HPE Synergy Reviews

Right now, we are mostly using it for building out data center services. The biggest things that we are using it for are large scale virtual farms. We have recently even started using it to have large shared database resources for shared platforms, like Informatica.

We are just using it as a server.

It is helping us sort of bridge a gap that we are having moving off of old legacy systems, like HP-UX systems and trying to move over to x86. So, it is helping fill a hardware gap that a lot of our platforms have needed in the past.

It is filling a gap in server size that we don't really have right now in previous generations.

I would like them to work more on the templates, targeting it to a larger scale organization which has to run 24/7. Maybe they can try to get that workload to target certain parts of an application that has to be on 24/7. The common example that we keep getting is with our animators. They have one template which is dedicated to their resources, and in the night, it does rendering. However, when we have stuff which is running 24/7, it's not really something that applies. So, maybe they can try finding more applicable use cases.

The solution has affected the productivity our deployment a little, but it has just been the normal getting used to the new system. I think once they get used to it, it will be fine.

It seems pretty stable. We haven't had any issues that I'm aware of. We have not had any outages.

Just considering how we're using it, we are really using it for the bare bones infrastructure. I think if we were using Synergy in probably the way that most teams or organizations were expected to use it, it probably scales a lot better for us because we are looking at it the bare bones CPU memory and how it works. 

Scaling is difficult, but that's always going to be the case.

I don't work with the technical support.

We started moving data centers, so we had to invest in a new solution.

The initial setup was complex. From what I was told, there were issues initially with getting the SFPs on the floor for our data center and something with the image, but I think that was on our service provider' side. They couldn't get the image to deploy with the right drivers and stuff.

We worked directly with HPE.

We have not yet seen ROI.

It has not yet reduced our cost of operations.

It has not yet reduced our IT infrastructure cost.

I would recommend that anybody who does look at Simplicity to look into Synergy. Look into it before they deploy. They should look and make sure it is compatible for their environment.

At the scale that we are at, we don't really have too many use cases right now where we can leverage all the technologies behind it. So, it's unfortunate but we are looking forward to getting to that point. We just have to slowly bridge that gap.

It is fulfilling our needs. It is not doing anything that has been too different than how we're already using it. Because of how we are using it as a bare bones servers, we just see it as a server.

We just haven't really integrated it into the public cloud or hybrid cloud. We are testing out Simplicity and Nimble now, so that might already be a feature.

In the data center, you see customers with a lot of blade enclosures and a lot of servers, and this solution works fine.

I have one customer in Belgium that I know that is testing it, and they're quite happy about it. There are some challenges, but it is software. For software, you have developers.

The hardware is there.

With the changing IT demands, they need to change more often and faster. We need applications to model tomorrow’s needs. We need more applications for changing users. There is a need for a more optimized infrastructure.

For instance, I have a customer with 20 blade enclosures. In those 20 blade enclosures, there are 40 management modules that you need to update and manage.

In troubleshooting, you have to determine if the issue is in one, two, or in all 20 modules. The diagnosis is harder.

With Synergy, we only have two management modules instead of 40. It's an efficiency thing that needs to be improved.

We'll see what will come next. We will probably see other types of enclosures, smaller or larger ones, and more options on the storage and networking side. This is the typical evolution of IT to go to more and faster.

Synergy is new, but the advantage is that technically, it's a ProLiant server, so it is stable. Proven technology with a lot of new features.

HPE has proven track records worldwide delivering superb support on hard- and software. This is the same for Synergy.

One of my things I do in my company is write technology blog which is quite technical for the type of audience that I have.

I don't have a Synergy enclosure yet in my home lab, a.k.a., data center in my garage, but I'm quite sure that it is simple enough that my nine-year old daughter could install it.

In my pre-sales role, I see other customers looking at competitive solutions, be it Intel, EMC, or Nutanix. They all have some strengths.

The Nutanix solution is cool, because it's simple. But it's software and I'm not convinced about any of the hardware underneath it. Some people say, "Yeah, the hardware's not important." However, I have some real-life scenarios, cases with customers, in which it was proven that they had the software, they had the hardware, but they had a hardware issue and the software screwed up.

I prefer to go for the HPE solution. This is not because Nutanix is bad, but they are just a software company, independent of the hardware. I feel more confident with HPE because I know they build the hardware and the software. If I have a problem, I can contact one person with one phone number and I can make contact. I know the hardware guy and I know the software guy.

With Nutanix, for instance, this is not the case. They also say, "we have one phone number," but if they have a problem with the rate controller in their server, they have to call Dell or Lenovo. They have to escalate the case. They are not going to be able to solve my problem. They are going to escalate it.

I'm with HPE. I know that HPE will solve my problem directly.

The density and the flexibility that it provides are the most valuable features. In the C7000, there was a memory density issue per-blade that was solved in Synergy's platform. On top of that, I value the composability of it. In other words, being able to create hyper-converged systems within the frame, rather than having to resort to rack mounts.

A great benefit is being able to create different solutions that aren't available in the traditional C7000 platform.

It's a lot more about some of the speeds and feeds, such as the 25, 50, 100 GB virtual connections. In addition, I would like to see improvement in the 32 GB fiber channel connection at the end of it.

We have no issues with stability.

I have not used technical support.

It's just one of those products that as a partner, we have always tried to stay on top of. Previously, we had the C7000, plus other competing products, in our lab.

When selecting a vendor, I look at how well things integrate together, as well as the ease of management.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

We didn’t look at any competitor’s solutions.

Look at the flexibility of the platform, as far as being able to have that storage drive to be able to do hyper-converge. It should not block your architecture. As you scale it out, you don’t have choke points on the network side, like you do in other platforms.

We work with the Synergy OneView 5.4 version.

We use the solution for hypervisor infrastructure.

We like that the solution can be arranged for an all-in-one single pane of glass, something our customers find important. 

It would be nice if the updates were not accompanied by downtime. We have encountered this issue at times over the years. 

The solution should come with external storage connectivity.

Owing to these minor issues, I choose to rate the solution as a nine out of ten. 

I have been using Synergy's newest product for the past three years. I have made use of it over the past 12 months. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

I have no specific advice to offer others who are contemplating implementing the solution. 

I rate HPE Synergy as a nine out of ten. 

Most of our use cases are under NDA. I can't speak to how specific clients use it.

Use cases can vary by quite a bit. Generally, companies can use it as a computing system, as a database, or for virtualization. There are very different use cases that can be covered by this product.

The product is mostly stable.

The solution is built very well. It's very robust and durable.

The installation is straightforward.

If a customer would like to, they have the opportunity to buy technical support licenses.

In the past, I have had issues with configurations.

I've been doing installations for a while at this point. Likely, it's been about a year.

The product is mostly stable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable. I haven't had any issues with the hardware. It's a well-built product and it's durable.

I wouldn't describe this solution as scalable as it is hardware. It's scalable inside the chassis. However, I have not tried to scale it yet. I don't really have experience in this aspect.

We have four clients that are currently using the solution.

I don't have any experience with technical support. That's handled on the customer side. If they have issues with the solution, they would contact HPE directly. I'm just an installer.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. An organization probably wouldn't have too many issues. I have struggled with the configuration aspect, however. That can be a bit difficult.

I cannot remember exactly how long the deployment takes in its entirety. It's maybe an hour or so, for the physical installation. After that, the deployment and configuration depend on the organization and its requirements. Sometimes it's a couple of hours. Sometimes it takes two days.

You only really need two people for deployment and maintenance.

I handle the installations for clients. I'm an integrator.

You can purchase support licenses for this product. Those would need to be paid on a yearly basis.

I'm an integrator and I mostly deal with solution hardware. I also use HPE Rack.

I install the latest versions of the solution.

I would recommend the solution as it is very well built. As a chassis, I would rate it at a nine out of ten.

We are resellers of HPE Synergy and I'm the CTO. 

Synergy has great data storage and it's a storage module. It's very good for software defined solutions. For example, customers needing a large data solution can use Synergy with blade and storage modules, but in a VMware environment for database solutions, Synergy is not useful. The important thing is the application - I think Synergy is a very good solution in some cases, but not for general purpose solutions or mixed environments, such as VM and physical environments that require larger storage.

I think the main issue with Synergy is a topology that HPE defines to connecting and creating a cluster. There are satellites and interconnecting modules which should interconnect with one special topology. If you want to change that and add another shelf in the cluster you have to change everything. I think it's very, very complex. But for example, in UCS, you have fabric interconnects, USC blades connect to fabric interconnects. It allows you to add more and more USC blades to the fabric interconnect. There is no connectivity between blades chassis. In Synergy, there are many connections between the blades chassis and I think that's the main issue. The other thing is that Synergy has a composer module that OneView runs on and which manages that cluster. I don't like HPE softwares. I think, for example, in comparison, the UCS manager is the better solution for managed blades than OneView. OneView is not as strong for that

It would be helpful if Synergy would add Cisco networking products, and network models in CSG, C 7000, maybe Blade models, software Cisco products, for example, b 22, CISCO B22 modules. I think the number of customers that use Cisco in their data centers is more than the customers that use HPE solutions. Because of that, I think HPE should add Cisco products and network modules to Synergy - I think that would be a good idea. 

I've been using this solution for two years. 

Although the setup is complex, once it's up and running, the product is stable. 

The scalability is very complex. In Cisco, you connect everything to fabric interconnect. You can attain the blades on their fabric interconnect so scalability is one of main issues in Synergy.

Because of the cabling between FLM modules and a composer, the initial setup is complex. We are more familiar with IPv4 than IPv6. I think the initial setup is more complex than for UCS or c7000.

This is a good solution but it has some issues. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

We use the Synergy Frame to host the main infrastructure for a big project. We have multiple Synergy Frames that are all managed by a single OneView interface.

The uptime and the performance meet our expectations, plus the integration with 3PAR is very good.

The OneView installed on the Composers has a very friendly user interface, which helps to manage the compute modules in the frame, compared to management used in legacy technologies.

The Online firmware update for the virtual connects has minimized our downtime windows.

The features we found most valuable are:

• Using only two virtual connect modules to support network for multiple frames
• Ease of management using the OneView Composer
• Online firmware update for the Virtual Connects, which are part of a single logical interconnect module

The OneView has improved a lot throughout the years with the release of the Synergy and OneView version 4, although it still has issues. The stability and smoothness of firmware upgrades for the compute modules can be improved by enabling full composability of the Synergy Frame.

We have been using this solution for two years.

This solution is very stable.

Our impression of the scalability is very good in terms of Composer and virtual connects, since you need only two of each for multiple frames.

Technical support for this solution has a very good initial response; however, escalation takes time, and most of the time the first level of support cannot solve your case.

We used a different solution previously, but we switched because of the ease of management, and in addition, this solution is future proof.

The initial setup is done by a partner and it is straightforward, but it takes time.

Our deployment was handled by a Vendor Team, and they are very experienced.

We did evaluate other options before choosing this solution, including Dell PowerEdge M1000e and Cisco UCS.

My suggestion is to go with HPE Synergy Composer v2 once it is released. 

Have HPE support with you while doing hardware upgrades.

As far as I know, the traditional blade system is not going to be supported from 2023. So we are trying to anticipate the need for this change towards Synergy, and perhaps moving a little bit early.

• They're easy to swap and move around the datacenter, for sure. 
• They don't occupy too much space for what they offer.

The structure is different yet similar because it resembles the traditional approach of blade systems. Perhaps it's more composable, you can use storage as well as compute blades. So maybe it's more versatile compared to the traditional blade systems.

From what I've seen, it's got pretty much what I think we need. Maybe after a little usage I can come up with new ideas, but right now it seems okay.

The possibility of using storage directly in the frame in order to have bigger storage directly there, and not having an attached storage like SAN or NAS. That would be helpful.

It will probably be with us for a lot of years to come. We are still in the process of buying the first one, so maybe we're not going to use the full ring architecture from the beginning, but in the future, since we're going to have just Synergy and not the old blade systems, it's definitely a possibility.

I don't know about the tech support. We have a consultant. There is a specific person that follows us and tries to help us in our needs.