HPE ProLiant DL Servers Reviews

For us, the iLO feature is essential because it provides us with server management capabilities and we have a distributed-base installation.

We're able to provide greater support services outside of normal business hours, as well as at sites where we don't have service groups.

The big challenge for us is our deliveries for certain countries, such as Australia and some areas of Asia.

We've deployed these servers without any issues.

I haven't noticed any increase or decrease in the performance and stability of the servers. I'd say it's very stable and we don't generally have any problems.

The range of available services from these servers is quite varies, so it's easy to find the right machine for the job. Whenever we've needed to scale, we're able to find the right model for us.

The technical support is very good, especially for onsite support for hardware problems. They're always reliable.

We previously used Dell, but we switched because of pricing and availability.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward.

We don't have an offsite team that helps, so we managed implementation internally with our own in-house team.

I'd recommend them, but make sure you've planned the right management options, power supplies, and other technical specifications. Make sure, also, that you get the extended warranty.

We have a three-tier infrastructure and our primary use case for this product is virtualization.

The most valuable feature is the tech support. They have a high level of expertise and they are fast.

We would like to see remote monitoring capabilities added. We are currently improving our automated monitoring for HPE servers using InfoSight.

We have been using HPE ProLiant DL Servers for more than five years.

The ProLiant DL Servers are stable and reliable.

This is a scalable product. We are using HPE Nimble Storage with it.

The technical support is very good.

The initial setup is easy.

We collaborated with HPE for our deployment. We purchased the initial support service, so it's a coordinated setup.

The pricing of these servers is fair. It is in the mid-range.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this product is to purchase spare parts. The reason for this is that there is currently an electronic parts shortage. Any replacement components, such as a new hard disk, is very difficult to order and will have a long lead time. For this reason, I suggest ordering spare parts to have them in stock.

In summary, this is a good product, I'm content with it, and I recommend it for others.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

Our customers are having additional VMware environments which we are converting into one because of the backup advantage. We can do the complete backup of VM within approximately eight to ten seconds.

The speed of the backups and having the system be immune to ransomware are the main advantages. Additionally, It is very user-friendly, repairable, flexible, and anybody can easily learn it.

When it comes to security there can always be room for improvement. If there was an option to build security into the system it would be an advantage.

The solution could improve by providing local support here in Sri Lanka, we do not have a local office.

I have been using this solution for approximately five years.

The solution is scalable.

We have approximately 500 customers using this solution.

The support structure from HPE is excellent. When comparing the support to Dell and Huawei, they cannot match the level of support HPE provides. I have experienced great response times and the engineers are very talented with precise information. When they give a solution to a problem we do not have to question if it will resolve the issue.

HPE frequently checks its competitors' capabilities to ensure they deliver the best service. This is something valuable this is why they are one of the best.

The installation is easy. The hardware installation takes approximately 20 minutes and the Windows installation takes another 20 minutes.

We have support engineers for the maintenance and implementation of the solution.

HPE ProLiant DL Servers are one of the best-selling solutions in this industry. There is not a license required for this solution.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate HPE ProLiant DL Servers a nine out of ten.

Reliability is a valuable feature for us. We use the DL380s throughout our data centers and they've proven to be very reliable.

We've been using them for several years, and because we've been using them throughout our data centers, they've been uniform. All of our techs are familiar with them, and I think it's just familiarity with the servers which has benefited us a lot.

We're going to the hyper converged area. I've seen OneView. I'm very pleased with how that interface looks. We saw SimplyView in a demonstration and Synergy. So until I get my hands on it, I don't know that I can say I'm looking for more improvements.

We've been using them for several years.

We are very impressed with the stability. The only time they've really failed on us is when the cooling in the area failed one time. Literally, the temperatures got so hot that they physically melted. That's probably the only time they failed.

Right now, we're looking into some of the newer hybrid architectures, hyper converged. So we're looking at keeping our older servers but trying to scale them out. So that's what we're looking at now.

The technical support has been very valuable. We had a storage array go bad, and they worked with us to get that storage array up and running again. So, yes, very valuable.

Prior to what we were using, I think we were just using all of the firmware-based solutions for setting up our arrays.

If you use a different supplier or a different company for your firmware or your hardware, then it has a different interface. It was just complicated. If you're using HPE for everything, it just made it so much simpler.

I was not involved in the initial setup, although my predecessor was. I've stood up servers and storage arrays from scratch, and I think it's not that complex. I think the user interface that HPE provides is straightforward. It takes away the complexity. That's my feeling, anyway.

We've looked at moving away from HPE in the past, and we were lured away. But HPE, for the requirements of our customers, for our own requirements, especially security, was key.

I think security is one of the first things we look at, and HPE has that covered.

We evaluated Dell. We chose to stay with HPE but we almost switched to Dell.

I mean, look at what other solutions are out there, and look up what your requirements are. For us, it's met all of our requirements. I don't think that the others could do that.

The most valuable features are reliability, the ease of implementation and setup. It's all wizard-driven. Also, maintenance on the devices, spare parts availability, and, as I’ve mentioned, reliability.

We've reduced the number of physical servers, currently. So, we've brought it down from 38 servers down to about 15. Seeing that we are standardizing, it's easier to support the devices, as we don't have that many different devices on-site that need to be supported.

I looked at the technologies offered at a recent HPE conference. There are a lot of technologies that are only offered on the high-end servers. As an example, the SSD module that's embedded on the memory; that's only available on the HP DL380. We've invested quite heavily in the HP DL360 G9s, which means that I won't have access to that technology. I would like it if there's a possibility, even if you have to pay an additional license, to enable that technology on the DL360s.

There's never a problem with it. It's always running. The reliability factor's quite high.

It has definitely been stable.

On the 3PAR, you just add devices as needed.

My previous employer, we were an HP house. Then when I started at the new company, I’ve noticed that they’ve got a mixed breed of technologies. It's not all industry or first-year suppliers or brands. I started the standardization strategy and obviously, HPE was the first choice.

The most important criteria when selecting HP were performance and reliability. I've got an existing relationship with a current supplier and, like I've mentioned before, I'm familiar with the brand and the technologies.

Initial setup was straightforward.

Before choosing this product, I also evaluated Dell and IBM rack servers.

Absolutely HPE. Absolutely happy with it.

There are several valuable features of these servers, including their reliability, the general standardization of components, expandability, price, and support. I think they're miles ahead of the competition in these areas.

I think that the main area of improvement would be in the price. The price only came down for us when we went to a dual vendor solution. We resorted to negotiating prices between HP and its competitors, and would have been nice to not have gone through that trouble to get a more competitive price.

We experienced no issues with the deployments.

The stability is great. They're always bugs with IT and the computers are there to test those. I wouldn't have a job otherwise. I'd say HP servers are generally more stable than the competitors.

They're very scalable.

We do most technical support in-house. If we do go to HP, the level of tech support will depend on the type of bug, who you're speaking to, how good the answer is, and how good the result is. Often you have to skip three layers of support before you can even get any assistance.

We have a multi-vendor network, but 99% of our kit is HP. We also use Dell and IBM equipment, but we chose HP for servers because it's just easier to support the platform. Multiple vendors need multiple hardware, and for multiple hardware, there are more update methods. They don't all work the same way and they're not all as reliable.

• Scalability
• Performance
• Out-of-band management
• Support

Java version dependence for its out-of-band management. This is also an issue for other vendors, as well.

HP Proliant Servers have been used on this project for over six years. I’ve managed them since I came on the project, so for almost five years. We used the BladeSystem alongside the DL servers.

There won't be any issues as long as you have followed the guidelines to ensure that the firmware was up to date prior to deployment.

There was an issue before I came on the project, where a firmware update was not applied, and that had caused a few systems to become unstable under certain conditions, but HP support was able to identify the cause and provide a solution.

The systems scale well for our environment.

Mostly very positive. The only issue I’ve encountered has been with presales support (i.e. getting accurate quotes to purchase systems).

Excellent.

Before coming on this project, I had used Dell servers. The performance of the HP server has an edge over the Dell systems I had used.

Overall the HP Proliant servers have been dependable and fit nicely into the price vs performance that is required for custom application stack.

HP Proliant servers are rock solid and when you need technical support HP’s team is there to support you with answers, no matter how long it takes to properly identify the root cause and then propose a solution.

Virtualized servers, failover production and dev/test environments of Linux and Windows guests.

We have been able to virtualize many physical servers into virtual servers running on a smaller number of physical hosts. This has allowed us to consolidate and reduce our carbon footprint in the data center and have a higher ROI on Capex purchases. Also becomes easier to introduce new hardware as part of replacement cycles as VMs are hardware independent.

• iLO gives hardware information, preempting imminent failures.
• Redundancy features provide hot-swap ability for drives and power supplies and automatic rebuilding of RAIDs.

Boot-up time should be reduced. Restarting a server at any time is a stress-filled occasion, and waiting around for the server to come back on is agonizing. 10GB and 40GB ethernet connections are essential for virtualization workloads and consolidation.

Stability can be adversely affected if non-HP certified RAM is used, e.g. Kingston value RAM has failed a few times, bringing an entire server down.

Excellent, the support is one area where I can have no complaints. Whenever a hardware failure has been detected, HP have responded in good time and the part was delivered within the agreed SLA. Having said that, the original parts availability outside the established channels also makes it easy (cheaper) to maintain, especially in non-critical environments i.e. dev and test.

I've used HP servers predominantly so do not have much else to compare them with.

It's simple. Use the included SmartStart media, and it seamlessly integrates with the OS of choice.

In-house. I have found the rack mounting kits more of a challenge then the installation of the OS/hypervisor, that is how simple implementation is. Also, keep an eye on which version of the SmartStart media you use i.e. x86 vs. x64 as that limits what kind of OS media can be utilized.

ROI is difficult to say because it depends on the type of implementation e.g. is it a new deployment or consolidating an existing an existing one or simply replacing like for like. What I would say, is that the platforms are very stable and once setup, will most likely outlast any hardware replacement cycle in place.

Ensure that you get the hardware support with 24x7 four hour response if this is a high availability production environment, and purchase appropriate iLO licenses if needed.

The only thing I don't like about them is that if/when you have to restart it, it takes a long time to come back on. As the sea of sensors have increased in recent generations, the time has become longer.

Define your storage needs in advance and then plan the disks accordingly. Suggest that if flash storage is financially feasible, then invest in that as the performance benefits are worth it.