HPE Synergy Reviews

It's our day-to-day production device. We deploy our workloads and VMs in clusters on it.

The solution helps us to implement new business requirements quickly, by using the Composer for efficiency. It has also improved the productivity of our development team due to the efficiency of being able to deploy via Composer. We're able to deploy development environments rapidly. We have seen about a 25 percent reduction in deployment times.

Ease of use.

It's absolutely reliable. Zero outages.

It's easily scalable.

Technical support is solid. We really haven't had issues with it, so we haven't had to go down that path much yet.

We had aging gear. We went from c7000s into Synergy.

The initial setup was straightforward. We met them at the data center for four days. We racked, stacked, and deployed it. They showed me the ropes. It was easy.

We used an integrator/reseller. They were solid.

We've seen ROI through density and capacity into it. Where I had four c7000 chassis running a lot of standalone stuff, I was able to consolidate a lot of that and virtualize it. It has reduced our cost of operations and IT infrastructure costs, the latter by about 50 percent. With aging gear that needed long-term maintenance, consolidating into a chassis or two reduced maintenance costs.

We went with Synergy because it was the best-in-breed and the next generation, from the existing c7000s. We're exclusively an HPE shop, so we didn't really fish around.

Definitely go with it. Use this product. It's best-in-breed. The biggest lesson we've learned from using this solution is to continue using this solution.

I would give it a nine out of ten for sure because it's 100 percent reliable and for the ease of use. I seldom give anything a ten. There's always room for improvement, I'm just not thinking of a specific feature or two that are missing, but there is certainly a feature or two missing.

The primary use case is really a replacement for the BladeCenter. Though, we would like our customers to see it more in the composable fashion that it has been positioned. The primary use case (as our customer see it) is they can't go further with BladeCenter, so they are choosing Synergy.

Traditionally, our customers have been using their BladeCenter, and now Synergy, to run any type of mid-tier applications or virtualized platforms that, for whatever reason, don't fit in the hyper-converged area. 

From a hybrid cloud perspective, Synergies are more seen for the potential of integrating into orchestrated and automated deployments, so they can have cloud-like functionality on-premise. They are not quite at that yet, and in the couple cases where we have deployed it, that has certainly been the goal.

We do have one customer who very specifically uses it for back office applications during the day (during business hours), then they will actually swap it into a scheduling facility at night. Therefore, those jobs that are running off hours can be used for it. So, we do actually have one customer who is doing that.

In another case, we have a customer who is heavily orchestrated, and we have written a significant number of automation tools for them. In that case, we are in the process of PoC'ing that automation process and tying that into the orchestration tools. Whereas in the past, both their hyper-converged environment, as well their ProLiant rack servers and their BladeCenter, would not tie very well into the orchestration.

Productivity of deployment goes back to the automation tie-ins and fluidity of the resource. If they can reuse componentry, knowing they can do that based on a temporal basis, and they have some type of scheduling facility, then this makes it significantly easier.

It has the next level beyond hyper-converged:

1. It has that promise of combining the orchestration and automation.
2. Being able to no longer have an isolated bare metal environments, then converged infrastructure with virtualized environments. The ability to have both platforms in one infrastructure. Then, simultaneously have the ability to go between them and isolate workloads while still having shared workloads. That sort of mix and match and fluidity of being able to reassign.

Secondarily, the temporal value of it. If I only need a particular amount of compute for a specific period of time during business hours, then at night, I'm running a bunch of batch jobs, or doing something else, that ability to swap a profile, swap templates, and have compute assigned to something else, saves significant amount of money. As long as you are tying it into the automation and orchestration layers, it becomes much easier to do.

Continue the playbooks with the automation integrations. More of that would be good, as it has been great so far. 

I would really like to see the type of hardware add-on operationalization made simpler in some way. How do I have a chassis and add in a second or third chassis, but not have to be so aware that it is number 11 versus number 12 within the frame? If they can address that, it would be a home run.

Continue the path of integrating OneView into a single product. A lot of different people have different OneView experiences based on which product they have used it for.

In the past, there has been some question around the stability of networking components of it. It has been a long time since HPE has had a significant server issue, but from the networking component and newer networking components, there have been significant improvements from the past.

I love the idea of Synergy and its ability to scale out. Operationally, it is a little bit challenging to manage at this point. When you add onto it, you have to be very aware of where you are in the frame, on your count, and what components. You may have to move a satellite module or you may have to reallocate componentry, which is already there. That scale aspect is challenging. From a hardware perspective, it is not transparent.

From a scalability within existing resources, it is very scalable and much easier to use. E.g., I have deployment requests coming down from some orchestration layer and just need to add available resources and compute.

In a couple cases, it was really just sort of that end of life of BladeCenter. In another case, they saw the temporal value aspect and the customer thought that swapping would make a ton of sense.

There is more to keep in mind with Synergy. Remember that our customers are coming from BladeCenters. Where after 10 to 15 years of it, and everybody found it fairly simple at this point, then they have this new paradigm of scaling out to many multiple frames, and so many more modules. It is a change in mindset. Therefore, some people will say that it is complex simply because of that. It is not that difficult though.

We deploy with the help of HPE consultants. Our experience with the HPE consultants is very positive. They have been all over it, more so than the customer even.

For temporal use, when you throw on the fact that you're essentially doubling your capacity, right there you could claim a 50 percent TCO reduction. As far as ROI, that becomes a lot harder because it is dependent on the level of automation that you have built into that reallocation as you are introducing a step that wasn't there before either, where as you would have just built two different infrastructures and the cost would have been upfront. So, the ROI is really in the reduction of total costs.

It still sort of comes up occasionally against some of the HCI competitors, but it's a totally different approach.

Synergy is chosen based on that mix of being able to do bare metal, multiple types of virtualization and the fluidity of the resource rather than it being all virtualized, then fluidity.

Focus on the fluidity of resources and view everything from that lens. Always remember that is the justification for some of the complexity. Once you can set it up appropriately, it will be worth it. If you view it purely from a non-fluid, assign this - just like you would a blade, then you may find it more complex, and in some cases, more expensive to manage.

Right now, there are pros and cons to whether it is affecting our customer's IT infrastructure. It is probably net neutral because there are some complexity from an operationalization aspect that increases compared to what they're used to. Being able to know what number frame it is within the Synergy frame. Operationally you are ordering different parts differently based on where you are in that count. That adds a certain complexity to them managing it on a growth and scale perspective. So, you are sort of giving up one efficiency to get the other right now. That is something that will be addressed better over time, and it is even better than it was two years ago already.

It hasn't proven to implement new business requirements quickly, but it certainly has that promise. In its worst case, it is just another hardware-centric solution. In its best case, the customer will have the automation tie-in to actually make this happen.

Biggest lessons learnt:

1. You should be aware of your workloads from a time basis, which means you need to be monitoring and analyzing those workloads more. 
2. The absolute necessity of automation.

Improved storage, scalability, and ease-of-use. It is a lot packed into a small chassis/frame.

• It has reduced a lot of our infrastructure down to a few systems. This is opposed to larger, two and four use systems. It's knocked us down to a few frames and made it a lot easier to use.
• A single unified infrastructure that can be optimized for all workloads via software makes our life easier. It reduced man hours, because we only have four people running the shop. The less time I have to spend on it, the more time I can spend in other areas.
• The programmatic interface of the synergy API was clean, simple, and intuitive. This automation will make IT more efficient, as I will spend less time in front of the wheel.
• The software defined infrastructure simplifies our operations, in that I can get more things done and pushed out to customers faster.
• The automated life cycle management affirms where our drivers make their IT operations simpler. It's all in one place. You've got the firmware and the software that all comes down in one spot. You just apply it from there.
• The architecture eco-system system was part of our decision to invest in it for the future. It took some doing. It took a buy-in from everyone through management. Given its price point, it took a lot more than that. It was an infrastructure change for us. We value a modular infrastructure with shared power and Googling with an integrated search engine. We end up with one single system to do everything. It's just easier to manage, as opposed to 20 servers where you've got to change out supplies, memory, and everything else. You've got to maintain all that. Now, it is just one unit.

Firmware. I'd get the firmware to be a little more secure and a little more streamlined.

So far, the stability is good and it's running fine. I can't complain.

Scalability is good. I can take it and move it between two data centers, have one in each data center, and move things back and forth. That's mostly a function of the OS, but the hardware, being as robust as it is, works well.

When I get to a human being, technical support is great. Up until then, it's a big challenge. They want to try to do a little bit by email, which drives me out of my mind, honestly.

We didn’t use a previous solution. We are an HPE shop. We knew that we needed to invest in this solution because it was cool. The scalability is what did it for us. The next level progression was to go from the C7000 chassis. It just linked itself to the infrastructure that we're going to.

When selecting a vendor, we look at support and cost point.

The installation was very straightforward.

Take the time to go through it. Put your hands on it, at somebody else's lab if you can. See if you can get a demo unit. Plug it in and try it.

We're doing a new product line, we're now doing Big Data. We had the help of HPE on it. They advised we use this platform, so that's why we have it.

Shorter delivery times. Where we now have a delivery time of about six weeks, we hope to go back to days.

It's a bit easier to manage than the C7000s. But we're still finding out how it works, it's all new to us. And we're also using it for new concepts, the old systems we used were ESX. And these systems are used for Mesosphere and bare metal Red Hat deployments.

The deployment time of a system through OneView is pretty slow, but apparently that's being addressed in an upcoming update.

Also not a big point. It's stable, but all the other solutions we have are stable as well, so this is not a main point.

The other solutions that we have are scalable as well. At least they are scalable enough for our needs.

Good, very good. As far as we have a need for them, they are knowledgeable.

It was pretty complex. We weren't allowed to do the setup ourselves, we had to have an engineer from HPE. In my book, that's complex, if I cannot do it myself.

It's a fully integrated solution with OneView. With the new servers and technology, we can have more resources, RAM, and CPU. We are using it primarily for VMware.

Now that we have the new generation, the G10, we have the security. That was one part that was missing. That is going to be important, because we will be running on Generation 9.

The stability so far is good. We did the PoC in February and we are going to get into production in June. We have been running tests and it has been stable. We had some issues in the initial setup, but basically it's what we expect from HPE. We had an issue during the initial setup with the 40 Gigabyte cards. They weren’t working, so we had to work really closely with HPE support to get them to work. It took about two weeks to fix the issue.

Scalability is one of the benefits of using Synergy. We are able to add and grow without any problems.

Technical support went really well. They were excellent in helping us find the solution to the issue. They were eager to get this done and they fixed it correctly. That was good.

The lifespan for the C-class are going to be over in a few years. We are moving all of our production systems for a cycle. We have about 3-4 year cycles of use, and then we are going to the new platform, which is the correct option. We will not to go to the C-class, which is the old option.

The setup was a little bit complex, because it was the first one. It is a new product, so nobody knows it too well. We are kind of learning on the way, but it is OK. It's a new technology, so I think it's normal. It still needs a little bit of ironing out to be completely integrated with OneView. There are still some issues.

It's a new solution, but you are in good hands with HPE support. Use HPE support. They will give you a hand to go through the user experience, setup, and implementation.

We give out certification training on HPE product lines. Synergy is one of the product lines. It's part of our composable infrastructure in our hybrid IT training. We use Synergy for giving customers and partners hands-on experience.

It gets us lots of training-development work because the product is changing all the time. It's a relatively new product. It was introduced a couple of years ago and it's changing quite rapidly. That's a benefit for us as we continue to update the training of it.

The key advantage that we teach people is speed to market, or speed to productivity, thus, reducing the time it takes to provision business services. That's the key positive aspect of Synergy.

Composability. We're developing training. We show our partners the value of composability and how it can meet their needs.

I would just like it to work.

The stability is poor. It's a relatively young product and the management solution that drives the product shows its signs of immaturity. There is a new version being released this week. Things are getting better but they need to get better more quickly.

From a scalability perspective, the platform is great.

Technical support is poor. We've had issues with the system. Firmware upgrades, for example, did not go as they should have gone. After placing a support call to HPE, several weeks later problems actually got worse as a result of what they instructed us to do.

We were shipped the very early solution and it's installed in a data center in Michigan and we had other people do it. We helped them do it remotely but it wasn't hands-on for us. The kit is owned by HPE but it's managed by an external company and we work with that external company to use the kit and help set it up. Our experience with them during the setup was great.

The main challenge we faced was that when it was installed it just did not work. There were faulty components and it took weeks of troubleshooting to find the faulty components, get them replaced. Getting help from HPE was difficult. Nobody knew about the product. It was a brand-new product and people had not been trained on it. That part was not a great experience.

The setup was very complex. The intention for Synergy is that it's auto-discovery. You turn the power on and everything happens and it's all done for you. It absolutely did not work that way. If you have one faulty component - and we had several - it just does not do what it says on the tin. Again, it was an early production model, so we understand things go wrong. But again, getting support for the product was very difficult because nobody knew about the product because it was brand-new.

Come on a training course. Find out what it can do for you.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using this solution is that composability is the way to go. No one else can do it. It will be a great win for HPE when it works.

It decreases deployment time, certainly, when it works. I can get an operating system or a hypervisor deployed within five minutes. Whereas prior, it might have taken me five hours to do the same job. It's quite significant. What we don't see are the 700 hours that we have to spend setting it up and getting past the bugs in the software to make it work. When it's working its fine. I don't tell customers this. However, it is marketed as a panacea and, with the appropriate work, it can be.

I rate Synergy at five out of ten. Once they resolve the issues, it'll be great. The product is only two years old. In another year, another two years maybe, it'll be fantastic. It's just, the reality is, it's breaking new ground. No one else has this solution and there are issues with it. It's possible that much of the skill that was within HPE as a company, is no longer with the company. As a result of people moving away from the company, HPE is left with insufficient expertise, especially in the support area.

This is the first time that we are using Synergy, so we don't yet have the experience to talk about this.

It provides the new computer node and connects 3PAR without SAN people to help me.

I think that they can improve the update because the update is problematic now. When you want to update the firmware, or when you want to update software on Composer, it takes a lot of time. A lot. For compute node, you need one hour for upgrading firmware. I think that is a big problem.

It became stable the second time. The first time, it wasn't. We had some problems but they're solved, and now it's stable.

We want to scale in three frames this year, we suppose, because they want to change everything in the datacenter. They want to put everything on Synergy. Synergy with integration with monitoring software, and Docker. So, we wanted to do this.

They are responsive. We don't have any problem at all when talking with them.

Overall we've had a good experience. We have had a little problem during startup because the OneView software is older than the last release. During the update, we had some problems, but HPE solved them quickly and perfectly.

It is flexible. You can build, construct, and deconstruct your workload via software and through programming.

It increases efficiency and gives more time for IT personnel to do their work. You build it once and use it forever, or modify it slightly.

It saves time to design, install, and manage workloads.

The interface seems pretty wide and flexible.

You can use any programming language or enterprise interface like Puppet or Chef. It is really agnostic in terms of the virtualization, so it is very flexible.

Our IT department will be more efficient in terms of faster time to market, and being able to respond to businesses faster than before.

The software design infrastructure makes it open to the API to enterprise products such as Chef, Puppet, Ansible, and Docker. As I mentioned before, the ability to support other hardware other than HPE will make it a more universal product.

The modular infrastructure is part of the converge system for scalability. If all of us are sharing the infrastructure, then discovery happens automatically. It increases the efficiency of the IT department. The dream of any IT staff member is to no longer worry about firmware. That's one of the high level high points, in that it is all embedded in the templates. You don't need to worry about firmware, as it is part of the workload.

I would like to see support for other vendors’ hardware.

It is still too early to tell, but so far, stability has been good.

Scalability seems very promising, due to the architecture. We only have one frame, but from what I understand having gone through a lot of training, it seems like it's going be a good, scalable product.

We haven’t used technical support yet

We knew that we needed to invest in this solution, because of way the industry is going. You need to transform development in your IT departments. They need fast solutions. They need new development. They need a way where they can get their code and their workload to work fast.

Previous to this, our customers put in the OS and middle-ware to get the application running. With this solution, all of this can be imaged once, streamed to the hardware, and it's done in minutes instead of spending days or weeks on it.

When choosing a vendor, I look for the reliability of the technology. I look for openness of the solution and finding out who has worked with the vendor in the past, to bring in new recommendations from customers.

The initial setup was straightforward.

I have not evaluated other vendors. For me, HPE is in my DNA.

I would highly recommend learning and reading about it. They should ask for the vendor to come and explain it, or I can explain it, as I am certified to do that. In today's world, there isn't a better solution to create a private cloud for them. Getting this solution is a no brainer.