HPE Synergy Reviews

We use it for public cloud right now. It covers a plethora of workloads. We have everything from the small, mom-and-pop, five-user accounting shop running QuickBooks, all the way up to data analytics running machine-learning on it.

The main improvement has been around being able to expand the environment without building out additional infrastructure. We have the blade chassis set up. We throw an extra blade in there and we've just expanded our compute and ram. It's made it much easier for us to grow the infrastructure, once we put the foundation in place.

In terms of managing our IT landscape, it helps by reducing complexity. That's really is what it comes down to. We've taken one of our virtualization guys and turned him into a Synergy guy, and he's been able to understand the networking, he's been able to understand the OneView, he's been able to understand the Synergy. He manages all of those rather than our having to have multiple teams associated with it.

The solution has helped us to implement new business requirements quickly. We deployed the 8180 processor from Intel with it, which helped us empower much faster compute. We have actually been able to pick up more of those machine-learning clients.

In addition, our IT infrastructure team is more efficient. We have fewer teams, fewer people associated with it. It has also affected the productivity of our development team, now. At the beginning, they didn't know how to utilize it, but now that they've been able to bridge into it a little bit more, it's sped them up.

For example, we run our own panel and customer-interface platforms which are built in-house. They bring stats from the compute node and they bring stats from the RAM utilization into a customer portal that is API-driven. That one was always very hard because all of the infrastructure that we'd stand up was a bunch of 1Us. When a new cluster would come in, they would have to write the code for that cluster and it would take them a week or two just to put the right code together and deliver it to the customer. Now they've written it for the whole Synergy platform, so we just slide a blade in and it comes online.

The solution has also decreased our deployment time. On average, we deploy a private cloud in about two weeks: Buying the nodes, racking and stacking, and then applying VMware to it. From there we, would install the OSs, etc. We've cut out the racking and stacking. We've cut out a lot of the physical deploy time. Now, we buy the blades and put them in an open slot. The networking is already set up, the infrastructure is already set up, so it's just VMware and the OSs, which cuts us down to about 60 percent of the time it used to take.

The most valuable feature is the control of the overall solution all in one box. With it being all together, it has really taken down the complexity of a multi-environment. Switches being top of rack, storage being separate. It's moved it all into one box.

There is room for improvement in the setup.

It's stable. It hasn't given us a problem yet. No outages.

It's very scalable. We like the idea that we can put four chassis in one of our racks, and we can connect up to 25 chassis, so the scalability to us, and being able to sync all those into one management portal, is unheard of. You can't really sync that many blades and chassis together in any other platform.

Technical support is good. We had a struggle at the beginning. What happened was that we reached out and they didn't really understand what we were trying to do. We got more of the leadership from HPE involved and said, "Hey, this is what we're trying to accomplish. We're trying to set up a solution." They put some more advanced technical support in place and were able to solve it in under 24 hours. That helped us in initially setting up the solution.

Our previous solution was 1U Dell EMC equipment. We were buying new equipment. we were also buying the 1U servers from HPE. But we needed a solution which had flexibility.

The initial setup was complex. We had a couple of bright engineers working on it, and they figured out a lot of things that they don't know. They don't always have experience around certain platforms. The problem was that they couldn't find documentation easily, to walk them through setup when they just didn't know the platform.

We used a reseller, TIG. Our experience with them was great. They facilitated getting us pretty much all the information we needed.

We have seen ROI. Building it to be so powerful, we had six racks of 1 to 2U servers of Dell EMC equipment spread out throughout the data center - six racks of gear. We were able to condense down into four blades, because they are so powerful. That's a huge ROI and savings for us.

It has also reduced our cost of operations. We have fewer teams focusing on the overall solution. We have a team of two right now, compared to the team of six or seven people assigned to the whole cloud solution in the past. From an operations perspective, we're probably saving a good $150,000 a year.

The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs, cutting out those racks. A rack costs me the square footage. Also, if I'm using a rack for my cloud, I can't sell it to a client. Moving six racks into one has saved me a ton of overhead on the infrastructure side.

In terms of TCO, I think we'll get there faster. While the blade is more expensive than a 1U-server - I'm going to buy a 1U server for $10,000 and it's going to support X number of clients - ultimately we get to the TCO faster because we're able to pack more into the density. That means our price per gig can be lower, but we make more margin on it, overall. We're able to get to that TCO faster because of the density that Synergy provides.

VMware is part of the cost. We bought the chassis, we bought the solution. The blades are roughly running us $60,000 a pop right now.

We vetted out everything under the sun from the UCS side, the Cisco side, the Dell EMC side. They had new chassis coming out, chassis which hadn't been released yet, which they were showing me. 

We really landed on Synergy because it was the most flexible out of all the solutions. We were able to get the power we were looking for in the chassis. Our data center is really built on density. We can run 52 kW in a rack, but with all the other platforms we were limited on the amount of power we could push in there. We liked Synergy because we could put four chassis in, running two 8280 processors, and running 1.5 to 3 terabytes of RAM per blade, making it a super powerful, 42 to 50 kW cabinet. We couldn't do that with any other platform.

Most of the time, people look at our solution - the way we built Synergy - and they say, "Man, we don't need that much power. You built it with the highest processors you can buy, the most RAM you can put in there." I tell them it doesn't really matter, from a Synergy perspective, if you need a smaller solution, less RAM. Synergy is a good play for them, even though they don't need the powerhouse, because Synergy is a platform is solid. They could get gold processors, lower processors, put 512 of RAM in it, and the TCO for them would still be as good as we're getting.

The biggest lesson we've learned from using the solution is that we should have gotten on it sooner. That is the main one. We weren't focusing heavily on our density before. Now we are. The thing we've learned is that for every new solution, whether it's storage or networking or whatever it is, we need to focus on the density side of things.

We did a big vetting of HPE's Pointnext services which helps move to the solution. We spent a ton of time on it because we really wanted to make it work. Unfortunately, since we're a service provider, the model didn't work for us, but we may use it for storage, so it could work out.

What does it not have? That's the harder question. Right now, it has everything we need. We don't really see anything, it doesn't have.

I'd rate Synergy a nine out of ten because, after it was done, it was almost perfect. It was getting it done, at the beginning, that was our biggest struggle.

I'm a system integrator and service delivery manager dealing with strategy. We are an HPE partner company. 

The interfusion and administration are great features that all HPE products have. I also like the flexibility including configuring the interconnects on the use of the chassis.

I find the product documentation to be disorganized; it's not intuitive and the info required for checking a specific step-by-step configuration is buried under too much literature. This could be a more robust solution with an effective internal storage portfolio for the servers. If they were to provide an end-to-end NDM product, that would be much better.

I've been using this solution for over a year. 

The solution is quite stable. 

The solution is scalable for our customers' requirements. 

In general, the technical support is pretty good but it's not the best here in India. There is a lack of knowledge, especially in the storage area. We had implementations that required some workarounds and support wasn't able to help because they were working with a specific scripted plan and didn't have enough information to deal with all aspects of the deployment. 

The initial setup is very easy and straightforward. 

Our customers are generally medium to enterprise size clients and mainly in the banking sector. HPE is currently running neck and neck with Dell but if I had to make a choice, I'd recommend HPE. If all your requirements are well-defined, pre-deployment and implementation is easy.

I rate it nine out of ten.

We mainly use it for virtualization. We are using Generation 10 model.

The software-defined hardware might sound counter-intuitive, but it helps speed up management

Its versatility, performance, and size are most valuable. It is very decent for its size. It has very good performance and very good specifications. 

Its management interface needs some work. It is not the best in terms of management. It has decent management. Its user interface can also be better.

I have been using this solution for around three years.

It is stable.

It is definitely scalable. We have about 2,000 users.

For Synergy, we haven't required support from HPE.

We were using DL ProLiant servers, and we still use them but not as our main servers. They are not blade servers. They are rack-mounted.

It was deployed by a contractor. We have a technical team of about 20 people for its maintenance.

We have already paid once. It is just the price for the permit and its use. It seems you don't have to keep paying for it, but I am not sure.

I would recommend this solution to others. We definitely plan to keep using it. It has just been around three years. We should be using it for at least six years.

I would rate HPE Synergy an eight out of ten.

The insert RAM feature is the most valuable. It is a simple software to integrate with others like service desk applications and engine management.

In terms of additional features, there is nothing that I would add. However, the pricing can be improved as it is a costly solution due to sanctions in Iran. When we buy an HP service or system, we need a company in China to purchase it and send it to Iran. This gets very expensive as it takes time to complete this, and by the time we receive the product, the HP or Cisco company says it's the end of the sale, and there is a new version. The limitations and sanctions are very harmful to Iranian IT specialists.

We have been using this solution for five years. It is deployed on a hybrid cloud.

There are limitations to the technical support due to the sanctions in Iran.

I rate this solution a ten out of ten.

It's a little bit more complex than Blade Enclosure. It's like any virtual environment, probably. If you have virtualization on the top of the Synergy Frame, it works well.

I didn't see a lot of valuable features with Synergy. The Blade Enclosure was easier to use. They have complicated things with Synergy. The only good thing is that they have some powerful machines that you can use, such as the latest generations of HPE Compute that you can use. That's the only advantage.

It's a pretty complex solution.

The continuous update of the firmware and the patch updates and security updates for the hardware make it continuously complex. It all comes back to complexity. I don't have any other concerns. It's all about how complex the component is.

I've been using the solution for a couple of years.

There is no problem with the scalability. We haven't had issues. It can scale as needed. 

The HPE tech support is okay. It's only that you need to push them a bit so that you can get the right person. Sometimes they just give you someone that really is learning with you, which is not good. However, if you push it a little bit, then you get the right person.

We're customers and end-users.

We are an HPE shop in terms of blade technology. In terms of the computer, we are an HPE shop. So, we are with the Blade Enclosure and with the Synergy Frame. We use both.

We're just using HPE OneView with the Blade Enclosure and with the Synergy Frame. We are a very small shop. We are moving mainly to the cloud. So, everything we do is more in the cloud. On-prem we are a very small shop.

If you are okay to keep going with the Blade Enclosure (as the Blade Enclosure is not going to expire for quite a while) I would advise a user to compare a few other things before going with Synergy. For me, it wasn't a good experience.

I'd rate the solution a six out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for VM virtualization and Oracle standardization.

The virtualization is very good.

We find it quite useful for the Oracle Database.

The solution is stable.

We've found the scalability to be reasonable if you are ready to invest in it.

Technical support is excellent.

The connectivity needs to be improved. The compatibility with old infrastructure and networking should be better than what it is now. The networking part is very complex. It should be simplified.

The setup was a bit complex.

They need to make it easier for firmware upgrades. The virtual connection is very complex and they need to make it easier. 

The storage configuration should be improved. When we are connecting the 3PAR storage to Synergy, I have to manually add the values again when what should be happening is, when I'm connecting, when I'm assigning, the storage should be automatically allocated.

I've been using the solution for three years. 

The product offers good stability. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very reliable and the performance is good.

I have had some issues regarding scalability. It's scalable, however, the thing is we need to purchase hardware. You need to be ready for an investment when scaling.

Technical support has been great. We're quite satisfied with the level of support we get. The assistance they offer is perfect.

We found the initial setup to be a bit complex. It wasn't exactly straightforward and simple. It would be ideal if they could simplify the process in the future to make it easier.

The deployment took about one business day.

We're just a customer and an end-user.

We are using the HPE Synergy Composable Solution.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

It's useful for virtualization, and we run all our applications in HPE Synergy.

I like that it's suitable for virtualization. It's also stable and scalable. The newer version has a lot of memory, and you don't have to worry about updates.

The performance could be better. The converged network cards initially didn't work. However, later on in the newer version, they came up with 50 GB network cards to replace the 20 GB ones, and it's perfectly fine now. At times, it could also be more stable.

I have been using HPE Synergy since 2018.

HPE Synergy is stable.

HPE Synergy is a scalable composable infrastructure. We have 12 networks and about 1,500 users on the networks.

I have contacted technical support whenever it was required.

The initial setup was very easy. I installed and deployed this solution within a day. We have one engineer managing and maintaining this solution.

I implemented this solution by myself.

We don't have to pay for Synergy because it's part of our plan.

I evaluated a lot of options like Dell, Nutanix, and more before choosing HPE Synergy.

I would recommend this solution to potential users.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give HPE Synergy a ten.

We primarily use the solution in order to deploy an on-prem client.

The most valuable feature within the solution is the main management offering. They call it the GreenLake offering. It's the OPEX model. They manage that for the client.

The stability is very good so far. The performance has been reliable.

The solution is easily scalable. You can expand it if you want to.

If you have the right team in place, the initial setup is pretty straightforward.

Technical support is excellent. They are very helpful.

They're way ahead of the game. The software-defined fabric they have is very good.

They actually have a different offering with Nutanix. That's more generic. The Synergy platform is HPE-specific and more for on-premises. You're kind of locked in with VMware and the HPE with the VMs. The Nutanix offering is a bit more flexible.

I've been using the solution for about a year and a half. That was when it was installed by a client. It hasn't been too long.

We have the stability to be reliable. The performance is good. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is extremely scalable. It's one of the highlights of the product for us. If a company needs to expand, it can do so with ease.

It's a data center offering. Whatever applications are installed on there, and, in our case, there are hundreds of applications installed, services all the users.

We have been in touch with their technical support and they assisted us in the implementation process. Their assistance is top-of-the-line. The team is helpful and responsive. We're quite satisfied with the level of support provided.

I have experience with Nutanix. I would say with Nutanix, the sky's the limit there. It's very comprehensive and it integrates with all the clouds - and you have the on-prem as well if you need it.

The initial setup isn't too complex. It's straightforward. With the team we had, it was fairly easy. We also had assistance from HPE throughout the process, and having their insights were helpful.

In general, the maintenance is handled by HPE. We don't have to worry about it.

HPE was there all along the way. It was very good. They're very good to work with.

I can't discuss the exact amount of money we pay for licensing. The amount is confidential.

It's my understanding that the deal we arrived at was very competitive.

We are consultants. HPE is simply a service provider for us.

I don't recall which version of the solution we are using.

I would advise others considering the solution to consider the Nutanix HPE with the GreenLake as an alternate. There is just a little bit more flexibility in a product like Nutanix, although they are all good.

I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.