HPE GreenLake Reviews

For two to two and a half years, I have been using HPE GreenLake as a platform for infrastructure as a service. It is hosted in our data center with compute and storage nodes, all managed by an HPE team based in Bulgaria. They operate and maintain the infrastructure round the clock for us.

We have a service and cost model based on utilization for specific KPIs, measured by memory and storage, with no costs for CPU consumption. This approach has allowed us to manage and optimize utilization and consumption effectively. We have a portal for real-time connection to monitor and adapt our consumption if needed. 

Our physical servers are on-prem, and although GreenLake is hosted in the data center, on-site virtual machines like domain controllers and small file servers are protected by the GreenLake contract. If a machine breaks, the GreenLake team handles replacement and technician coordination. Additionally, we have a small backup solution on-prem, but it is not covered by the main GreenLake backup service. 

By establishing a service provider responsible for backup and restore and having monthly service meetings with them, we have reduced our management effort by more than fifty percent. The service is well managed by HP, with effective notification processes keeping us fully aware of backup activities.

The product is excellent. HPE GreenLake is the best tool that can replace some other tools for those who are afraid to go and put their application on the cloud, making it one of the best options for the client.

The tool allows users to operate with on-premises infrastructure and the cloud that runs on the client's on-premises infrastructure, making it somewhat similar to a hybrid cloud infrastructure since users have full control.

HPE GreenLake replaces all the existing virtualization solutions in the market. The best part is that customers don't need to bind their operations with HPE alone, allowing them to have a VMware or Hyper-V environment. Customers in the market can also choose products, like Red Hat Enterprise Linux, so you can operate HPE GreenLake with its products from its competitors all year round, and it does not keep its bound to HPE infrastructure.

The tool is pretty strong since there are no issues in it at all. My company had deployed the solution for a client operating in the Kuwait region, and in the past few years, my company has never had to deal with a single complaint about the product.

Unfortunately, HPE GreenLake can be sold only in Bahrain, UAE, and the Middle East, meaning it can be sold in only three or four countries because it requires certain approvals from countries where it has to be used.

We primarily use HPE GreenLake to take server backups in our environment. It involves backing up servers from Jira, specifying the time range, and utilizing VMware ESXi to perform the backup. The backups are stored on NetApp, and we have multiple storage locations.

The most valuable feature for me is the ability to perform backups with a graphical user interface (GUI). It makes the process easy. 

It offers businesses the flexibility and scalability of the public cloud while having their infrastructure on-premises.

There is a need for improved support in HPE GreenLake, including more administrators and engineers to provide faster resolution for issues. Storage issues can impact the entire data center, especially in virtualization environments where multiple virtual machines are connected. Availability of hardware and timely monitoring have been reported as a problem, with some difficulties in obtaining hardware due to limited stock in the local market.

We use it for automation, CI/CD; for transforming our development environment from old, static VMs and even private cloud VMs, into a more deployed, purpose-built system so that we can deploy/tear down, deploy/tear down as needed for each project.

It gives us compute and storage. The biggest thing that it gives us is reportability; that's the critical component. By giving us a monthly bill that is expandable based on usage, we're able to report back to the organization on the value that we're actually getting out of the hardware platform.

The best way that it's providing benefit to how the organization functions is that it has cut the legs out from under the executives who are trying to push all development into R&D, increasing our costs. I believe it was five times more expensive to do that.

In the next four years over the lifespan of the first segment, it's going to be saving us approximately $1.2 million in just hardware purchases and software support costs. 

In addition, we're seeing about a 15 percent reduction in the time it takes to deploy IT projects. For example, when it comes to deploying to R&D, which is the purpose of the stack, by going with an all-SSD array, and with the automation which is built into the platform, we are able to get machines out to the developers at a much faster rate. We are able to destroy them and then re-deploy them to the developers again. It's significantly faster than on our old, spinning disk configuration.

In terms of the administrative aspects of our IT operations, GreenLake has definitely assisted in some ways because it comes with Datacenter Care Services. They're there fixing it before we even know something is broken.

One of our successful use cases was a customer that already had HPE SimpliVity and multiple clusters of it at different locations. They wanted to consolidate these workloads while also having a replication site. We proposed a consolidation model and recommended the HPE GreenLake solution, which they found appealing. The customer liked the idea of having the hardware on-site but also having a cloud-like experience where they could pay for the infrastructure on a monthly basis and have it maintained and supported by the HPE team.

One of the most valuable features of HPE GreenLake is that it provides clients with the security of having their data on-site while still having the convenience of having someone else take care of the infrastructure. Some customers prefer this as they feel more secure with their data on-site. Additionally, it allows the customers to have the best of both worlds, they receive a cloud-like experience of subscription and consumption, and the performance of an on-prem solution for their more demanding workloads. This is one of the main benefits that drive clients to choose this solution.

The solution integrates well with Dell, Cisco switches, or other switches.

The most valuable feature of HPE GreenLake is the integration.

HPE GreenLake can improve the price.

We are using it to procure and replace hardware. It covers storage, backup, and compute. We acquire all of these components through GreenLake.

It has brought newer technology in more quickly. This comes with an associated lower risk of failure, as we can replace older gear that we might otherwise have been stuck with.

It has helped us with the planning, and in concert with this, we are doing a lot of virtualizations. For a lot of cases, we are bringing in less gear and equipment to be able to accomplish the same things. It makes better use of what we do bring in.

Eliminating the need to overprovision ties into just using the hardware more wisely. If you are dealing with a lot of standalone Windows Servers, studies have shown they don't get used all the way. Since we are bringing in virtual hosts and running VMware on them, then building guests on top of that. We are packing more out of the same hardware.

The service decreases the time it takes to deploy IT projects when we have several sites going at once. Once we get it in-house, we have our own processes for installing and configuring, so it hasn't really changed that much, as we are using the same standards processes.

It has made the administrative aspect of our IT operations easier. Going through this faster, we are keeping the generations closer. We are not winding up with four, five, or as many generations or iterations of hardware. Everything is staying much closer together, so it is a more consistent infrastructure.