HPE Integrity Reviews

We use it as a database server for SAP systems, and it is performing very well.

• High availability
• Speed of execution
• IO capabilities

It is an open system with an HP-UX. It is very close to the Linux operating system, but much more reliable. That is why we have chosen it.

The stability is much more than the industry standard servers because of the higher availability that has been designed into it.

It scales very well; much better than industry standard servers.

Most of the computing is going to be in Linux, so there is not much more engineering going into this system with HP-UX. So, probably not only us, but also other customers are going towards Linux systems, but probably on Superdome X instead of Superdome.

They are very good for their Superdome. They are excellent and specialized.

It is because of the special sales service contract with the Superdome that you get the right people to talk to.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

Yes, we looked at other options but this solution provided the best value for the money. Also, we chose this solution because it was the right solution for the operating system that we had at the time.

Migrating away from Unix is driven by SAP themselves, because they are moving towards HANA, and HANA only runs on Linux.

If you are looking for this type of solution, evaluate all options, including growth, then choose the right systems for your company.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

• The stability of the vendor 
• Their investment in future technologies
• Their reliability.

• HP-UX stability
• Platform support

It used to be the finest for running Oracle – now mostly serve middle tier.

Intel should announce the product roadmap or HPE should announce HP-UX for Intel X86_64 (HP-UX for Superdome X).

Since 2007.

Integrity blades have very complex hardware diagnostics when compared with non-converged Integrity platforms. Blade system backplane is SPOF.

Not as such.

An eight out of 10. Backline engineers are able to figure out 90% of the issues through logs.

I worked for SUN SPARC and IBM X-Series prior to 2007. It was a job change in about 2007.

Not applicable.

You must have backline active support.

It is about cost benefit analysis. If one needs a system with first class stability that may be an expensive solution, HPE Integrity is a way to go.

I think the most valuable features that my management usually worries about are price, reliability, and its ability to be repaired and/or debugged.

We're moving away from Integrity as it's more pricey than the Intels.

The stability is pretty good.

It's scaling where we need to go.

Initial setup was relatively straightforward.

We used to use HP-UX and Integrity for the high linear demand on Oracle. For multi-threaded stuff, we used Solaris. But where there was a single thread with high demand, the Solaris boxes were no good. We used to deploy Oracle on HP-UX for linear demand.

HP-UX was fast on linear demand. We used to look at applications coming through the front door. We'd analyse whether it was highly threaded or a strong linear demand, and make a choice of HP-UX or Solaris based on that demand.

The last problem we had with VSC VMs was no support for Cisco PVLAN. That was a bit of an issue for us 18 months ago. But I think it supports PVLAN now. But, we're moving to x86. We are still deploying OpenVMS on Integrity servers. We've got a big legacy service that was written in-house in OpenVMS and it's one of those things that everybody's scared to touch. We're currently migrating to new Integrity stuff for that legacy service. All the new stuff coming in is x86.

It just keeps on going. We don't have any problems with any HPE equipment, to be fair.

Scalability of HP-UX is fine. We never go Superdome, so we've always stayed on pizza boxes, BL870s, and BladeSystem chassis.

Technical support is fine. We have a multi-vendor contract with HPE. They look after all of our equipment irrespective of the manufacturer.

At the time, if you wanted something highly available, there was SPARC on Solaris and Integrity from HPE. x86 wasn't seen to be good enough to run crown-jewel systems for the organisation. That's why we invested in SPARC and Integrity in the first instance. But, there's nothing between them now, so we go x86 where we can.

We develop our own solutions. We don't use HPE as a managed service. We do use them for our Prepaid solution. We use IN Prepaid that runs on HP-UX, as well. That's a managed service from HPE, which we don't really have a lot to do with.

We didn’t try anything else. We had a twin vendor policy at the time, so we never fully invested in a single vendor. We chose SPARC and HPE. IBM would have been in the mix, but we didn't choose IBM for various reasons. A lot of it was about power consumption and weight on the data centre floor. The IBM stuff just seemed to be heavy.

Don't do it. Go x86.

It's very reliable. It's an old technology so it's very reliable, efficient, and strong. At the time that we used it, it was scalable so we were able to put as much CPU as I wanted up to 64. Now it's something different, but that's basically it. Reliability and scalability were good when we started using it.

We're able to increase when the customer has growth needs and requirements, we're able to add more functionality on the same hardware without investing or purchasing more, just by the scalability of it, were able to do that faster.

It is old technology, so there is not much growth that we can do on it now. If we need to add more, we have already reached the maximum on that Superdome, plus it's huge. It takes a lot of space in the data center power. So it's not from a power perspective, from a space perspective. It's an old technology.

We are in a much more advanced environment, and now we look at things differently. The power consumption of it, the space that it takes, all of that, that's something that lowers the rating.

It's very stable.

It is an old technology and it really met what it was meant for, but now it's time to move onto the newer technology that they have. We're moving to X86, and the DL 360, 380 generation 9 servers. It has reached a maximum and we can't grow anymore.

We use them for our failures, diagnostic perspective, hardware replacement, and hardware growth. The technical support is very good at HP. To be honest with you, the expertise that we have, the technical team that we deal with, they're very expert and they're very efficient.

I came in after it was installed.

I came in after it was installed. I think it was very smooth deployment for it. That's what I heard from my predecessors, as it was really a very good product.

I doubt anyone would be using or looking at Superdome now, at this point, and they will look at something more scalable and advanced and so on. I'm not sure people really are this relevant to Superdome discussions.

The Integrity is the most reliable server that I have. I run production on this server, and I feel very comfortable with it.

It helps us to provide timely responses to our customers, and provide high availability in our products.

The quantity of the processor from Integrity, because at this moment there's a limit. We just provide 32 cores, and we are thinking of increasing the number of cores which is not possible in the current devices.

It's very stable. It is the best infrastructure that we have.

It's very scalable because we started with just one blade solution, and increased in order to have four blades in order to create one server. It's good, even the memory and processor. It is a good solution.

I've never had to contact tech support.

It is easy because all our production environment run on Integrity. When we need to increase, we buy Integrity solutions. We don't have to look at any other solutions.

It was quick and easy to install.

We are very comfortable with it and confident with the service that we provide with Integrity. You need to work with a partner that knows the solutions deeply, in order to implement the services and the solution.

The Integrity Platform has for a while been HP's high availability platform. We've used all of their servers in different models to run all our HP-UX customers. We've also used the ProLiant SS, industry de facto for customers not requesting high availability environments. The added value of Integrity has always been the reliability of the processors and all the parts in the servers. They've delivered us very trustable environments, in which most of our SAP customers, at least the largest ones, have been running. As I said before, the top of that Integrity line is the Superdome, which we've been using since it's been released for the first time 10 years ago.

When I talk about Integrity and Superdome, I would have to say we feel the same because Superdome is the top of the line of the Integrity server line, so basically we use the Integrity servers for the largest customers with requests of a high availability platform. All of them have been very happy. We have loyal customers that have been in a hosting business model with us for more than 10 years running on the Integrity line.

I don't know if Integrity will survive too much because if the Itanium processors are not going to be supportive anymore, I think in the midterm (4 or 5 years), Integrity's going to be replaced by another product line, or HP's going to be moving in more product lines, Plaza Polo and Moonstruck and all the initiatives, but according to what I know Integrity lined with the Itanium 2 processors and HP-UX is coming to an end. That's what I know.

We've been with Superdome since Superdome 1 and then we used Superdome 2. We are a large service provider for the Indian region, Northern part of South America and Central America, around the SAP Ecosystem. So all our infrastructure is Hewlett-Packard, we've been a platinum partner for Hewlett-Packard since 1991, so it's been a 25 year relationship. On top of all the infrastructure we have SAP customers - customers from SAP Ecosystem running SAP in different flavors. The customers that require high availability are those that are running on the Superdome 2. We've had a magnificent experience reliable, trustable, confident infrastructure. Unfortunately, Superdome on top of a Itanium processor is no longer supported. We're looking into Superdome X, but we're currently very happy and our customers are happy. We've had one hardware failure within 10 years, which is almost 100% availability in the platform.

Some of our customers are going to miss Superdome on HP-UX. We're moving them to some Superdome X, some we will move to the DL580 platform, running SAP HANA, but as a summary, I would say it's been the best high availability platform that HP has produced, at least that we have been able to use and forward to our customers with the highest service level availability.

As a service provider, our end customers have looked into us as the company to rely on to manage their core business. So Superdome essentially as the high end platform in the Integrity line has been the way we have given our customers the best platform to run the core business because they're not running a simple payroll, or something like that. It's the core business, all the invoicing, everything around what moves their business and makes their business operate. So, Superdome has been there for a while. Now it's going to be Superdome X, we hope we can move to that Intel based platform, but for the time it's on top of a Itanium, we have to say congratulations HP because it's been the best platform we ever ran.

It's hard to say in terms of improvement, I mean. With the announcement last year from Hewlett-Packard Enterprise that they are no longer supporting a Itanium 2 processors, which means HP-UX is going to die soon in a couple of years. Definitely we need to move to Superdome X, or at least think about moving customers to the Superdome X product line. We expect the same we have expected always - a reliable high availability platform with almost 100% if not more. Well that's impossible, but we can talk about 100% up time, and that's what we're expecting from the line, what we have received for the couple of years, 10 years before we used it, we expect it to be improved or at least the same thing.

Since we're in the SAP Ecosystem, one thing that we have there that's not very comfortable for our customers is the SAP HANA platform only runs on Linux operating system. So it will be great to see the HANA platform, HANA database running on top of Windows, which would be on top of Superdome X. I don't know if it's far away, but right now we have a restriction which is thqt we only have HANA on top of Linux. Either SUSE or Red Hat. It would be interesting to see if in the future we could have a pyramid where you have the Superdome X as a hardware, and on top of it you have an operating system like Windows, and on top of it you have HANA. That would be like an interesting dream to approach in the future.

I would say go for it. Superdome X, if it's as good as the one we've had with the Superdome on the Integrity line, if it took parts of it or if the hardware is similar, I would say go for it.