HPE Synergy vs Lenovo Flex System comparison

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4,978 views|3,595 comparisons
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674 views|519 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HPE Synergy and Lenovo Flex System based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Blade Servers solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The hyper-converged infrastructure where everything is stateless is valuable. Basically, you have your compute storage and networking management.""Cable management is a big feature, in addition to time to deployment. We can buy a new server and have it up and running very quickly.""Shorter delivery times. Where we now have a delivery time of about six weeks, we hope to go back to days.""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.""The most valuable feature is its composable infrastructure. Everything I need is in the box. Manageability is through OneView, so I can get all the information about the box itself at any time I want.""We bought it with the intent to replace the c7000 workstation blades. It is bigger than the workstation blades in core count, memory, and graphical capabilities. So, it has broadened us in that regard, and we have more capabilities.""In terms of the productivity of our deployment team, the amount of time has been decreased a lot. In the past, to deploy one c7000 chassis with 15 or 16 blades, we literally used to spend two to three weeks. But with a Synergy, it's very quick. Within three days we can do the deployment.""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."

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"Flex System's best features are its performance and stability.""The most valuable feature of the Lenovo Flex System is the storage system.""The stability and speed are always good. The processor is good and it's still working with our loads.""The initial setup is straightforward.""One of the most valuable features of this solution is its ease of use.""The Lenovo Flex System is very stable.""The product is very user-friendly and has many resources at the enterprise level."

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Cons
"It has affected the productivity of our development team in a bad way. When we first stood the hardware up 18 months ago, the image streaming capacity and capability were not very good at all. We had hoped that it would allow us to be more composable and be able to switch over from one version of an operating system to another version of an operating system. However, it wasn't ready for prime time yet. Therefore, we had to go back to a deployment of bare metal install. We are still waiting and trying to figure out how we can do the composable infrastructure.""This solution could be improved by increasing the speed on the conversion adapters. It should be 100 gigs.""When templates are created, there are some steps where you need to reboot the machines. Being in production, this is not a good idea. For example, if you reconfigure the network, you should not have to reboot the machine. You should just apply the new template and that's it.""There is certainly a feature or two missing.""If it would be possible to connect clusters of five with other clusters, so that they could all share resources, that would change the game for us. It would make it a viable solution for us.""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.""The stability is not good right now. We have had a couple of outages where we have receive very good support from HPE. However, we have not been able to come up with cut and dried reasons for why the outages have occurred. They have not been able to be reproduced, so it has been difficult getting our trust back.""Over the two years of using HPE Synergy, we have found some hardware failures that are frequent in the SOP models, CNA cards, and converged network adapters. These failures are frequently happening for a lot of the customers."

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"It does not have the same module flexibility that was present in IBM Blade. On the Blade System, I was able to choose between the Cisco module, or BMC module. Since the switch to Lenovo, I have not had the same choice of modules, only the BMC modules.""The most valuable feature of the Lenovo Flex System is the storage system.""The product could improve its integration capabilities.""The user-interface needs improvement, because they have an application from which we have to manage the whole system and all the infrastructure. This application is not working at our premises, because of some problem with the hardware itself. So although we brought it with our systems, and we used it to manage all the systems: the storage, the switches, and everything, nevertheless we have to support every part alone and enter the interface in one-by-one.""Forced restarts due to free upgrades is an issue that needs to be resolved. We can manage this as we have high availability and redundancy, but without that it could be a real problem.""Flex System's integration with the XClarity Management System could be improved.""The solution could improve by providing more integration with other platforms."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The Nutanix platform came in a little more expensive than the Synergy."
  • "The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs because we have had to buy less services than we used to."
  • "In our whole environment, the cost is in the millions. On this particular chassis, the annual cost is 12 blades times approximately $40,000."
  • "The biggest cost is the VMware licensing."
  • "We do a biannual renewal. I know how much that renewal is, but I don't know how much it breaks down to be just Synergy, since we have our VMware, all of our physical equipment, etc. all rolled up into one renewal, which is a little over $300,000 every two years. However, only a subset of that is the Synergy product."
  • "There was at least about a 20 percent savings in cost over our purchase based on the purchase price of the compute modules themselves versus what we've had to pay before. It was significantly less."
  • "Synergy has lowered our total cost of ownership significantly. I would say ballpark around 25 percent, maybe more."
  • "We bought everything outright to start with. We don't do much consumption-based stuff."
  • More HPE Synergy Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We have the whole maintenance for the 3 years, starting the deployment. We also have the VMware license for 3 years and I think we have another license to buy. There are no additional costs besides licensing."
  • "The price is interesting. I am able to quote a client based on their needs and offer them either Lenovo or Dell."
  • "There is a one-off payment to buy the equipment and the support is purchased annually."
  • "The is an annual license cost to use the Lenovo Flex System. If the price was less expensive and flexible overall and for additional features, our customers would be happier."
  • "The 14 blade server allows significant room for upscaling before having to invest in another chassis. You would have to purchase another chassis much sooner in the case of an eight or nine blade server."
  • More Lenovo Flex System Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:For me, choosing between HPE’s Bladesystem and Synergy came down to which solution was more powerful, reliable, and stable. It turns out Bladesystem was the winner. Bladesystem is excellent because it… more »
    Top Answer:It is a good product for hypervisors.
    Top Answer:You have to propose Synergy with your customer base.
    Top Answer:Flex System's best features are its performance and stability.
    Top Answer:The is an annual license cost to use the Lenovo Flex System. If the price was less expensive and flexible overall and for additional features, our customers would be happier.
    Top Answer:Flex System's integration with the XClarity Management System could be improved.
    Ranking
    1st
    out of 22 in Blade Servers
    Views
    4,978
    Comparisons
    3,595
    Reviews
    17
    Average Words per Review
    380
    Rating
    8.3
    10th
    out of 22 in Blade Servers
    Views
    674
    Comparisons
    519
    Reviews
    3
    Average Words per Review
    329
    Rating
    8.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Flex System Blade Servers, Flex System SN Series
    Learn More
    Overview

    HPE Synergy, the first platform built from the ground up for Composable Infrastructure, offers an experience that empowers IT to create and deliver new value instantly and continuously. It is a single infrastructure that reduces operational complexity for traditional workloads and increases operational velocity for the new breed of applications and services. Through a single interface, HPE Synergy composes physical and virtual compute, storage, and fabric pools into any configuration for any application. As an extensible platform, it easily enables a broad range of applications and operational models such as virtualization, hybrid cloud, and DevOps. With HPE Synergy, IT can become not just the internal service provider but the business partner to rapidly launch new applications that become the business.

    Flex System is Lenovo’s proven, 2nd generation blade, that efficiently runs your infrastructure applications with up to 80% better density than standard rack server deployments.

    Sample Customers
    HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
    Information Not Available
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Healthcare Company9%
    Retailer9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Government8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm20%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Government11%
    Comms Service Provider5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise58%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise66%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise29%
    Large Enterprise43%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise54%
    Buyer's Guide
    HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    HPE Synergy is ranked 1st in Blade Servers with 85 reviews while Lenovo Flex System is ranked 10th in Blade Servers with 7 reviews. HPE Synergy is rated 8.4, while Lenovo Flex System is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of HPE Synergy writes "Local hard drives are not needed for the i3S module that boots to any operating system". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Lenovo Flex System writes "Provides a high initial ceiling before upscaling is required, user-friendly and rich in resources, but has occasional stability issues". HPE Synergy is most compared with HPE BladeSystem, Dell PowerEdge M, Cisco UCS B-Series, HPE Apollo and HPE ProLiant DL Servers, whereas Lenovo Flex System is most compared with HPE Superdome X, Cisco UCS B-Series and Dell PowerEdge M. See our HPE Synergy vs. Lenovo Flex System report.

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    We monitor all Blade Servers reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.