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Lenovo Flex System Blade Servers

Score10 out of 10

8 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Lenovo Flex System Blade Servers?

Lenovo now offers and supports the former BladeCenter blade servers and products, since acquiring the product line from IBM. The product line is now offered as the Lenovo Flex System series of blade servers.

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about Lenovo Flex System Blade Servers.
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Flex System Blade Servers the best option to optimize resources and money

Incentivized
Jesus Mora LunaView profile
System Administrator in Information Technology at Fourth Kind Solutions S De RL De CV (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In the company we use Lenovo Flex System Blade Servers for virtualization environments and we have them installed in some of our clients, we provide support for the hardware and configurations, we also carry out proof of concepts and laboratories for the developments we have, we carry out hardware updates as well as application implementations.

Pros

  • It is a reliable team
  • easy to manage
  • the ease of configuration between nodes and connectivity to the data and storage network

Cons

  • the management interface of network switches
  • the management interface of the storage switches
  • the response time of the node consoles through the CMM

Return on Investment

  • This has been a positive return on investment due to improved resource utilization in the data center
  • An opportunity to generate savings.
  • Invest it in other operational needs.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

HPE BladeSystem and Dell PowerFlex

Other Software Used

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Red Hat Virtualization, IBM AIX, IBM Power Virtual Server

Fast ROI back

Incentivized
Leonardo de AndradeView profile
IT Manager in Information Technology at Marangoni Tread Latino America (5001-10,000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The Lenovo Flex System Blade Servers were used to organize my entire IT server park in Brazil. With Lenovo, we were able to reduce the number of physical servers, migrating all to a VM and with much more power of processing and availability across the Brazilian company and integrating with our headquarter in Italy.

Pros

  • Physical disks management
  • Integration with VM
  • Ethernet scalability without any lost compression.

Cons

  • More parts for prompt delivery
  • More courses with certification
  • IA for implementation process

Most Important Features

  • Hardware performance
  • The easy integration with AS/400 system
  • The brand trust

Return on Investment

  • Positive: The improvement
  • Negative: The Price
  • Negative: Don't have prompt delivery for disks

Alternatives Considered

PowerProtect DD (formerly Dell EMC Data Domain)

Other Software Used

Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2

They are superior processors of information between systems and databases

Incentivized
Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

All of our servers are Lenovo Flex System Blade Servers. We use Lenovo Flex System Blade Servers for nearly all of our computing needs. Only two non-BladeCenter servers from an earlier era remain active. It prevented the need for costly new server infrastructure. Since the price was so much lower, we didn't have to bother with getting approval from higher-ups to buy as many servers as we required.

Pros

  • The Lenovo Flex System Blade Servers warn IT employees of hardware issues. It's helpful to be notified of potential concerns so we can solve them early.
  • Buying servers is easy. Select the central processing unit, the amount of RAM, and any expansion cards you may need.
  • The physical BladeCenter can spot problems quickly. Front-panel LEDs show the status of much of the gear.

Cons

  • I wish we'd used this BladeCenter more because it simplifies IT.
  • It could be my browser, IE. I click and wait till the screen updates and changes so I can do specific actions.
  • If there's an urgent alert at night, I'd rather get an SMS.

Most Important Features

  • Costs for BladeCenter servers are roughly 50% lower than those of traditional servers.
  • Hardware performance.
  • Integration is really simple.

Return on Investment

  • Rather than launching multiple Windows or VNC sessions to monitor multiple servers, you can use the application's remote management capability instead.
  • Our IT department was able to more quickly and easily acquire buy-in for necessary expenditures and accomplish other goals.
  • True cost savings require figuring in the price of the BladeCenter itself, which may seem exorbitant at first glance.

Alternatives Considered

Dell PowerEdge R

Other Software Used

Amazon Web Services, Oracle Database, Dell PowerEdge M, Amazon API Gateway, IBM Cloud App ID

Lenovo BladeCenter - Worth the investment

Incentivized
Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

  • The Lenovo BladeCenter has a management feature that notifies the IT staff when there are any hardware problems. It is extremely convenient to receive notifications for potential problems that we can address before they become problems. It also allows us to log into one place and see the status of all BladeCenter servers. That is very helpful.
  • It is very easy to configure servers for purchase. You only need to choose the processor and memory, and maybe an additional card if you have special requirements. If you want the server to boot using it's own hard drives, then you would need to add that. If it will boot from a SANS, then that is not even needed. The rest is handled by the BladeCenter.
  • The physical BladeCenter is designed to see if there are any issues at a glance. There are a led's on the front of the unit that allow you to see the status of much of the hardware.
  • There is a remote management feature that allows you to see the servers from one application without having to open several remote sessions from Windows of some other VNC service. You can just open a web browser and easily click a drop down to switch back and forth to see your server screens. This is very convenient if you are doing mass server maintenance and restarting several servers at once.
  • Hardware maintenance is very easy. Instead of dismounting a heavy server from a rack, or lifting a large server tower, these are light-weight blades that slide out of the BladeCenter. They are very easy to take out, add memory or change processors, or do whatever maintenance is needed, and then just slide back into the BladeCenter.

Cons

  • We purchased the BladeCenter with the expectation of using it for many years, and only replacing the servers when they got older. IBM/Lenovo technology has changed and we can no longer purchase servers that are compatible with our BladeCenter. We got a lot of good use from it, and are still using it. However, our future purchases will not be blade center servers because we will either have to buy another BladeCenter or regular rack mounted servers. I wish we could have gotten more use out of this BladeCenter because it makes IT live much simpler.
  • Sometimes the BladeCenter's web interface for the management module has trouble switching between areas. I use IE and it could just be a browser issue. I just have to click and wait sometimes before the screen updates and changes so I can perform certain tasks.
  • It would be nice to have a text option for alerts. You can configure email and "IBM Director" alerts, and tell it which types of alerts you want and if you just want information, warnings, or critical alerts. We don't use IBM Director so I'm not familiar with the features. That may have more options. With just purchasing the management modules I can only receive emails. If there is a critical alert at night, email is not going to get my attention; a text would.

Return on Investment

  • BladeCenter servers are about half the cost of standard servers. To get true cost savings you must calculate the cost of the actual BladeCenter which may appear to be cost prohibitive, but it does have other benefits. We received ROI after purchasing 7 servers in a BladeCenter that could hold 14.
  • Our budget allowed us to purchase twice as many servers as planned because the cost of each server went down after investing in a BladeCenter. It was easer to get approval for purchases and do what we needed as an IT department.

Alternatives Considered

Solaris and Compaq