Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers Reviews

It's a large virtualization environment where our students and our researchers have all the machines running and it's realized with VMware.

We appreciate the stability of all the machines.

The easy mountings are convenient. 

We have some direct connections to IBM and Lenovo, as well as other companies. They offer us very good manufacturer support. Technical support has been very good and we've been satisfied with the level of service we get.

The solution is very simple to install.

There are so many features, it's difficult to even use them all. Therefore, I don't believe there are any features that are lacking.

From our side, our budgets are really not there. The availability of cash is a little bit limited. We buy as much as we can, If it was less expensive, we could buy more.  

I deal with this solution about once a year.

The solution is stable. It's very reliable. There aren't glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze.

The solution can scale quite easily. If you need to expand it, you can do so rather easily.

We have about 1,000 people on the servers that we have. They are all students and researchers.

We'll continue to use this product going forward.

We've had a good experience with technical support. We have some direct channels there. With Lenovo, we also have a mainframe on our site for demonstration purposes. We are lucky to have a direct connection to the engineers.

The initial setup is not complex. It's very straightforward.

Deployment times vary. If students are doing it, it might take a little bit longer, however, if we handle it ourselves, we can do it relatively quickly.

It's difficult to count how many people we have on deployment and maintenance duties as they're all part-time. We have about four to five full-time equivalents.

I am part of the consulting team. The work is done by some assistants or to teach a student as I'm a lecturer at the University.

The cost is a bit pricey. We'd buy more from them if we could, however, we are on a limited budget.

We're just customers. We don't have a business relationship with Lenovo.

Normally, we are not using the latest version of the solution due to the fact that they are too expensive. We are a university and we have to look for how much money we use. Therefore, often we end up buying some refurbished machines or some equipment from IBM, from Lenovo, etc., which we get at reasonable prices.

Everything is on-premises and we have our own private cloud with these machines.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations. 

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I'd rate it at a nine.

We use this solution for virtualization purposes. We are running a huge amount of different VM's on them.

The usage of the server itself, the hardware specs of the specific models is more than enough for the project or projects' needs. The controllers which were used, or the hardware (HDDs or solid drives from Lenovo, which are used in this hardware) are more than enough for our project needs. Overall, the general configuration of the server, the system, truly covers the project needs.

Most of our projects come with a pretty heavy workload. The server itself covers all of the bases — my clients are really happy with it.

For example, one of the projects is from a medical laboratory company that provides services for medical institutions. There are a lot of workload calculations and Rack Servers covers the mix.

HP and Dell servers have multi-house technology that is really easy to use. We don't experience any problems with logging or gathering hardware information. The rest of the technical and software stuff is absolutely the same no matter the manufacturer. So, from a technical perspective, it is the same.

The general purpose of this hardware is the same, the functionality is the same, it just goes by a different name. As I mentioned, the stability of the server itself is a benefit for me; it's more reliable now.

From my perspective, from my case usage, I wouldn't say that I have seen a lot of space for a general upgrade of the system. The technology is constantly developing. It's just a matter of the client or customer getting the most high-end service for a long period of time — for example, one or two years. In three years, this technology will be old and there will be new technology available. Presently, I wouldn't say that there is space for much improvement on the current servers.

Technology is developing continuously. We are getting new high-end drives and so on. Technology development does not simply stop in its tracks, waiting until you adopt that server right now — in three to five years, it will be obsolete. You will be still able to buy some hardware in order to upgrade it because the platform itself is universal, but it's up to you whether you buy something old or something new and upgrade it.

I have been using this solution for more than six years.

I would say the stability of the system itself would be the biggest advantage. I have worked with other manufacturers — Firmware for example — and they are not so stable.

Your budget determines the scalability. It's absolutely scalable and you can upgrade the platform with the hardware you are planning to use.

I have used their support from time to time, in some cases when I was unable to find immediate information. I don't remember if I contacted them directly or just used their website to gather information. There are a lot of cases where you can just find everything you need on their website.

I would give their technical support a rating of nine.

From an administrative perspective, the initial setup is absolutely straightforward. From a user's perspective, it not so straightforward if you want to add some features. The old servers don't have the stability needed to manage the storage from the remote management tool; it's not really comfortable, but still usable. It's absolutely fine when setting up the server.

The basic setup takes less than one hour. It depends on where the servers are deployed from and how ready the server is. I mostly work remotely, so I am not hands-on with the server. Deployment is just a matter of the network and how it was prepared previously. At minimum, deployment takes one hour.

Whether we use a deployment plan depends on the customer and their needs.

The person who will be deploying the server should get the basic information on the needs of the project first, and compare it to the hardware specifications that this specific hardware or any specific hardware will provide. If there is a level for any upgrade, it's absolutely fine. The person should be looking for a solution that will cover the needs of the project with more than a difference of 100% for the future. The projects will increase the size of it, so the server should cover the current needs of the projects, plus 100%.

Our customers absolutely see a return on their investment with Lenovo Rack Servers.

The price in comparison, for example, to deploying a cloud solution on a cloud platform, is fully coverable in terms of deploying the same solution on personal hardware. So yes, it's coverable.

I don't really remember the prices for the servers but in comparison with the bigger players on the market, their prices are fine with me. They are not ideal because clients will always want a lower price. Regarding the licensing, I don't have any information on that because I wasn't facing any cases where we needed additional licensing on the servers.

The general usage of the hardware itself is a level of education that you get during the process of the initial setup and further maintenance of the servers. That alone is very valuable. 

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine. I cannot give it a higher rating because the perfect solution does not exist.

We started adding servers to our central offices, and we considered HP devices, but we found Lenovo was a better choice for us. 

It performs really well, and the price is cheaper than other solutions. They are extremely reliable. 

The management troubles us a bit. We also had some issues getting VMware to run on the Lenovo servers. We were told to go to HP but we stuck with Lenovo. 

I would like to see the management port improved. We do use XClarity, which is from Lenovo, but it still needs an upgrade. It is difficult to work with and it would be beneficial for Lenovo to improve this.

The stability is great.

This is a scalable product. When considering discs to servers, it is very reliable.

We have another party that handles our tech support issues.

About eight years ago, IBM was our preferred supplier. They were also the cheapest. We switched because IBM sold their hardware service to Lenovo.

At one point, we also considered Intel servers, but we still stayed with Lenovo.

It was complex to get this started because the Lenovo and VMware are not very compatible. We had to get some updates in order for it to be implemented.

It is the cheapest solution we have seen on the market.

When considering a vendor, I always consider reliability and cost. 

Implementation of site backup. 

Improvements came in as:

• Server scalability
• Better asset-park management
• Better security to keep services active
• Convergence between manageable equipment
• Many other benefits resulted in better service delivery and continuity.

• Implementation of server clusters using VMware. 
• Ensures high availability, better hardware management, and support for active features.

To date, we have not seen any need for improvements.

Throughout the use of the product, special needs will arise which may require a global need.

As the costs got high, we had to use the virtualization feature to consolidate the server farm.

The management/load performance is the most valuable feature.

The hardware can be evaluated by its efficient management, resource visibility and easy to use features.

Secondly, performance is the main goal of the machines. I have very good experience with the IBM Server and Storage.

The peak performance has made the organization's key application up and running; it has never failed.

IBM hardware takes time for building/assembling. Also, the firmware update process takes too much time as compared to the other vendors like Dell.

I have used this solution for nine years.

During firmware updates/NIC teaming , some errors were experienced.

There were no scalability issues.

I would rate the technical support a 9/10.

Previously, we were using IBM; it provides the most efficient and reliable computing hardware.

Setup is a little complex, i.e., in terms of the firmware and system updates.

We looked at Dell Chassis M1000e and HPE c7000.

The installation and configuration are a bit difficult but the product's performance is unbeatable.

I really appreciate the robust performance.

It has really helped us with its steady, smooth performance, and stability.

I would like to see an automatic call home feature for IMM2.

I have used it for just over one year.

I have never encountered any stability issues.

I have never encountered any scalability issues.

Technical support was very good. IBM support is very helpful.

I did not use a previous solution.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We evaluated Dell and Hitachi blade servers.

We use Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers as storage servers.

The performance of the solution could be better.

I have been using Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers for approximately three months.

I rate the stability of Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers a nine out of ten.

I rate the scalability of Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers a nine out of ten.

We have two clients using this solution.

I did not use the support.

The initial setup of Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers is straightforward. The process of implementation took me approximately two to three days. We only had to install the hardware for the installation.

I rate the initial setup of Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers a nine out of ten.

The price of Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers is highly competitive. Many customers prefer this solution because of the price. However, the price could be reduced.

There is a license needed to use the solution.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Lenovo ThinkSystem Rack Servers a nine out of ten.