Server prices Dell vs HPE vs....

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DarkAlman@reddit

Reseller here:

We've noticed HPE has been consistently higher due to the RAM shortage.

They keep their prices high to hedge their bet on the RAM cost, while Dell and Lenovo prices fluctuate a lot more.

Dell has been much more competitive lately,

BUT

The catch is we have also seen them refused to fulfill orders after a PO has been issued because the RAM prices shot up between the quote and the order.

HPE on the other hand actually fulfills their orders instead of pulling the rug out from under you.

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to add to this, there is also CPU shortages. not often talked about, but many fabs are retooling this time of year, so some models of chips are low supply/out of stock, so the only way to meet your order may be to purchase back from the channel.

OP might be able to get a better deal from channel partners at this point, or purchasing pre-configured servers of lesser spec, then filling out the differences themselves. This is often the case with HP, and if you have good VARs working for you, they will learn about these issues and recommend alternative ways of getting what you want, or just getting something else.

Personally, running mixed HP/Dell/Lenovo doesnt bother me too much so long as they are project specific. the only time i dont like it is when its a mixed stack for the same solution (like server A and B in a cluster are one spec and server C is something else/some other brand)

as far as the ilo/drac/remote console, as long as i can remote in and reboot/power cycle, and it works from a PC without having to go find some custom version of java/.net, im happy. (I hated the old days).

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pc_load_letter_in_SD@reddit

Yes, we saw this recently for a two server purchases.

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Connect-Ad6135@reddit

Interesting, we did our purchase in January and didn’t have this issue. Though I have been hearing Dell has been canceling orders weeks before delivery and re-negotiating prices then.

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Haribo112@reddit

Tangentially , have you considered Supermicro servers? They are a fair bit cheaper. Work great.

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ITCPA@reddit

Try to get extra parts for Supermicro. Supermicro support is not good. When I need spare parts from Supermicro, sometimes it's easier to buy a new server. Prime example: try to buy more RAM or a Supermicro card from their Supermicro Estore. The force you through a sales rep who never responds.

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PrettyFlyForITguy@reddit

Well, if you buy Supermicro, everything is third party. To get more memory, you'll have to look at the QVL list of memory on the motherboard support page.

Basically, supermicro makes motherboards and server cases. I'd have to imagine the server part of their business is relatively small.

For the longest time I built servers with Supermicro parts, and they were very solid.

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pearfire575@reddit

Until you need the warranty. It was a nightmare to say the least. Never again supermicro. And hpe is on the same page for me. All good until you need warranty, hpe is also a no-go for me cause of the gated updates.
Nowadays for me it’s dell or lenovo.

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VtheMan93@reddit

The updates now just need an account. No more paywall since a little bit

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FatBook-Air@reddit

100% on the gated updates. I found out the hard way about firmware updates. I was livid.

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pirx_is_not_my_name@reddit (OP)

I worked with a few Supermicro server ~15 years ago, wasn't that smooth. And we got some quotes a few years ago for storage servers with a lot of disks an HPE Apollo were cheaper. I don't know why we are now looking into Dell, that's out of my hands.

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ttkciar@reddit

I second this. Supermicro is no-frills, but IMO that's a feature, not a bug.

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Iris_line17@reddit

Sounds like you are paying the 'Loyalty Tax.' HPE often assumes long-time customers won't go through the hassle of migrating their management ecosystem (like ILO vs. iDRAC). Show this Dell quote to your HPE rep and watch how fast that 40% premium magically shrinks. If it doesn't, it might be time to switch.

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Mental_Beginning_698@reddit

Why does idrac, vs ilo vs cimc vs whatever Supermicro Whitebox matter? Are people really that married to their IP kvm?

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KoeKk@reddit

Well there certainly is a feature and quality difference between idrac vs ilo, idrac is less polished in my opinion.

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Mental_Beginning_698@reddit

And CIMC? Are we now in the CIM-who? era?

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KoeKk@reddit

Cisco does it the cisco way, overcomplex and dogshit UI 😂. Altho I am really impressed with the cisco hardware, we had a cooling failure in a dc, 48 degrees C ambient, HPE servers failed (psu’s, emergency shutdowns, some failed DIMMs), our UCS c series didn’t shutdown, zero hardware failure, so that’s that

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pirx_is_not_my_name@reddit (OP)

We showed it to our HPE reps and they said, they can not match this.

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Iris_line17@reddit

That is wild that they are throwing in the towel so easily.

If I were you, I'd still double-check the fine print on the Dell quote one last time, just to make sure there isn't a catch somewhere .

But if the configurations are strictly identical 1:1, it sounds like HPE has completely given up on the account. Time to make the switch to the competition!

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FatBook-Air@reddit

It does not surprise me at all. HPE has not been competitive for a very long time. I was convinced at one point that they were closing up shop.

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jake04-20@reddit

I have a family member that works for HPE. She does not have an IT background, but she transitioned into an "IT adjacent" position so now she thinks she's IT. It's funny at family functions because she tries so hard to relate by forcing IT discussions and our worlds are universes apart lol, we can't relate at all. Long story short, she brags about abusing her fulltime wfh by only working on average 15-20 hours a week and loves to tell people this. She gets paid incredibly well, especially for the area. Not that I'm a big fan of HPE hardware to begin with, and I'm sure other hardware companies like Dell/Lenovo have similar amounts of corporate waste, but it really makes me not want to spend any money with companies like that.

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Mental_Beginning_698@reddit

Probably the type of place that on quarterly hoo-rah's gets a slide to herself because "Kitty configured a vlan....on both sides of the cable" accolades. It's not her fault. She was told she was this important by those around her.

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jake04-20@reddit

I guarantee you she has never heard of a VLAN in her life lol.

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Mental_Beginning_698@reddit

I kind of wonder in general if people who go through subnetting still learn "and'ing" with the 0's and 1's or if we now just shoehorn talent into places and say go. I kind of feel lucky coming up in the years just after MS defeated Novell and there was time to learn this stuff.

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hyper9410@reddit

Usually they say that other offerings (which you pay extra for, or are forced to buy) create extra "value".

For example you have to buy oneview or compute ops manager for centralized management (either onprem or cloud). but these licenses are on top of the higher base price.

The spin it like if you buy their whole suite you get much more value, even though you pay extra for all of it. I'm not sure what environments justifiy their addons with lower staff requirements.

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pirx_is_not_my_name@reddit (OP)

I had my OneView journey, and that HPE made it mandatory to add either OV or Ops Manager license to each server order, was not well received here. OV is just so broken, but that's a different thing.

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modder9@reddit

Meanwhile - Dell OpenManage Enterprise is free (uses the existing iDrac Enterprise licenses)

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nerdyviking88@reddit

Sometimes they legit cant, as dell is undercutting.

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pirx_is_not_my_name@reddit (OP)

Then Dell is willing to lose >100k€

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xXNorthXx@reddit

We don’t show but let them know they are just compute and are bidding against Dell. This usually kept them inline but eventually we hit a wall where they didn’t compete and they lost the business.

HPE has been trying to get in the door against for the last 7yrs and has yet to make us switch back. At this point, they not only need to meet but beat the competition on pricing if they want back.

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Horrigan49@reddit

Welcome to Dell family.

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majkkali@reddit

OP you replied to now: pikachu_face.gif 🤣🤣

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aj_rus@reddit

Had the same issue, HPE were 25% higher and a generation removed - Dell got our business.

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Doso777@reddit

Made the switch from Fujitsu to Dell because of a similar experience.

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pirx_is_not_my_name@reddit (OP)

We also have a few dozens Fujitsu servers. I'm just not happy to rework automation an management for a third vendor.

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thewarring@reddit

Similar here. We got our annual quotes for endpoint replacements this year and HPs quote las literally twice the cost of the Dell quote for identical hardware. Like $650k vs $325k. Didn’t even ask HO to try again and just went with Dell as we do every year.

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D1TAC@reddit

Yep. HPE quotes are through the roof. One rep mentioned they don't want to readjust their pricing to encount for market adjustments. We are sadly going to have to buy Dell servers, not that I have anything against them but I was hoping to just upgrade to the latest HPE ones. One server was quoted $7700 and the HPE one was $23000. While the other core servers were $35000 and the HPE was $48000. Gtfo HP.

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midasza@reddit

We went with Lenovo as they were hungry and cheaper

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jonowelser@reddit

How have they been working out for you and/or any comparison on the Lenovo XClarity Controller (XCC) vs iLO/iDRAC?

I was recently checking these out on their website and it seemed like they have more options than I expected.

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Individual-Unit3470@reddit

It has been a while since we purchased HPE equipment but when we did go to Dell, the primary reason was cost at the time. As far as I am concerned their boxes are just as good as HPE's at less cost.

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Jkabaseball@reddit

We were a Dell shop since before I started. Our last quotes Lenovo was about 40% cheaper. These were memory dense servers.

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Sciby@reddit

Re dell vs HPE, are you going direct or via a partner?

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pirx_is_not_my_name@reddit (OP)

For a few years it was direct, now via partner, but in close colaboration with HPE.

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arubait@reddit

Just did a similar thing. Dell was about 1% cheaper than HPE. HPE delivery seems to be better but difficult to tell until I place the order.

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Wh1tesnake592@reddit

On average, Dell or Lenovo is cheaper than HPE.

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Awkward-Candle-4977@reddit

It depends on the time.

When the salespeople needs to quickly fulfill their sales quota, they might give you more discount

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Wh1tesnake592@reddit

Agree. That's why I said "on average".

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mistersd@reddit

But is the quality on par?

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Wh1tesnake592@reddit

Man, everything is the same)) For real.

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violet-lynx@reddit

Can only speak for Dell, but no complaints here. Rack Servers quality is very good, had very limited defects on the last years. Support is working fine provided you order pro support.

Also, drivers and firmware for servers are for download without active contract (for power edge servers).

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Awkward-Candle-4977@reddit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_5#Server

See the price of the processors.

Hpe Dell Lenovo inflates cpu, ram, ssd prices then gives you discount to dupe you.

If you want those components sold at manufacturers msrp, buy super micro, tyan etc. They also puts functional storage canisters rather than dummy blank

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Servior85@reddit

Totally normal. Look at the terms. Are the servers available now, so they can send it directly after you "buy" them or do you have to wait a few months?

If you have to wait, then dell (and other vendors) will come to you and present a new price when the hardware is ready for delivery. Now you can choose if you pay the new price or cancel your order.

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pirx_is_not_my_name@reddit (OP)

We are currently waiting on HPE servers we ordered last year. I don't know what was promised for new Dell server.