HPE ProLiant DL Servers Reviews

Most valuable for us are ease of use, the ability to quickly view the system for health and how to get into the consols.

It reduces the amount of work that we have to do. In the old days we used to have to go downstairs and basically plug into a computer and do stuff like that. Now, we're at our desk and we just walk right up to a computer and if you know something is going on you can easily open the case with HP and have them come out and take a look at it.

I can't think of anything right now regarding improvements except perhaps the price. I think more involvement with us, the customer would be good too. They are doing better with that now though. We've had meetings with them and we really discussed the problems that we've come across. I'd say we're going in the right direction, that's for sure.

Stability is definitely encouraging. The other system was weak. We had a lot of problems with the memory. The memory would go out every time we did a patch. We'd have to reboot the server and as it came back up, 10 percent of the time, we'd have a memory issue but over the last year or two, it's been much improved.

Scalability is pretty good. I'd say it's a lot better than it used to be, definitely.

The technical support is very good. There's always somebody available. We have an on-call number.

I wasn't involved in the initial setup.

Mostly we look at reliability, maintenance and support. Those are the big ones to consider when choosing a vendor. Since we have a relationship with HP, that's it regarding any alternative vendors.

As I said earlier, look at their maintenance support. The number of companies that they actually support. Those are big factors. And disaster recovery. That's what I would say.

It builds very well, is easy to install, is easy to maintain, is easy to administer remotely.

It allows me to run a lot of virtual machines at the same time. It helps me do a lot of testing, so I can build a virtual machine and try things out on it. If it doesn't work, I can just recreate it.

I guess more regular automatic updates would be nice. Sometimes when you call support they'll say, "Well, what version of frameware are you on?" And you'll say, "Version X, Y, Z," and they'll say, "You need to be on A, B, C."

The stability is rock solid.

I have not tried scaling it.

Regarding the technical support - it depends on the day, sometimes it's good, sometimes bad, but I always know how to elevate or escalate to get to the next level if I need to.

The setup was straightforward. It's easy to mount the rack, it's got great rails. Power it right up, launch and then you can start configuring it.

The most important aspect when selecting a vendor is ease of use. Probably the most important. We evaluated HP, IBM, Lenovo. We have a better relationship with HP.

Get it because it will work very well for you.

We value the ease of management in terms of the firmware. The hardware is very toolless to work with, so when you have to do a part replacement it's very hands-on friendly. You don't have to grab any quick tools nearby to swap out modules and such.

The layout is quite nice as, for the most part, you don't have to tear the machine half apart to get to a piece. So, sometimes when they have on-site technicians to replace a part, we don't have to send a senior technician out there to do it. They can pretty much easily find it and get the parts swapped.

Parts fail, that's part of the IT business, but the ability to be able to get in there quickly and get parts swapped is a very big benefit.

I've already seen quite a bit here at the conference that looks good. Well, one of the areas that I really am excited about is the iLo 5 (integrated lights out technology) on the HP blade technology where they're allowing a lot of the firmware flashing to take place through the iLo, which means I don't have to go through the OS, so that beats a lot of our servers.

Run Unix in a form that we can't reboot them more than twice or maybe less in a 30-minute maintenance window. The fact that I can flash a lot of the hardware from the iLo and not have to go through the OS means a far reduced outage time maintenance window, so that really helps take the pressure off us.

We have machines that go back quite a long time in terms of almost back to the mid-nineties on some of the servers. So stability-wise, yes we've had some pretty good results even in the old, old hardware from HP specifically. So yes, we've been happy with them so far.

Scalability has been pretty good. We just buy more. We just buy a lot of everything. So scalability hasn't really been an issue for us because we have pretty sizable data centers, but yes, certainly it has been a good product overall.

I have used technical support quite a few times. It has been quite useful.

HP has been very helpful in terms of getting a technician on-site, and parts available if we need them. They have always offered us a technician to actually do the repair, so that takes a lot of the workload off us.

Sometimes on some of the higher-end systems where there is a lot more money involved in the hardware, it just helps to take the pressure off to where we don't have to really put our hands on that equipment, especially when you're talking about a server that costs over $20,000. I'd rather have the HP guy work with it just for liability reasons.

We have a different team that does all the initial setup.

So the two biggest competitors are primarily, obviously Dell and HP. If I had to compare the two - I was at the Dell conference not too long ago just for investigation purposes - I would say that HP, in the long run, from my experience as I've worked with companies that have both, HP is just more stable, in the long term.

Like I said before, you want to avoid hardware fails, right? That's just a part of IT, but how the customer is being handled is important in terms of if we have a bad blade or we have a bad motherboard, because every now and then we get a blade that's just bad out of the box, right? The fact that the customer or the vendor, whoever that is, if they come out and do the right thing, just swap the part out with very little hassle, that's all right.

I don't have to go through a purchasing program where I have to do a repurchase or return process, and that's really helpful in terms of just doing the right thing, getting the parts swapped out, reducing our downtime, and that's our biggest paying point with the customer. Because we have customers too that scream when our stuff goes down, right?

If they're not using HP today, I would highly suggest them to take a deep look at it, in the long run, even just as a starter. I'm not saying that Dell or others are bad, it's just, in the long run, I like the hardware layouts better in HP.

The server hardware is valuable and it works. It's a server platform. It's comparable to everything else on the market. It works in a pretty reliable fashion.

As a cloud service provider, we have to provide compute to customers with reliable hardware support.

I can't think of any new features I would like to see. I'm really happy with it. I know that they're moving towards OneView.

It's a server. You plug it in and it does what it is supposed to do. It’s compliant with the HPE server line because they assemble all of the drivers that they install. The drivers have typically been extremely buggy, but we removed them from our builds. I would be nice if those drivers weren't causing critical system failures every other version, but it doesn't affect us anymore.

The platform stability is good. There are some drivers that are extremely unstable.

It's a server platform, so it's not getting more or less scalable than anything else. It's not like Flexpod or other architectures.

We've called technical support for broken programs and things like that. It really depends on who you get. There are some HPE support staff who are really, really good and there are some who are atrocious. It is really hit or miss, depending on which product you call in for. For the 360s, the support has typically been pretty good and the engineers will come on site are helpful for us.

We do a lot of server cycling, every two years or so, and we evaluate it. Our work platform allows us to standardize. It's been HPE during the time when I've been here.

They used the DL client before I started. I've been with this company for four years. As a service provider, we install the product for our customers.

We are doing another evaluation cycle right now. We will be evaluating Dell, Super Micro, and UCS.

When choosing a vendor, honestly, it’s the support that I’m looking for. Everyone gets their hardware from the same couple of places in Taiwan or wherever. What really matters is being able to get the hardware delivered on time. We've actually built relationships with the manufacturers and vendors for support. If we can't get things replaced in a timely fashion, then we have to get our heads around it and say, "I know we're a five grade data center, but we may be down for another 12 hours, or whatever, because we can't get the part in". They chose HPE before I got to the company. We've continued to work with HPE because we've had a good relationship with them. Maybe 80% of our servers, our server hardware, our storage hardware, and switches, etc. are HPE.

It is solid hardware. I'd give them a list of the drivers to rip out before the builds. I've done that before, actually, because most of the drivers that I'm talking about cause hard crashes. The will cause a blue screen, and that impacts customers. Some versions are safe, and some versions are not safe.

It allows us to utilize the servers for VDI. The system supports two GPU's.

It was part of a bigger solution, which is VDI. We are able to publish desktops for design engineers whose requirements are continuously changing on a weekly basis.

I would like to look at Synergy for the new servers. It will be out in June or July. The Synergy Streamer Composer is one of the powerful features that Synergy has.

It is pretty stable. We had a pretty good experience with HPE so far.

Scalability shouldn't be an issue. We can have 20 servers in one rack.

I've had good experience with HPE support. the support engineers are knowledgeable and customer service oriented.

We knew we needed a new solution because of the latest requirements. Nowadays, IT is very involved with the business. We try our best to enable them to do their job in an efficient way. We had a different hardware platform before, and support was not at the level we've expected.

The most important thing when selecting a vendor is service, regardless of price. We look more for partnership and service in that sense.

The installation was straightforward.

Our vendor implemented the solution. We were involved in the design and planning.

Pricing is not bad. They have competitive pricing, and the licensing model is simple to understand.

We evaluated few other technologies. We chose HPE because we've had good experience with them. I worked with them in the past and so far, HPE has proven to be reliable.

Be careful when selecting the vendor. It has to be a partnership. If the vendor can't deliver what is expected, it's going to be a nightmare. It's going to affect your operations.

It has the scalability of the processors, high core counts, and additional memory capacity.

Obviously, more performance from having the higher core counts and the additional memory.

I would like to see additional work on making the intelligent provisioning work with VMware.

The stability has been very good. It is very reliable.

Scalability has been good as well. There's actually a scale from really low core counts up to the higher-end Intel processors.

I have used tech support for warranty claims. They are good and respond quickly.

We knew we needed to invest in a new solution because our customers asked for this series of servers. HPE is our primary go-to solution for servers, unless somebody asks for some other brand in particular. When looking for a vendor, the main differentiation between most of them is good back-end support. We've had good luck with HPE support.

The setup was straightforward.

Go for it and call HPE support if you get stuck.

It is easy to configure and deploy. It is the same hardware. Whenever you buy the particular generation, it is the same. The parts inside don't change, which is nice.

The deployment software.

I would like some of the software products that they offer to be integrated. In other words, you buy the server and you get the software, instead of having to pay extra for the licenses.

It is very stable. We have run it for years.

It's pretty easy to scale.

We have used technical support a few times. It's pretty good.

We just evaluated it and other solutions, and we just chose this one.

The setup was pretty straightforward.

We evaluated Dell and Cisco. We liked the cost of this solution. We liked the software, even though you had to buy it separately.

When selecting a vendor, the reliability is the most important factor, followed by cost.

Definitely look at their solution.

The blades are very compact. They are easy to query. If you need information from them, you have one central location where you can go with OneView to understand where everything is located if you have any problems with them. In that respect, it is better than just standalone servers that you find in the field.

It gives us the ability to manage centrally. If you have a problem with any of the servers, it will send alerts and you can easily find out where they are located. You can then pull the server if you have to and change the hardware.

The servers are all identical, so if we do have issues, we can just pull one from our reserved stash and just replace it. The benefit is that they are all identical, so they are pretty reliable.

What is missing for me is more of the administration site. If you have a cluster of four servers, there's no way to identify if they are all a member of the same cluster.

If there were a way to tag them, then you could specify where they are located within the data center. It would make it easier, because then we could spread them out. We would not have to keep them in the same cabinet in case of a power failure.

I would like to see more ease-of-use, be able to identify everything, and group them together so that we know where they are located.

So far it has been very stable and reliable. We rarely have issues. When we do have issues, it is usually firmware related. Hardware-wise, they are pretty solid.

With blades, you can just add more cabinets and you are good to go.

Occasionally, we have to use technical support when there are issues. The support is really good. They always find a solution. Sometimes it takes a little longer than other times, but they always find a solution.

We knew we needed a solution because we didn't have anything prior to this solution. I had to come up with a solution and say, "These four servers are in the same cluster. We need to write codes that indicate that these servers are in this frame or in this enclosure." That way, we could map out our status.

When selecting a vendor, I look at price, if they are technologically inclined, i.e., that they know what they're doing. We look for a personal relationship, just to make sure that they are friendly and that they know their stuff.

I was not present for the initial setup. I was present for the setup of the Synergy frames. It was straightforward, but we also had HPE's help setting them up and they gave us guidance.

They evaluated solutions before I came on board. I believe they looked at Dell. We have a few Dell machines in our environment.

It is a good investment and they should go for it.