as it impacts the care we deliver to our patients. We need to process and analyze easily terabytes of data and, at times, close to a petabyte.

Previously, with a traditional extract transform load process, it would take us three hours to load our large volume tables. Now, it takes us about ten minutes on SAP HANA on a ConvergedSystem platform. The speed with which we can process and deliver insights is of value to us within the patient care model.

The issue with scalability is, at some point, the hardware infrastructure. Discussions involve your current array or rack, whether it must be completely removed, and whether you must bring in a new structure.

With ConvergedSystem, we'd like to see just how portable and scalable HP can make it. Is it really just an add-on each time and not a complete redesign? HANA requires an upgrade as the number of units increases. We're hoping that HP can make scalability easier over time.

This solution has been in use for well over a year and we have derived real performance and business benefits.

We're contemplating a two-part upgrade. We must decide whether to move our data center to a private hybrid-cloud environment. From there, we'd assess scalability and see how quickly HP and SAP can create a scalable solution. For example, if we expand from 100 to 200 units, will processes take half as long or eight times as long? These are the types of differentiations we want to understand.

We're now seeing the capabilities of HANA and customers around our ecosystem are very excited by the possibilities.

We see continued expansion, but expansion with cost in mind. Affordability is going to be a key part of the equation and we’re interested in how ConvergedSystem platforms become affordable over time, not just as an incremental cost.

Stability for us is a three-part factor.

First, with implementation, we ask, how smooth is the process? How meticulous and prepared is the implementer? Have they accounted for everything specific to our environment?

Second factor is the post-implementation hand-off. How does the implementer transfer control such that our team is confident and comfortable with being able to take ownership of the environment?

Finally, once implementation is complete and data is downloaded, are there periodic issues and how frequently must there by patches, upgrades, and maintenance?

These are all components of stability and, for us, ConvergedSystem has been very reliable and stable.

We initially implemented a very small, 2-3 terabyte, 10-unit SAP HANA. Now, we’re going to scale to about 10 terabytes.

During scaling, it’s very important to know if the implementation partner has accounted for scalability during the initial process.

As we worked with HP, we found that they were very proactive about our scalability, how to construct the racks, and what kind of hardware peripherals you would need to ensure scalability.

For us, adding a unit each time is elementary as we're able to deploy it quickly. Within 15 to 20 days, we can have a new unit up on the ConvergedSystem platform, which is incredible. We need not have lengthy, time-consuming hardware implementation processes.

Customer service is very important as you have constantly weigh your expansion needs with the right platform. It requires a constant engagement with the sales and technical teams and we have found the HP enterprise to be a great partner.

It's important that when things go badly, the very first call to tech support gets us to the right resources to discover the root cause of the issue.

That said, HP has been especially supportive on the ConvergedSystem platform. This differentiates them from SAP on the HANA side.

HP tech support has always been available quickly and forthcoming with what they can do and how they can implement it.

We evolved our support model over time, but I think even the basic support that you get has been really helpful and has met our expectations.

We moved away from traditional data management and started focusing on big data ecosystems.

As we evaluated big data ecosystems, we knew we wanted a hybrid approach, both an open source and an appliance-based architecture. And that drove us to look at HP and other solutions as part of that ecosystem.

When we put together our strategy for data and the big data platforms, we included our infrastructure, technical services, and legal teams at the table. Because of that, everyone was aware of any required contractual issues or negotiations.

We were able to get our SAP HANA implementation partnership with HP in under 45 days, from going with absolutely a blank slate to having it implemented in production.

That’s a pretty incredible timeline when you think about it, in an organization that’s not conducive to accepting brand new technologies on the fly. We were able to do that and I think that is the key differentiator for us.

In that sense, we have delivered value. We are now able to maximize the value.

We also were able to get HP to own the project more as a project management aspect of implementation. Because they had come in with that approach, we were able to account for all the parts and create a responsibility matrix for each component. It was incredibly smooth for a brand new platform to be in.

At that time, we were an HP preferred customer, so we looked at HP, Cisco, and other vendors. But then we decided that the more logical choice would be to integrate the solution into our data center, so we evaluated our preferred vendor options.

In our evaluation, we discovered that Cisco was relatively brand new to the marketplace with their HANA integration. SAP, as a partner with HP, recommended HP to us as a solution.

We found that HP had more integrated support and implementation teams so that we did not have to rely heavily on our own technical teams to learn and implement something new.

We had a very nice relationship leveraging our technical expertise with HP’s SAP expertise, so we chose HP.

Given that it’s a new system and technology, it was critical that we found a vendor with experience and a strategic partnership with SAP.

Speedy implementation was very important for us because we were moving the paradigm. You can’t do a big data implementation and have it be slower than your traditional approach to data.

We wanted to showcase speed and acceleration and quicker time-to-market and value. That was a very important differentiator for us.

We also tried to understand the right business use cases in which ConvergedSystem is a differentiator. Prior to discussions about SAP HANA or big data, we asked ourselves, “What kind of capabilities is the organization interested in and is speed an important component of those capabilities?”

If speed and access are two important components and the answer becomes a big data ecosystem, then you say, “What are the right platforms to bring in?”

My advice to most organizations is, understand what your value propositions are, what your use cases are, where big data is a good enabler of those values, and then work from there, because that’s an easier business case to build. Rather than saying, “We just want to go from technology A to technology B.” People ask, “Why?” and you need to have the answer.

High Availability (HA) and the ability to add Serviceguard on top as a solution. HP offers the extra layer for failover.

Experience - HP has been doing it for a long time and they are not a new supplier. It’s a bit more expensive, but it’s safe. They have a lot more consultants trained on HANA already.

Evaluating - we looked at the IOPS. It's very much integrated with SAP as opposed to other vendors. 3PAR is strong and their appliances are strong. We already use the blade solution.

Migration - smooth and safe because we already know it.

I would like to see a full flash array added and the pricing improved, as HP is expensive.

ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA- It's currently in the proposal stage. We've already purchased licenses and we'll be implementing it within a year to a year and half.

It's stable, which was the main reason I chose it. The CIO said that I was completely responsible for the solution and that I need to be comfortable with it.

Expensive, but scalable.

It could be better. Every company has tech support outsourced, which is frustrating.

All of our SAP consultants realized that we need to go to with HANA. R3 is over and every one is doing a migration. It’s hard to move out of Oracle, but we feel we have no choice.

We are currently getting proposals. Either directly from HP or a reseller. We want an end-to-end solution and migration help. Proposals from other vendors don’t even come close to HP.

Cisco, of whom we are a customer, Flexpod, Netapp, and Nutanix. They promise a lot but they are not yet ready.

We chose HP for the expertise. Over the last four years we had a 99.9% uptime. Hard to leave something that is working so well to go to another vendor.

Look for a full solution from end to end. You also want mission critical support. We also needed a vendor with a lot of experience with the product who can help us with the migration. It's hard to find the good ones.

Be sure to dig deeper than hardware. Resellers take advantage of flash storage, but they don’t really have expertise. Nutanix has a great presentation and pricing, but don’t deliver.

HP is on the right track and is the way to go.